the spring, the doll and the gang gang cockatoo

 

Every 3 weeks we travel to the purest spring we have ever known, the well spring at the top of Mount Donna Buang in Warburton, Vic.  We went yesterday to draw water for our ceremony on Friday night and for new essence creation. Often when I visit I will leave a spirit doll to thank the spring but to also thank the other visitors to this sacred place - the water freaks/ enthusiasts! Every time we visit we meet another water lover and this time it was a man in his 60s who was riding a motorbike across Australia. As soon as he tasted the spring he began to fill every container he had with him for his travels. He told me he'd never tasted anything as good.

The doll I gave to the Spring and her friends was Healing Spirit, a medicine doll that I'd finished on the weekend after attending the Wurundjeri Welcome to Country ceremony. The doll was with me as I'd passed through the welcome smoke and I was fascinated to hear in the ceremony that along with the gift of Fire to welcome visitors to their lands, the Wurundjeri also gave visitors water. I have no doubt this spring has been known and held sacred to the Wurundjeri for a long long time. 

I placed the doll under a small fern just behind the spring and prepared to leave when a family of Gang Gang Cockatoos began to call and one ancient grandfather landed and sat in the small fern above the spirit doll. I had never seen this type of Cockatoo at the spring before and he sang and spoke to us before flying down to the spring itself and drinking from it.  When I gift dolls at the spring I leave a little note to let people know that this doll is a gift for visiting this sacred place. And here is the beautiful family that found her! The family of local artist Lucy Pierce and her babies. I was thrilled. Lucy is a dear sister and her sculpture was a beautiful element of our ceremony held last year for the women and babies of the Magdalene Laundries at Abbotsford Convent. It felt very right that this doll would come to live with Lucy and her family.  

In these changing times there is so much being released but there are so many gifts to be received. I think we are all finally learning to appreciate simplicity again and receiving pleasure from small treasures made with care. And we can all play a magical part in this weaving with the universe. What small treasure can you gift to someone this week? I love to hear these stories of how a mysterious gift can be just what is needed to really lift someone's  spirit.  The morning after finding the doll, Lucy contacted me - there were Gang Gangs singing in her backyard.

Oceans of love to you all for your New Moon blessings. If you are joining us on Friday night please bring along a special cup or glass to share in the watery goodness of this ancient spring - water is life! 


Let it Go, Let it Flow - journey and meditation circle to farewell the year of the Water Snake.  

Gang Gang Grandfather blessing Healing Spirit with his song

Lucy and her family after finding the doll by the spring

Farewell to the Water Snake

Hey Rainbow Weavers, we are gathering to farewell that wild beauty the Water Snake and thank her for all of the much needed change that she midwifed us through in 2013. Smudging and release ceremony as we meet the birth of the Wooden Horse.

Come and Be. You are Welcome. You are Free.

Birth of the Water Serpent

A young Suhaila Salimpour girl

Tonight we welcome the Year of the Black Water Snake in Chinese Astrology and also celebrate a New Moon in Aquarius. Water Bearers and Water Serpents - messages from the Stars and the deep Earth Dwellers carried through the intuitive and healing element of Water. I always feel as if the true New Year starts on this day with much of the last month taken up in tying up loose ends from the 2012 and making plans for changes in 2013.

The prophecies for this Black Water Snake year are that we will experience more turmoil with the crumbling of old structures and outdated ways of thinking and the gift of the Snake will be to find new ways to create abundance.  I believe we must learn to shed our old skin like the snake and also to be inspired by its fluid and graceful serpentine movement. When we develop grace and presence in our bodies we can begin to feel and understand the subtle vibrations of the shifting body of our Great Mother, Gaia - the Earth.

We began to feel the call of the forest last year after receiving shamanic dreams telling us that we would be moving to Sherbrooke Forest. Recently we made the move from Williamstown an inner city suburb of Melbourne and indeed found a house in a deep green dell in Sherbrooke. Even though we had been given so many messages and signs to move it was still a time of upheaval, massive change, release, and a bit of a leap into the unknown. But a leap that felt so very natural at the same time. We simply had to trust. And we are so glad that we did, the deep presence of the giant Mountain Ash trees that surround our home are already helping us to anchor our shamanic work more easily and in the ceremonies and sessions that we have held over the Dark Moon of the last few days we have seen such profound and quick shifts in our clients.  The word I kept hearing over and over when we first stepped onto this land was 'immense' - boundless, beyond the measurements of man. We had to bring our work into the Deep.

And so, if I can give any advice in these changing times, it would be to encourage you to keep an open heart and strong boundaries, trust in your intuition and pay attention to your dreams.  Whenever you can, find time to sit quietly in nature. I believe that 2013 will be a year of change and upheaval but also a deepening of our ability to grasp the mysteries of our bodies and our earth. 2013 has also been called the Year of the Witch and I believe this is because we are finally waking to the true and natural essence of this deeply feminine magic. The rise of the Divine Feminine is bringing a much needed balance to our world. This does not have to be a confusing or difficult time if we can keep letting go of the past, take responsibility for our actions in the present and dream with fearless love a new future.

The beautiful totem of Snake is so very potent and alive in Australia and embracing the Serpentine energy of the Divine Feminine to be received by the noble integrity of the Divine Masculine is an integral part of many of the new sessions and ceremonies we will be holding here in the forest. We will be announcing these new offerings over the next few days as the New Moon ripens. Love your way for your New Moon dreaming with Water Snake tonight.

Eve  by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

Platypus Dreaming at Olinda Falls

Well we have almost finished packing and our new home in Sherbrooke Forest calls to us daily, nightly...in our dreams. We have received messages and signs from the King Parrot and Magpie about wisdom to learn and share from that magical green world. A day ago we journeyed up to Olinda Falls and sat with the spirits of the land. We sat and meditated by the waterfall and I felt such a strong urge to thank. As I was thanking the water, the rocks, the trees, the aboriginal ancestors of this majestic land, I was taken to a cave in the mountain. Tony was greeted by the breath of Mother Earth, a swirling circle of energy that whispered: welcome.

We will be opening our doors on Saturday 9th February on the eve of the New Moon and Year of the Snake with new offerings of ceremony and sessions that we have received over our 'hermiting'. Last year I received the clear message that all we truly need is our body and the land. We look forward to holding sacred space for you to experience the majesty of Mother Mountain.

Can you see the giant platypus in the stone by the waterfall?

Whenever I come to this forest I can feel the spirit of the 'megafauna' the ancient and huge animals that used to live here. I just read that caves often act as 'time capsules' preserving fossil remains of ancient life. To the left of the platypus is the small cave I was being directed to in my meditation.