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Monday 7/8/00. On the road . tonight Im parked in the Danyo Reserve 5 ks east ofMurrayville. This is very much one of my private spots when Im travelling north west into the inland.Last time I was here I was returning from Lake Gairdner (24/5/00) and before that I was here on 12/5/00on my way to meet Saulius in Burra. This is where I started a mail-art project on dog scoop cards ofwhich I posted next morning in Murrayville. That project led to the 4 poems called The Room, TheHouse, The City, Masks. Left Melbourne about 9.30 after shopping up in Coles where a turkishlooking guy who was stacking the shelves talked me into buying a different kind of turkish bread to what

I usually get. Ive just eaten a loaf and its much like the other. Bought a hamburger at Lous Cafe inCharlton for lunch. The lady making it asked me where I was going this time. I asked her how it was withher and she shrugged her shoulders in resignation. Her name is Maria. She makes a great hamburger for$3.80 (post GST and with the lot). Later I pulled off the road into a bushland reserve south of Sea Lake(where Tyrrel Creek crosses it) for a hour nap. The calm of the scrub was palpable, quite extraordinaryreally and I wondered if I shouldnt stop there for the rest of the day. I suppose that scientists and druggieswho only understand things that are measurable or injectable may not believe me when I say that thescrub was exuding a calmness that you could feel. The trouble with the scientific mind set is that as youbelieve more and more only in the things you can measure or weigh you may be less and less inclined tonotice the things that you cant. Then those things may disappear. On the way here I found two barn owlskilled today. Im always finding dead barn owls since I first noticed one a couple of years ago. They get

hit because they get blinded by car headlights. Things that belong to the night cannot always survive theglare of bright lights. The barn owls have come to symbolise for me the fragile things of the heart, and oftwilights, that cannot survive the scrutiny of reason. Ive brought plenty of A3 sheets to write on. One sideof the sheet is blank and the other side has a photo or arrangement of photos of mine. The idea is that ifyou fold a sheet in half you have an A4 size piece and then when you fold again its A5, and finally A6which makes a convenient size for an envelope if you staple the sides. That means you have one A4 pieceand one A3 to write on; and one A6 if you write on the back of the envelope. I thought I would usedifferent colour inks for each section and maybe a different idea for each. I suppose you could say it was amail-art project meant to impress Adriana Cozzolini should I do about 5 of them. But what can I writeabout when I hardly know anything about her. Ive also got Wittgensteins On Certainty; Joseph RothsRadetzky March; Thomas Bernhards Old Masters (supposed to be a comedy which is hard to imagine

with Bernhard); the King James bible which Im keeping on the front dashboard to deter thieves; and abook called Saint Companions for Each Day. This last cost me 50c when I bought it 30 years ago at adifficult time in my life. It cant have been a popular read even then as I notice it was reduced from $1.05.I had thought I lost it but rediscovered it a couple of weeks ago when clearing out some shelves. It waspublished in 1959 by St Paul Publications in Allahabad 2 Bombay. It is printed at St Pauls PressTraining School on paper of newsprint quality. The compilation, consisting of at least one saint for eachday and sometimes as many as three, is by A.J.M. Mausolff and M.K. Mausolff. There is an authorsdeclaration which says : In conformity with the decrees of Pope Urban VIII and of the Roman Pontiffs,the authors declare that any account of miracles, revelations or virtues, other than those already approvedby the Holy See, rest upon human authority alone; nothing contained in this book should be considered asin any way anticipating the judgment of the Church, but everything is submitted to the infallible judgment

of the Holy See. Todays saint is Saint Cajetan (Confessor 1480-1547) who we are told was alreadyknown even as a youth as the Saint. I have also brought my camera and a microphone and recorder. Iwas keeping all my options open when I packed but last night it became apparent to me that I had onlyone aim for this trip and that is to make one more attempt to collect my thoughts on the murder of thejews of lithuania with a view to putting the topic aside. I have already made major efforts to leave itbehind before. Over easter a year and a half ago I made a number of entries in this journal which weremeant to achieve that. Thats what I thought and wrote at the time. But the topic keeps re-emerging insome new and more virulent form. The dead cry out to be remembered. I try to block my ears. Writingabout it is part of that effort. It seems appropriate to do it on this trip as thats what the entries for august14th and august 19th are about. Ive cut out the relevant sections from my story 20/6/00 to paste in on

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those days. When I was at Lake Gairdner in may 99 and did the photographic album Meditation on LakeGairdner I again thought I had ended with the subject. So now that Im going back to another part of thelake it seems right to make another effort. Finally, the discovery after I wrote the story 20/6/00 that thegiven name of the leader of the most murderous of the execution squads, Joachim, means in hebrewYahweh prepares requires to be addressed. I made the discovery from the Saint Companion for EachDay and its as if I found the book for that reason.

Tuesday 8/8/00. Today belongs to St John Mary Vianney (Confessor 1786 1859) according tomy Saint Companions He was the parish priest of Ars near Lyons in France. He submitted his body tosevere flagellations and austerities for the 40 years he was there. He did it in a spirit of penance andexpiation on behalf of his parishioners who were addicted to drink and an inordinate craze for dancingwhen he first arrived. He opened an orphanage for destitute girls called La Providence which was laterturned into a school and widely copied in France. He said that those who are guided by the Holy Ghostcan see things and that is why so many ignorant people are more knowing than the wise. It soon becameknown that the new Rector could read mens hearts, had supernatural knowledge of unconfessed sins andof things to come, and his prayers miraculously healed the sick. The village of Ars was miraculouslytransformed morally and spiritually and people came from all parts of Europe and even America to laytheir problems before the Saint. Five extra bus lines had to be started and a special ticket window opened

in the Lyons railway station for pilgrims. In twenty years the number of pilgrims totalled over twomillion. The Saint was always friendly and patient though for 40 years he did not permit himself eithersufficient sleep or food. Besides, he was for years tormented by diabolical manifestations which were alsowitnessed by the villagers. Towards the end of his life the French government honoured him by creatinghim a knight of the Legion of Honour.

I am camped in another of my hideaways about 20ks short of Burra. I am on the edge of a propertycalled Worlds End Station. Its 4.30 pm and Ive just had a doze to counter the effects of the 3 stubbies Idrank while I was driving here from Morgan (on the Murray River) where I had a large breakfast/lunch ofbacon and eggs. When I got here I had a second meal too so Ive really pigged out. Earlier at Waikerie Ichecked the message bank on my mobile. Helen is home sick with a cold and Kate is over for a few days.There is a letter from Adriana Cozzolini covered in stamps, pictures of mountains and other stickers. Ill

write one to her tomorrow which Ill post in Port Augusta so that it gets to her before I get home to readhers. I rang home from Morgan but the house was empty. Then I inadvertently rang Joes mobile as hewas having lunch at work (web-site design). Finally left a message on Helens mobile. Found an AdelaideRosella (Platycercus elegans Race flaveolus) not far from Morgan and plucked some of the feathers eventhough the bird was badly damaged. Tomorrow Ill send a few to Gabba; it will give me an excuse toelaborate on the reasons for the attitude Ive taken to the litho singing. This is the plainest of the rosellasbeing predominantly green and yellow and is also known as the riverine rosella as its normally foundalong the major river red gum waterways. Its very quiet and private here in mallee scrub as I sit writing inthe car and I suppose I have to return to the main topic, however reluctantly, and which Ive been puttingoff, as its difficult to know how to tackle any of the issues involved.

Joachim Yahweh prepares! For all I know most christian names have a hebrew meaning but in a

quick browse through the Saint Companions Ive so far found only the single one to be stated. It couldbe that Joachim was a common name for germans of fighting age during the second world war and if sothen there would be nothing unusual for a person of that name to be a principal in a major massacre asthere were many of them throughout the five years of the war especially on the eastern front. That aperson with a name with such a definite hebrew meaning is a leading murderer of jews I find somewhatsurprising. It would be stranger still if enquiry showed that Joachim was not a common name. Certainlyits not as common as Karl or Fritz; but then Im no expert. However, it is my contention that the middle ofaugust 1941 in lithuania marks the very beginning of the holocaust. I say that because Secret Order No. 3,to count, gather, detain and transport jews was issued by Colonel Vytautas Reivytis on the 14 th ofaugust. I am not an historian nor am I prepared to interest myself in detailed analyses of archival material

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so Im relying on the work of others and hope than any factual material I use is treated as needing to bequestioned. The first record of children being executed is the next day, on the 15 th august. It cant beconincidental. Over the previous year the jews of poland were being rounded up into ghettoes and SSLieutenant Joachim Hammans Rollcommando had already been active in that operation for six monthsbut women and children were not being executed. In lithuania too prior to mid august jewish men werebeing shot en masse. But from the 18th to the 22nd of august 1600 jewish children were executed in onedistrict alone. While it was predominantly men that were being executed the murderers could at least

pretend to themselves that they were ridding the german empire of communist criminals. But after the 14 th

when women, children and the aged were being comprehensively slaughtered no such delusion could bemaintained by even the most insane. That is why I find the change that took place mid august 41 socompletely beyond comprehension. That is why it can be said that the holocaust began in the 3rd week ofaugust in lithuania in 1941. When they shot children the executioners knew they were murderinginnocents. For that change to take place there must have been a verbal order accompanying Secret OrderNo. 3 explaining its full meaning. It would not have been anything unusual for a secret verbal order to begiven. Much of what happened during the holocaust was ordered in secret or the documentation laterdestroyed. The perpetrators knew the evil of their actions from the beginning. If there was a secret verbalorder accompanying Secret Order No. 3 it was perhaps (dropping the atom bombs is also a contender) themost evil single act of the 20 th century. So how ironic that the name we most associate with its initial

execution is Joachim Yahweh prepares. An even more ominous possibility occurs to me. Should there besome obscure hebrew sect in existence claiming that an ancient prophet has taught that a time would comewhen terrible calamities would descend upon the chosen people and that then the dead would be raisedfrom their graves prior to the final judgment I would think that the name Joachim would not be easy todismiss.

Wednesday 9/8/00. Today must be very special, the Saint Companion lists four of them. StCyriacus (martyr, ?-304) ministered to the 10,000 Christians condemned to slave labour in building thebaths of Diocletian in Rome. He was himself arrested, whipped and beheaded together with Largus andSmaragdus, two of the other four listed for today. St Cyriacus is invoked against diabolical possession onaccount of having delivered Diocletians daughter who was possessed of a devil. He also protects against

diseases of the eyes. And the fourth is St Altmann (Bishop Confessor, ?-1091) who was a court-chaplainto Henry II at Goslar, Westphalia and led 7000 Christians on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where theinfidels succeeded in murdering a third of their number.

I skipped breakfast because I wanted to drive straight to Wirrabara to the bakery which Helen andme agree makes the best pies in australia. There in between eating two steak and kidney pies and sippingplunger coffee and eating the chocolate lolly that came with it I wrote the letter to Gabba and put in withit some feathers from the rosella. Then came on to Port Germein where I am writing now. Earlier here Iwrote a letter to Adriana Cozzolini in the ARTE-POSTALE mode (though she may not consider it such).Walked to the end of the pier. I have bad news to report they are installing metal railings along the sidesof it. The job is only half done but I can already tell that the very special atmosphere of this uniquestructure is gone. With the risk of falling over the side removed it feels much like any other. Apparently its

owned by the roads department who want to give it away to the council who wont take it unless the railingis in place in case they get sued by someone who falls over the edge. Money rules!

But why pretend, the fact is Ive spent most of the day thinking about the implications of theevents beginning in the 3rd week of august in 1941 in lithuania, in particular the secret word of mouthorder that must have accompanied the written Secret Order No. 3 issued by Colonel Vytautas Reivytishead of the Lithuanian Police Department under the germans. Who gave the word of mouth order? Did itgo from Stahlecker to Jaeger to Joachim Hamman to Vytautas Reivytis or did it go to Reivytis first andthen to Hamman who after all was only a lieutenant. Perhaps given the realities of occupation it wasunderstood that in matters relating to the jews the lowly lieutenant took command over the colonel. Thereis some support for that possibility in the existence of correspondence from the colonel to the lieutenant

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asking for clarification regarding procedures for carrying out the written Secret Order No. 3 that had beensent to district police chiefs.

Its getting dark over the Spencer Gulf as I look out from the beach side shelter where Im writingpast the pier in the direction the sun is setting obscured by cloud. Its very still and the temperature isdropping fast. A couple of aboriginal kids have just cycled past. Its 6.45 pm. Am heading off to pick up acouple of stubbies in the pub then will go on to my normal spot a few kilometres along the coastnorthwards. Its well hidden in scrub right on the beach sand. Will continue writing in the car using my

hikers head torch.Would that word of mouth order have been given in a whisper? How do you order the murder of

innocents? In the village of Butrimonys near the town of Alytus where the executions took place on the 9th

of September there were only old men, women and children left as the bulk of the men had been takenaway earlier and were already dead without the remainder knowing what had happened to them. Beforethe 9th the pits for them had already been dug and were waiting. Perhaps the order was inaudible and allthat was needed was a watch my mouth gesture by Jaeger to Hamman. In that way responsibility couldbe denied, or shared between several. That is the essence of the nod-and-wink conspiracy method whichcould have led all the way back to Hitler himself without him ever having to give a written or spokensecret directive of any kind. Was even that necessary? Could it be that the written Secret Order No. 3 byusing the word transport when no transport was available or referred to already implied to the district

police chiefs that this order was different, that this time everyone was to be killed. There is acorrespondence to Reivytis from at least one of the district chiefs naively asking for further informationabout the availability of rolling stock and what provisions were to be made for food. Is this request theexception that proves the rule? If together with an order to transport a separate order is given to dig pits(when the men had already been executed) would that have in effect been interpreted by the district chiefsas meaning that everyone was to be killed? In that case it is possible that no specific order to murder needhave been given, not even in a whisper. Perhaps a cooperation to do the unimaginable also involves acooperation or a complicity to misuse the language so as to communicate by implication or by what is notsaid. Is it possible that when we embark on the unimaginable, on an action that involves the violation ofthe foundations underpinning human practice, we also at the same time embark on new practices in theuse of language, changes not to the meanings of words, but to the core rules underlying their use? What

comes first the changes to the use of language or the new practices? Or does intention precede themboth? It occurs to me that the fate of the jews of europe may have already been sealed before the warwhen Hitler was threatening that if jewish bankers once again financed a war against germany that theyhad no future in europe. In issuing those threats he may have been drawing on subterranean wells in thepsyche of germans and others which only he was able to penetrate sufficiently to articulate but which hadlong been there. Is it possible that once all the pieces were in place the murder of the innocents wasinevitable? That murder was in the air that no order needed to be given that every whisper meant : kill.

Thursday 10/8/00. The dead cry out. I try to lay down the ghosts; once again. The problem is thatevery issue I review challenges fundamental assumptions about human behaviour. The men who shot thechildren had to be insane but we know that in their domestic lives they behaved quite normally. The

germans who were the instigators were from the most modern nation on earth and also the best educatedand the beneficiaries of a marvellous cultural tradition. Tsvetan Todorov has argued, using Primo Levi tosupport his point of view, that it is the capacity to divide himself into mutually exclusive compartmentsthat enabled the camp guard to be a caring father after work. My own review of the way the memory ofthe murder of the jews has been suppressed by people of lithuanian background that I mix with supportsthe view that people can know but at the same time hide the knowledge from themselves. Its not alwayseasy to do though. The lithuanians have found it necessary to expunge the jews even from their historybooks. It seems we have a capacity to draw the veil(as Frank Lovece put to me) over entire areas of ourknowledge. Psychologists say this is what happens with victims of incest. Freud explained neurosis interms of suppressed experiences that had to be brought out into the conscious mind so that sufferers could

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gain the required self knowledge to tackle their problems. For a time I toyed with the idea that if we couldonly break down the walls between the different rooms of our personality and the barriers that separate usfrom others (which may amount to the same thing), if we allowed ourselves to see the consequences ofour actions, if we acted in broad daylight instead of the dead of night we wouldnt be able to commit evil.But the children, women and old men of Butrimonys were shot in broad daylight in groups of fifteen.Whats more if it were not for the ability we have to shut parts of ourselves off from others we wouldnt beable to sleep at night because we would hear their screams. If they were unable to suppress their

memories survivors wouldnt be able to face the future. If we were not able to dull our senses to the pain ofothers we wouldnt be able to walk down an ordinary Melbourne city street without being constantlytraumatized. Our ability to divide ourselves into mutually exclusive compartments is a protective devicewhich like the air-tight compartments in the hull of a ship protect us from sinking.

Todays Saint is Lawrence of Rome (martyr, ?-258) who was killed by being slowly roasted on agridiron. Constantine the Great had an oratory erected over his tomb on the road to Tivoli which wasreplaced in the 5th and 6th centuries by the Basilica of St Lawrence-beyond-the-Walls which is to thisday one of Romes seven principal churches. St Lawrence is the Patron Saint of the poor and of cooks,and is invoked against lumbago and fire.

I called in at Port Augusta to shop up for a few minor items but especially for a half dozenstubbies of Southwark Old Stout which are waiting for me in the back of the van right now (5pm). Rang

Helen who is back at work but sounded very choked up. She says Vi is about to start physiotherapy andshould get enough mobility to be able to go back to the old peoples home. Rang Andrew Sanigas mobile(in Perth) and left a whispered message that he may guess is from me. I think I made the words PortAugusta almost audible. I am next to the road near the dry bed of Lake Finnis on Oakden Hills Station.There was no one at the homestead so I left their newspaper which I had picked up 13ks back on thehighway with a copy of my Meditations on Lake Gairdner attached to it with a rubber band on theirfront porch. Im 27ks further along the track. Mahanewo Station is another 34ks further westwards andLake Gairdners eastern shoreline 20ks further again except I dont know if there is a decent track to it. Ionly have enough petrol in the tank to get there and back to Pimba to the north. Not finding anyone atOakden Hill homestead was a downer as I was hoping they would ring ahead to Mahanewo. If Mahanewois also unattended Ill just have to turn around and go back. Might stop right here for a couple of days and

do a few walks before I try my luck. On a red sand track that goes for 74 kilometers after leaving thehighway there are only two stations. I am parked roughly half way between them. There wont be anyonedriving past tonight.

Friday 11/8/00. (9.15 am). Im writing in the morning for a change having just finished breakfast(Kelloggs Komplete Muesli). Last night after eating one of the two small avocadoes I got in Port AugustaI did get stuck into the stubbies and drank five of the six; thats on top of the two I had on the highwaywhen I left Port Augusta. I could be getting a habit the cells which have a trace memory of their earlierlife in the brine yearn to be pickled in alcohol in the next. The result was that for a change I slept heavilyin a sleep that lasted an instant. The penalty was that I woke up in the night needing to go for a crap. Aninsomniac bird was calling quite close by; it was a butcher bird and I notice its still about. I had to put me

shoes and head torch on and muck around in the back of the van getting out the spade and the toilet rollwhich was in the bottom container. It was cold; it always is on these occasions. As I was doing the jobwondering what caused a bird to have insomnia I heard a magpies fluted warble in the distance and evenfurther away the cawing of a crow and realized that it was almost dawn; a faint pre-dawn glow was justdiscernable. So I went back to bed and didnt get up till 8.30. When Im at Lake Gairdner I have the habitof watching the sunrise being alerted to it by the first twittering of small birds near the van but the lake is50ks westward and Lake Finnis where I am is not the same. I feel rather well : the sun is warming myback, I can hear the oom oom of a crested pigeon and the whistling wingbeats of others, there is a faintbreeze singing in the needles of the acacia overhanging the van behind which I am sitting writing on oneof the plastic containers I keep my gear in. I am thinking that when christ turned water into wine he didnt

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mean for us to draw the kind of lesson from it that is taught from the pulpits. The butcher bird has juststarted calling again, and now others are joining in.

Now for the daily Saint, and I note with some excitement that its a modern one for a change. StBertilla Boscardin (virgin, 1888-1922) was born into a poor peasant family at Brendola, Italy. She waschristened Anne Frances. Ailing in health, of slight intellectual capacity, lacking in initiative, but with abalanced practical judgment and firm will, she was sanctified in the unobtrusive discharge of daily duties.She went to the village school and from an early age had also to work in the house and as a domestic

servant nearby. She was dubbed the goose and the nickname does not seem to have been playful, so thatwhen she sought to enter the religious life, the pastor laughed at the idea. Nevertheless, as he said, the girlcould at least peel potatoes. At sixteen Anne was accepted by the Sisters of St Dorothy at Vicenza and wasgiven the name Bertilla. For a year Sister Bertilla worked in the scullery, the bakery and the laundry andthen was sent to learn nursing at the municipal hospital. The local Prioress used her as a kitchenmaid, andshe remained among the pots and pans till 1907, when she was promoted to help in the childrens ward.From then on, Sister Bertilla was the devoted servant of the sick; but soon she became sick herself, andfor the last twelve years of her life was in constant and severe pain from an internal malady that surgeryfailed to cure which eventually killed her. She died on October 20, 1922. Crowds flocked to her first graveat Treviso and later to her tomb at Vicenza. In 1952 Sister Bertilla was beatified by Pope Pius XII and in1961 she was canonized by Pope John XXIII, in the presence of members of her family and patients

whom she had nursed.At the end of each days entry in the Saint Companions there is a reflection which I havent been

including in these jottings. Usually its a quote from the saint of the day. Todays is : To God glory! tomy neighbour happiness to me hardship (St Bertilla).

It may be that there is some fundamental flaw in my efforts to quieten the ghosts. My method islanguage, it seems that I should be writing. When I write at my best its as if it speaks itself regardless ofme; as if I cease to exist. At those times what I say appears, to me at least, to have a depth of meaning anda particular kind of transparency. Sometimes the meaning doesnt become apparent to me till many yearslater, and then changes again. I was writing poetry on the abstract notion of what language is, a topic youmight think is better suited to lecture theatres in philosophy departments, over 25 years ago. It is myweapon. And yet it may be necessary for me to accept that language has limits which prevent its

successful application in certain tasks; perhaps even in most of the tasks that count for me. Perhapslanguage cannot still ghosts. I wonder if it may not be an impertinence or even an evil to think that wordsare enough. We have great faith in the power of words because they have given us science and literature,and history. But they will not save a single one of us from death. Frank Lovece tells me that there is awriter who talks about us falling into history. Is it possible that the fall into history is the fall intolanguage when Adam ate the forbidden fruit? (incidentally I surmise that the Tree of Knowledge was notan apple tree as William Blake seems to think, but an orange tree, an almond tree or a fig.) Theachievements of language are our pride but it may be an insult to the dead to believe that their cries ofanguish can be extinguished by pushing a pen around. Perhaps its not talk that the spirits ask of us buttears, or that we bow our head, or kneel in some quiet place, or that we wail at a wall.

I have just re-read the story of the fall , Genesis ch. 2 verse 8 ch. 3 verse 24, in the bible that I

keep on the dashboard which was given to me some 30 years ago by Ron Heatherington who gave me alift when I was hitching south from Broken Hill. And I also note that St John begins his gospel with thewords : In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Thegenesis story confirms my scepticism about the apple tree since the garden of eden appears to besomewhere at the headwaters of the Euphrates River (in the middle east not the american one). Theparagraph from St John on the other hand can be interpreted as giving an importance to language that I amtrying to question. Time to drink the last stubby and go for a walk!

I am back. About an hour from home base a dark cloud formed above my head and over LakeFinnis and there were a couple of rumbles of thunder and some lightning. But no voice spoke from thecloud only rain. There was plenty of sky in three directions but the cloud stayed directly over head or

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followed me. When I left for the walk I had almost decided not to take the rain shell, a big no-no, but atthe last moment I put it in. I tried to shelter for awhile under a low fantastically twisted trunk of an oldacacia, not very successfully. The logistics in the van are very awkward when my clothes are wet as theydrip onto the floor. Its been raining lightly throughout tea time and is now. For tea I opened the first of mypacks of crispbread and corn thins. They are the secret of my capacity to survive independently for up totwo weeks. They are delicious especially with salami and the double smoked bacon which I also have ingood supply. I only keep things which can last as I dont carry an esky. I am writing this kind of detail as

its going to end up part of the story Im titling 14/8/41 which will basically consist of a collation of myjournal entries for this trip and I want Adriana Cozzolini to have an idea of how a dinkum aussie behaves.The other survival secret I have is that in remote arid country like this I dont wash, not at all not evenmy teeth, because I want the 10 gallons of water I carry to last for as long as possible. I put this last bit ofinfo in for the education of any young ladies to whom I might give the story. Anyway I also had a tin ofherring fillets in mango and pepper sause and the second small avocado, all washed down with a verylarge enamel cupful of coffee. I boil the water on a metho heater of the kind hikers use and have a supplyof both powdered milk and small cartons of long life milk. For fresh food I carry tomatoes, onions andoranges. It was an eye-opener to see how quickly Lake Finnis got covered with a layer of water. Its a goodthing I didnt get caught in the middle of it and something to keep in mind for Lake Gairdner where Imsometimes several hours walking from the shore. My situation now is that Im probably stuck here as the

road looks as if it cannot handle much water and there were already a few large puddles I had to drivearound in getting here and that was when Lake Finnis had no water in it. The big cloud that dropped therain on me seemed to head out east along the road. At worst Id have to walk out back to Oakden Hillhomestead 27ks away which is a days walk. Even though no one was about somebody must be coming into feed the dogs that I saw in their kennels locked up in an enclosure. The highway is only 13ks furtheralong. I cant afford to walk to Mahanewo because that could be unattended also and thats in the middle ofnowhere. More and more of the stations these days are occupied only part time with owners preferring tolive in places like Port Augusta. Im putting all this in for your benefit, Adriana, so you get an idea how anaussie thinks. Dont worry but, that was a worst case scenario and Ive just realised its Friday night and Illbe able to listen to a final of aussie rules footy on the car radio with more finals to come tomorrow andsunday.

In an article that Luis Borges wrote in 1922 (when he was only 23) he explains how even simplenouns like moon, cat, fire etc. start out as adjectives or adverbs. I wont repeat his explanation. If you thinkhow very little children first learn a word it may already be evident to you. Or think of a tiger : if youmeet one in the jungle in india rushing at you from ten yards away its all adjective and adverb; if all thatyou know of a tiger are pictures in books or on telly then its definitely a noun. I would not presume toexplain anything about how language works better than Borges has already done, however it may help toillustrate the point by using a word that describes a scientific concept such as gravity, or specific gravity.Because such a term is more artificial and learnt at a later age its easier to trace the process. These appearto be nouns but they do not describe anything. There is no such thing as gravity except to people who dontknow the meaning of the word. To anyone who has to use the words it is apparent that they are not thingsbut labels for bundles of very specific instructions, adverbs if you like. Just to learn the meaning of

specific gravity you have to perform a whole set of tasks : you have to know what water is and floatvarious objects in it and swim in it; you have to know how to measure exact amounts of it; you have to betaught to do sums to work out volumes; you have to lie in your bath and feel how you get heavier as thewater drains out; and so on. So many instructions are contained in scientific terms that you have to go toschool to learn them all. Many scientific terms are like that bundles of instructions for preciselymanipulating our environment. But for someone who hasnt been to school they are just nouns names ofthings. Nouns fix things down. Complex activities become stationary objects, mere things. So it isimportant when using a word to make clear should anyone be listening at which stage of its evolution youare employing it. If I use the words stolen children to describe some aborigines I do not include in thatterm children who havent been stolen even though their lives were traumatised in other ways. If I use the

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term survivors I do not include those who left europe before the war even though their lives weretraumatised by the loss of relatives who remained. To do so would be to devalue the experiences of thechildren who were stolen and the trauma of those who survived concentration camps and ghettos (about2 thousand out of an initial 25,000 survived the Kaunas ghetto.) The reason I prefer to talk about themurder of the jews instead of using the word holocaust is because it has become a noun. I suspect that tothe man in the street holocaust means : the entertainment industry, especially moves and Hollywood;newspaper fodder; political leverage; compensation claims; the jewish lobby. When a reporter questioned

Menachim Begin about civilian casualties being caused by the shelling of palestinian refugee camps inBeirut how dare you he raged, we are the children of the holocaust. As if the dead sought thecompany of corpses.

Its 8.00pm and Ive just been talking to Mrs Manning of Mahanewo. Earlier a ringer towing histrail bike on a trailer drove past east after a days mustering. He told me she would soon be coming in theopposite direction and I asked him to tell her to stop so I could introduce myself. She tells me they have atrack to the edge of the lake but its rough. Apparently there is no tree there for shade. She can sell mesome petrol. Its not raining, the road to Mahonewo is fine, and the footy is on. Wow!

Saturday 12/8/00. St Clare of Assisi (Abbess Virgin 1194-1253). When St Francis preached theLenten sermons in the church of St George at Assisi in 1212 he so inspired Chiara, the 18 year-old

daughter of Count Scifi, that she determined to follow the Poverello in his life of Christian poverty. Uponhis advice she secretly slipped out of the parental castle on the night of Palm Sunday and, accompanied byher aunt Bianca and another companion, made her way through the forest to the little chapel ofPortiuncula in the valley, where St Francis and his brethren awaited her with torches at midnight. Here sheexchanged her rich clothing for a coarse tunic and veil, had her long, golden hair cut off, and vowedherself to Christs service in utter poverty. Her father, who had planned a splendid marriage for her, wasfurious and attempted to carry her off by force from the Benedictine convent where she was temporarilyplaced. Before long, a simple dwelling was fitted up as a convent adjacent to the poor chapel of StDamiano, which St Francis had personally repaired. Here, within a fortnight, St Clare was joined by heryounger sister St Agnes. The young order of Poor Clares began to grow rapidly in membership andduring the next few years Clares own mother, Blessed Ortolana, another sister, Beatrice, and her aunt

Bianca also placed themselves under her direction. Foundations were established in many countries ofEurope during her 40-year tenure of office, mainly for the care and education of poor girls. At first thecommunity lived without a written Rule, guided only by a short formula of life composed by St Francis,and under the latters devoted personal guidance. But Cardinal Ugolini, the new Orders protector, drewup a Rule in 1219, based on the Benedictine one and forbidding communal poverty. This he triedunsuccessfully for nine years to have St Clare accept, but her firm insistence on St Francis ideal ofabsolute poverty and complete dependence on alms, finally won from him (later Pope Gregory IX) hisfamous Privilegium Paupertatis, the first one of its kind ever to be issued. Succeeding Popes also soughtto mitigate the great austerity of the Poor Clares. Finally, two days before St Clares death, Pope InnocentIV solemnly confirmed the definitive Rule. He also came in person to visit the dying Saint, who had beentried by sickness and infirmity for many years. Three of St Francis early companions read aloud the

Passion according to St John, just as they had done 27 years before at the Poverellos death in Portiuncula,while the Little Flower of St Francis, the living impersonation of Lady Poverty, passed peacefully to herreward at the age of 59. St Clares funeral was attended by the Pope and his entire court, and two yearslater the holy foundress was solemnly canonized. Her body, which was for safetys sake buried deepbelow the high altar of the new church which was erected at Assisi in her honour in 1260, was notrediscovered until 1850. It now lies enshrined in a special crypt chapel where it is visited and revered bycountless pilgrims. St Clare, the greatest woman Saint of the Franciscans is represented in art as holding aciborium in memory of the night in 1224, when she put the attacking Saracens of Frederick II toprecipitous flight by raising it on high before them. She had a special devotion to our Lord in the BlessedSacrament, and had learned St Francis Office of the Passion by heart. It was in the small olive grove

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adjoining her convent, incidentally, that St Francis composed his beautiful Canticle to the Sun.Reflection: Dispose of me as you please; I am yours by having consecrated my will to God. It is nolonger my own. (St Clare).

Thats that. Ive had breakfast, the sky is clear, its 9.40am and Im off to Mahanewo. I was kiddingyou about the footy last night. I only listened to 5 minutes of it; when Collingwood isnt playing Im notinterested. Im about to brush my teeth seeing as water is no longer an issue Im at Lake Gairdnerparked on top of a rise overlooking the lake. I can see across it to the Gawler Range but north and south it

is endless. Eastwards the plain rolls away uninterrupted. The bed of the lake is brown dirt which feelsslightly springy underfoot. Walking directly west it becomes too soft to support your weight after about 40minutes and you can see a covering of water a few hundred yards further out. Its not nearly as spectacularhere as the white salt of the southern section and the shoreline stretches away evenly to the north andsouth. I doubt if Ill spend more than two days here, one to walk north and the other south. I am totallyexposed to sun and wind but I want to stay in this spot because of the vista over the lake. I am 200kilometers away from the start of supermarket culture at Port Augusta, 70 away rom the tourists drivingnorth on the highway, and 25 from Mahanewo (pronounced Mahrew) homestead which serves as myprotective outpost, guarantor of privacy. I said Id leave a note under the door when Im leaving so theydont have to wonder whether Im stuck here. Paul Manning who with wife Conny are the owners saidhed check in a weeks time if its not there. Their kids study, apparently well, with the help of the School

of the Air. She made a cup of tea while I talked to Paul. I bought 20 litres of petrol for which he wouldonly accept $15 even though Ive been paying over $1/litre at the bowser. He runs the station by himselfexcept for some occasional hired help. The contract musterer I talked to yesterday had been here for aweek and lives well south of Port Augusta. Apparently they usually dont accept less than a weeks work ata time.

Suddenly the intensity has gone out of my reactions to 1941. The ghosts are laid. Perhaps its thewriting that has done it, or the landscape, or the rhythm Ive got into after a week on the road. Perhapsthey demand to be mourned only by the survivors who are the only ones who can properly know theirplight. What I am left with are abstractions, questions, challenges to my understanding. The main one ishow can it be that my perception of the events surrounding my birth had such a gaping hole in it. And ifthere is one that Ive located why couldnt there be more even larger ones. The way I perceive the world

around me has a seamless quality as if Im at the centre of a sphere whose shell constitutes my intellectualenvironment. Ive surrounded myself with this envelope over a lifetime of considerable efforts ofconceptualising and an inheritance of the views and opinions Ive trusted to accept from people Iveknown and read. Could it be that this apparently seamless reality of mine has more holes than substance,is fractured by chasms? Moreover if it can be for me why not for others? Why not for everyone? WilliamBlake says that if the windows of perception were opened we would see the world as it really is infinite.I think that the windows of my perception have been set ajar and I am seeing gaps and voids : gaps inperception between groups, even neighbours; voids where once I thought I had some understanding.

Sunday 13/8/00. My foundations are shaken. For awhile it wouldnt have surprised me to see birdsdrinking from pieces of mirror lying on the ground. And like a bald man finding combs Ive been

bewildered by signs. But here I am on a rise overlooking an endless dry lakebed and behind me the plainstretches hugely to the horizon. Nothing has changed in a million years and when we are gone it will stillbe the same. I got up well before dawn for a crap which I did conveniently in a rabbit hole (yes, yes,Adriana, thats how we behave). The warren has been emptied by calicivirus; I havent seen a rabbit on theproperty. There were no small birds to greet the dawn as there are no trees here, nor bushes other than thesaltbush which is only a foot off the ground. But I had been awake for quite awhile; the pre-dawn on anopen plain can be almost like daylight. Ive had breakfast, Ive put three oranges into my day-pack, thereis not a cloud in the sky and the air is still time for a stroll (8.45am) walked north, was back at1.45pm.

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Why, why, why is the question? Not how because science does a good job of answering that one.Words, the simplest of which is a complicated package of instructions, when used with calculatedprecision do an excellent job of manipulating objects. Language has given us power over the tangibleworld. It has enabled us to analyse things into their constituent parts, order them, and rearrange them togive us all the wonders of science. The how of things is the order they have to be in, or the order ofprecise manipulations we must perform to gain the results we desire the medicines, the aeroplanes, thebomb. Language is the will to power. I think its Bertrand Russell (& maybe thats whats called positivism)

who considered that everything including man can be seen to be composed of elementary particles. Theidea is that the sums or arrangements of the particles are greater than or cannot be predicted from theparticle itself. I suppose physicists say something similar when they explain that forces acting onhydrogen atoms or whatever they say are the base particles produces over time all the other elementswhich in turn produce the varieties of the biological kingdom. It sounds plausible. So that when we wantto know how something is done we describe the sequence that leads to the end result. Science is verygood at doing it. We should be grateful for its triumphs. My problem is that the answer to the questionhow doesnt touch on any of the issues I want resolved. It doesnt tell me why people age and becomedecrepit, why there is so much suffering, why the world can seem so luminous at times, why a child canbe transfixed by beauty, why I am so amazed, why we have terrible wars (and the most terrible one, theone with atomic weapons which will be more devastating than all the previous ones combined is still in

the future), why good intentions, why are children murdered, why are children taking to drugs andcommitting suicide, why have people stopped singing why must we all die? When one of my kids wasstill a teenager he announced with great satisfaction that everything was explainable by the particle theory.Lets do a thought experiment. Suppose it is possible to make a human being from the constituent particles(call them genes if you like) and we assemble a bunch of them at great expense and effort in a laboratory(a romp in bed would be easier and the preferred method for mine) and they turn out OK and one day theyare sitting in a cafe discussing life, what makes them tick. And one of them, the one with theimpoverished imagination, says its perfectly simple hes seen the plans theyve all been made fromelementary particles by scientists in a laboratory. Complete explanation end of problem. I think thatmost of those around the table (drinking cocktails and cappuccinos) would agree with him as they wouldalmost certainly be great admirers of the scientists who made them (though the replicants in Bladerunner

werent) and would probably be practising science as their religion. But I reckon thered be one there, theeccentric or the poet perhaps, untidy and dirtier than the rest and already drunk, whod say hey, thats notright, what do you mean, I object. It doesnt explain anything to say Im made from little particles even ifthe scientists did make me like that. It just makes it more extraordinary and stranger. It doesnt explainwhy I want to sing, why I want to fly, the amazing things I imagine, why everything is so awesome, why Iam in love, why at times I feel like vomiting over you guys. I think you would agree at this point in thethought experiment they would turf him out. But lets suppose they show some tolerance and the one withthe most impoverished imagination answers the objection. No problem mate, he says, keep your shirt on,when we make the next batch we can fiddle with those genes (theyre like little packages with all the info)and find out what to delete so that the new guys dont get your problems, so that they dont get thoseinconvenient flying urges, or fall in love, or rock the boat for that matter. While were at it we might as

well get rid of the one that gives people the weird imaginings and visions, theyre too confusing and causemost of them to end up in loony bins, which is where I reckon you belong. I dont know which side youreon in this thought experiment but Im on the side of the loner. The explanation of how is only an accountof a sequence, or the procedures for assembling. The loners questions are in a different domain altogether.Scientists, if they are thoughtful, do not pretend to be answering the question why. Yet it is the questionthat over the ages men have always asked most often and most urgently. Traditionally the answers havebeen supplied by witchdoctors, shamans, seers, priests and priestesses, mystics, prophets, false prophets,gurus, leaders of cults, parents, school teachers. The why questions have always been the hard ones andeven when we get the answers we dont know how to interpret them. Life wasnt meant to be simple.Science answers the question how but when people turn it into a religion they sometimes imagine it also

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answers the question why. A strange transformation can come over people who do that. After awhile theybegin to believe that the notion of knowledge itself excludes the question why. Only those things appearto them as knowledge, and as proper subjects for study, which explain how things happen because theyare practical, achieve tangible results. Whenever these religious types are bothered by the question whythey dismiss it from their minds and if they are bothered by the kinds of experiences which raise thequestion or contribute to answering it they practice at suppressing them in themselves. It may be that withconstant practice (or selective breeding) we can totally eliminate the awareness of these or their very

existence from the human condition. Also, as the man with the impoverished imagination in the thoughtexperiment might suggest, we could tinker with the genetic code so as to produce only people whothought or felt as if they would live forever and when their time came (somewhere around the age of 130)would die suddenly and painlessly in their sleep.

Todays saint is St John Berchmans (Confessor 1599-1621) who was the son of a Flemish tannerand shoemaker. When he was only 17 he was received into the Jesuit Order and two years later sent toRome for his studies, as one who was outstanding for his religious spirit and intelligence. In companywith a fellow student he traversed the 900 odd miles in ten weeks entirely on foot. At the Roman College,what was his delight when he found himself assigned to the very room which St Aloysius Gonzaga hadoccupied 31 years before, for it had been the reading of the young Saints biography which had inducedhim to become a Jesuit! A brilliant student, John was also remarkable for his charity to others, for his

cheerfulness and his modesty. St John Berchmans wasonly 22 years old when God called him to his reward. The Church has declared him the special Patron ofMass Servers.

Monday 14/8/00. St Eusebius (Priest Martyr 3rd century). At the time when emperor Maximianwas in Palestine, the president of the province, Maxentius had Eusebius stretched on the rack and his sidesrent with iron hooks. In the torments he was repeating Lord Jesus, preserve me. Whether we live or die,we are yours. Maxentius was so amazed at his fortitude that he ordered him taken off the rack andEusebius appealed to the emperor Maximian but the emperor would not give himself any trouble anddelivered him again into the hands of Maxentius who condemned him to be beheaded. Reflection: Hethat findeth his life shall lose it; and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. (Matt. 10, 39).

And now I paste in the excerpt I cut out from my story 20/6/00 for the purpose. After I wrote anddistributed the story I realized that in order to make the point clearer I should have mentioned that the firstrecord of children being executed in the holocaust was next day on the 15th august. Over 1500 were shotin a single district during the week that followed.

19th/aug./41 is the day I was born in Kaunas the capital of prewar lithuania and the 14th of augustis the day that Colonel Vytautas Reivytis, head of the Lithuanian Police Department under the occupying

german forces issued Secret Order No. 3 - to count, gather, detain and transport jews. If we are to

assign a particular day for the beginning of the holocaust in europe then this is probably it. Here are thebare facts. The leader in the baltic region was General Fritz Stahlecker commander of Einsatzgruppe A.

Colonel Karl Jaeger was in command of Einsatzkommando 3 whose area covered lithuania. On august 1st

1941 some 90% of lithuanian jews were still alive. By december 1stof the same year two thirds of them

(137,000) were dead according to Colonel Karl Jaegers report. The rest (40,000) were in the majorghettos of Kaunas, Vilnius and Siauliai where most of them ultimately perished. In no country in europe

was a higher percentage of its jews murdered in as short a time. Here I must digress a little. The capacity

for murdering large numbers of humans even without recourse to gas ovens is extraordinary. A formerN.K.V.D. officer had claimed that at Katyn a single executioner labouring with a pistol and elbow-length

gloves killed most of the 4000 polish officers that were the victims of that exercise by the communists. In

lithuania the most bloody day was on oct. 29 when 10,000 jews were shot in one day in the 9 th Fort inKaunas. The executions of ordinary jews in the countryside was most speedily carried out by S.S.

Lieutenant Joachim Hammans Rollkommando. This highly mobile unit travelled from one rural district

to the next supervising the executions (and taking part) of the jews that had been collected (or had

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assembled) as a result of Secret Order No. 3 issued on aug. 14 th. According to Lieutenant JoachimHammans own estimate some 77,000 persons were executed in less than 8 weeks though some historians

dispute this, putting the figure as low as 60,000. The Rollkommando consisted of a dozen germans and

some 60 lithuanians who in turn were commanded by Lt. Bronius Norkus. The normal rotation ofpersonnel means that the total number involved in the unit would have been somewhat greater. In all,

those directly involved in the slaughter of jews throughout lithuania during the holocaust consisted of

some 100s of germans and some 1000s of lithuanians. These lithuanians and further 1000s that were

responsible for the execution of Secret Order No. 3 were mainly drawn from the 20 police battalionsnumbering somewhere between 8.3 thousand and 13 thousand men.

Returning to the account of how science works. The devotees who quite understandably have beenso amazed at its magnificent achievements and have turned it into their religion have a tendency tomisuse the word cause; they say this causes that and that causes this so often that after awhile they cometo believe that they know causes; science has given that knowledge to them. And since they know theyare the creators of science it contributes to their pride and self confidence. But I want to point out that inthat sequence of instructions or manipulations which explains how something works it is a misuse of theword to say that if one thing (instruction) comes before the other that it is a cause. To use the word causeadds nothing to what is already told or known when the sequence is stated. So what kind of exercise arethe devotees performing when they incorrectly use the word cause to link adjacent elements in a

sequence? If you think back to how the word cause is first learnt in childhood I think it becomes evidentthat its primary meaning is to attribute events to a human agency. We say you caused it, I had nothing todo with it, youre to blame, its all the fault of my parents, gods will be done. Another way of putting it is tosay that right from the beginning when the word gets its meaning for us it describes an exercise of will. Isuggest that the unconscious reason why the worshippers of science have a bad habit of using the sameword to describe the link between two contingent events (or to say the first causes the second) is to give ita dignity which it doesnt deserve by attributing a human quality (of will) to it. The proper use of the wordcause is to say that the scientist or engineer causes the arrangement into the sequence. This still allows usto take pride in the achievements of our sciences but it makes a distinction between the kind of operation(knowledge that science gives) and the source of it. While we retain a cause for pride by making thisdistinction in this way it is also a humbling experience because we do not know who we are, or what we

are, or why. If the devotees choose to restrict the definition of knowledge to what can be answered by thescientific method (how) thats fine with me as long as they know what they are doing (exercising theirwill). In that case I tell them that most of what interests me and for which I seek answers is outside therealms of knowledge (or language) but is found in the kingdoms of dance, of devotion, of awe, of ritual,of song, of poetry (a kind of singing), of guilt and contrition, of laughter, of wailing, of bowed head, ofupturned gaze, of ecstasy, of gratitude, of intention, of hope, of exercise of will, of thanksgiving, ofsharing, of charity, of paying what is due, of respect for the dead, of mystery, of the body, of reverence, oflove, of honesty, of visions, of decency, of acceptance and it goes on and on. However I do use the wordknowledge (knowledge in the body) when writing about these kingdoms because that is the historical useof the word. But I concede that in these areas knowledge is difficult, or contradictory, or given and unlikein the domain of science we make little if any progress. Perhaps we go backward in proportion as our

sciences are flowering and as our pride increases. I have to admit that I know less and less as I get older.The more closely I examine the murder of the jews that took place around the time of my birth and duringthe first three years of my life in lithuania even the little that I thought I knew disintegrates. I must bowmy head. I must go to beautiful places like this to be replenished. I must be grateful that I come in contactand am protected by such beaut people as the Mannings of Mahanewo. Its 10.25am I must go for awalk.

Back at 4.15pm. Walked south inland then west and back along the coast. Making an educatedguess (with the help of a weather forecast) I left the car windows open so the food which is always in thecar wouldnt warm up and left the keys in the ignition. What a great feeling to be able to do that. Adriana,is there anywhere in europe that I would be able to get away with that? Found heaps of aboriginal

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scrapers and spear heads at the back of a dune. Just as I was wondering why they would be camped by alake that is undrinkable even when it has water in it I found a pool of fresh water at the bottom of a sandhill. I keep a note of fresh water because I dont carry any except in the three oranges I take for lunch. Theidea is that if youre going to be careless enough to break a leg you deserve to die of thirst. The threeoranges were excruciatingly sweet thanks to the Waikerie (on the Murray River) general store where I hadbought them. Waikerie boasts that it is the citrus capital of australia. On the way back a strange trick wasplayed on me. A landmark I was depending on didnt appear. It was extraordinary and I thought I might

get myself into time problems and have to walk in the dark. It turned out to have been a trick ofperspective which can be very confusing here. Something I had seen in a particular way from a hill on theland turned out quite different to my memory of it when seen from the lakebed and I went past it withoutrecognizing it. Ive had similar experiences before but each new one is a total surprise. There is a lessonin there somewhere. And here is one for the philosophy students to end off my earlier pontifications onkinds of knowledge. Oedipus solved the riddle posed by the Sphinx and threw it over the cliff thenproceeded on to his terrible destiny.

Tuesday 15/8/00. The Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary. The Gospels do not state thenames of our Ladys parents but ancient traditions, which go back to the middle of the second century,give them as Anna or Hannah (grace) and Joachim, and declare that their daughter Miriam (Mary) was

born in answer to a prayer when they had long been childless. Todays feast is our Ladys principal feast,and is believed to have originated in the 5th or 6th century. Both the Western and the Eastern Church sharethe universal belief in Marys bodily assumption into heaven, which was already stated by St Juvenal ofJerusalem at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This age-old belief has, in the Holy Year 1950, beenofficially declared by Pope Pius XII to be a dogma of the Universal Church. Nothing is known withhistorical certainty as to where or when the Blessed Virgin died. Jerusalem is most commonly credited,but Ephesus also claims the distinction from the tradition that Mary accompanied St John there. The yearof her death is also uncertain, and is variously placed from 3 to 15 years after our Lords Ascension. Inplace of the reflection given in the Saint Companions I put in my own : the first record of children beingexecuted in the holocaust is on this day in 1941.

Left at 9.00 and got back at 5.00. Earnt a blister. Used up a roll of film photgraphing footprints

including a set of camel prints that headed west and into the water. Its unlikely they would try to crosswater so I guess they were made in soft ground before the water covered them. Found a couple of salteddried out scorpions the length of my index finger and cut one out of the mud it was embedded in but bythe time I got home the tail had broken off. What look like yabbie holes all over the lake bed are made byspiders who must be able to seal themselves off in airtight compartments when the lakebed is coveredwith water. They seal off the mouth of the hole with a silken cloth. Found the skin and skeleton of a rabbitI would have liked to photograph but had used up the film by then. Might try to follow my tracks back toit tomorrow but it would take at least three hours to get there. Just used up the first uni-ball but havebrought plenty more. Poured the coffee. Forgot to mention yesterday that the main reason this spot is socompletely private is because to get to the track that takes you here you have to go from the back yard ofMahanewo, and without instructions from the Mannings you wouldnt find your way. Thought I was going

to get myself into time problems through a bad miscalculation while I was on the lakebed but at 4.00spotted the car from a sandhill through the binoculars so was able to walk to it on a compass bearing.When I was walking along the waterline in surreal surroundings in the middle part of the day I thoughtthis is how it must have felt to walk along the shore of the Sea of Galilee then remembered that therewere fish in that sea (Ive only read the bible once) and realized it was probably more like walking alongthe shore of the Dead Sea. This led to a train of thought which can be summarized something along theselines : the idea that chubby faced theologians (often dressed in black) of the kind that discuss religion andthe nature of god (who or whatever he is and even if he needs to be invented) on television or on radiopanels with people like Philip Adams (also dressed in black) know more about god (for he may depend on

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being invented) than a fisherman, or a mother wiping the brow of her sick child, or a surfer riding a wave,or a soldier dying in someone elses war is preposterous (even a bit nauseating).

Wednesday 16/8/00. St Joachim (1st century). Joachim is the name under which the father of theBlessed Virgin is most commonly known, but unfortunately, Holy Scripture tells us nothing about thisholy mans life. His name means Yahweh prepares. A very ancient tradition, which is based on theapocryphal Gospels, and no doubt contains some historical data along with later fanciful additions, states

that the Virgins parents were from Galilee and that they came to Jerusalem and died there. On the site oftheir home St Helena had a church built in honour of Joachim and Anne, and until late in the ninthcentury, their tombs were venerated there. The building was later turned into a Moslem school. In 1889the ancient crypt of the tombs was rediscovered. The feast of St Joachim is very ancient in the EasternChurch, but does not appear in the West until the 15th century. Reflection: In all thy works remember thylast end, and thou shalt never sin. (Eccl. 7, 40).

The survivors and relatives grieve and mourn; I do not enter their space. Instead I am tangled byappalling abstractions. The dead cry out to be remembered and it is clear to me now that the purpose ofthis trip and this writing is to discharge the obligation . I feel that my offering is accepted by the calmnessIve been allowed over the last few nights. It is not what Ive said that matters but the effort to say it andthe effort I make to bring a memory of them to those who have wished to expunge it. I pay my respect to

the dead but hope I will be able to lay the remembering aside so the balance between them and the livingis not disturbed. The requirement to heed their cry has made me examine myself and acknowledge thelimits of my intelligence. Certain things (most of the things that matter to me) are not meant to beunderstood. It would be an affront to the memory of the dead to try to. To honour them is enough. I amgrateful that I have been challenged to further my awareness of the limitations of language and thescientific method. Perhaps its their gift to me.

Woke up this morning to a really cold day with a steady easterly which in this country can meanrain. Didnt want to go out onto the lakebed with that possibility. I havent gone far; am parked right bythe road next to Lake Macfarlane, also a dry lake, only about 10ks east of Mahanewo. Dont expect anypassersby as Paul Manning is there by himself. Conny Manning is teaching in Port Augusta till the end ofthe year to help out. Last year their best income came from selling wild goats but this year wool prices are

up and they are doing alright. Meantime Conny Manning is only here on weekends and the kids are goingto normal school. I talked to Paul for over and hour over tea and chocolate coated biscuits. Told him hislife is about as opposite to mine as it could possibly be. I feel we parted as friends and I know Imwelcome to visit again. Lake Macfarlane (just did a walk for a couple of hours; started reading BernhardsOld Masters) is as bleak as Lake Gairdner but not as overwhelming. I thought it was the right momentto leave because I feel Ive resolved something or at least turned a corner and I wanted to couple it with achange in location. The lake has a power to heal. I will come here again.

Thursday 17/8/00. There are two saints today so Ill use one to start and one to finish. St Hyacinth(Confessor 1185-1257) was a native of Polish Silesia and of noble ancestry. He was made a Canon ofCracow after receiving his doctorate in law and divinity. Because of his three missionary journeys,

covering 40 years always on foot and in danger from barbarians and wild beasts St Hyacinth is calledThe Apostle of the North. He preached in Pomerania, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden and Norway in thenorth, in Russia and the Ukraine in the south, and even reached far off Tibet and China in the east. As anold man of 72 he returned to his central monastery in Cracow, and died soon after. Innumerable miraclesare recorded in connection with his lifes work. Poland reveres him as its principal Patron.

Last night I slept like a child. Its strange how getting it out in words should havesuch a physiological consequence. Perhaps words arent just bubbles that burst out and dissipate in spray.In enabling the achievements of science, of course, they are immensely powerful packages ofinstructions. Reflecting on it now I wonder if also in the discourse that Ive described as the one thatattempts to answer the question why, the one that I am primarily concerned with, they are not more

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important than I thought earlier. Even the simplest noun such as rock, stove, cat is learnt by little childrenas an enormously complex set of consequences and directives before it finds its solid shape as a noun.And each of them depends for its meaning on the work it is doing in a sentence. Moreover every directionin making a word meaningful to a child has required a consensus over meaning (or coordination ofcommands) between the adults that teach them. When I take all this into account I cant escape theconclusion that if it were to be analysed into its component actions the complexity of the simplestsentence is mind-boggling. Viewed in this way language can be seen to be a finely articulated semaphore,

as much an expression of the body as tai-chi or physical jerks. It can be seen to be the body in motion.That would explain why I slept so well!! Perhaps language is a worthy instrument for a conversation withangels after all. Should that be so it is extremely important it seems to me how we say things, that wespeak honestly and admit what we dont know. Anyway, I got up well before dawn meaning to pay acourtesy visit to the MacTaggarts at Oakden Hill homestead on the way out of the area to Woomera whereI planned to shop up. As it turned out its a big day at the station as they are mustering a paddock of about17 x 8ks. On the way I passed two young people on trail bikes that I suspect to be their adult children.The girl sounded to me like a sophisticated city person. Perhaps they come home just to help in themuster. I wanted to tell the MacTaggarts (Andrew & Penny) that it was me that had left the Meditationson Lake Gairdner poems on their doorstep with the paper a week ago. Andrew MacTaggart (chairman ofthe board that is responsible for maintaining the dingo fence in S.A.) was about to head up in his

aeroplane but was as generous in directing me to where I am now as Paul Manning had been atMahanewo. He gives the impression of being something of a country squire. Penny MacTaggart wascooking but also about to head off for the muster. I think she might have been taking over the moveablesheep enclosure which I could see on the back of a ute. They even lent me a detailed 1 : 100,000 map ofthe property which is 1706 sq. km. And yes! Im just near the shore of Island Lagoon 26ks from thestation (Andrew said 20miles and he meant it) and its every bit as magnificent as Lake Gairdner (AndrewM. grew up at Moonaree which borders the lake on the opposite side to Mahanewo). I went for about a 4 hour walk in the middle of the day out onto the lakebed which is all covered by a thick glittering saltcrust and then north and back along a fence line, in all about 20+ks. I saw a crimson chat which is a bird Idont see often. Picked up a dried out lizard with a striped back, of the skink family, but its tail broke offim my pocket. Found a rusted dingo trap and brought it back to the van to put with the rams skull I picked

up yesterday to take back to Melbourne. The lake is named after the island you can see in the distance likea pyramid with a flat top. It looks like a mirage or something from myth or a way station prior to the lastjourney. Perhaps the local aborigines thought about it like that. Its too far out to walk to from here but it ishugely visible from the highway to Woomera. That view was what had drawn my attention to IslandLagoon last year and I had half a hope I may find a way to the shore on this trip now here I am. Its mybirthday in two days time and I couldnt have asked for a better present.

The second saint is St Clare of Montefalco (Virgin c.1268 1308) who was a native of theUmbrian town of Montefalco near Spoleto. She lived from the age of six as a recluse with her sister Joan;when others wished to join their dedicated life of utter poverty, the convent of the Holy Cross wasfounded under the Augustinian Rule. St Clare, who was already considered a Saint, and who had alwaysbeen favoured with a sense of spiritual union with God, passes through 11 years of dryness, but thereafter

received numerous mystical gifts from God, including ecstasies and supernatural knowledge. Indulgenttowards others, ever perfect in humility and charity, she submitted her own body to severe fasts andrigorous austerities and through them was able to reconcile enemies and lead heretics to the true faith.Our Lords Passion was the constant theme of her meditation. Her heart, on which is imprinted the imageof the Crucifix, and her body have remained remarkably incorrupt to the present day.

Friday 18/8/00. Here is a bit of maths for you, Helen. There are 28 Johns (by far the most of allthe names) in the Saint Companion and 1 Helen. That means there is a 12 and a third out of 365 chanceof a saintly John falling on my birthday tomorrow and 2 chances out of 365 of St Helenas day fallingnext to it. Multiply the two sets of odds by each other and the chance of our saintly namesakes being

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together at this time is 1 in 2245. And keep in mind that my mums name is also Helen. How significant isthat! It gives me an excuse to thank you for the typing and tell you that I love you and that I think youre asaint. Kate was right when she characterized you as the good woman. Should you be typing this beforeyour birthday on 1 oct. I make the promise now to take you out to dinner at Phan Phan in Victoria st. , orif its a friday to the Bocadillo Bar, or to buy a scanner for your computer, or light the b.b.q. in yourhonour and invite all the kids, or to get a lobster and a Brown Bros. Spatlese Lexia to wash it down with(or even a De Bortoli Noble One) for the occasion or to do the whole lot. The writing of the story is

coming to an end and when its finished in a few days Im anxious to rush back to Melbourne and fall intoyour arms. Down here the easterly has not let up for three days and its just begun raining, got to get out and I did, right back to Port Augusta. On the way I dropped off the map at the homestead and left anote saying I was sure to be back some day. The rain set in steadily as I drove out of the yard. I put on acassette, from Saulius, of a british group, the Mujician (Keith Tippett on the piano), from an album calledColours Fulfilled and it seemed just right at this time, for this stretch of highway. The last quarter of thetape was of the David S. Ware quartet finishing off with a great tune called Flight of i just as I drove intotown . I had told Helen that I might not be back till early September but I want to coincide the end of thestory 14/8/41 with the end of the trip; so Im on my way. Its raining lightly. After the daily saint Illcheck out my message bank, ring Helen at school, buy half a dozen stubbies of Southwark Old Stout andanother one of Southwark Black Ale to take back to Melbourne.

St Helena (Empress c.250 c.330), the mother of Constantine the Great, is said to have been ofhumble Asiatic origin, an innkeeper in Bithynia, when Constantius Chlorus, then only an army officer,married her. Twenty years later, however, upon becoming Emperor of the West, he divorced her forpolitical reasons; but Constantine, their only son, remained faithful and devoted to his mother and, oncehe ascended the throne, had imperial honours paid to her. After his victory over Maxentius in 313, Helenatoo embraced Christianity. After causing the erection of numerous churches in Europe, she undertook, atthe age of 75, an expiatory journey to the Holy Land, and there erected a church near the Grotto of theNativity in Bethlehem and another on the Mount of Ascension near Jerusalem. In Rome she turned herpalace into the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where to this day are enshrined a fragment of theTrue Cross and Pilates inscription. St Helena is considered the Patron Saint of dyers and of needle andnail makers. Reflection : Freely you have received, freely give. (Matt. 10, 8).

I am in a reserve half way between Port Augusta and Port Germein. Its beautiful in a bleak way.Im into the third stubby which will see me out for the day. Its a mangrove area and there are mozzies inthe car already. Its stopped raining. There were no messages in the message bank. Rang Helen who saysVi has had another blood transfusion and a gastroscopy which has not discovered an ulcer. That meansshe has cancer. Tonight Helen is taking Kate out to Brunswick st for her birthday. Kates on-again-off-again partnership with Jock is on for the moment. Im thinking about the reflection for last Wednesday(16/8/00) St Joachims day (Yahweh prepares) which says: In all thy works remember thy last end, andthou shalt not sin. (Ecc. 7, 40). What does it mean? I cant get my head around it. Yes, most of us feel asif we are going to live forever, but if we didnt would we behave any differently? Is it better to be foolishlyoptimistic or sensibly realistic? Everyone of us is going to die and even the species will certainlydisappear as the geological evidence proves, but doesnt it make better sense to behave as if we will go on

forever? Otherwise how can we justify watching a really boring game of cricket? (though it may be thatpeople who watch cricket on t.v. lead lives that are even more boring than the cricket, or golf, or tennisetc. I make an exception here for footy. Collingwood playing a winning game against any team butespecially Carlton or Essendon is worth taking time out for). The existentialists (Satre, Kierkegaard etc.)would agree with Eccl. 7, 40 but for different reasons. Helen and me met a guy and his wife on the YorkePeninsula who had a heart condition that was liable to knock him over at any minute so they bought a busto drive about to different coastal and bush spots to live in communion with nature. But he was soenthusiastic that he sounded as if he was talking it all up and didnt really believe what he was doing.Hmmm I think I should go for a stroll on this strange, silent beach on the Spencer Gulf with seagrasspiled up on the shore and saltbush and mangrove.

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Saturday 19/8/00. As I write the sun has risen over the Flinders ranges on my right. On the left isthe perfectly still water of the Spencer Gulf backed by a low range behind which it set yesterday. There isnot a cloud in the sky. I can hear the roar of trucks in the distance across the samphire plain amplified bythe ranges on the other side. Nearly every truck that leaves Victoria and South Australia for the NorthernTerritory, Perth and the Eyre Peninsula has to travel this section of highway to Port Augusta to get aroundthe Spencer Gulf which juts like a knife, with Port Augusta at its tip, into the belly of australia. Its mybirthday. Last year too I was in the vicinity several hundred kilometres to the north near Leigh Creek on

this day. I seem to remember I share it with Bill Clinton. Yes, Bill, president of the U.S.of A. famous forhis phone calls. He is also responsible for at least two cocktails that can be bought in some caf bars inBrunswick St. Melbourne The Monica Lewinsky and The Full Monica. It is claimed that as he wasbeing monikered leaning back on the spring loaded swivel chair at his desk in the oval office his hand wasnever out of reach of the red button that says : Press to End Time. Happy Birthday Bill from distantaustralia pass on my regards to Hilary life is good. I am pasting in the second of the two extractsfrom my story 20/6/00 that I have brought with me for the purpose, further evidence that this story iscoming to a close.

The murder of the jews of lithuania was initiated by the germans. It was supervised by a small

group of several hundred germans with the active support of thousands of enthusiastic lithuanians withthe tacit complicity of the bulk of the population and significant sections of the educated classes many of

whom were outstanding in their failure to raise objections (though some did). The main cultural legacy ofexpatriate lithuanians like myself was to inherit the suppression of the knowledge of the facts. This

purposeful evasion or collective amnesia has been so effective that those of my generation, even whenborn in lithuania and where both parents are of lithuanian origin, know nothing of the facts Ive just

outlined. The expatriate communities were guilty and still are of being accessories after the fact. They are

guilty in the true sense of the word at a cultural level for they hid the evidence (like hiding the body) andgave shelter to some of the perpetrators. By and large they still deny both the guilt and sometimes that the

events even happened. Sometimes they say the victims were at fault. There is a move now in lithuania

among historians to sheet the bulk of the blame for collaboration in the murders onto the 8.5 13thousand members of the 20 police battalions. I see this as a convenient exercise in scapegoating as they

know very well that most of these men ended up overseas (though without becoming members of the

expatriate communities I would think) where their descendants also are. The men themselves are dead inmost cases. I see a community to be an organic whole with all its branches bearing some responsibility

for its actions. The members of the battalions had wives, sisters, mothers and fathers who tried or

pretended not to know. The wives etc. had friends to confide in. The educated classes collaborated in

teaching their children a history that bore no relationship to the events, and still doesnt. I see these socalled intellectuals who continue to distort or hide the facts, even from themselves, as more blameworthy

than the barely literate peasants who did the shooting and who were surely insane. For me its time to

leave what took place 60 years ago behind. To continue is to risk being haunted.

The chain of events that led here began when I read the book Hidden History of the KovnoGhetto put out by the holocaust museum in Washington. The period described corresponds exactly withthe first three years of my life in Kaunas (Kovno in russian). The ghetto was sealed in the week of my

birth. This is the period covered in the second chapter of my mothers book prior to our flight from thecountry ahead of the advancing russian army. The ghetto is barely mentioned in the book, my mother wasbusy looking after me, surviving the consequences of the war and occupation and being pregnant with andthen looking after my sister Rasa who was not healthy. My shock came from the different perspectivesthat these two accounts revealed. I was dismayed by the realization that they took place right next to eachother. Being a habitual traveller and being alive to how the surroundings resonate in the body I cannotconceive that the horrific and heroic tragedy of the Kaunas ghetto nearby did not stain my early years.Perhaps that accounts for the ghosts that I hope I may have finally laid to rest by undertaking this journey.The next book I read soon after was Last Walk in Naryshkin Park by Rose Zwi, a Melbourne author. It isan account of her investigation and reaction to the massacre of the jews, which included forbears of hers,

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in the town of Zagare in northern lithuania. These three books were the first links in the chain that I amfinally closing. In her book Rose Zwi accuses lithuanians, and people of lithuanian background overseas,of deliberate cultural amnesia. I accepted the challenge and found to my amazement that she was perfectlycorrect. My perplexity was heightened by the fact that I had done a major in history (with a first place)ever so long ago at Melbourne uni and have always been interested in theorizing about what history is. AsI close this chapter I want to say that Ive been confirmed in my distrust of tribalism based on race ornational boundaries. Whether it be jewish, german, lithuanian, aussie, or aboriginal its on the nose. Its a

refuge for humbugs and scoundrels. Koori politicians routinely come up with nonsense that is an insult tothe intelligence of school children. Friends of mine of lithuanian background are happy to draw on afanciful history of comic book standard which is no more than an exercise in self-congratulation. Othersuse their background to winkle grants out of arts bodies which are forever toadying to the multi-culturallobby. All those colourful costumes various groups rig themselves out in at suburban festivals are anonsensical expression of 19th century Herderism (with an exception for somalis, indians etc.). Tribalismenables members to tell wopping lies about themselves and others and then believe in them because theyget confirmed by others of their own tribe. Governments always take possession of the tribal instinct toincrease the powers of the state and to suppress dissident individuals. The symbols, be they tricolors starsor eagles, which tribes use to identify and simplify themselves, are ugly. Their value in solidifying identitywithin the group is far less than the divisiveness they are responsible for between groups. Members of

tribes hide their mediocrity from public gaze behind such symbols, their ordinariness behind theachievements of others. They adopt mindless ways of behaving because they are handed down to them bytribal authorities. Personally I feel no loyalty to some kind of mythical lithuanian heritage. Respect for myparents who did a good job rearing me will suffice; and for my grandparents about whom I know enoughto know that they were good people. Nor do I feel any loyalty for australians or australia. My loyalty is togood people everywhere regardless, like the people Ive met over the last couple of weeks. Because Itravel a lot (never overseas) all my favourite places are in australia and I grieve to see the damage that isbeing caused by the motor car, by unplanned subdivision, by the indiscriminate clearing of marginalscrub, by the tourist industry. Ill be glad to be away (perhaps in outback N.S.W. with Helen) from t.v.,newspapers and Melbourne during the olympic games and that whole nauseating spectacle of hype, flagwaving, playing of national anthems and the tallying up of medals. Tribalism is not responsible for the

wide range of human behaviour as its supporters claim. Human custom is always diverse but not in thesuperficial way of colourful costumes. On the contrary the tribal instinct causes members to close theirminds to the complexity and varieties of human experience. I could go on and on there is no limit to thehumbuggery that finds shelter under the tribal umbrella.

After that I went for a walk along the shore. That was at the Winninowie reserve whose purpose isto conserve mangrove and the seagrass environment at the top of the gulf because of its importance forspawning fish and crabs. It may not be as good a stopover spot as I had thought because there could be alot of mozzies there in warmer weather. After spraying the inside of the van with insecticide last night Ifound a very large dead cockroach in the back this morning. On the way to Wirrabara where I had a steakand pepper pie with plunger coffee I came across a red-capped robin (Petroica goodenovii) killed by theroad and plucked some of the tiny crimson feathers for Helen. Dont know if she can use such little

feathers but I can put them in letters. Its the first one of these birds Ive come across killed by traffic.Incidentally at Wirrabara the kids say hullo to you when they walk past while youre sitting on thesidewalk. Listened to the footy driving between Wirrabara and Burra till it became obvious Brisbane wasgetting a caning. Came across another small bird for the first time, a peaceful dove (Geopilia placida) andtook feathers from it too. But not from the barn owl further along; Ive stopped counting how many ofthem Ive passed. At Burra I checked the mobile and I had two vers