What I learnt from Lutruwita (Tasmania)

Tasmanian, a land of water, mountains and ancient rainforests… A land that will take you in and change you forever. Lutruwita is the Indigenous (true) name for this land. They were some of the most impacted people’s in the European invasion. Those who were not massacred, were deported to Kangaroo Island, displaced, disposessed, dispersed. They hung onto what language and culture they could, and today they are reviving the language of all 9 language groups to create one common language they call Palawa Kani ~ the language of Tasmania Aboriginals.

So, I arrived by boat, the Spirit of Tasmania. I had first come over to this land when I was a baby, it was almost as if a seed was planted, that would have me return… many times. I had being over twice since then, and each time left with a yearning to return. So here I was, my four wheel drive packed with the bare basics of camping, just enough food rations for the month and my hiking gear, with all of my winter gear of course!

From the moment I got onto this ship, everything synchronised, and I was suddenly on a deep spiritual quest. What I thought was a dream come true, of travelling (with my car) to Tasmania, was actually an entering into the dream.

Like all good spiritual quests, I was welcomed with a smoking ceremony in community with culture, dance and song. I was welcomed in, cleansed and given permission.

I started with a deep dive into self, leading up to the illumination of the full moon I was menstrating. Giving my blood to the Earth (literally), turning inward into deep feeling. With this deep dive into self, I also got to put my roots down into the land… I was in a foreign land, but still, Australia, I was home.

In the welcoming ceremony I was reminded of my own ancestors. I let them in too, into me, and I was reminded of my responsibility to my family, to my mother, and to the land that I grew up on, Kamilaroy country in north west New South Whales. I was a long way from my homelands, but you know what happened… a heat wave swept through in the time I was connecting with my homelands, the winds had come from there. Hot and dry, just how I like it.

Over the days the winds got so strong, that I actually needed to retreat. My tent was breaking, and it was only the first week! I called a friend, “I’m coming early, the winds are too strong”. I was welcomed in, with a cosy cabin to call my home for 2 weeks. It was in the south, near Cygnet. Every where you drive round here there are big bodies of water.

I would say, my first big learning came from the strong winds. It taught me to respect the spirit of the land, and I knew stronger than ever, the wind always carries messages. The problem is though, that I still can’t hear them. I can feel where they come from, but that is something I am still to have granted. This access to knowledge, to messages on the winds.

Cygnet ~ A place of water

My second learning came from the water. With so much water, it was beginning to enter into my dreams. There was one night in particular, my whole dreaming was of the bodies of water around Tasmania. Each time I woke that night, I woke with an image of a beautiful Tasmanian landscape. I was falling deeply in love with this place. What my dreams were telling me, was I came here to ignite my creativity. That creativity was the vitality of life, and the water is what connects me to my creativity.

For ten days I was writing, dancing, singing and recommitting to my path of service. Something seemed to unravel and unfurl in this allowance of creative expression… I was connecting more to universal knowledge. From my four years of listening to the elders, all the dots seemed to connect, and I finally realised what they had being telling me all this time. So I took up the invitation to be a part of it. I committed myself to the New Way Dreaming, to the truth telling and the healing. I chose to step into advocacy, with the arts as my medium.

The Deep South

My next learning was a little like an opening of a deep wound. As one who feels the Earth… I sure had a lot to feel on these lands. As I ventured to the Deep South I was becoming painfully aware of how exploited this country is. Of how much more people get away with, as if it flies under the radar. Logging and mining and the exploitation of marine life, was now in my face, and I could not turn away from it… as I discovered, no matter where I travelled on this island, I could not escape it. It was not until the end of my trip that I could bring myself to write about this. And of course, when creativity has its way… you never know where things will go. But this is what I wrote:

Compassion will save us

“I sit between a sacred land and a big cargo ship, docked, puffing out black soot.

I know, whenever I feel something really strong and magical moving across the landscape, that it is a sacred site. For years now I have known this. For years now I have being shocked, with the gut wrenching realisation that where ever there is sacred land, there is mining, logging, farming or some other form of extraction and ecological degradation…”

The rest of this journal is in my story, “Compassion will save us”.

So, back to the Deep South, I hiked to the end of Tasmania, as close as I would ever come to Antarctica. It was here that I realised, after 2 weeks of being in Tasmania, I was acclimatising. You see, Tasmania in the summer, is like New South Whales in the winter. So once you accept this is the norm and you can’t escape it… you eventually surrender to it. And that, I finally did when I was in Tasmania’s coldest climates, the southern tip and the southern mountains. I was now used to 17 degree maximums and freezing water. When I arrived, I could not even comprehend swimming in Antarctic waters when the air temperature was below 27… but now, my body was not so shocked by these cold waters, and a 15 degree day was quite a reasonable swimming day! So I guess, in all of this, I was in awe of the capability and adaption of the human body, provided the mind can get out of the way and surrender to a new norm.

The Mountains

Eventually I left home base for the pilgramige back to the ship! As I got to the midlands of Tasmania I entered into some more confronting sights. Lands grazed to bare Earth, race horses pulled around a dirt race track in terror by an oversized and over powered ute, treeless plains and then logged forests… again, all sights I could not escape. When I saw the fear in those horses eyes, all I could do was hold my heart and do my best not to let hate in.

As I entered into isolated places I began to feel incredibly lonely. I did not want to face anything, and the further I drove into these mountains, the deeper I dove into my own darkness and despair. I never saw it coming. I had kind of convinced myself that I was coming to untouched wild, healthy lands, where I could run and play and maybe even experience a holiday!

Now in these places I was confronted by a new form of man made manipulation… and now it was all in the water. Dam, upon dam, upon dam and strangely, I began to feel this way myself. I felt all of my emotion was being damed, shut off, intensifying the darker emotions.

Here I hiked the Overland track for 2 days. It was not my pack that felt heavy here though… it was my heart. I fell into deep grieving and yearning for my lover who had left me 6 months prior. Somehow my thoughts ran me strait into despair, damed like the water, I felt like I could not move on. There was a moment, where I was so deep in this despair I felt I could never get out, my life felt lifeless.

It is amazing how much the land will hold you in these times, even when you are so in your head you can’t even feel the land beneath your feet. And hold me she did. For two days I was with lake St Clair (Leeawulena), and I say with, because I knew that she was pulling me down into these unmet feelings within me. This became clear when I drove out of the place of lakes and higher into the mountains. I was literally ascending from the depths. I became so awe stuck by the magnitude and power of these mountains, that all of those damed emotions fell away and by the time I reached the Tarkine… I was free.

Takayna

They say takayna (the Tarkine) is an ancient place for healing. When I was walking bare foot with the sun shining in the depths of this forest, I could feel that! I could feel my pain being transmuted, and I was ready to walk back into life! I was in awe of the beauty of all of this green and the big ancient trees. I could see just how much these tree’s fed life. Those standing grew moss and fungi and those that had fallen all of those years ago where now a part of the Earth. Everything was so full of life here… and that was exactly how I felt!

My feel good fairy tale of ancient forests still alive came to a crashing reality. Logging… logging trucks rushing by, whole areas slayed to the ground, and it was not long, until I was on the edge of the last remaining tree before bare farm lands and mono tree plantations. My heart sank, for I realised just how little of this ancient forest is left, the threat of its collapse and extinction is real… with this, my fire rises, but so too do my waters. Soft tears, as soft as the moss, roll down my cheeks as I head to the west coast. They say it is the Wild West, but the only wild left is the roaring winds… the land now decimated. Four wheel drives in the sand, blazing through 60, 000 year old mittens, houses built on the most sacred of lands… now only the rocks can tell me of the power that the land beholds.

The Cleanse

When I hike, I fast. I do this, so that I can really journey into the land. This was part of the reason I went to the depths of darkness on my 2 day hike in the mountains. But it was also why I felt so full of life in the forest. Now on the west coast I was bringing food abundance back into my life and on the last day on the west… coffee!

With this the fire entered my body, and then there was no stopping me! With the fierce winds feeding my flames and the immense suffering of these lands I was on fire. My creativity was flowing and my mind was now focused on the work. Focused on being an advocate for truth, for the Earth, for the rightful custodians of these lands. It is all I can write for, and in the darkest of despair, it is all I live for. I know that my life means something, not by virtue of being born, but because I am here to serve life… and that I will!

Being humbled by the ancient rocks and the strong ceremonial lands of the west Takine coast line I learnt a deep respect for sacred land. I learnt that if I am to ask the question of, what is your spiritual significance…. Never to expect or conjure up a response… for that knowledge is so sacred, that it can only be truely found when one is ready…. And for most of us… that is never. It was only for those who had decades of initiations, it was not given, it was hidden until you could hold that knowledge and keep it safe.

On my last night in Tasmania, I lay awake, looking at the stars, communing with the flowing river beside me. My body did not drift to sleep until the early hours of the morning. I felt my ancestors fill my chest with love and solidarity, I felt delight in the cool air on my skin and the warm soft swag that encapsulated me like a mother’s womb. I know now, I did not come here to follow my desires… I came here because I was called. And just like the desert keeps calling me back every winter… I know now, this place will call me back every summer. A new offering is in gestation, for I feel I have now proven to myself, the depths of healing that arises when we fast and hike deep into ancient forests… and perhaps, in time, enough of the people will love this land as much as I. Then, maybe, together, we can be willing to protect sacred land and give the Earth the reverence she deserves.

So I leave Tasmania today, humbled, shocked, healed and hopeful. I know that ignorance and immaturity can be turned by grace and compassion. I know that as woman who feels the Earth, I must find it in myself to have a voice, to speak out openly about the destruction of our sacred lands and to stand unwavering in service to the healing and protection of the land through the people…