Peter Sands
Peter Sands has been a valued Director of the Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust Board from its foundation in 1987.
About Me
I’m definitely a Nerd! I need to understand how things work and question dogma. I’m a doer with a restless energy but I’m sick of organising everything! I used to be optimistic about the possibility of leaving this world in a better place than I found it, now I’m a Cynical Old Grump.
But I’ve always been a Searcher! So, where did it all begin …
My birth in England was an unfortunate accident! My parents were in Singapore when the Japs invaded in February 1942. Dad was managing the local power station and became a Changi POW. Mum, with me on board, and my brother Roger were evacuated on the last ship to leave Singapore – the Empress of Japan! – and returned to England. Roger died of leukaemia, and a month later, on August 1st in Nottingham, I popped out. I first met Dad when I was 3 and often wonder how that early estrangement, and his post Changi health issues, affected my relationship with him.
We returned to Singapore, Dad resumed his job, and my brother Richard was born in 1948. Later, Dad had a heart attack and was declared medically unfit for work. Mum and Dad made a decision that caused considerable angst back “Home”: to emigrate to Tasmania, having visited early in the war! They then made a brave decision for a guy who’d just had a heart attack: to buy and manage a dairy farm in Sheffield.
As far as I am concerned, that’s where life began! We were poor but life was rich and my family loving. I learned many skills. I developed a deep connection to the land and a love for our Bush that carried forward into my adult life. I was bullied unmercifully at school as a Pommie Prick – but survived and excelled academically (which didn’t help the bullying). I got a BSc at the University of Tasmania, then moved to Canberra and did a PhD in theoretical physics. See, I said I was a nerd! I didn’t really have to study, and spent all my spare time bushwalking, skiing and rock-climbing. I had wanted to study astronomy, and I’d now say the attraction was mystical. But when it came time to enrol as a PhD student my potential professor reprimanded me for spending a summer mountaineering in New Zealand. Besides, he wasn’t interested in astrophysics, so it was not a good fit!
A few weeks after moving to Canberra I met Krista, a Finn. The attraction was instant and mutual, and 60 years later it’s a joy to wake in the morning and find we are still together!
My first job was a Lecturer in the Institute of Optics in Rochester, NY. I loved teaching and contact with students, but we did not like living in the US and returned to Canberra at the end of my contract. After three years as a PostDoc at the ANU we decided to live in Canberra and bought a house. I approached CSIRO for a job “applying mathematics to study natural systems”. The following week I was interviewed for a job that I absolutely loved! Much later, CSIRO moved me to Hobart, and we left Canberra on January 26th 1988. Working for CSIRO then began to “suck” as I was given managerial roles that took time from my science and research – which is what we were judged on!
I retired in 2005 after 32 years with CSIRO. Post retirement I supervised a PhD student, mentored a colleague and co-authored a book on tree physiology. I also developed my photographic and writing skills, did a lot of gardening, and we travelled both within Australia and back to Finland. We’ve had wonderful holidays together. One of the best was to walk the Camino Frances!
My parents were Anglicans. For Dad that was the way things were meant to be and I found him dogmatic, whereas Mum grew into her faith. I usually felt answers to my questions were more dogma. As a kid in Singapore I had a Muslim boy as a playmate, and regularly heard their “call to prayer”. This was my first experience that there are other religions. At High School our Religious Instruction teacher was once a young American who talked to us about all religions. This was fascinating, but she was moved on after a couple of weeks and dogma was restored! These two experiences made a big impression on me! Despite my struggles with Christianity, I have no regrets about my upbringing in a Christian milieu.
As a Searcher, if something was “alternative”, it was looked at, critically. Some things stuck; many discarded. Our searching eventually took us into alternative education, meditation and the “new age”. From these new things grew!
We became involved with the founding of an independent, non-government non-religious school in Canberra (the AME School). The 15 years our three kids were at AME challenged our budget but gave us a fantastic community and the kids an excellent education in a stimulating and nourishing environment. Two years as Chairman of the School Council was a fulfilling experience!
In response to an intense period of life we learnt TM and attended various residential “courses”. This was an opening into Eastern worldviews my rational mind of course struggled with. But it enjoyed that struggle! I never had the deep spiritual experiences others on our retreats claimed to have, but I did feel the benefits of the practice and still do my “TM 20 minutes AM and PM”.
In the mid 70’s we attended a workshop by the co-founders of the Findhorn community in Scotland. Their message of attunement through cooperation with nature, communion with all beings seen and unseen, and the power of community made a heap of sense to me! I took to heart Eileen’s message of listening to the voice within, but I didn’t really hear it; I devoured David Spangler’s books, although others said they were incomprehensible; and we joined a “Canberra Findhorn Group” to explore matters Findhorn and “New Age, which provided a wonderful spiritual support network.
Our connection to Findhorn led us to Circle Dance as a spiritual practice, especially when danced with “intent”. In 1993 we visited Findhorn, and over the years had several week-long Sacred Dance retreats in the community. Circle dance remains an important part of life!
Through the Canberra Findhorn Group we met Phillip Simpfendorfer and joined several “Renewing of the Dreaming” camps around Canberra and the South Coast. These gave me my first real contact with Indigenous culture and issues, and importantly the practice of “attuning” to an environment or place. I began to understand, possibly, the concept of “Connection to Country”, and certainly how my connection to our property as a child has informed a lot of my adult life. I did visit England after 45 years away and felt absolutely no connection to that country!
One evening Philip rang and said we should get in touch with a couple living up the Goobarragandra valley from Tumut. Said we’d find a connection, but left it at that. We did, and shortly after had our first weekend of many at Elm Grove Sanctuary! He was right: we felt an immediate connection with Ed and Laurel, and with the land. We were back many times, usually with our kids and friends from the Findhorn Group. Nearly 40 years on the connection is still strong, the journey on-going!
Life at EGS gelled with the philosophy I’d taken on through my searching. Strange, the amazing experiences Ed & Laurel had on their journey are utterly impossible according to my intellect, yet I accepted them pretty much unreservedly! EGS also provided a bottomless well for my seemingly unbounded physical energy: there were always things that needed doing! The retreats I attended were a challenge for both them and I, as being more a doer than a contemplative, my attempts at contemplation revealed an extensive list of things I should have been a-doing! I remain in awe at what Ed and Laurel achieved physically, let alone spiritually.
My “official” title is “Grumposaurus Rex, PhD OBE”. When expecting our first grandchild Mum asked what will we be called? She wouldn’t accept “Peter” and “Krista”: we had to be special! Our next attempt was “Old Grump” and “Dragon Woman”. To her consternation they stuck, as Grump and Dragon. A later grandson (we have 10) with a passion for dinosaurs turned me into Grumposaurus rex. The honorifics come from my PhD and an award from EGST ex-Director Sheila upon my 80th birthday that stands for “Over Bloody Eighty”.