Hello from the Barrier.

That is Great Barrier Island for folks who aren’t familiar with the outer limits of Auckland city. Our island is approx 80 k north east. Apart from a wet start to winter and strange flowering of Kanuka and one of our plum trees, life for us is still busy.

The Island is very much a “Greenies” paradise in the full sense of the word when you consider that more than 70% of the island is owned by off islanders, mainly you, through the Department of Conservation who administer this land for us.

Last September, the Island’s Awana Rural Women’s group (Rural Women) organised and hosted an event called “is there life out there?” This seminar examined the possibilities of life on other planets. Yes, we have very outspoken motivated women on this island, always willing to push the boundaries of the mind. This group managed to bring together from throughout the world speakers such as the Pope’s astronomer and director of the Vatican observatory, Brother Guy Consolmagno, and Weta Digital’s creative director Gino Acevedo and many other notable participants including a former NASA physicist now a permanent resident on Island.

As a result of the success of this event an astronomy group was formed. Then over time came the realisation on Great Barrier Island there is a relatively unpolluted environment with an unpolluted night sky. An unpolluted night sky translates to no light or atmospheric pollution, a bonus from the lack of a reticulated power system, lack of outside lights and street lighting.

Submissions to the local community board were made; this led to an application for international status as a dark sky sanctuary supported by both Auckland Council and the Auckland Astronomical Society. This in turn was forwarded to the International Dark Sky Association (based in Arizona); we’re expecting confirmation sometime in June. While we wait our newly founded astronomical society (group) meet once a month and with the assistance of visiting astronomers as a group we learn more about the night sky and gaze upwards with an ever increasing number of telescopes. For the last meeting I took my “unwilling” 13 year old grandson who when he gazed at the rings of Venus became a convert to the night sky and the wonder it beholds.

During this whole process we as Islanders were obliged to look seriously at ourselves and our life style. Years ago, if it was suggested as islanders we would need to entertain the notion that the island needed a dark sky sanctuary this individual would have been laughed at and considered literally,” off the planet”. Well now the reality has finally dawned upon us that not only have humankind managed to seriously pollute the earth but is also managing to reach literally to the stars. The problem in a “nut shell” is not only atmospheric particulate pollution but also excessive light pollution.

The real worry is as inhabitants of this earth can we actually afford to create and use light sources and systems that are so inefficient whereby the bulk of the light produced shines into the sky. However, it is even more worrying that nobody seems to care that costs incurred through waste of energy and the damage it incurs appear to be ignored by many.

As Jews, TIKKUN OLAM has developed even more significance for my family. Why?

Well, we looked and noticed more than what we normally do. As a couple we thought because we live off grid, have gardens, recycle excessively and are aware of pollution and climate change we are doing ”our bit to save the planet”. Yet TIKKUN OLAM goes further. It is repairing/balancing/transforming/perfecting the world.

Somehow, I know I am missing the goal posts by a good margin. I probably can’t make too much difference to the world on my own but I and we [the reader] can if we are willing to talk about what is happening. More importantly, recognise the problems. Did you know that here on the Barrier we can look across the Hauraki Gulf and see on a regular basis a dark pollution cloud sitting over Auckland city just 80k over the horizon. Excessive light pollution from Mount Smart stadium can also be seen when an event is taking place over and above the usual glow of the city. Then on a regular basis the flotsam and jetsam of the ocean, much of it from other countries as it is evident when you pick up a plastic bag on the beach emblazoned with a language you can’t understand, washes regularly up on our beaches. Or when heading into Auckland on a boat and are 20miles out one can smell the aroma of KFC as “deep frying” food assaults the nose. Believe it or not, our younger generation are starting to think this is the norm.

I believe it is this acceptance of this new normal that should be our greatest concern because it is creating a false sense of what is actually acceptable and more importantly right. Certainly society changes as the norms of behaviour change and so some of them should. However, when these changes incur falsehoods I believe there is a responsibility to react. For example, during the recent US Elections, Donald Trump’s statement that America is going to mine “clean coal”. To my mind this is a case in point of an oxymoron, which to my knowledge is as yet unchallenged. Yes, our children diligently recycle into the appropriate bins, the reality though is that often items which can be recycled still end up in the ground or in the oceans where plastics return to particle form and endanger all the creatures that live in all the world‘s oceans.

Back to the “night sky” the events that led to what is happening on Great Barrier Island was instigated by a a group of highly motivated women was something that grew out of all proportion because it recognised a pathway that was right and brought islanders together. This initiative developed an opportunity, and literally opened eyes to the wonders of the firmament.

I will close by quoting a pertinent prayer that can be found on page 25 of the Mishkan T’Filah.

“We cannot merely pray to you, O God, to banish war

For you have filled the world with paths of peace if only we would take them

We cannot merely pray for prejudice to cease for we might see the good in all that lies before our eyes, if only we would use them

We cannot merely pray to you to end starvation, for there is enough food for all, if only we would share it

We cannot merely pray to you “Cast out despair” for the spark of hope already waits within the human heart, for us to fan into a flame.

We must not ask of You, O God, to take the task that you have given us. We cannot shirk, we cannot flee away, avoiding obligation forever.

Therefore we pray, O God, for wisdom and will, for courage to DO and to BECOME, not only to gaze.

With helpless yearning as though we had no strength. So that our world may be safe and our lives may be blessed.