Madhi and I came to live in the mountains over 14 years ago. Drawn here by the rugged beauty and the climate with four seasons from farther parts than many. I from Western Australia and she from Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand. For both of us this was new country not what we knew as home. The majestic, magical and varied beauty that the Blue Mountains landscape offers is without equal in Australia. From great cliffs to sweeping valleys and windswept heaths to hidden fairy pools its beauty endlessly captivates us. But, for all this, in hidden corners of our hearts home lay elsewhere.
Then nine years ago Madhi joined the Wildlife Information and Rescue Service (WIRES). That was the beginning of the end. We chose to focus our attention on native birds, the more common ones, less interesting to some, but ever present in our daily lives: Magpies, Pied Currawongs, Wattlebirds, Kookaburras, galahs and cockatoos, bower birds and many others. Raising and rehabilitating these inhabitants of the mountain airs, often suffering the effects of humans in their habitat, has brought us home. Home to our humanness, our wildness, the Blue Mountains and our life as creatures in and of the world.
Now the transcendent, impersonal beauty of the landscape is filled with beings who inhabit it and our hearts, bringing the two together in ways we could not have known before. Now we truly live in our world sharing it with our sister and brother creatures, learning from them how to truly be in and of it rather than seeking ways to distance ourselves from it or simply dominate it.
We can sit in our lounge room looking out across a small valley and see our friends about their business. Magpies flying straight as arrows always making the shortest path between points A and B. Sulphur crested cockatoos wheeling and sweeping, screeching and squawking, in their massed craziness. Pied Currawongs sculling and swooping their way through the sea of air like ever playful otters of the sky. These are creatures at one with themselves, with their lives and deaths, not burdened by goals and achievement or wondering whether they are being what they need to be.
Our latest and most extraordinary meeting has been with Ravens. In the spring a fledgling Raven was brought to us near death. His name is Jorge and he came back from the brink of death. Jorge was a runt, probably thrown from the nest by his parents but he stole our hearts. We have now had him for nine months and he has grown into a healthy if not strong bird. He is intelligent, wilful, surprising and very related; he is in fact much like a cat with wings and large beak. And along with all that he is in himself he has brought with him a relationship with our local Ravens. Once distant denizens of the high airs now brought to earth in our garden to visit this youngster of their own kind. They are teaching him and us what it is to be "Raven". We watch with reverence and love, moved and changed in ourselves by the blessing of Jorge as by so many who have gone before.
In coming to their rescue we have been rescued. Rescued from our perception of their need for us and by discovering our need for them. We need to protect the environment, their habitat and ours, because without them our lives become barren.