A month ago Tony and I visited the site of the Magdalene Laundries at Abbotsford Convent here in Melbourne in preparation for workshop to beheld there. I have been wanting to visit the site for many years now but always doubted that I could be of any assistance - it always felt like such a huge undertaking. Would us gathering there be enough to help? Over the last year the reminders have grown, particularly with Royal Commission into Child Abuse being launched by the brave detective Peter Fox - some call him 'whistleblower' I call him the brave Fox. I knew that if I did not do something, that the rage and pain I felt for the women and children incarcerated there would only grow - maybe devour me.
When I sent out notice of this gathering, I began to have nightmarish visions and waves of fear moving through me particularly early in the morning. I received another vision to help me understand what I was feeling. I saw a young woman screaming at me and I felt her hysteria. Her hysteria, her madness, terrified me more than anything else. And I recognised it in myself, because it lives so deeply entrenched in the females in my family. We carry strong chords of madness, suicide, depression in my blood line, in our lineage. Many of the women in my family are psychic and Catholic - something that they never seemed to be able to hold together in harmony. And then in the vision I saw this frightening Lilith cowering but still hysterical as someone came towards her to help her. And she became like a small frightened dog who has been beaten too often. I saw the dog bite the hand that wanted to help it and return back to the abuser instead. The dog had lost all of it's natural animal instincts. I saw that this is what happened to the women when we had our ties to ancestral medicine and wisdom cut by religion and patriarchy. We lost our power and knowing of our own spirituality. We lost connection to our instincts and intuition. We no longer knew what was good or bad for us - we had become conditioned. To receive this message was huge for me, it has helped me to understand many of the women in my family, to understand my own poor choices of the past. In that moment, I felt the line of women in my family released and unbound from a belief that we needed to be forgiven.
Tree growing outside the Abbotsford Convent and former site of the Magdalene Laundries in Melbourne
Three nights ago I dreamt of an enormous tree. A tree like the Moreton Bay Fig at the top of this post. I took this photo 2 weeks ago while holding Swan Journey Sessions in Sydney - the place of my birth and family. In this dream I was shown that we are sleeping trees when we have not reclaimed our ancestral roots and gifts. But like a sleeping tree, when we are ready, we can blossom and grow to monumental heights. I received a vision on the morning of this dream and in it was shown that one of the most harming outcomes of religion and patriarchy on feminine mysteries was that it cut the tap root to the Ancient Mother.
When people move trees from different lands without wisdom, they often do not take care to look after the tap root - a root that travels far down into the earth way beyond the reach of the main roots. When they sever the tap root they cut a chord that draws from the deepest part of the Earth and this is vital to the health of the tree. And so when the tree is re-planted in a different environment, even when feed and watered and cared for, the tree never grows in the same way again and in many circumstances, the tree withers and dies. I understood this to mean that we are not dead, our wisdom is not so far removed from us in the modern world & that we can find our way to it again. By consciously creating an energetic tap root back to the healthy ancestors, we can awaken and leave our slumber to blossom fully in other lands and in the present time.
When I felt the gift of wisdom that came when I connected my own tap root back to the healthy ancestor, I was filled with such trust and love for my own way of being in the world again and a healing of my hiraeth, ancestral longing for the mother country of my ancestors. In that moment I felt the waves of fear and sadness I had been experiencing about returning to such a place as the Magdalene Laundries fall away. I felt the power of love to acknowledge, remember and assist the spirits of these women and children rise up. These buildings that held the incarcerated women and children are so superficial - so new in the ancient world. We are stronger than these buildings and false institutions.
I understand fears and concerns but I want you to know that these fears you feel do not belong with us in this time - they are from the past. Whether that be from a recent or distant past - they are past. Whether they are flowing from the wounds of your own blood lineage - grandmother to mother - they are past.
Tree growing in the quadrangle of the Magdelene Laundry compound which has razor wire on the high stone walls around it.
Here long before the convent and cruel Magdalene Laundries - Birrarung (Yarra River) which translates to river of mists and Wurundjeri people, part of the Kulin Nation, traditional custodians of the land and river.