A collection of writings from the participants of the Spiritual Ecology Leadership Program 2019
Athena Blackthorn Custodians What do they say? Thank you. You breathe for the words of her branches Women’s Dance for her stories. Rock cracks under her force. Country. Clouds travel to bear witness To what is becoming Your knowledge is the topsoil. The paint Black, rich, life sustaining on your body Birthing hope. Ochre from the cheeks Nutrients. of Earth The roots of your babies say Sink in We are here Stretch deeper We have always Grow thick been here With the dreaming And we are not With your song. going away Your knowing Bunjil soars above the heads is mine of all of us The ultimate answer He sees your light Rain touches red dust and your darkness the way you speak Like always to the hearts He sees your light of forgetters – and your darkness They remember. Like always Each droplet he sees. A story of connection What does the poison love Look like from his Feet travel over the body eyes? you know. Dense haze Bare Black puddles and breathing Sitting stagnant Insects hum atop sacred plains in conversation He must see your work with the trees You carefully tend Protectors to the waters Breathe life into dying places Charlotte Cameron kiss the face of stones ancestors knew. Pentecost The mist welcomes the dawn The fire melts it Reflection. To keep us warm. This poem was created to be read on You make us all strong Pentecost Sunday at Westgate Baptist A kind of strength Community Church, Yarraville. The inspiration for the poem was a story only translated by from the book of Acts (after Jesus’ this land death). In the story, people from all Women’s business over the land are gathered for a Calling us in for help Jewish harvest festival. Many ethnic Mothers contracting below groups and languages are present. While they are feasting, the Spirit Silver leaves rushes in in the form of 'a violent Fathers waiting wind' and 'tongues of fire’. Suddenly, New seeds are planted all are filled with the Spirit and able to For each new day communicate with each other (Acts 2: We are planting. 1-13). There are a few references to this story in the poem, as well as a few other bits of the Bible, but I’ve footnoted them so I hope they make sense.
how to say what my heart desires to say what God desires to say? I don’t know. the story tells of mighty wind and tongues of fire and spirit’s song the language is foreign, the elements fierce
but can I tell you of the breeze that lifted the hair on my cheek just the other day. it wandered by at a distance the birds perform at dusk you almost thought it would and as they twist and bank and miss me soar and then the most delicious words flow I was touched with them: and I think that’s what they call precision. a miracle. synchronicity. but can I tell you joy. of the blanket of stars under which I knelt and you get to wondering how many moons past on earth at a time when I carried a dam did maths get up there? of tears ready to burst and an ache down to my toes and how come that I dared not give air it looks an awful lot like faith? and there hidden deep in the majesty of the sky but can I tell you a voice was heard that my favourite types of trees : are the ones that turn their faces to greet the morning sun look at me whose leaves applaud to let us look at this know a mighty wind is coming. what part of you is too dark too bad too small but can I tell you or too sad that in a moment of despair to step out from under this? I ran my fingers through some this most ancient of lovesongs. moss and the rising musty scent (it was rich) but can I tell you quietly asked, that even in the suburbs did Solomon in all his glory I bring it all to the lake smell quite as good whose wisdom winds back as me?1 to when once it was a hill and I whisper what rules me? but can I tell you if it’s the birds, the trees, the that I saw the resurrection! wind I felt it underfoot let them rule in bushland to the west let me extend from them, as a a graveyard of bracken and servant branch leaves did not a man once say lay decomposing below branches and vines and before I could begin to were the way?2 marvel that this was my foundation tendrils of life snaked but can I tell you up that the human salivates over up the box up the box, the tribe, the from the demarcation line rich, dark soil and is this not a familiar title for and I knew it in my nose our wandering Spirit: and I knew it in my toes life and death greet each other Order-Maker. as old friends. Chaos control. but can I tell you but can I tell you that at times I see no order a fog descends in the loveliness of the storm, and the thing that holds me in nor in the shoot emerging from its grip blackened trunk, is tired and uninspired nor in the scattering of the four greedy winds. and mean I see no order and so when I remember in the story today
1 Matthew 6: 25-34 2 John 15: 1-17 but still love makes a way but can I tell you but of course I believe the fire raged with love makes a way. freedom. and I believe the wind brought with it release. but can I tell you they paved the path that until not too long ago and urged I knew a little doggo, named take the long road. Scraggy. granted it’s rough it was a decade-long granted it’s radical companionship but please and he was, as are all God’s remember beloveds: this is the road lovely along which the wildflowers wild grow and at times this is the road as dumb as a doorknob along which seeds of peace but did you know have been planted that he was a window into me and groaning in one great act 4 and a window into You. have birthed trees you see he gave love generously whose shade gives us rest.5 and he trusted with much faith and he learned with all the senses but can I tell you and I looked that the first time but I couldn’t find hate I let myself listen to creation do you think if he’d been the same spirit shooed away from Jesus within and without the amendment would’ve been rumbled under the ocean floor made: of my soul let the little creatures* come to and grief tsunamied up me and I tasted it let the little creatures stay?3 with its coppery tang and it was grief
3 Matthew 19: 13-15 5 Adapted from a phrase in the song 4 Romans 8: 22 All is Not Lost by The Brilliance for the people who had come let this bond bring you near first there is much to be learnt and the people who are now and it starts right here. taken first it was grief it was digging my hands into but can I tell you the grass grief the spirit fills the gaps it was leaking hot salty right here sorrowful tears grief right now for I’d opened the door a crack and in Acts and like smoke from a burnt just as rain seeps down offering and deep the wails and howls permeated to the roots into my clothes so the spirit my hair finds the crevice my skin and makes all things new it was the sound of children every creed admires the sunset children of the Great Mother enjoys the miracle of food the descendants of the stars have you seen the woman with who knew peace in ways we the scarf will never know she bows to the earth with love who know God in ways we will I think we could try that too. never know and if you follow the wind and the flame and the song I have not much more to say the path will lead you past but please listen Djab Wurrung6 this day and all days and you’ll hear the wails and to the creation howls afresh that sustains and you’ll know the story isn’t if we believe the Christ over yet is born in every place but let the grief lead you on where spirit and matter mate,
6 A reference to the sacred Aboriginal birthing trees themselves are 800 years birthing trees threatened by highway old. For more information: construction in central Victoria at the https://dwembassy.com/ moment. Over 50 generations have been born on these sites and the then it is here, it is now, and it is there, and it is wow so let me leave you with a hymn from a prophet of our times Leunig sees awe breeds wonder and wonder precedes care, he says:
Care is the cure. It is slow, It is raw, It is pure.
It is simple and bare It is real. It is bold. It is there.
Nothing is newer Or older, Or wiser Or truer. Care is the cure.7
7 Michael Leunig, The Age, September 2 2017 Hannah Beggs Like a stolen generation Another species extinct Grief ritual. Another family fleeing Another tree chopped down I didn’t have words for my grief Another temperature rising Only deep body shaking sobs Another hope dying Eyes clenched so tight that I I don’t have the words for my saw kaleidoscopic patterns grief blurred but bright But as I went to the core of it Yellow orange red grey As I dropped fully in Melting into the bowl of tears in I felt it the centre of the circle And you felt it with me Offering an acacia seed Brothers and sisters Tiny hard black You heard me But infinite in its potential Held me I didn’t have words for my grief As I crumbled Only an earth sized hole in my And burnt it all with a wildfire chest of rage A pit as open as a coal mine I washed it with a monsoon My dammed-up waters that no season longer dance or spiral And shook it up with an For plastic on mountain tops or earthquake holding up an entire village of And as my passion of this cast aside humans enoughness moved through me, Bare yellowed padlocks of it left a spaciousness over-trodden land That seeped blues and pinks and Walked by, raped, numbered, silvers into my vision branded, creatures daily And I felt Gaia’s whispers plugged into metal machines Honey I know and sucked of their life energy I’ve got you And Your life has meaning I didn’t have words for this So I swallowed the acacia seed grief to remind me But it feels like all the lonely And slowly like a baby phoenix cold hard hearts surrounded by embers like systems that have bred I began to rise separation and restrict growth Stronger and more powerful mirroring than ever and Roots entwined with the Centre drawing out Ready to mend, piece by piece my own Ready to build a new world wild Slowly ways Patiently Together
Student of the earth. student of the earth burnt by a fire tumbled by a wave stopped by a storm danced by a rainbow lifted by the wind I love feeling small amidst the tremendous power of nature she puts me in a space of pure awe and wonder. unpredictable unstoppable untamed
Lauren Müller She rises, and falls from above.
What are we? A reflection. The river rumbles and jumps, She dances and tumbles, As a person, it’s easy to forget She snakes and swirls, who I am, She meanders and waits Forget what it is to be human, patiently. Forget that we are free-flowing, life-giving parts, She’s worshipped in folklore by Of a greater confluence of some, hands and hearts. “The sweet slot between the thighs of the earth”, A river runs her ever-changing “The Gran Darma” who lays course, with the soil, Across thirsty country; ready to And like the erotic woman, receive, Is feared by particular others. Her free flowing, life giving tributaries, The rivers infinite Spreading living veins around interconnections, the land. Transcends all intersections of this earth, What we don’t know, is that the But I wonder if the river ever river is everywhere, forgets who she is? She is in the stems of the reeds, Forgets what it’s like to be a She is in the veins of the ferns, river? And in the trunk of the eucalyptus. The river flows into the belly of the myriad creatures, Who bound, flap and hop, Who dive, slither and crawl Their way to her body.
The river wets the rock of the earth, She runs, always under our feet, She moistens the air we breathe, Johann Kettle I can’t escape the idea that I am I have been thinking all day made out of this place. It is a about the moon and why it is very indigenous idea that the that I hold so much devotion to earth is mother. In Te Ao Maori her? On the new moon I am we call the papatuanuku and we given space to renew and on the tangata whenua - people of the full to feel into the collective land. I think it is quite clear that consciousness. colonial consciousness has separated us from the earth - our When I feel about the moon, I mother. Just think of how think about her birth from the devastated the scientific sea. If the moon was formed by community was when Jane a tearing away of a part of the Goodall observed chimps had outer crust of earth, which methods of creating and science and myth both speculate utilising tools. At this time the - it must have remained very ivory tower had defined human close to its parent. Its recession superiority on the basis of tool from earth, has over billion of making. But what I have to years allowed life to evolve. gather here is that the The moon is just as alive as us. devastation was less to do with She is constantly letting go of chimpanzee human-like her mother - which shifts, alters intelligence and much more to and defines both parent and do with them hating women. child. They are bound by forces There has existed a desire for we cannot see but can certainly the dominance over the divine feel. Sometimes I am not sure if feminine. The hatred of femmes I will ever be able to give and women…the violence enough grace and devotion to feminine people endure is born my mother. The kind I wish her from the same destructive force to feel every morning when she that degrades the planet. And wakes. I think about the weight this is why as long as there are of time, the weightlessness in masculine systems of the womb, and the weight of governance there is no hope. - becoming mother. It has me and we are all looking for hope. lying awake at night pregnant To me intersectionality is much with both grief and love. less about identity and far more about seeing the connections destruction your own species between very real systems of has induced. (subtle ceiling) oppression and envisioning how we can dismantle them for I am not looking for one truth generations that follow us… because there are so, so, so long after we visit here. many. And I think dogma is one of the most dangerous I resonate with Anonhi when manifestations of the ego. I am she says I am actually a witch, I engaged with contradictions and actually debaptized myself. In polarities and dissolving my christianity I am very binaries to make sense of this unchristian. In my living I am world. I am looking for essence. very occupied by death and For stillness. For connection. dying. Maybe this is because I When I read about ecology I am a Capricorn - I talked with feel as though I am reading other Capricorn friends about about myself. When I hear that our complete fascination with forests are superorganisms that death and more than death - support each other through root endings. Our ruling planet after and fungi connective systems - I all is Saturn - the time keeper of have hope. While I watch my the universe. kimchi ferment - I witness the promise of life after death. I read in a zine that it is a privilege to say the world is There are layers and layers and ending. Because for many layers of pain in this world but oppressed and colonised, their there too are layers and layers worlds have been ending for of magic. thousands of years. Only now can the privileged start to I am learning how to hold the recognise the terrorism and polarities in my garden. inherent violence responsible for making the only world you These are all very broad know inhospitable. The psychic statements with holes and gaps. violence of being forced to At least now I don’t fear my contemplate our own species’ ignorance but embrace - full demise, surrounded by the bodied, spirited learning. H afeez Ali Humility.
Handwritten calligraphy from our Holy Quran; Surah Al - An’am (Verses 1-3), Surah Al Hashyr (21-24) and Surah Al Mukminun (115-118).
When I was younger, my father would read these verses aloud during Fair & Magrib. Waking up every morning for Fair without fail highlighted his self-discipline- a trait I still desire to perfect and constantly work on. It always started with standing strong, upright and confident, and ended in prostrations and doa’s on our knees… in my opinion, bowing for our Creator only signified his humility. Pursuing calligraphy art has always been an inside passion for me. Infusing with drawings of relevance helps me remember certain events through images. This image of a Samurai Warrior reminds me of my father, inspired by his self-discipline and humility. I know it’s hard to admit, but sometimes our parents have a way of teaching us lessons in more ways than one. I’ll remember this lesson; be humble- know your Creator.
Deep thanks to all those who contributed their wisdom and art to this booklet and to the program as a whole.
Within all these different voices is one voice and one story, the story of the Earth that needs our attention and prayers, that needs our love and support, as much as it has always given us the love and support we need. May we remember our role as guardians of the Earth, custodians of its sacred ways, and return once again to live in harmony with its natural rhythms and laws.
- Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
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Compiled by Charlotte Cameron.