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    Me, Chi and Harmony
    Me, Chi and Harmony
    Me, Chi and Harmony
    Ebook148 pages1 hour

    Me, Chi and Harmony

    By Ross Lamond

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    About this ebook

    This is a story of transition. A chance reading from a tarot card reader offering a beneficial life if a change is made with the next five years. A farmer and horticulturist convinced the reading was something he was searching for, and unaware of its ramifications and journey in life. Whether this journey was beneficial is unsure because the alternative to this journey could have led to something else. Unknowns remain unknowns when one travels down life’s journeys and pathways. Maybe the unknowns drive the journey and become its reward.
    The tarot card reading took place at Port Douglas in January 1998 and the reader suggested; “Have a read of a book which may interest you.” The book was on Feng Shui. That book, (‘The Western Guide to Feng Shui by Terah Collins’) stimulated an interest which changed the way a landscape gardener saw his surroundings.
    The journey became a discovery and learning curve towards an understanding of a philosophy ancient Chinese discovered many thousands of years ago. They realised life is bound within an energy they termed Qi or Chi. Chi has a relationship to another binding energy and that is Yin and Yang. These two are very empowering and just to understand something of each provides a life journey in itself.
    The compilation of ‘Me Chi and Harmony’ introduced something far more meaningful than conversion of a naive and ignorant farmer to horticulturist and Feng Shui gardener. The journey completed the conversion from one set of land use values to another set of land use values. It came through four stages. The first stage was naivety and ignorance through farming practices of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The second was a realisation his actions as a farmer were destructive to the welfare of the land. The third was doing something about it, and the forth was an awakening to spirituality with Nature and the Earth.
    There’s something very Buddhist about all of this and they would be proud that Ross Lamond as a person detached from the Buddhist faith, could find his own pathway to personal enlightenment.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRoss Lamond
    Release dateSep 10, 2013
    ISBN9780980758849
    Me, Chi and Harmony
    Author

    Ross Lamond

    Ross Lamond is the youngest member of a well-known and respected dairy farming family of the New South Wales South Coast, Australia.He schooled away from home, completing secondary studies at Sydney Grammar School, Sydney. Upon leaving school, Ross returned to the family farm and over a forty year period, gained extensive experience in dairying, beef cattle production, sugarcane, small crop cultivation and horticulture. An ever present interest in the garden naturalised into that of a nurseryman, landscape gardener and grower of in ground trees for landscape.Concern about environmental issues such as tree decline, dry land salinity and habitat degradation led Ross into external studies in Environment at Mitchell College of Advanced Education at Bathurst, followed by post graduate studies in Urban and Regional planning at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.A chance reading of a Feng Shui publication in 1998, introduced Ross to Feng Shui and its influence on our lives and surroundings. He applied some of its principles into the garden and developed his own interpretation of Feng Shui garnished through personal experience and observation. The interest has led Ross into a journey of self-discovery including that of nature, environmentalism and spirituality. It’s an ever growing interest.Ross lives by himself, has four grown up children, and likes to travel and garden and write about his experiences and observations.

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      Book preview

      Me, Chi and Harmony - Ross Lamond

      The journey towards Me, Chi and Harmony started at Port Douglas, Queensland in January 1998, and after eleven years, I’m still wondering if a palm and tarot card reader’s premonition given on that day could effectively change my life. It did and I now realise, I wanted that lady to say something to change my life.

      Ironically, at the time of the reading, the card reader handed to me a book on Feng Shui, and mentioned; "Whatever you choose to do within the next 5 years will alter the direction of your life and lead to a beneficial future’’. All her readings probably lead to ‘a beneficial future’. Anyway, naivety and a perverse sense of idealism drew me to find the mysteries which lay within the cover of that book. I hastened away holding ‘The Western Guide to Feng Shui’ by Terah Collins with some trepidation.

      At the time I was feeling venerable and dislocated. I was recently separated after twenty five years of marriage and separation from my four children, and turning to something like Feng Shui, alluring as something spiritual and futuristic, was to become in a sense, a companion in life.

      I devoured that Feng Shui publication and felt my time had come. It awakened a curiosity to the subject, and upon returning to my home at Nowra, I gathered any publication I could find on the subject, hoping to read into the words of others and whether those words guided their readers into a new world of harmony and contentment..

      I had become a student. A bewildered student lost in the maze of Feng Shui styles and applications, but they weren’t able to offer what I was looking for. I seemed to be looking for something deeper like an inner connection or spiritual salvation.

      Feeling harmonious within my surroundings to me was distant and unachievable. I had become locked within a restricted vision.

      Some Feng Shui publications suggested that thousands of years ago ancient Taoists discovered a natural energy bound all things to their surroundings. They recognised and described an energy force that oscillated between two parallels and opposites; positive and negative, supportive or suppressive, nurturing or denying, and of birth and rebirth. The energies constantly seeking a balance between each other, and when that balance occurs, they are at peace. Harmony becomes a product. I had discovered Yin and Yang.

      I’ve gone along for the ride and captured something about the continual roles of Yin and Yang upon our lives and surroundings. Realising for all our discoveries and achievements, we are still captive to these basic energies influencing life on Earth.

      Anyway, time moves on and I realised nature and natural places exhibit harmony as a signal that all is well, and all I had to do was learn to connect with them. If I could do so, I could learn the art of connectedness and gain some sort of spiritual gratification. A tall ask if there ever was one.

      Coming back to my journey after that fateful tarot card reading at Port Douglas, I realise it has been a good journey, and along the way, a sense of intense connection to nature occurs. Maybe that was my reward. A flower takes on a different expression in its beauty, fragrance and biological function. A flower becomes part of a whole, a stem, branch and single plant attached to and connected with the other plants of that place. They are compositions of life and continuance, interwoven to express the power and symmetry of Nature.

      Plant life continually plays out its game of survival and acceptance, and all caught up in a process of change. Each and every plant has its place and energy, each with its Yin and Yang, relating and competing, mixing and harmonising. Our connection to it remains aloof, but it can be intense. Maybe, it’s learning acceptance, and acceptance becomes an important part of harmony, and acceptance lies within the mind. Harmony remains as our body and mind unite in unison as we attune and accept our surroundings, rather than deny. There’s joy in acceptance without any delusion.

      Has it been worthwhile? Yes, I guess it has. It’s been a journey and had its moments. There’s no guarantee in attaining harmony or discovering it. It’s fleeting as it passes. Capturing it becomes so natural.

      Maybe harmony comes in the early morning light as the sun displaces the Yin of night and offers life. Offering life in the movement of shadows, birds and insects and shaping of life in its varied forms. Maybe harmony comes in the twilight when the Yang of day gives way to the Yin of night and Yin coming back to claim passiveness and stability and time to rest and subside. Harmony in its many forms means different things to different people and harmony doesn’t have to restrict itself to weirdo people spiritually attaching themselves to flowers and the leaves of a plant. A truck driver may find harmony driving a rig upon a highway and enjoying the countryside passively sliding by.

      Harmony surely represents different things to different people. No one has a hold over harmony. But me, I’m attached to an aspect of harmony that responds to Chi balance in our natural and manmade surroundings and they acceptable to a conditioned mind. I just happened to become attuned to nature. There’s a feeling of peacefulness and well-being on offer, and that’s made it worthwhile.

      Arrawarra, 2009

      Part A Early Days

      Beginnings

      Life as a Young Farmer

      Where do I start all this? About writing a life journey from a kid fresh out of boarding school, tossed onto the family farm and perched on a stool beside the teats of a Friesian cow to where I'm today, a preacher of harmony.

      I think my father (The Old Man) was punishing me for not doing well in the New South Wales Leaving Certificate of 1962. He didn’t say so, but his actions meant more than words, and there I was milking cows, feeding cows and with great pleasure upon Dad’s instruction, jumping into a rust laden 1956 Holden utility and going heel bent out to the family farm near Cowra in the state’s Midwest. Upon arriving, I was thrust onto the back of an old Ford F600 truck with its 18 foot wooden tray, stacking hay bales as they shot up the hay loader attached to the side of the truck.

      I had no time to think about any past or future, but the present was pretty good. Bugger the Leaving Certificate failings; I was an apprentice farmer and loving it. The Old Man would sometimes come out to Cowra, (our farm adjoined the Lachlan River just down the road from Billimari) and set us (me and another bloke) to work. Dad overseeing us, (unfortunately) became our truck driver, (again unfortunately because he drove about one hundred miles per hour) and driver at the end of the day in his car to the Gooloogong Pub (at last) where I could guzzle beer, (Tooths Old draught) and when primed,

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