Spiegel im Spiegel …

Last week I was feeling quite Napoleonic, but this week I feel more in sync with the reclusive Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt (born 11 September  1935), the man who in 1978 wrote the piece of music known as `Mirror in the Mirror’. The exhaustive font of all wisdom (the internet), tells me that the piece is written in a style he invented, known as tintinnabuli, in which “simple fragments of sound recur and melodic elements float upward and downward, sometimes moving only slightly before beginning a new motion in a different direction”. 

 

Spiegel im Spiegel tends to be a fairly polarising piece of music. While they certainly like to play it often on ABC Classic, I have to confess that I was never a great fan. You will be correct in deducing that this isn't  particularly surprising given that I am an avid Beethoven enthusiast. I mean, just listen to the opening bars of the third movement of Piano Concerto #1 revised in 1800 – it's big, it's joyous and it literally shouts welcome to the 19^th century at you. Contrast this with the melancholic, minimalist and meditative style of Spiegel im Spiegel. However, today as I walked with Pepper along the banks of the Huon River, I finally made my peace with Arvo. If a mirror in the mirror has a physical incarnation, then it must be here in the Huon Valley on a beautiful autumn day when there is not a breath of moving air and the water is literally like glass. I offer these shots into evidence, which were all taken while on this afternoon's walk.

The Huon River in reflective mood

It is ironic that all this upward and downward, floating, existential stuff that I experienced while perambulating along the banks of the river was in stark contrast to the circular motion that I had been engaged with in the days immediately prior to my (partial) Pärt epiphany. I have in fact spent the last few days knee deep in horse manure and leaf mulch as I worked on our version of the circular economy.

The circular economy seems to be quite big these days in academic circles. You can enrol in a 6 week online course (4-6 hours per week) at the University of Cambridge for just over US$ 2k to be taught all about it. You will learn about the so-called Butterfly Diagram that seems to make a relatively large meal out of pretty simple ideas. In a so-called linear economy, resources are used to produce things that are ultimately disposed of. In the circular economy, resources are used to produce things that are then used for as long as possible before being recycled or composted. I am sure that a week on the farm would do more good than many university courses. Not only is there the fun of collecting leaf mulch in the tractor but add to that the thrill of combining it with horse manure to create a hot pile of organic material that eventually emerges as awesome compost. The horse manure comes from my neighbour who saves old ponies and allows them a long and happy retirement while they continue to produce heaps of excellent dung. 

Harvesting leaf mulch

Composting bins homemade from recycled pallets

As an interim use for my compostable material, I piled it on top of the soil in a newly created garden bed in order to kill any remaining grass and weeds. This garden bed is situated just below our Ozzie Clean waste water treatment plant.  The treated and recycled water is eventually pumped out over an area that I call the 'camomile lawn' for no reason other than I recall a TV series of that name from the early 1990s in the UK. Having your own water treatment plant is an eye-opener in the sense of making you realise how much bad stuff you routinely pour down the kitchen sink. More generally, it is very rewarding to observe just how much kitchen waste can be composted or fed to a worm farm.

Pepper examining my work with a certain amount of scepticism

The new bed is a little on the small side, but its job is only to provide a screen for the wastewater plant. Unfortunately I built it right in the middle of route that Pepper runs when chasing birds. She hurdled it in one bound this morning, so if in the future it actually becomes home to any shrubs they may face a baptism of fire ...