Connections
Hi, it's Deb. Hoping you all had a wonderful Winter Solstice, mine was spent on the road in Henry our caravan, coming back from visiting family in Melbourne. I was so lucky to join in an amazing, powerful meditation session with [Rachael Sardelich] (https://www.rachaelsardelich.com) and in the early morning a cold swim in The Snowy River, definitely the coldest swim I have ever had, the Snowy part in the title should have given me a clue, lucky I had a hot water bottle.
The word Connection seems to be all around me at the moment, connection to the earth, connection to people and a surprise connection to my ancestors.
At the moment we are at Wallaga Lake, I am looking across the water at Gulaga Mountain.
I have always felt a connection to this magnificent Mother Mountain so I feel it is a great place to write these stories.
The first story is about the women I swim with in the mornings, The Mermaids, we gather at 8am for a walk and a swim together, as a group we have been doing this for 3 years now. The connections and care of each other have grown into true belonging, where each of us can bring our true selves and feel acceptance. We talk, laugh a lot, cry and support each other. The friendships have grown off the beach as well, where there is always a loving hand to hold and something fun to do. The introduction of Boogie Board Thursday has been a welcomed addition with so much laughing my tummy hurts.
Morag Gamble - The Permaculture Education Institute (My Permaculture teacher and mentor) held an online event in May called The festival of Wild and Kind Ideas, the name sets the tone of the festival, so fantastic, I am still unpacking a lot of the learnings. So many wonderful, inspiring speakers and lots of opportunities for discussions and connections all around the world. One of the speakers was Satish Kumar, a 90 year old with so much passion to see a peaceful world. His message was around community sufficiency, to act with love, kindness and compassion, that we all need each other. Another message was about how to be a good gardener, "it is not what you can get but what you can give. Go into your gardens with gratitude in your heart". Wow, Satish, I will be thanking and showing gratitude to my garden often, peace be with you.
The next connection story is about the origins of our Growing Together Circle. We decided to hold the circle after listening to a Podcast, Jade Miles was talking about her new book, Huddle, and the value of us gathering together. Then so many connections happened, I attended a women's circle being held at Robyn Rosenfeldt home - she is the founder and editor of PIP Magazine (My favourite magazine), Jade was also part of this Circle speaking of her experiences in 'huddles' and sharing her wisdom of why we need more of them. Mark and I then heard her speak at the Sage Garden in Moruya. She is an amazing storyteller and inspirational. I felt gratitude for her wisdom and further committed to the Wise Women's Circle and the Growing Together Circle.
The surprise connection story came about after a visit with my second cousins, who sent me on a path of exploring my lineage. I have always been curious about this but have never really asked many questions. Once started there were so many connections, the cousins had sent me to a site where someone had done a fabulous job tracing the family back to the 1800's. There were so many different lines to follow, I look forward to exploring more of these but I decided to follow my Maternal line - The Mothers. I was able to follow the Mothers from Mary Murphy in Ireland in the 1800's, she had a daughter Margaret Hand Murphy, born in 1833. Margaret came to Australia as a young woman, married and had 11 children. One of her daughters, Matilda Mitchell had a daughter, Maria Josephine Simpson, who had a daughter Lexie Bolton (My Grandmother) who had a daughter Iris Emma McWilliams who had Me, Deborah Black, I had a daughter Tara Potts, who had a daughter Eden Leitch. Ten Women. I love being able to say all of their names and imagine their lives. I will have lots of new ancestors to invite into next month's Wise Women's Circle, although I suspect that they may have been there once or twice already.
The last connection story fills my heart with such joy. My Grandson Koa (6yrs) and I were painting together. He was painting some trees, a river and some animals, he is an excellent artist and an enthusiastic learner Permie. He had drawn the trees and was starting on the water when he said "I will join the trees under the ground, that is how they talk together, that is how they help each other". Great connection Koa xx
I will finish with a quote from Brené Brown:- "If we want to find the way back to ourselves and one another, we need language and the grounded confidence to both tell our stories and be stewards of the stories that we hear. This is the framework for meaningful connection."
Sending love and kindness
Deb xx
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