So during that year and a half or so in The Wild, as parts of my life that I thought were solid shattered into pieces around me, glimpses of new things began to appear, to grow, to shine, off in the distance, perhaps lighting my way forward, directing me on my path...
Back then in those Wild days, I hadn't perhaps such a good sense of all my limits just yet, but one thing I was really starting to explore, in amongst all those injuries and tough moments, was self care and healing. And in that infamous aforementioned 6000 word group email, I wrote this list of ways to take care of yourself, sharing in case it was of any help to my friends...:
- Enough rest, relaxation and sleep!
- Going slowly, taking one step at a time
- Mindfulness and awareness
- Being present in the moment
- Being close to nature
- Eating good nutritious (fresh local organic) food
- Lemon juice in the morning
- Herbal teas
- Neti pot for sinuses with good mineral salt, like pink lake salt from Dimboola (via Mount Zero)
- Salt water gargle
- Walking barefoot, especially outside for grounding
- Dancing barefoot too - I've always loved dancing with the earth under my feet but both walking and dancing barefoot are good for you in so many ways, not just for helping sore feet like my one I broke
- Yoga sandals for supporting and stimulating feet and spreading toes
- Foot baths/baths
- Self massage
- Yoga/chi kung/feldenkrais...
- Meditation
- Walking labyrinths, stone circles
- Sacred spaces
- Music
- Dance
- Stretches and exercise - riding, swimming...
- Having a regular, efficient routine but also space for things that come up and some room for spontaneity!
- Spending time with friends and family
- Fun
- Smiling
- Laughing
- Hanging out with young folk
- Love and affection - love yourself too!
- Gardening
- Being creative
- Perspective, attitude, choices
- Reading sources of wisdom like books, oracle cards
- Counselling/kinesiology/acupuncture/massage/physiotherapy/Bowen therapy/ortho-bionomy...
- Recognising needs and finding ways to meet them
- Asking for help
- Communicating clearly/expressing
- Following your feelings, your intuition, your soul, spirit...
- Learning in lots of different ways
Some of these things I was just discovering, or realising the importance of, the need to make space for, time for; some were things that had been in my life a long time, some in small ways, now increasing. Some were things I was never very good at doing that I was now putting more effort into. Some were things I always did, or had often done, or sometimes done, or occasionally done, but never really understood the full benefit of… Some seemed obvious then, some only seem obvious now, and some don't necessarily seem obvious at all. Some are easy to do, others are harder. Some are easy to remember, some are easy to forget. Some I had forgotten and then remembered. Some I remembered, and then forgot.
Around that time, before, during, after, I was blessed to be pointed in the direction of a number of different healers. I saw a physiotherapist who was also a yoga therapist; I saw a psychologist, who prescribed me a week of Morito therapy; I had Bowen therapy, massage, acupuncture, and Chinese herbs; I went back to my kinesiologist, and I discovered ortho-bionomy - something I had never ever heard of before; and I saw an intuitive consultant - what an amazing kind of thing to be, and to see! All these healers helped me in different ways - physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically... They pointed me in new directions and helped me realise where I was, how I was really feeling, what was happening, where I was stuck; they opened up some long neglected corners of my being; and they helped me to start to see the way through, and to begin to slowly move forward.
I had long had some interest in alternative healing and perhaps even, I could say, alternative ways of being, sensing, understanding; but my scientific leanings and education kept my inner skeptic strong, and prevented me from accepting the full value of some of the more 'different' ways of knowing, learning, seeing, hearing, feeling... In Hindsight, this time was the beginning of really truly starting to let go of some of those skeptical blocks of too much thinking, and instead allowing deepening explorations and understandings of new ways of knowing continuing... And perhaps also the beginning of me coming more into alignment with the path of my soul work.
And as my interest and enthusiasm for some of the perhaps more obscure ways of knowing was growing, I shared this a little with my then partner, but found his skeptical side very strong, which didn't help my uncertain faltering first steps in those new directions, and it certainly didn't help the feelings and communication within our relationship...
So perhaps that was part of all that too...
Around that same time that I wrote that email, I attended a couple of courses with dowser, geomancer, sensitive permaculture practitioner, and 'chook lady' of Earth Garden fame, Alanna Moore, and also her sheltermaking, meaning of life architect partner Peter Cowman. These courses opened me up to new ways of looking at designing spaces for life, and new ways of sensing energies and flows.
During one of these courses I walked a labyrinth, created there out of stone, on the land where they then lived in Central Victoria. It was my first labyrinth walk, and I walked with intention. And then afterwards I sat a while in the special women's sacred area, sensed by Alanna and confirmed sacred by some traditional owners of the land.
As I sat in that place after that intentional walk, the wind rose, and these words came to me: 'Here come the winds of change again.'
And as it happened, the day before, I had bought myself a ukulele, which I named Síochána, a variant on the Irish Gaelic for peace, and my mother's surname.
And that night after the course, I stayed at a friend's place, and I couldn't stop playing a simple progression of chords I had discovered almost as soon as I held the ukulele. That night the words from the sacred place came together with those chords, and a melody, and the words kept coming, and I couldn't sleep for playing and singing, this song just coming out from inside of me... I quietly played and quietly sang, while others in the house were sleeping... Finally I slept, but I woke again early, the song calling for my attention once more. And it came together as one finished piece, start to finish, just needing a little polishing, and practice to play and sing together in rhythm. And so the song was born, and it was called Journey.
Strangely when my then partner heard it, he thought it was a song about us breaking up. In Hindsight, not surprising I suppose, as just some few months later so we would. But at the time that made no sense to me, as what the song was about to me, was me coming back to myself, more deeply, and truly, being free, open, and on a journey. In hindsight, that makes so much sense too, just that, and also both things, together. Because as it turns out, where I was wasn't fitting anymore, what I was doing wasn't working any more. Much as I wanted it to and much as it seemed that it was, in some ways, some of the challenges just weren't passable. A bigger shift had to occur...
I have always loved music, as a big part of my life; and more and more as I've gone, I've loved music that is alive, and real. I learned violin as a child, and piano, and played in orchestras at school and sang in the choir, but I don't know that I found then the true nature of music, the music naturally inside me, inside all of us. Music then felt formal, practised, even forced.
But riding my bike, for some reason, those years leading up to that time, had caused me to sing, and sing from my heart, about what I was feeling and experiencing. At first little ditties, bits of songs, phrases; about up hills and downs; about cold fingers, numb thumbs, running noses and frozen toes; about head winds on the way, and on the way back... But then a song about spotting puddles in the dark grew a little beyond that; and then a song inspired by a new moon on the horizon, as the sun painted colours across the sky, started growing into a song across generations, about times changing, long ago to long still coming, and future vision dreaming. So perhaps this was part of the beginning too...
And then a dear dear friend of mine, called Iain, suddenly passed away. And after he was gone, I still felt him in some way. I understand this more now than I did then. Despite never believing anything much about life after death, when he passed, he was somehow still there for me and I could not deny it.
And perhaps this was an important beginning as well, some years before the Wild days. A new kind of knowing unfurling, slowly growing. Even though it was also an ending.
Next year it will be 10 years since Iain has been gone, this year it is 10 since I first knew him. He was not long in my life, but he was special, and I will always remember him.
It was for him that I first finished a whole entire real song. A song about all the love for him and all the love from him, all the love all around him, even though he was gone. And a song about the man he was, a character well worth loving. I sang his song at his funeral, in front of all his loved ones. And I promised him I would keep doing that kind of thing - sharing, singing…
Before that I was always scared to sing, and mostly only sang while really quite drunk. I joined in with songs I knew at campfire singsongs and late night parties. And only very rarely, with people I felt the most comfortable with, did I share my own songs. But music from the heart must be shared, and the right people to hear it will feel it. And though it's hard to stop, there's really nothing to be scared of in that.
I took a songwriting course then - for a few years it was a tradition for me, of spring time or other time learning - one year massage, another year songwriting, permaculture, building and designing, and then more of all that, and also deeper energetic sensing... And in that songwriting course, the one thing I learnt that stood out most amongst all the rest, was that inspiration comes, of its own accord. You can search, you can ask, you can make space, you can try, but real songs just come when they do, when they will. And you must answer their calling.
And so it has been for me.
Journey came to me just like that. Iain's song too. Spotting puddles and New Moon took a little longer, perhaps as I was just still learning to listen, to hear, to feel, to let the music come, but eventually they came through too. And much later Janet's song also, about which I have already written.
And in Hindsight what a Journey it was, that was then beginning to stir…
Journey
*Note: I was intending to re-record this before uploading, but as timing goes I currently have a cold and sore throat, so it doesn't seem the best moment for doing that, but I want to keep my momentum up and post this, so this is a slightly less polished version, recorded just as my Journey was really and truly beginning...
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