......did I mention love.....?

Hahhhhhhhhh love…….the inspiration of the greatest songs known to man, the muse of the poets, the demise of warriors and the poison in power, it is what the world is full of….yet very much what it also lacks. It is both, harsh and kind, painful and beautiful, it can take you to the heights of skies beyond our knowing and then throw you to the depths of the deepest ocean and leave you to drown…….or can it?

I have a belief that there are two things in life that are the basis behind everything we do…. one is love and the other is fear…… love is the potion that takes you to the heights, makes you see the beauty, inspires, creates and flows with the tides of life……..fear is the poison that is harsh, painful, steals your thunder and leaves you broken and stuck within a cage where you wander alone…..

As with all things in nature life must be taken with both the good and the bad – fear is an instinct instilled within our DNA since the days of the cavemen, it is our means of survival, without it we would not have survived the ages, hunted, gathered and lived through stone ages and iron ages to be in the world we are in now…..it has been a root of our survival. But now in a world of security screens and high tech house alarms, laws, rules and fancy food packaging….I think our caveman instincts now run wild within us and we seek new things to fear. We fear such unreasonable things about life as a result.

Like love – so many people I have met in my life say that they fear ‘love’ and it got me thinking weather it is love that they actually fear. In relationships when pain arises every time without fail the root of the issue is not ‘love’, love is the part that see’s you holding hands, laughing together, smiling and sharing, dancing and flying free….but fear is that part that see’s you blaming, and angry, building walls and running away. Every time there is pain within love it is fear that has been the cause of anguish. So to get more to the root of the issue, it is the fear that we fear….and in the laws of the universe to fight fire with fire it only creates more fire. To counteract our fears we need to defend with the one thing that combats fear wholly and completely – with LOVE.

Don’t fear love…….Love ‘love’ – to do so makes it grow and grow and grow within your life and onwards. There is a beautiful saying I once read that says ‘love like you have never been hurt’  - too many of us focus solely on ‘relationship love’ and not enough on the zillions of other ways that there are to give and receive love in this life. The opportunities are there – EVERYWHERE!!!! You just need to take the step to be a part of it! Show love to the earth; plant vegetables and reduce your household wastage. Show love to your neighbours; pass homemade cupcakes over the fence and have neighbourhood bbq’s. Show love to your family; be affectionate and reminisce of old times that make you smile. Show love to yourself; take yourself on a sunset walk on the beach and treat yourself to a coconut once in a while…. J

A life of love is readily embraced once you realise that love is not something to be feared, your kryptonite for fear is only to love even more and the hero of the day that see’s it all ending with flashes of light, rounds of applause and happy endings is YOU and your precious loving heart, having the courage to LOVE love…..and did I mention LOVE <3 <3 <3 <3 J

The spirit of this land doesn't see colour...........

I have been receiving emails and shows of support from all over the country in regards to my article about the healing journey I was blessed to be part of at Nowanup last year. People sharing wonderful stories of their connection to Aboriginal Culture here in Australia, the unity it has brought to them to be a part of its magick and to stand in this culture as their own.

It has really made me think about the energetics of what the Nyoongar people here in the South West call ‘Boodja’…..in the Western tongue Boodja means ‘land’…but in a deeper sense to the Nyoongar people it means ‘Mother Earth’ ….. There is a sense of life in the word Boodja. Almost like the concept of ‘a house’ as appose to ‘a home’ the latter is filled with love, with meaning and has a certain element of something sacred about it. Boodja….is home. Boodja is a thing that you love that has the ability to love you back and heal you when you feel lost…..Boodja is a living thing.

With that said and with the knowledge of the stories shared and my own personal experiences, I have to question if Boodja really see’s the colour or nationality of a person when they come into this world. Be you from an Aboriginal heritage or not, if you are born on to this Boodja, and raised around its animals, and trees, you have laid under its stars and wondered, or swam in its salt waters and sighed to the horizon….are we not all family upon the earth we dwell?....connected by this living thing that lives and breathes us all……

In my education of Aboriginal culture I learned so much about European invasion that I wanted to skin myself for my colour, I hated myself for the burden of what my ancestors had done to Aboriginal people and I can see so many of my Wadjela brothers and sisters wearing that same shame and turning from Aboriginal Culture in agony because the responsibility and the deep regret of our predecessors is just too much to bare – and as a result we become ‘the lost ones’ we lose our connection to the culture of this land and as a result we turn away from our connection to the blessed Boodja we are born on and we  lose out on learning about what really matters here……The celebration of the oldest and most amazing culture in the history of life on this planet. A culture that should be loved and protected by all Australians.

I have watched a great and well respected family friend of mine pull a crowd of 200 people with just the sound of his didgeridoo. Uncle James T Webb, the leader of the Wadumbah Indigenous Dance Group and one of Australia’s great Aboriginal people that shares his culture to all with such pride. He brings in ‘the lost ones’ ….the people that had no idea what they were missing until they sat down before the magickal performance of Aboriginal dance, they learn the stories, language and culture from these amazing dancers and within the journey they find a part of themselves that may have been hidden under the shame of their ancestors…..like I once did- they fly home filled with pride to finally feel that sense of BELONGING…..as an Australian, Aboriginal culture and history is YOUR culture and history. As much as there is a dark history for us to learn from I think the most important part of healing ourselves and the land comes from the balance of accepting the dark past and looking to the bright future.

www.wadumbah.com.au

You do not need permission to celebrate the greatness of Aboriginal Culture – but when a man like James Webb comes long and unknowingly gives that permission to people by openly sharing his passion with his shows it certainly helps the lost ones to begin the journey into culture and learn to connect to Boodja again, to lift the shame of what has happened and to grant the freedom to bask in what IS happening now and to show promise of what we can behold in the future of this country! To immerse yourself in the hundreds of thousands of ways to educate yourself on Aboriginal Australia – get out there and seek…..CELEBRATE…..LOVE…..it’s our home…..our people…..our family…….our Boodja…..<3 <3

Welcome home........

To LIVE

So many times I have found myself standing on the edge of life and afraid to take the plunge......'it gets dark down there' my thoughts will say...... and I will turn and walk away from the cliff face and revert back to what is safe.....what is known. But only too soon do I find my feet itching for adventure, my soul yearning for the freedom of flight and I am back pacing the edge of life again pondering the pros and con's of what it means for me to just take a run up and fling myself into a massive leap of faith.....

One thing that finally helped to me take that leap into the unknown came in the form of an Aboriginal Elder by the name of Eugene Eades. Like in the movie 'Peter Pan' - with the magick pixie dust and happy thoughts the secret concoction for that all special 'magickal power to fly' Uncle Eugene gave me the secret weapon to dive into life without fear.....the magick pixie dust being my immense connection to Mother Earth and the 'happy thoughts' being my unshakable faith that she is always there for me. That I am loved and supported unconditionally and all the while I am following my heart even what appears wrong - can actually be so right.

Nature in itself is both harsh and gentle, cruel and kind.....as is the lives that we live, but how unaccepting as humans we have become of what is negative in life. We love the flowers, but we hate the rain that waters them......We love the summer, but we curse the heat........We welcome happiness but do anything that is humanly possible to avoid being hurt....We love what is good and shun all things bad.....Forgetting that sometimes it is the immense pain that takes us into a depth of darkness and emotional agony - that actually gives us that yearning to look up at the stars and dream of something wonderful.......sometimes it is the anger that feeds the fire that makes us take action.....sometimes it is the tears of absolute misery that make us realise it is our time to leave and move on to better things in life.....and sometimes when every breathe hurts your aching body do you find yourself laying in complete surrender, walls broken down, nothing making sense, life has fallen apart.....there in the destruction do you find the tiny seed, the one you have overlooked for so long....there in the rubble; and it gives you the power to start again.

Below is an article I wrote that was recently published in a Holistic Magazine here in Australia, my journey to Nyoongar Boodja and the complete 180 that my life took in the months after this amazing experience has me swimming through a life of such happiness. But first I had to accept life as I accept nature, both painful and wonderful, both beautiful and scary.......knowing all the while the balance of nature (and the balance of accepting all things in life) is the one thing that everybody needs to not just survive in life....but to LIVE.

http://www.livingnow.com.au/advertise/articles/23-living-with-spirit/4574-womens-business-and-mens-business-with-the-elders.html

Let the hunt begin......

It is dark……the wind tickles your skin with its cool caress and your senses prickle with the anticipation of why you are standing in this ancient place. It is quiet……you feel part of this sacred clearing in the bushland, surrounded by ghostly white gum trees and stones the colour of tigers eyes….the dirt red…..earthy……blessed.

Then you hear the drum…. “ba-boom…ba-boom….ba-boom….ba-boom”. Like the heartbeat of a dragon it curls up from the earth…. “ba-boom….ba-boom…..ba-boom” it fills your ears with wonder. The wind blows stronger now and you waver on your feet, as if to stumble but you do not move…..you look down and see from your feet have sprung roots that pierce our mothers skin…holding you steady, filling you with love as each dragon heart beat flows up through your body. Deep into the depths of her heart these roots bond you to mother earths love…… “ba-boom….ba-boom….ba-boom” ……and the wind is her breath…..

To your left you hear the slow rumbling purr of something wild and dark. Fear begins to grip you but the slow steady heartbeat growing through you from the heart of our mother gives you the strength to surrender….to trust. From the dense ancient bushland on the side of the clearing slinks a black panther. She is ‘Spirit’….your totem animal, she snarls as she confronts you……initiating you with her stare….are you brave enough to behold her? She quickens her step and begins to run towards you and your breath catches as you stand rooted to the floor……in perfect trust but pulsating with instinct to fear this wild creature……

Suddenly the earth nearby cracks and the soil begins to turn as spirit begins to run at you. You stand…..strong……let your fear not waver your resilient heart… “ba-boom….ba-boom….ba-boom” our mothers heart continues to beat for you from the depths of the ancient world below.

Spirit stops short, her next step is a breath away from the cracked earth, the turning soil and as her padded foot touches the broken skin of the fertile ground a woman springs from the dirt. She flies from the ground with fire in her eyes and lands astride the panther seeing you – seeing through you. Her wings are large and bright, the colour of blood in the sunset, her body is small and earthen, shimmering with magick, her skin is painted by the ancient ones to tell the story of how she came to be here…..here with you standing rooted to the ground of the clearing.

As Spirit slowly reaches you, she stops fast and the Earthen Faerie stands up on the shoulders of her Panther love….she stares you in the eye, a deep “hisssssssssss” escaping her lips upon her cool and ancient breath…..she is wild…….she is wary…..she is wise…..but beneath it all you feel her love for you just as you are…..a being of this world.

She shares with you visions…..

Deep within her cool stare you see her pain, you feel a knowing, a familiarity as she continues to fill your senses with her stories……she knows you……because SHE IS YOU………

“Shadow dancer….” She whispers, before looking upwards, she breaks her wild demeanour for but a second and smiles at you lovingly before raising her arms to the heavens above and flying off into the black night……

You look down, spirit still stands before you, strong and wise….and you feel protected by her….she wishes to take you….to show you the hunt, to open your heart to the dance of shadow and the clarity that it will bring you to be free of all your deepest fears….to create your own ancient story with an ending that sees you wiser….stronger……and experiencing more love than you ever thought you could behold.  You do not want to leave this place, of mothers breath and loving heartbeat, but you know that this is a place within you that will remain lit like a candle…..a beacon of hope to return to in moments of solace……your sacred place, and so you step….one foot in front of the other and follow Spirit into the dark dense bushland…….to dance with shadow…….to seek…..to find……..and to love……….let the hunt begin……….

Copyright 2012.
"The Way Of The Earth Fae"
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