Cirrus@Austlit

'I keep returning to a time and place: my eight-year-old self under the mango tree, which no longer exists in the wake of Cyclone Nigel. Although I am sure you will find its debris along with pieces of me - skin cells, hair strands - buried deep in the soil.' (Introduction)

'Late nights after work, my colleague Gini and I draft a grant proposal. Months later, I'm standing in front of a group of her English language students at the local tech college. They're giggling wary. For most of them, the drama warm-up games I get them to play remind them of childhood - was a long time ago. Before the war, before the death of their sister, or their father. They're only in their late teens and early twenties, but childhood is something that happened in a refugee camp, cut short of mixed with too-adult memories. Now, their lives are in metamorphosis, straddling worlds: not adult, nor child; not foreigner, nor Australian, not lost, nor yet quite finding their path.' (Introduction)

'An effective response to global biodiversity loss, climate change and the pollution of our air, soil and water requires cultural shifts that remain difficult to fully imagine. The reconnection of the majority of human behaviours and aspirations to the biosphere. The embrace not of the glamour of human- and and self-centricity but of justice and reciprocity across the more-than-human world. Concern for time-scales not of election cycles but of the biome-based relationships we depend on and are increasingly responsible for. A circular economy.' (Introduction)