Imagine driving down a long narrow dirt road. If you meet someone coming out you may have to back a fair way to find room to let the other vehicle pass. You park three quarters of the way in, just before the dry sclerophyll forest becomes moister, and walk the last couple of kilometres, watching the soil change from granite to basalt; the ferns proliferate and the leaves deepen in their green. There are a number of people walking in and all are carrying food in backpacks or baskets.
You greet old friends and see people you did not expect to see.
The road widens into a grassy clearing. There is smoke rising from somewhere and the colours of clothes, shirts, jackets and scarves appear in the makeshift meeting place. There is a great deal of grey hair. And quite a few dreadlocks; crewcuts; flowing manes of every hue and sensible boots. The billy is on; there are plenty of cups and teabags and tables laden with every sort of food, some of it from the garden around us.
Nearby is the hexagonal stone house built by the owner and creator of the garden and caretaker of the nearby forest. The sun is shining, yet the air is moist so the sun’s rays are palpable, showing the life in every surface they touch.
Nearby is one of the most stunning views you will ever see. You view it from a stone enclave at the top of the escarpment behind the house, where a dozen people can sit comfortably. You look east over the long bones of forested mountains. Never mind that much of the forest is regrowth, it all has the same blue-green-grey tinge as the mountains recede to end near the ocean glimmering blue far away. And then the sky goes on forever. Once again the universe is putting you in your place.
At the centre of the party is the host. Her voice is in the air, but she is silent. This is the last time we will be able to see her as a physical being. It is the second most important occasion in her life, and you are privileged to be here for it. None of the guests were present at the first.
But then, she is not going away entirely. She plans to stay here forever and she will. This event has her hand upon it, although she is the seemingly oblivious guest of honour.
Val Plumwood’s friends are gathered on Plumwood Mountain to say farewell to her physical form.
They follow the pallbearers up a short narrow path to the grave dug just a few metres from the house. The rock was hard and extensive and needed a few more scrapes of the shovel before the coffin would descend.
Val wanted to be buried standing up; I don’t think she wanted to be so deep, where the worms wouldn’t find her. There must be a law against it, the ‘six feet under’ rule perhaps.
Val died of ‘natural’ causes, a stroke, on February the 29th; an anniversary that can only be authentically celebrated every four years.
As people spoke, and cried, and the fiddle played (her tin whistle silent) a butterfly appeared from the garden and hovered round the group. It dipped and glided, occasionally alighting on a shoulder. Once the coffin was interred, it disappeared.
That was when Val’s friends ate fine food and chatted, and put together their stories.
“This land is my best friend,” she had said.
When she named herself after the mountain, did she envisage becoming part of it?
Val working inside her house. 1997. Photo: Terry Milligan.
As it happened, some worms were buried with her, so her mingling has already begun.
Jingallala dreaming 