The Australian Friend June 2017

The Australian

ISSUE 0617 JUNE 2017 ISSN 1326-0936

The Australian Friend is a web journal published on line at: AustralianFriend.org. This printable version does not include the full range of content available at AustralianFriend.org Visit AustralianFriend.org to: • Comment and read comments about articles in this issue • Browse or search back issues from 2011.

Spiritual journeys

Journal of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Editorial ur theme for this issue is Spiritual Journeys. It is clear that Quakers find food for their spiritual journey from many sources: from nature; from literature, art and architecture; from personal encounters; from Quaker worship, writings and tradition; from the Christian tradition and from the insights of other faiths. Our Advices and Queries asks, ‘Are youO open to new light, from whatever source it may come?’ The contributors to this issue show that openness. Many writers tell us of physical journeys, and the insights which come from seeing new places and mixing with different people. But the spiritual journey may take place even in the dementia ward or the prison cell. Sometimes the journey leads to new understandings, sometimes it brings us back to old wisdom. We are conscious of the fact that most of the articles in this issue are written by women. We need our men to share their spiritual journeys too! In our next issue we will be looking at issues arising at our Yearly Meeting. But if the Yearly Meeting is a success it will be because the Truth has been prospering in our Regional and Local Meetings. We look forward to receiving articles both from those who can attend the gathering, and those who could not. The Australian Friend has been made aware that some Friends with poor eyesight would like a spoken version of the Friend. We would like to hear of anyone who could benefit from a copy, and from anyone who has relevant skills to produce such a copy.

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND EDITORIAL TEAM

FRIENDSNoted WORLD COMMITTEE … FOR fellowship, reflection and conversation, The site was ready and launched in CONSULTATION – ASIA WEST PACIFIC guided by Virginia March and we have publicised the new SECTION INC. MEETING FOR WORSHIP • Please feel free to farewell and leave the address to Friends and others in Australia ONLINE meeting room when you need. and overseas. ANOTHER ONLINE MEETING FOR WORSHIP Dear Friends of Asia West-Pacific The menu at the top of the new website Section, An online Meeting for Worship is has a link Australia YM site that will go Our first Meeting for Worship online being organised at 5pm Eastern Australian to our existing information website www. was held on Thursday 27 April at 5pm Standard Time on the third Sunday of each quakersaustralia.info where Friends will Australian Eastern Standard Time. This month. F/friends, particularly isolated ones, find all the information they have been used meeting will be hosted by our Friend are warmly invited to join us for a half hour to. (Friends might want to bookmark this Virginia Jealous. Meeting for Worship online Meeting for Worship followed by online takes place on the second and fourth a time of fellowship. It is possible to join new location so they can go directly to it in Thursday of each month. If you would like the Meeting for Worship using either a the future.) to join us please email Michael Searle at computer connected to the internet or a The IT Committee has now started a [email protected]. Michael will normal telephone. For full details see http:// complete redesign of the AYM information send information about downloading and newsouthwales.quakers.org.au/online- site at www.quakersaustralia.info. It will using Zoom for our online meeting, and a meeting-for-worship/ eventually contain user friendly, fresh- THE NEW AUSTRALIA YEARLY MEETING link to the meeting room. looking, updated information as well as GUIDELINES FOR MFW ONLINE WEBSITE! WWW.QUAKERSAUSTRALIA. additional material for Friends about ORG.AU • Virginia will welcome each of us as we learning resources, meeting life and arrive Since Yearly Meeting 2016 the IT Australian Quaker perspectives. • As we go into silence, let us turn off our Committee’s main undertaking has been the At YM17 in Adelaide, the Information microphones and speakers design of a new AYM website for inquirers. Technology Committee will present a Show • Written and spoken ministry is On 1 March the web address Australian and Tell session ‘The new Australian Quaker welcome, as Spirit moves us. Please Friends have been using for the last few websites’, which will focus on the new remember to turn your microphone on and years, www.quakers.org.au, was changed to off before and after spoken ministry! https://www.quakersaustralia.org.au a new Inquirers site and plans for the next phase, • Virginia will close the meeting 30 website designed specifically for inquirers the redesign of the current information minutes after its start time and others who are looking for information website. Everyone is invited to come along • The meeting room will stay open for about Quakerism - and specifically and share their ideas for this redesign! another 15 minutes for spoken or written Australian Quakerism.

2 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 Contents

FEATURES REGULARS

4 ‘What canst thou say?’ 2 Noted 8 Shepherding resistance 16 QSA Notes 10 Walking the Camino 20 Book review: 12 Going to prison in Darwin The Honest History Book 14 Edited by David Stephens Journeying to Soul and Alison Broinowski 18 My spiritual journey 23 Landcare at Silver Wattle

Correction: In the article ‘Indigenous spirituality and culture’ in our December 2016 issue, we referred to ‘Shane Mortimer from the Ngambri Mob’. Shane would prefer ‘… from the Ngambri People of the Cover photo: Meeting Guumaal language area’. Also, in the same article, ‘Ngunnawal’ a returning pilgrim on should read ‘Ngambri’. the Camino

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 3 ‘What canst thou say?’ Talking about God and 1652 Country

JENNY TURTON | VICTORIA REGIONAL MEETING

‘I can’t speak for other Quakers, but for me ...’ I started the Quaker Basics course twice over these early years with different partners, but didn’t finish either time because of the difficulty in meeting up with differences in geographic location, having young children, and the general busyness of life. In 2014 I took on the role of Children and Junior Young Friend Coordinator for AYM, which was a wonderful opportunity to connect with Friends of all ages from all over Australia, to attend my first Yearly came to Quakers as a refugee from belief, and also by the strong history Meeting, and to travel to larger meetings ‘mainstream’ Christian churches. of commitment to social justice. I can’t than my own small worshipping group. I had been questioning my faith claim to have found the silent worship In discussions about resources for and the worship within the churches easy, but I persisted in attending as it young people and how to support their I inclusion at the heart of the Quaker I attended for some years prior to felt to be a place that could become a this, feeling increasingly disconnected spiritual home. community, I started to question what and hypocritical in attending when I Initially I was so grateful to feel a was critical to Australian Quaker faith found myself disagreeing with many sense of acceptance that I didn’t feel and practice, how much we should of the basic tenets of the Nicene creed the need to understand more about draw on the Bible and ‘traditional’ such as the divinity of Jesus, virgin the origins of Quakerism; on how Christianity, and how much was a birth, necessity of Jesus’ death for this unique belief and practice came matter of individual interpretation. the forgiveness of sins, and the resur- about and survived to the present day. In discussions with Junior Young rection. I found myself increasingly I found it challenging to explain to Friends in Hobart, one JYF asked unable to say the creed, sing the hymns friends, family and acquaintances what ‘But what is it we are supposed to be and repeat the prayers during church Quakers were when my involvement worshipping?’, which led to a lively services. I was also worried that I would came up in conversations, and found I discussion about our individual beliefs be branded a ‘non-believer’, and so focused more on what Quakers were and how diverse these are within the I stopped attending church. Despite not (no creed, no church, no minister, Quaker community, with the whole this disconnection, I felt the need for no hymns) rather than what they were. spectrum from Christocentric through a spiritual home: a place of belonging Over time I found myself wanting to Universalist to Nontheistic. where I didn’t have to pretend to believe understand Quakerism more, but it was The timing of Helen Bayes’ first something that I no longer did. difficult to know how well questions Quakerism 101 course at Silver Wattle I started attending Quakers in 2001, would be welcomed in a religious Quaker Centre in 2014 was perfect for first in Melbourne and a year later practice based on silence. It seemed that me. I enjoyed these rich few days of in the small Geelong Worshipping one was supposed to absorb Quakerism sharing, questioning and learning with Group when we moved there. I was by osmosis. I also found that because other Friends from around Australia, initially drawn to Quakers by the fact Quakerism was such an individual although at the first session I didn’t that they didn’t have a creed, which response to God, any statement of faith think we were going to be able to move enabled an acceptance of diversity in or practice by Friends was prefaced by beyond discussing what we meant by

4 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 At Left: Jenny (right) with Janet Duke and Ben Pink Dandelion at Sawley Swathmore Hall, Pendle Hill

Right: Brigflatts Meeting House the term ‘God’. We could only move on the diversity of belief amongst Quakers When it was my turn I indicated that I after agreeing to disagree and respect and to try to better understand my own had also attended Meeting for Worship one another’s differing beliefs, looking belief. in Lusaka. On talking afterwards we beyond the words used. I gained such It was with great anticipation discovered that her brother had been in a greater insight from this course, that that I flew to Manchester in early the same class at school as my husband! by the end of it I realised that Quakers August, travelling to Woodbrooke A few of the interesting thoughts was indeed my spiritual home, and Quaker Study Centre the day after I and learnings I came away with from I wondered why I hadn’t thought arrived. Despite the jetlag, I immersed the course were: membership to be important previously. myself in the experience of being at • Should we use nouns, verbs or I decided that I needed to make the Woodbrooke, meeting Quakers from adverbs when talking about God? commitment to myself and the Quaker around the world, enjoying the beauty Should it be more about what is community in becoming a member, and of the grounds, walking the labyrinth, done than about what is? wrote my membership application at exploring the artwork around the • There are three levels of talking Silver Wattle. centre (I particularly enjoyed the about God. The lowest level is In my research for opportunities for Quaker meeting sculpture by Peter cultural (symbols and metaphors), young Australian Quakers I discovered Peri, which is depicted on the cover of the middle level is tradition the 1652 pilgrimages in England for Quaker by Convincement by Geoffrey (connection to community) and teenagers. I contacted Swarthmoor Hubbard), and enjoying the nutritious the highest level is spiritual (this Hall, where the pilgrimages were based, and plentiful food. The Talking About includes silence, as there is nothing to ask if there were opportunities for God course ran over three days and was you can say about God that is organised pilgrimages for adults. When led by Rhiannon Grant and Janet Scott, adequate). I was informed that the next one was a tremendous team that facilitated • Muslims have 99 beautiful planned for August 2016 I felt led to learning from listening, worship, names for God. participate in this pilgrimage. I decided reflection, and small group discussion. • In thinking about God that it I was going all that way then I Sessions included ‘Tradition and source’ language, we could respond to the should try to fit in as much as I could, (the origins of monotheism), ‘Branching question ‘Would I use this word for including a course at Woodbrooke out’ (learning from other religions), God?’ with ‘Yes’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘No, I Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, ‘Imagining God’ and ‘God and story’. don’t know it’, or ‘No I don’t like it’. walking Hadrian’s Wall, catching up There was a strong connection to others • Smart has defined seven with a long-time friend in Manchester, on the course based on the fact that dimensions of religion: mytho- and having an aardvark encounter at we were all Friends (from England, logical, doctrinal, material, ethical, Chester Zoo! When I checked with Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia and cultural, social and experiential. Woodbrooke about the courses available America), and all questioning how we The experiential is at the heart of over the time I was planning to attend talk about God. During the first session the framework formed by the other the pilgrimage, one really captured my we were invited to say something six dimensions. interest, entitled Talking About God. I about ourselves that others might not • Practice (going to Meeting for felt that this was a perfect follow on know by looking at us. I was astounded Worship) is at the heart of being a from my explorations about how we when Cath from Scotland indicated Quaker. talk about and define God to ourselves that her first time at Quaker Meeting and to others, in order to make sense of for Worship was in Lusaka, Zambia. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 5 • I realised that I feel most be gathered. We were to have met Ben and may have planned to rob the house, comfortable thinking and talking Pink Dandelion at the original Sawley and so he locked Fox in his bedroom about God in universalist terms, Meeting House, but Sawley Friends overnight. as the light within us and all living had just made the difficult decision to From Brigflatts we travelled beings. sell the meeting house and relocate to to Sedbergh Church, the site of • I have no problems with using nearly Clitheroe where the meeting one of Fox’s earliest ministries and the term ‘God’, although I know house could be better utilised by the local disputations. He preached under a yew that many Quakers do. community and have better outreach, so tree, and when challenged as to why • This course reassured me that we met him and his daughter Florence he wasn’t in church, he responded that it is OK to struggle with our belief at the village hall instead. Ben is a very the church wasn’t a building. Then on and how we articulate it. inspiring speaker about Quakerism, and to Firbank Fell, which is where Fox Whilst the Woodbrooke course it was particularly significant for me to had a major preaching success: his was extremely rewarding in terms of meet him given that his Swarthmoor preaching here can be considered the being part of a Quaker community Lecture was the focus of the VRM start of the Quaker movement. It was and learning through sharing, the gathering in 2015 and we connected to very atmospheric eating lunch under pilgrimage was unique in that it him via Skype to discuss our responses the outcrop termed ‘Fox’s pulpit’. We drew on the physical locations that to his lecture. Pendle Hill is a long stopped off at the Kendall Tapestry early Quakers inhabited. This 5-day hill that rises above the surrounding Centre, which is part of the very pilgrimage entitled In Fox’s Footsteps land. It was a memorable (and steep!) large Kendall Meeting House. It was was held at Swarthmoor Hall in experience to climb the hill, survey the fantastic to see all of these wonderful Ulverstone which had been Margaret surrounds as Fox would have (although tapestries side by side, depicting Quaker Fell’s home after she married Thomas we couldn’t see Morecambe Bay as he faith, practice and history. Wouldn’t it Fell. Although not all of the furniture did), have a picnic and a short Meeting be wonderful to have a similar national in the house was the original furniture, for Worship before descending to the home for our Australian Quaker it was all from the mid-17th century bottom. We stopped off for a tea break tapestries! in the style that would have occupied at Settle Meeting House, where the The following day we visited Sunbrick the Fell home, and some of the items warden Alison gave us an overview of Burial Ground where Margaret Fell were personally owned by George Fox the history of the meeting house. and over 200 early Friends are buried, (including his 1 ton ‘travel bed’ and the On the next day we departed for a small grassed enclosure without any chest in which he kept his belongings Brigflatts Meeting House, where we grave stones, as these were considered shortly before he died in London), had the history of the meeting house unnecessary by early Quakers. We also Margaret Fell and other early Quakers. and surrounding area explained to us travelled through beautiful purple-hued The pilgrimage was enthusiastically by the warden, and had the opportunity heather to Marsh Grange, Margaret led by Jenny Foot and her dog Cathra, for Meeting for Worship. This meeting Fell’s childhood home, overlooking the both of whom had led many of these house dates to 1652 and it was extremely Duddon Estuary. This day was also a pilgrimages previously. It was very special to worship where so many local day of contemplating other faiths. We atmospheric to be sleeping in a room in Quakers had for so many years. I had visited Conishead Priory, which was this house and to be able to explore the a profound sense of peace and stillness part of the Catholic church prior to hall and the grounds, and particularly to during this worship, together with the the dissolution of the Catholic Church have Meeting for Worship in the room question ‘But what canst THOU say?’ by King Henry VIII, and is now the that George Fox and Margaret Fell based on George Fox’s words: ‘You will grounds of the New Kadampa Buddhist and many other Quakers worshipped say, Christ saith this, and the apostles Temple. We also passed the ruins of in. Swarthmoor Hall was our base, say this; but what canst thou say? Art Furness Abbey, a significant Catholic from which we travelled out to the thou a child of Light and hast walked site that fell into ruin following the surrounding countryside to see the in the Light, and what thou speakest is dissolution. We also encountered a historical and more modern sites of it inwardly from God?’. Down the lane small stone circle at Birkrigg Common, relevance to Quakers. There were 10 from the Meeting House is the home which points to a much earlier faith. other Friends in the group, including that belonged to Richard Robinson, one This made us realise that there have Janet Duke from Melbourne. of the prominent Seekers, where Fox been many different faiths in this Our exploration started at Pendle stayed whilst in the area. An amusing area where Quakerism developed, Hill, the significant landmark that anecdote is that after sitting up late and highlights the important Quaker George Fox climbed in May 1652 talking with Fox, Robinson became practice of supporting multifaith from which he saw a great people to alarmed that he appeared a bit scruffy dialogue and activism. The man who

6 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 greeted me at the Buddhist Temple stated that ‘All rivers lead to the sea’ when talking about different Buddhist traditions, and this metaphor could also apply to different faiths. Whilst the sea for him was enlightenment, for me it would be God. We also travelled to the city of Barrow in Furness, which is a socially disadvantaged area, and home to one of the UK’s largest arms making plants. This was a prompt to question how our faith leads to outreach and action. The evening included Taizé singing at Swarthmoor Hall, which was a new experience for me. On the final day we walked a short distance to Swarthmoor Meeting House, which Fox had built so that local friends Above: Fox’s pulpit, Firbank Fell could worship there in case Swarthmoor Hall was no longer available. The upstairs expecting direct encounter; 2. • In Fox’s Footsteps. A journey room had been a school room, and Silence and stillness is a practice through three centuries by David and interestingly had a ‘raked’ or sloped floor. that works well; 3. Our way of Anthea Boulton Some thoughts and learnings doing business works; 4. We live • Rooted in Christianity. Open from this pilgrimage were: out our testimonies; and 5. We to New Light. Quaker Spiritual are certain of being uncertain, and Diversity by Timothy Ashworth • Quakerism didn’t develop in don’t feel we have all the answers. and Alex Wildwood a vacuum. It formed at a time • This pilgrimage also brought of tremendous upheaval and home to me that Quakerism grew The following quote from TS Eliot’s uncertainty during the civil wars, out of Christianity, and so we poetry resonates with me regarding my and was one of many alternative shouldn’t ignore our Christian faith journey: religious groups forming around roots. We shall not cease from exploration this time. It developed in the north • I was very moved by the And the end of all our exploring because this was an area rich in strength of the early Quakers, who Will be to arrive where we started religious non-conformism. were prepared to suffer for their And know the place for the first time • I realised that George Fox beliefs during a time of persecution. Perhaps I have come full circle was a prophet, and I hadn’t before • We are asked ‘What canst thou to realising that I am no closer to thought of prophets occurring after say?’ It doesn’t matter what others knowing what I believe and what God Old Testament times. He had a think, believe and say, but what we is, but that is OK. Faith is after all a new vision of how we could have do, and this is experiential. journey throughout life. The experience a direct relationship with God It was fortunate timing that the of connection with God is what is without intermediaries. online course Radical Spirituality. The important. • I often use my head rather than Early History of the Quakers occurred Participation in the courses at my heart, but our faith is about our shortly after I returned home, which Woodbrooke and Swarthmoor Hall experience rather than thinking things furthered my thinking about Quaker greatly enriched my spiritual practice through. history and theology. and deepened my understanding of the • Quakerism survived persecution I have also found the following books to historical origins of Quakerism and of in the 1660s because it had a strong be enlightening reading following my being part of the worldwide Quaker base, largely due to the considerable travels: family. organisational support of Margaret • The world turned upside down by I am grateful to VRM for providing Fell. Christopher Hill some financial support towards • Ben Pink Dandelion indicated • The cradle of Quakerism: participation in these courses. that Quakers have certainty in the Exploring Quaker Roots in North

following ways: 1. We still worship West England by Arthur Kincaid

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 7 Shepherding resistance A journey of steadfast persistence

ALETIA DUNDAS | NEW SOUTH WALES REGIONAL MEETING

eated on a bag of flour placed man, waxes lyrical about the similarities were seeking to have their basic rights on top of an upturned bucket between the three main religions, observed. And in many ways, they in an isolated tent on the rocky and how, despite everything he has accompanied me on my own journey fieldsS of the West Bank I listen as experienced in life, he still believes in of understanding and insight. As I Jibrin, a kind-faced Palestinian man, the inherent goodness in others. His wandered alongside a flock of sheep, or talks of his religious convictions and faith seems to give him courage and carried trees to be planted by activists, his troubles. I’m in the West Bank as hope. or walked with children to and from part of a World Council of Churches Jibrin’s home is in the Palestinian school, I reflected on what it must be program, to provide protective presence village of Qwawis where less than half a like to continually live under occupation and monitor human rights. dozen families remain. In order for his and with human rights denied. Jibrin’s tent is all he has in the way of sheep to have a healthy diet, he must In my final week in Palestine, the shelter. His grazing fields, crucial to his regularly take them out to his fields worst happened. Jibrin was arrested on livelihood, stand less than a kilometre for the day. What was once a relatively my watch. The ordeal began with the from the Israeli settlement of Susya. straight-forward journey is now fraught arrival of a settler who with a mobile Frustrated by settlers who set fire to with danger. Multi-lane highways phone in one hand and a pistol in his barley and wheat fields and attack his connecting settlements with cities now back pocket began hurling abuse at sheep, soldiers who turn a blind eye, cut through Jibrin’s usual shepherding Jibrin. Jibrin remained firm. Our visitor and unjust arrests for crimes he didn’t route, and I hold my breath as the retreated, only to make some calls, and commit, this shepherd is determined to sheep veer perilously onto the road. not long afterwards the army showed up. remain on his land, no matter the cost. Settlements have appeared atop the Three army jeeps, plus the Israeli police And the costs have been significant. hills where his sheep are accustomed to and the civil administration appeared I wept as he spoke of his brother’s death graze. As he speaks the odd and abrupt to respond to an unarmed shepherd at the hands of Israelis in the late 1960s. directives to his beloved sheep, Jibrin whose only crime was to defiantly Ever since, his life has been marred by always has one eye on the settlement and persistently watch his flock on his violence, injustice and fear. One nearby nearby. family land that the administration settler, who goes by the name Son of My role as a human rights monitor seem to have now declared a closed Mudahai, had come by just two days and accompanier was to provide military zone. earlier with a gun and a big knife. A protective presence to people like Suddenly I was receiving calls from while back a neighbour was arrested Jibrin. During those three months I our field officer and a local activist, both and given a 20,000 shekel fine and 7 accompanied a number of shepherds, of whom were advising me to leave the months jail time. Yet, Jibrin, a Muslim and activists, and children, all of whom scene, and advising Jibrin to leave too.

8 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 We were both hesitant to follow As we bid goodbye under those orders, but in the end I left these traumatic circumstances, I and Jibrin remained. As his sheep promised to share Jibrin’s story meandered back onto the road, with others. I was struck by the and had to be rounded up by his differences between our two life wife, I looked on helplessly as journeys, and yet how we are Jibrin was taken into the police forever connected through this vehicle and detained for the rest shared traumatic experience. As of the day. It felt as if I had failed Jibrin’s journey will inevitably take him. him and his sheep along that well- Jibrin is someone that I think trodden path between his tent and of as a resistance shepherd, the grazing land where he never because the simple act of taking knows what kinds of challenges his sheep out to graze is his way he will face, my journey has taken of nonviolently resisting the me back to the familiarity and occupation and all its impacts on comfort of a home not under the existing inhabitants. Each time threat. But I will never forget he goes out, he doesn’t know what Jibrin, or the way that he saw the troubles he will face, but he sees it world. as a small but important role that he plays in nonviolently resisting Aletia Dundas recently returned an unjust system. Up until his from 3 months in Palestine and recent arrest he was determined Israel with the World Council of to continue shepherding on his Churches’ Ecumenical Accom- land until they killed him. Now paniment programme. She was his sumud (steadfast persistence) is observing and reporting on human somewhat deflated. The last time rights abuses, and providing Jibrin in his tent I saw him, he told me he’d rather protective presence to those nonvio- be killed quickly in Syria than lently resisting the occupation. slowly in this way. Then he burst into tears.

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 9 Walking the Camino ACEY TEASDALE | NEW SOUTH WALES REGIONAL MEETING

n the 1950s north-west province. of his horse which reared and threw my budding- Jerusalem and Rome make sense, him into the surf. When he emerged but why the far corner of Spain? he was covered in scallop shells. This atheist brother, Well, according to one source it account is the most common of several incongruously, adored a might simply be because of a patch explanations of why the scallop shell is I of bad handwriting in an ancient the symbol of the Camino. particular song. It went: manuscript about the lives of the Eventually they buried St James Oh the place where I worship is the apostles! Pilgrims on the Camino are with his two devoted followers where wide open spaces journeying to what was believed to be it was thought he had preached and Built by the hand of the Lord. the site of the tomb of the Apostle, St where the city bearing his name now Both of us grew up on the expansive James. But other ancient texts report stands. The exact location slipped out of Wimmera plains of Western Victoria. that James was buried in North Africa. consciousness. An unencumbered horizon can nourish Some have suggested that, in sloppy In the year 815 a hermit called an expectation that anything is possible, Latin handwriting, the line ‘St James Pelayo, as a result of a vision, and guided any experience can be out there. preached in Rome’ can look like ‘St by a star, led his bishop a spot in a place Nothing is obliterated by stuff standing James preached in Spain’, and one called Libredon, where he believed in the way. can picture a careful, copying monk the saint was buried. On digging they Including the experience of the muttering to himself: ‘Fancy! I never discovered three skeletons and the Holy. knew he went to Spain!’ and carefully bishop pronounced them to be those of And the unknown beyond that inscribing the divergent destination, St James and his two followers. horizon beckons with excitement, and thus creating a legend. Well, they did happen to be digging there is always a dirt road out there to Soon the idea grew accretions. It had in a cemetery. entice. always been agreed that St James was The bones of St James now repose So, in 1995, when I took myself off executed in Rome by beheading. It now in Santiago de Compostela (the former to a day-long seminar on the Camino emerged that his friends decided that ‘Libredon’) in a silver ossuary in the de Santiago, when the first speaker he would probably like to be interred crypt of the Cathedral. The word opened his mouth I knew I had found where his missionary work had been. ‘compostela’ may refer to the concept my element for pursuing the Holy. So they loaded his head and trunk on a of decomposition, it is from the same Camino means ‘path’ or ‘way’ in miraculous stone boat and transported root as ‘compost’, but it could also mean Spanish. It can be a walking track, but it his body around the Mediterranean and ‘field of the star’. is also the term used in Jesus’ statement: up the coast of the Iberian Peninsula, And consequently hundreds of ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’. into the estuary of the River Ulla to thousands, some report millions, of The Camino de Santiago is one of be moored at the town now known as pilgrims began to make the journey to the three great Christian pilgrimages of Padron. All in 24 hours! venerate the bones of St James. Why? the middle Ages: to Jerusalem, to Rome A bridegroom riding to his wedding I like to think that most of them and to Santiago de Compostela which observed the progress of the stone boat walked to commune with the best is in the middle of Galicia, Spain’s far and was so astonished he lost control of themselves and with the best in

10 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 the people they encountered, and consequently to experience their connection to the Holy. But there were a plethora of reasons for ‘doing’ the Camino. You could be sentenced to do the Camino. In early times justice was often a prerogative of the church, and miscreants could be sentenced to walk the Camino. You might be reformed by The long road ahead the experience. At least it got rid of you In the 21st Century people are for about a year. Recently this concept to his image as a humble pilgrim; he still on the Camino for a plethora has been revisited with selected young is also presented as Matamorus (the of reasons. When I first walked in offenders. There are moving accounts Moor slayer) on horseback slashing 1997, 25,000 pilgrims received a written by some of them. But the off the heads of Moors. In the wake of Compostela certificate for completing project was abandoned. Some of the the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, the pilgrimage. The restored Camino youths could be too much of a handful. the mighty Matamorus statue in the was only a few decades old. Many people walked to expiate a sin, Santiago cathedral suddenly sprouted The Renaissance and The Age of and I was once asked on the Camino adornments of flowers, quite obscuring Discovery changed religious expression what sin I was walking off (mind the rolling Moors’ heads at the feet of and pilgrimage lost its relevance and your own business!). Absolution was St James’ horse. relics lost their allure. The Camino achieved at Santiago. Approaching the Powerful Christian rulers travelled disappeared. By the 20th Century the finish, at Villafranca del Bierzo, the the Camino in state. For instance the very routes were no longer known. In frail who weren’t going to make it to Holy Roman Emperor, father-in-law of the second half of the 20th Century, Santiago could achieve this absolution. England’s Empress Maude, progressed a Spanish Catholic priest devoted Henry II of England, it is said, to Santiago and was presented with his life to reconstructing the routes. considered making the pilgrimage to the saint’s left hand. Thus that little Immediately a few tough stalwarts expiate his unintended contribution to piece of skeleton was initiated into an emerged. The 20th Century, it seemed, the murder of Thomas a Becket. Instead astonishing career of its own. was beginning to resonate to the spirit he built a pilgrim hospital. Its site is still Knights Templar patrolled the of pigrimage with a gusto to rival the called Hospital Inglis, though no traces Camino, living to the letter their raison middle ages. of the buildings remain. d ’être: to keep the pilgrim routes open For the first of these new, latter And such is the way of the world and safe. They left their enigmatic day, pilgrims there was minimal that there came a time when one could temples on the Way for us to wonder at. accommodation and few services. By employ someone to carry your sins to But there were rogues and thieves my time the original stalwarts, if you Santiago for you. and malevolent opportunists too, and ever met them, were scathing about we Great honour and kudos accrued such a surfeit of ladies of the night in softies in cosy ‘parochial’ and ‘municipal’ from completing the Camino. Your the woods near Palas de Rei that the refugios, they had slept in barns and ‘Compostela’ certificate in somechurch hierarchy corresponded angrily haystacks! countries entitled you to a stipend for with one another about whether it was Even I have slept on the stage of one life. You could adorn your escutcheon sufficient just to cut off their noses. picture theatre and the foyer of another, and your tombstone with a scallop shell. Perhaps they should excommunicate on the turf under the stars in the ruins The Camino could also be a them as well. of a convent, and and in a wedding political statement, especially as it I am informed that a dubious marquee pitched in the paddock of consolidates all of Christian Europe pilgrim has long been a stock character an outback petrol station next to the (as it does now). It was the era of the in Spanish literature, soaking up kudos petrol station’s bull ring and enclosure crusades and of Moorish expansion. and freebies in a community, but CONTINUED ON PAGE 22 St James’ iconography is not limited somehow never seeming to move on ...

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 11 Saima Goudie

Going to prison in Darwin with AVP

ELIZABETH KWAN | SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND NORTHERN TERRITORY REGIONAL MEETING

he high mesh walls, and inside, successful community partnership’, inmates from other less secure sectors. the confusing security system connecting inmates with the wider However, workshops for Protected scrutinising our irises, were community, as well as providing them prisoners in Sector 5, convicted intimidating.T As were the red-buttoned with training and work opportunities. paedophiles, could not be mixed – they duress alarms we had to wear, and AVP Darwin’s work had at first been had to be protected from mainstream the long walk, punctuated by further workshops for the general community, prisoners. These restrictions had checkpoints until we reached the and later for Melaleuca Refugee meant that high security inmates were maximum security Sector 5 for men. To Centre, rather than for Darwin’s old considered last rather than first in being Sally Herzfeld, a West Australian Friend prison at Berrimah. But when cutbacks offered programs. Both staff members who had joined a prison workshop to in government funding ended the were keen supporters of reform. train in the Alternatives to Violence refugee workshops, AVP Darwin began It seemed from the discussion, Project and had facilitated workshops in to consider workshops in the prison. that an officer would be present in many prisons since then, the experience The Director of Offender Services, the workshop for security purposes, was not unusual. For me it was, though Programs and Indigenous Affairs in the with a quiet joke about whether it I welcomed it, having heard Sally DCS, who had been an AVP facilitator should be one who opposed such speak of her prison experiences when interstate, had suggested AVP Darwin workshops or not – the first hint of the she had come to Darwin to help our be invited to the forum. Subsequently dismissive attitude to AVP workshops small AVP group facilitate workshops she referred me to the prison’s Manager held by some prison staff. (Later, after in the refugee centre and the general of Offender Development. Before the I checked AVP practice, I pointed community. Another Friend, Sabine interview I had sent her a short paper out that AVP workshops can include Erika in the Blue Mountains, who with a covering letter to explain the administrative but not security staff in had begun the first AVP workshops in Alternatives to Violence Project and its prison workshops, and they should be Darwin in 2007 and many since then, workshops, and the research evidence participants, not observers.) In our first had also spoken of her experiences in for the effectiveness of these workshops workshop we were to find that the two New South Wales women’s prisons. in prisons. Kathryn Tomlinson’s officers who had helped set it up were But my family were uneasy about me research was especially useful and is to join it as participants. They were being involved, especially when they available on line.[1] Prisoner Support Officers in Sector learned that AVP workshops did not At the interview was also the security 5, who had good relationships with have a prison security officer present as officer in charge of Sector 5, who the prisoners. Sally and I had hoped an observer. had recently come to the prison from to involve a male AVP facilitator to Several months before the new corrective services in New South Wales. provide some gender balance in our prison was to open in 2014 at Holtze, Several questions were discussed: about team, but none was available. At the 30 minutes outside Darwin, the me, AVP and Quakers, the workshops, time the prison was about to employ Northern Territory’s Department the high percentage of prisoners of an Indigenous Cultural Officer. We of Correctional Services (DCS) Indigenous background (some 85 per thought perhaps he could join the had invited a variety of community cent). But it seemed that their main workshop in that capacity, since organisations and industries to a forum interest was because AVP workshops’ most prisoners had an Indigenous to provide information about the new small size, groups of up to 15, made background, but that didn’t happen. prison. The DCS aim was to build them suitable for inmates in Sector 5. Would we be perceived by workshop safer communities through reducing If held there, workshops would allow participants as two older ladies who recidivism. To that end it sought ‘a some dangerous prisoners to mix with knew nothing about violence? We

12 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 remembered the words of Robert and participated very well’. We also Martin, the tall Afro-American man commented that ‘The role plays on with a rough past, who tried a workshop facing temptations from family after while in prison a second time. He release brought out valuable discussion. had doubts anything would work for As did…conflicts that were solved him, and seeing ‘a group of Quakers, peacefully, and other exercises which men with their baggy shorts and pink gave the opportunity of talking about knees’ walk in, wondered why he had how violence is normal but doesn’t need come. He was disruptive during the to be.’ All the men wanted to continue workshop and left determined not to with the Advanced Workshop. They return. But one of the Quakers, a short gave feedback on the range of exercises, man, spoke to him, acknowledging the discussions and games during the 2½ hard life Robert’s comments in the days, and at the end, both kinds of workshop had revealed. He returned to comments became part of the report, his cell with a handout about conflict which then informed our planning of The high mesh walls. Photos by Anna Kwan resolution, decided to complete the future workshops. between those who ‘had a lot of fun!!!’ workshop, and did two more levels. The evaluation sheets at the end of and others who wanted more quiet time Once released from prison, Robert as the workshop invited participants to with more serious activities. There were a facilitator joined Steve Angell, US comment on what they liked about the calls for more workshops at the prison Quaker, an early founder of AVP and workshop. Prisoners enjoyed seeing and more days in each workshop to ‘one of the most dedicated carriers of everyone participate, getting to know avoid rushing them (the result of always the AVP message’ around the world. [2] and getting along with each other, having to catch up after men were late But first Sally and I had to apply for learning new skills, being part of a in being released from their units in the access to Darwin prison, have police team and seeing things from a different morning and the afternoon). Almost checks, and eyes and fingers measured. perspective. They found the workshop all were willing to recommend an AVP An induction explained what clothes helpful in understanding where workshop to a friend, one writing that and footwear were appropriate. Videos violence comes from, and how it offered he would ‘recommend it to everyone’. showed how easily prisoners could a chance to find peaceful, rather than They gave permission for their manipulate staff and visitors. Then we violent, ways of solving their problems. comments to be used anonymously for learned to negotiate the automated They had fun. publicity purposes. security system, an ongoing dance with In terms of what they learned from The experience confirmed for me staff as the system continually refused the workshop, participants wrote of why and how these workshops can play to ignore our hip replacements. Finally the importance of respecting others, such an important role in prisons, and we were asked to document them, so thinking before acting, of ‘putting why the impact for prisoners is so much whichever staff members were on duty myself in another person’s shoes’, of greater if they complete all three levels, could make alternative arrangements being aware of the consequences which not just the introductory Basic. (See, for with the machines. One of the more may follow actions. Some found they example, ‘Nick’s Story’ in This we can thorough security officers also found learned most from the deep sharing of do, or on AVPWA’s website home page. that we had not been asked to lodge stories by others in the workshop. [3]) Maybe there are some advantages at the security desk a list of all items Participants found the facilitation in older women facilitating these we brought into the prison for the team polite, kind, patient, easy to workshops in prison! ‘They reminded workshops. A packet of jelly beans, understand, caring and willing to share me of my grandma’, more than one used by participants as individuals and as members of the workshop, and to wrote or said. Staff members no longer groups to estimate numbers in a level make it a joyful experience for all. Other find it necessary to be in our workshops. two exercise for making decisions by comments were that the two facilitators The experience educated not only me, consensus, caused a particular problem were ‘very informative, experienced, but also my family. I realised more for a senior security staff member, who ideal for delivering this program in this fully, too, why these workshops have eventually passed the packet. environment’. become such an important part of Sally The first AVP workshop in the Answers to the questions ‘Is there Herzfeld’s life. prison at the end of June 2016 ‘was anything you would like to see changed’ In August that year, nine of the an historical occasion and enjoyable’, and ‘Are there any other comments eleven Basic participants did the our report noted, ‘as the men were you would like to make?’ revealed a very appreciative and respectful tension which had marked the sessions, CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 13 Journeying to Soul ANNE ZUBRICK | WEST AUSTRALIA REGIONAL MEETING

ach major religious tradition I feel we share an understanding signs and patterns and deeper meaning has ‘journey’ stories. Themes and I leave feeling deeply refreshed. I may emerge. include strong personal continue the journey confident that I As I approached my sixtieth Ecommitment, fears, loss, regrets, will be able to find my way. birthday I began to consider deeply heartbreaks, – and unexpected gifts. As where my education and life experience Jungians would describe my dream a child I heard many stories of youths might lead and endeavours to further as typical of mid-life – a wake-up call (or a girl in the Wizard of Oz) setting off my personal and spiritual growth. My to change direction for the second half to find a special something or someone, discernment led me into my current of life – time to focus on the inner life only to come full circle. Had the central deeply enriching work in the spiritual of the Spirit. Recognising the value and character only paid attention, what was accompaniment and care for older importance of this dream, I began to sought was available, right there, all persons, especially those living with explore and to more consciously live along. dementia and mental illness. what it might mean for me. The year I turned 45 I had a journey Over the past decade, I’ve been Attending to and staying in the dream which affected me profoundly, especially drawn to writing and present moment is a challenge for me. and remains with me. reflections about late life, by men and My natural inclination is to anticipate I am in a small car travelling by women in late life. Biblical Judeo- the future and look to others as I seek myself through the most beautiful Christian writers celebrate long lives answers and directions. The dream countryside. The day is perfect and as time that both brings out and calls me to trust my own inner guide the driving is easy – except for one bestows character. Old age (should we – to pay attention to the signs and thing. I am in Korea (career) and I privileged to experience it) is a time patterns of Godde in everyday life and know in myself that I have to find to gradually uncover the essence of relationships. The dream opened a call my way to Seoul (soul) but I don’t ourselves. Here we finally make sense deep inside me – a direction yet to be know the way or the language or of the tangled web of our lives, extract found – the way not yet evident. what to expect when I arrive there. perhaps the single strong thread of who At that time I was living and How will I find my way to and we really are and who we have become. working in Hong Kong and had only around this unknown place? Extended lives provide opportunities to recently started to attend Hong Kong review and refine meaning in life, to I come to sign after sign along the Meeting. This began my connection seek forgiveness and/or make amends, road and slow each time to examine with Quakers. to transform memories into stories, the written patterns hoping to I had started to learn Chinese. to mentor younger people, to strongly discern similarities and meanings I was especially fascinated by the speak out against injustice, and to heal among them hoping to find a processes needed to learn to read the planet. Rather than giving back, we direction and the distance to my and write characters. It took practice might increasingly give forward in later destination. and discipline to recognise a host of life. character ‘radicals’ – recurring patterns I come to a very simple building I am drawn to Quaker Faith and and their symbolic meaning with no and stop there to take stock of where Practice 21.45, Getting Older, and clue to their pronunciation. However, I am hoping to find out in which Evelyn Sturge’s words: once I could recognise a set of frequently direction to travel next. The people We must be confident that there is used characters, I became increasingly I meet welcome me, bring me food still more ‘life’ to be ‘lived’ and yet able to discern overall meaning. and drink, sit and share it with me. more heights to be scaled. The tragedy The dream images suggested to It is truly a time of ‘communion’. We of middle age is that, so often, men me that my spiritual learning might say nothing to one another for I do and women cease to press towards the be somewhat akin to learning to read not share their language. However, Chinese. Pay attention to recurring CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

14 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 goal of their high calling. They cease My father had cancer and a major is needed. I draw on her insight in my learning, cease growing, they give heart condition which he knew could own work with older people, especially up and resign from life. As wisdom well result in sudden death. About two those living with dementia, who need dawns with age, we begin to measure weeks before he died he rang ring to compassion, hope and love. our experiences not by what life gives say ‘something fundamentally different At a Symposium on Dementia to us, nor by the things withheld from is occurring inside me’. He could not and Love in Ballarat in March 2017 us, but by their power to help us grow be more specific. This was a new inner I had the privilege of some deep in spiritual wisdom. sense. I travelled immediately from conversations with several men and Perth to New Zealand (where my women living with different forms of Much of my own approach and parents were living) and was with my dementia. Many of them were able to understanding about late life comes father and mother over a few days. The share with me stories of how they were from the experience of watching each evening before father died we had a learning to let go: letting go of fear, and of my parents face the experience wonderful time and lively conversation discovering the experience not of a lost of ageing, illness and death. Each of together. He had a massive heart attack self but a journey towards a true self—a them had a remarkable openness and and died early the next morning. ability to share their lives as well as a Earlier that week a friend had come deepening inner self that is truly who deep serenity as they approached death. to see my father. After the visit my father they are. They spoke of the deep power Neither of them wished to be younger said ‘Through his gentle conversation of being held, and a confidence that than they were. Both continued to offer Bill prepared me for death.’ I know no they will continue to be held, in Love, their time and skills, as energy allowed, details of what the two men shared. no matter the future. until just days before they died. They I can only conclude that it was a rich Letting go and letting come. That’s enjoyed the simple comfort of home, time of shared presence. My mother the theme of my ongoing spiritual solitude, reflection and company they afterwards observed that sometimes journey to soul. chose. the caring visitor brings exactly what

GOING TO PRISON IN DARWIN – CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Advanced, and seven then continued more people in our community who au/get-involved/. Please complete the with the Training for Facilitator. After are willing to do the three levels of form and return with payment as soon an interview, five became apprentice workshops and become part of a team as possible to the address given. facilitators and one an assistant, in gaining experience in facilitating hopefully to begin work as part of our workshops, whether in the prison, the [1] A review of the literature team in future workshops in the prison, community, youth groups, or schools. concerning the Alternatives to Violence or, on their release, in the community. You can find out more about these Project (AVP), July 2007, avpbritain By the end of June this year we will have workshops by joining the one in July alternatives to violence project, given 12 or 13 workshops at Darwin 2017 towards the end of Yearly Meeting http://avpwiki.wikispaces.com/file/ prison and hope we can continue into in Adelaide. Continue training in a view/Tomlinson%2C%20Britain%20 next financial year. series of workshops in your state or Lit%20Review%202007.pdf/39397220/ There is a great hunger in the prison territory, and become part of a facilitator Tomlinson%2C%20Britain%20Lit%20 for these workshops. Fifteen men, for team offering workshops to others in Review%202007.pdf example, have registered for a Basic Australia and around the world. In [2] Sally Herzfeld and Alternatives course being given in May this year, the Asia-West Pacific region, AVP to Violence Project members, This we too many with the additional five facilitators are currently working in can do: Quaker faith in action through (apprentices and facilitators) to fit into Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines, in the Alternatives to Violence Project, the Sector 5 room. After checking the communities, pre-schools, universities, The James Backhouse Lecture 2015, The participants for any contra-associations refugee camps and settlements. Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in with others who may be using the Registration forms for the July Australia, 2015, pp. 6-7, 4, 9. Education Centre in Sector 2, prison workshop, with details of where, when [3] Herzfeld S. et al., pp 47-49; http:// staff approved our use of a larger room and how much, are available when avpwa.org/ there for this workshop. We need you scroll down at http://avpq.org.

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 15 QSA Notes The journey of an idea!

JACKIE PERKINS | QSA ADMINISTRATOR

Learning how to grow azolla and its uses. Photo credit Vasandham Society

Many people, aware of QSA and its set up a business in the local market, azolla plants with me when I visited development work, would think that or how to protect children from harm. Pitchandikulam Bio Resource Centre. ideas travel to new community groups Each of these ideas requires a change of Guna was able to supply some technical via the training classes given to groups ideas and thought processes, and they information sheets in Tamil which of people. Yes that is true, whether it is are not so easy to see. This is how the helped the new farmers understand, and about new ways to grow food or how trainers themselves can be so helpful, as now azolla is flourishing in ponds in to weave cloth. Small groups receive an role models. It is one thing to talk about another part of Tamil Nadu and more explanation about the new skills, then a equality within a committee, and it is cattle are benefitting from it. chance to practice them for themselves, another to hold a discussion in which An example of an idea which did not and it’s the application of the new ideas everyone is given the opportunity to work so well happened in Cambodia which reinforces the skills. But that is express their ideas – the idea of equality in Kandal Province where they wanted not all. is learnt from the experience of being some sort of water filtration device to Visits are often arranged for the group to treated in an equal way. remove the naturally occurring arsenic meet people who are already proficient in Sometimes ideas come from a different from the water supply. An idea had these new skills, so that they can see for community that has had different been shared with them by a visitor from themselves what is possible. These visits experiences and ideas, and think they Europe who suggested clay filtration can be so very helpful to demonstrate might be helpful to share. Sometime pots which had been seen to be used how things can be done in the home this works, sometimes it does not. successfully in other countries. A test setting, giving them ideas of different One example of where it has worked techniques, and the confidence to give is in Tamil Nadu, South India where was set up to confirm the results but the it a try themselves. Seeing is often Vasandham Society has been successful opposite happened – when following the believing. in growing an aquatic plant called azolla instructions, the arsenic levels increased But not all new ideas are enhancing which is used for cattle fodder. When the more it was used, so the filter was not their practical skills. It might be a I visited them on a monitoring visit, able to remove the arsenic levels from the different way of thinking, such as when I was very impressed with the results, water before it was stored. groups are given new information about and having been told by Guna and the There is an old saying, attributed to a ways of reducing domestic violence, or farmers using it that it improves the number of diverse people over the years, what it means to have human rights, overall health of cattle and increases which is still appropriate to this idea of especially for women attempting to the milk yield from cows, I took some shared ideas :-

16 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 ‘Give a person a fish, and you feed the family for a day. Teach a person to fish, and you feed the family for a lifetime.’

Sometimes ideas are shared by simply giving them space for this to happen. Quakers have a long history of doing just that, whether it is a shared meal after meeting, discussions over the washing up, or the more structured meetings of politicians and advisers at the Quaker United Nations Offices in Geneva and New York meeting together away from the spotlight and press, for a free and open discussion of an issue. The time of year Watching, looking and listening how to make compost. Friends, the end of the financial year Photo credit – Department of Women’s Affairs, is fast approaching, and so now is the Kampong Thom, Cambodia time of year to consider making a tax deductible donation to QSA. This can be done by sending a cheque made out to Quaker Service Australia to our office at 119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 or by direct credit to our CUA account in the name of Quaker Service Australia, BSB 814 282, account number 50585902. Please include your name in the reference section of the direct credit and send an email to [email protected] to advise us that the donation has been sent and whether you would like your donation to go to our General Fund (not tax deductible) or to one or both of our tax deductible funds, Overseas Aid Fund or Aboriginal Concerns Fund. Thank you Friends, you will be contributing to the sharing of ideas among communities in Australia, Sharing ideas in Cambodia. Photo credit: Cambodia, India and Uganda. Department of Women’s Affairs, Kampong Thom, Cambodia

QSA is a member of the Australian Council for International Development, and is a signatory to the ACFID Code of Conduct. The Purpose of QSA is to express in a practical way the concern of Australian Quakers for the building of a more peaceful, equitable, just and compassionate world. To this end QSA works with communities in need to improve their quality of life with projects which are culturally sensitive, as well as being economically and environmentally appropriate and sustainable.

119 Devonshire St Surry Hills, NSW 2010 Australia • [email protected] PHONE +61 2 9698 9103 • FAX: +61 2 9225 9241 • ABN 35 989 797 918

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 17 My spiritual journey ROSEMARY TURLE | WEST AUSTRALIA REGIONAL MEETING

spiral is the visual symbol for heart soul and thirteen-year-old body to This meant leaving the four year course my expanding path towards a new continent that was far away and of art I had started in Perth. It meant what I have come to know as very hot. We were leaving our seven acres leaving the poultry farm and the dog and myA truth. It helps give a shape to all the of dearly loved land and school lives and new Australian girlfriends from school. learnings and realisations of what my true friends. Also I left my black cat and my We packed up two vehicles with tents and identity is. It started long ago now if we bicycle. It was to be the realisation of the gear and a number of poultry and drove are thinking in terms of years. But right huge ocean and a lifetime relationship via Kalgoorlie north-east to Menzies. It now I am sharing thoughts and facts with water. It is only seconds ago that was gold business that had brought my which are really far beyond facts and have I stood in my mind’s eye on the deck father to move into the freedom of the become what I am, and how I experience of the Orcades and remembering how Australian way of life and its wonderful my life on planet Earth. And where shall I had gazed in disbelief at the rock of blue skies. So we experienced tent life I commence this revisiting and rethinking Gibraltar. Why such a strong memory? It with looking for snakes before one of my spiraling life? was because it was so different from any got into the sleeping bag at night, and With my parents. Both so spiritual land that I had ever seen and it startled walking on wild open red country with and loving life and letting their five my eyes used to English trees, plants and brumbies and kangaroos became a new children be part of the wonder of nature flowers; also it was because I had never experience. It was an added closeness to and its English seasons in our Sussex imagined a world that had so much ocean nature but nature with different things countryside. That is the county on the of water. It is such times when my whole to teach me. I learned the precious value south coast of England where William being says ‘Oh, there is more to what of water and the disappointment of the Penn was born. Nature has always played you know and think and believe!’ It was water being brackish at our land. I found a major role in my path whether I lived more acute when I saw Arabs and camels out the birds dived down at my head if I city or country. The Sunday prayer time at Port Said. ‘Oh people are different was near their nests, the flies and insects with readings from the Bible and the colours, wear different clothes and they were incessant. But I was happy, inside visits to the village Anglican church have different animals’. myself I felt immensely grateful to wake shaped my infant and childhood days. We disembarked in Western Australia up each day to a vast and seemingly empty The war and its complications for the and it became a new way of life in Perth. but red-earthed outback and feeling so daily life which challenged the country Of course it would be a private school free without schooling and to be able to made me conscious of Germany and air because of the expectations of the class just read, roam and live in a simple way raid warnings when one ran for safety to system. It would be Anglican of course without any set program. the shelter, or hurriedly got under one’s because my father was extremely critical That episode only lasted months bed. Blackouts meant not letting any of the Roman Catholic church. My because of the brackish water and we light be seen from our windows because parents had met as Christians through moved to Donnybrook far south of Perth of the danger of enemy air attacks. The the Beach Movement and shared a deep to an orchard outside the small town doodlebug V2 that landed in a field next spirituality which as a child I did not yet famous for its apples. I went to Methodist door killed only a fox and a rabbit but it understand. In a new city they did not youth club and Anglican church and peer resulted in the five children of my family know which church to attend, and it all pressure had me feeling that I should get being evacuated to safer homes on the depended on liking the teaching and the confirmed. My mother said that would west coast of England for long periods sermons of the minister; this resulted in mean I would have to be baptised first! of time. One place I remember clearly me experiencing Methodist and Baptist In fact baptism was not the custom for was a vicarage with beautiful gardens. congregations as a teenager. We suddenly my free thinking parents who felt such We hugged our rations of sweets and of made an even greater move to live in the practices were not necessary, because sugar to our hearts and I certainly had not goldfields. ‘We did not come to Australia when we got to be adults we would take learned yet the importance of giving and to live in a city,’ my father said. ‘We came responsibility for our own decisions. So I sharing. here to LIVE!’ I understood that living got baptised and confirmed, but inside of Peace came and life returned to more was tied up very much with being on the me I knew that something very significant normal times with the war ended, and land and part of the land and suburbs was at stake: that although I was doing soon after my family suddenly all moved did not offer that feeling of closeness to this from peer pressure to be like other to Australia. The spiral pattern moved my nature. people, it meant something much more.

18 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 But I had not yet learned what the ‘more’ such as important times with Margaret It was a chance to enter into friendship was. Barnard Kettle. She shared with me with Roman Catholic life. First it was I do not understand how the spirit importance of seeing both sides of the the Mother and Sisters of the little in one grows, but it does as wonder and Vietnamese immigrant situation. school my seven-year-old attended and I knowledge and experience mould the Attendance at Devonshire Street helped with English language for a class years. It is affected by situations but also Meeting was a joy and I had visits to of children and privately for a nun. She so enormously for me by the people that Kangaroo valley and became friends with told me lots about her personal feelings. I have been privileged to meet and know. Ed Stanton who impressed me with his Before marriage I had visited Spain and Difficult and ugly situations also become life in nature. My child and I slept in learned some language to cope with such huge learning times. I can return the cottage bedroom with its festoon of being a visitor in a seaside village. The to such precious life-changing moments spiders which importantly kept insects annual blessing of the vehicles had been which are beyond words and which have away and we ate the red coloured Mexican a surprise joy and the lovingness of the had such meaning on my life and have corn he grew and we coped with the village folk. But going to guitar mass in made me change opinions or open up outdoor shower! He slept in his doorless the church and the conversations in class new beginnings in my journeying. A-frame structure in the fields where with my students from their Seminary One such occasion is at Rasulia, the cows walked around and where he stored was much more meaningful because I Quaker farm and community, in north his big jars of preserves. One Easter the was truly listening and learning from lives India. One has to get in a cart to arrive weather turned unexpectedly hot and the with a different perspective. A student there! One day after sitting under the group staying decided to swim naked in lent me the poetry of the mystic monk or Banyan tree with Marjorie Sykes and a the river. My girlfriend asked Ed if we priest St John of the Cross and he deeply group I go looking at everything. I am could borrow the Bible to learn how to touched my soul. I read Teresa of Avila. following the Partap Aggarival who is put on fig leaves! The woman who gave us accommodation pointing out the neem tree and telling Light continued to remain a strong was very devotional and one evening I Harry Holloway about trees, plants and and meaningful concept as I grew in came home to find her praying with a the fields. He stopped at a nondescript Spirit and came to understand the depth carved figure of Jesus in a wooden box. It bush and said, ‘This is not happy here, of George Fox’s words, ‘You do well to had come to her home as part its journey we will have to move it elsewhere.’ Never pay attention to the light that shines in from house to house. I had never had before had I thought about plants having the dark place, until day breaks and the icons or such devotional objects as part feelings! Another big surprise was in morning star rises in your heart.’ of my life but I could see with her how Esperance at the Seaman’s centre when The spiral of awareness of love and important it was for her. looking at Rev. Frank Roe’s big paintings light increased with working in London Like everyone, I have my friends from with the written words from Job saying and Spain. The journey there via Indonesia the world of literature and they have ‘Where were you when I made the and Thailand with a seven-year-old become part of my thinking and feelings heavens and the stars?’ It staggered me to daughter was immense. Living a month and enormous influences. They are from know that I had always been in existence, cheaply in a losman (home with a family Krishnamurti to Thomas Merton, from even if it was at a quite different level of accommodation) in Bali before we moved Rilke to Ram Dass and wonderful and inspiring Quaker literature, both old consciousness. on to Java and the cities of Yogakarta and and contemporary, as well as the artists, Spirit knows only Light and it is for Jakarta. It was a realisation of how close philosophers and poets from all over the me a constant opening to the light that our continent was to Asia as I experienced world. I feel an enormous gratefulness guides me. The term Light affected me the Hindu and Moslem religions and for music and literature. As a long-time more strongly when I found the Society culture. My spiral found me with different member of the Theosophical Society I of Friends as an attender in 1971. What a thoughts and tastes and sights and I can have been able to access world religions blessing that was! My mother in Western still see myself in the temple of snakes and scriptures. I suppose that it was my Australia wrote to me in Sydney when I in Penang manoeuvering myself very mother who started my love of books by was still recovering from divorce saying deftly. Much later, on visits to India, I her reading to me Tolstoy’s Childhood, ‘And if you are lonely do not forget to understood the auspicious meaning of Boyhood and Youth and Scott’s Tales of a go to the Quakers!’ My four-year-old snakes and managed to get away from the Grandfather. child came with me to a Meeting soon biblical myth of the Fall. My interest in The physical world of Nature has after that advice. So another turn of the mythology was increasing. been a supreme friend. I leapt in my expanding spiral brought me in contact In Spain, working for Inlingua in heart when I read Thoreau’s Walden as a with wonderful people and some became Zaragoza, such a wonderful old city, friends in my life in a very significant way, opened up my spiral in a different way. CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 19 MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY – CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

teenager. Even now when I visit big cities of freedom where I could paint all day by a written message pinned on the wall I notice every tree and plant and am aware or just beachcomb or just listen to my asking everybody to make birthday cards of the sky and sun and clouds. For years mother tell me of her favourite writers for Eileen Caddy. That centre of light I taught English as a second language at like Robert Louis Stevenson, Richard continues its work with people from all Bondi Beach school just to be near the Jeffries, William Hudson and the war over the world experiencing the true sea. That started in 1975 on my return poet, Edward Thomas. I grew to love Mt meaning of loving community. from Europe and I became a member of Barren East when we sometimes visited I had my first time in Ireland, and at the Society in Friends with the blessings the amazing Fitzgerald River National a home outside Belfast I had the huge of Margaret Watson and Ruth Haigh. Park with its massive number of botanical experience of how it felt to live in fear The world of water is beyond words but species. One naturalist friend took me to as was demonstrated by my hostess who I need to be near it and feel that element look and listen for the endangered ground had gone through traumatic years. It to which I belong. Here in Albany it is parrot. She said it is so important, and I was a time to understand her and to feel amazing as its contact with the land with replied but what about all the Ethiopians compassion. It was joy in happy Dublin; I its ancient Gondwanaland connection dying at this famine time. She said ‘We went to a Quaker meeting and as a tourist makes for incredible beaches, bays, inlets cannot help them’ and walked away from I learnt so much from Celtic spirituality and islands. Also it has an incredibly rich me; on her return she said to me. ‘Perhaps to their very sad history and the inspiring flora and fauna. Living on this continent I we can’. richness of their poets and writers. experience the Dreamtime of the original My mother died in 1996 and I There was a hiatus in the expanding inhabitants and have felt and shared wondered where to live next. But first, my circle of my life on my return to Australia that oneness with the earth when I was of personal pilgrimage in 1997 to places because I did not know where to live. working with them as a teacher on a and people of importance to me. It started It seemed that after years in the west settlement in Gippsland and then later in with relatives in Thailand and then three that it would be best to stay there, and I life as a welfare officer in Broome. months in Bangladesh helping at a centre bought my one-and-a-half acres of land I believe in following my heart when for rehabilitation of spinal injury patients outside Albany with the intention of I manage to evade limited thinking that and experiencing Eid, the feast at the forming a retreat centre. I had wanted five gets in the way of callings from deep close of the Ramadam fast. Then I had acres and a running stream but that was inside me. It resulted in my move to time with to a friend in France and the joy not my possibility! It is beautiful bush and Western Australia to live with my ageing of Easter where I lived in the countryside only a three minute walk to the estuary mother and four hundred residents at where the nuns and monks sang nearly with its tides, pelicans and seagulls. the tiny sea town of Hopetoun in 1987. all day in their beautiful old churches So fascination for understanding It was a big decision to leave teaching beside the monastery and the convent. I how we each grow in spirit and wisdom and the wonderful city of Sydney and went again to Spain which had had such became my two year study with an my friends and the Quaker meetings, influence on my life until I found India international interfaith seminary in New but I did. I did it the slow way by bus with its more ancient spirituality and York. It was by correspondence, but I across the Nullabor and stopping at each wisdom. Then the magic of seeing the went there for workshops and graduation. night at accommodation and getting gypsies in the south of France when they Meanwhile many celebrations took place a new bus the next day. I learned about come from all parts of Europe with their here where I live, as well as the group who being old and about huge distances and caravans to be in the seaside village of Les come here to meditate and discuss and be about self-reliance from the community Deux St Maries. They celebrate the story happy. We do the ‘A Course in Miracles’ who were mostly pioneer types and had of the two Biblical Marys being saved and most importantly we celebrate nature brought up children on farms and knew from drowning, with dressed up statues and walk the labyrinth and gather in the hardship and courage. They called me being driven around the village and then tepee if it is up. It is too wet in Albany for Mrs Turle’s daughter and let me into the white Camargue horses leading the the canvas in winter. Sometimes Quaker some very precious friendships. But it was procession to the sea. Friends from Denmark and Albany have also lonely at times. My mother missed The bus took me to relatives in come out to 5th Sunday Quaker meetings mining days with my father who had Cornwall and for the first time to Chester here to circle on the grass or in the studio. died, and for memory’s sake we boiled the staying with my Quaker friend Hazel My friends come for events which billycan on her indoor fire and went on Lawson who invited me to be with the celebrate the full moon or the seasons or little safaris to listen to birds and endlessly conference of Women for Peace in Wales. the poets Rumi or Rilke, or they come to we talked about rocks and insects and Finally I had got myself to the Findhorn paint or share other creative activities. The cloud formations. Finally I was in a state community and I was deeply touched CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

20 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 REVIEWREVIEW

attributed to the Turkish leader Ataturk trauma that follows for individuals and The Honest History – ‘those heroes that shed their blood…’ families. It also discourages asking the Book – have become myth, and there is no question – was it worth it? It thus sets EDITED BY DAVID STEPHENS AND evidence they were actually said by him. up future generations to be drawn more ALISON BROINOWSKI Similarly, Charles Bean’s vision for a readily into a military response to crises. memorial to those who served in World The second part of the book traverses Published by NewSouth Publishing, 2017. War 1 has come to emphasise the mili- other aspects of Australia’s story – the taristic aspects of our history, and used This is a very timely book of essays from environment’s impact, the changing to justify all kinds of different develop- a variety of writers about many aspects face of immigration, the economic ments at the Australian War Memorial. of Australian history and current challenges from boom and bust cycles, This is a refreshing and stimulating trends, and edited by David Stephens the myth of the ‘fair go’ in relation to and Alison Broinowski. Its primary read. The first part of the book goes the realities for many minorities, the focus is the way in which Anzac and into considerable detail about the real frontier wars, and the hidden place Australia’s war experiences have been events that have shaped us as a people. of women’s role in the records of amplified and distorted so as to crowd There is a chapter about the Armenian out the much wider stories of Australia’s genocide that occurred under the leadership. It identifies the current progress as a nation and culture. As Ottoman Empire around the time of dilemma of militarism versus inde- Julianne Schultz says in the Foreword, Gallipoli and has been largely ignored pendence in our foreign policy. this book ‘sets out the complications in subsequent relations between Turkey This book fills in many gaps in arising from the many threads of our and Australia, despite active efforts in knowledge about our past, raises national history that we need to know Australia at the time to offer relief to questions about our interpretation of the Armenians. Another chapter shows about and try to understand – the our heritage, and the imagines our the deliberate injection of government environment, immigration and multi- future. Authors included in the book funds into war history and commemo- culturalism, the economy, inequality, are Peter Stanley, Larissa Behrendt, the role of women, settler-Indigenous ration at a very substantial rate in recent Paul Daley, Joy Damousi, Mark relations, and our lingering ties to the years, so that for many young people war McKenna, Carmen Lawrence, and monarchy and to large countries in the has become the most important part of Stuart Macintyre, among others. It is northern hemisphere’. our national tradition. When students In their Introduction, the editors point come to Canberra on school visits, the a comprehensive analysis, and invites out that all historians select evidence, inclusion of the War Memorial in the reflection and conversation on many but an honest approach requires itinerary enables a subsidy of costs for aspects of Australian life. interpretation ‘robustly supported by the visit. flush The word ‘Anzackery’ refers to the evidence’. They say that there has been DAVID PURNELL a significant emphasis on military tendency to exaggerate the importance history and that it needs to be balanced of 1915. The transfer of remembrance Canberra Regional Meeting by recognition of the other sources of from the private to the public sphere Australian identity. The elevation of has led to much sentimentality about Editor’s note: An extract from the book, Anzac, in particular, has become almost ‘heroes’ and excessive rhetoric linking with some interesting comments, can too ‘sacred’ to be subjected to alternative Anzac exclusively with Australia’s story. be found at https://dailyreview.com.au/ views. As a result, for example, It gives little weight to the horrors of anzac-anzackery-australians-normalised- the conciliatory words commonly war experience and the awful legacy of war/59134/

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 21 WALKING THE CAMINO – CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

of fighting bulls. world’s longest pub crawl, many knew pictures of the Green Man, it similarly Softy or not, the ‘Municipals’ and nothing at all about the Camino (‘who’s strikes me with wellbeing. And then ‘Parochials’ had firm criteria defining this St James bloke?’) Some likened it to there is Samos, and Hospital de la a genuine pilgrim.You didn’t get a bed a Guinness book of records event (‘Look Condesa and more and more. unless you had walked all the Way there. at me! I can do 45 km every day!’).The Enigmatically, the Camino is noted Bicycle or horse pilgrims were legit, traditional yellow arrows pointing out for its spooky coincidences. but they only got a bed if all the foot the route were unnecessary, One just Some are quite simple. pilgrims had been accommodated. You followed the litter. Stalwart Camino My daughter arrived in the huge city didn’t get a bed unless you carried your recidivists declared they’d never walk of Burgos clearly at the wrong venue for own pack. All the way. And if you broke again. In 2016, not a Holy Year, just her planned rendezvous with her sister. these rules, or took liberties with the under 278,000 pilgrims received a Phoning the convent for information route or had a support vehicle, you not Compostela. and not having Spanish, she was only didn’t get a bed, you didn’t get a Holy Year 2010 totally poked fun handed over to speak to a by-standing Compostela certificate at the end either. of my ‘Holier than thou’ pretensions. ‘English lady’. The ‘English lady’ turned There was a row of grim priests at the It reminded me that the the Camino out to be her sister. Camino office in Santiago to inspect is complex and it’s certainly not about Others can be mind-boggling. your pilgrim passport to make sure its being judgmental about what we I was on the Camino when my stamps revealed a complete journey and imagine is going on in other people’s brother was being treated for liver that you had walked for religious or heads. cancer. His treatment involved a spiritual reasons. Aboriginal spiritual elders have catheter. Should the catheter detach And you most certainly couldn’t ruminated on the great, ancient, there was a dangerous risk of lethal book ahead, first come first served. spiritual pathways of other parts of the infection, and he must be rushed to The recent explosion of interest in world, e.g. the lay lines of Britain, and hospital. Consequently an alarm was the Camino has changed all that. The have pondered whether they resonate attached to the catheter. One day in tiny, pay-by-donation ‘Parochial’ and or connect with the song lines of Spain, my mobile jiggled in my my ‘Municipal’ refugios, couldn’t cope aboriginal tradition. There are many bum-bag, turned itself on, and phoned with the numbers. Private ‘albergues’ differences, but also similarities. I’m the last number I had rung, which was sprang up in their hundreds. Some inclined to support the idea that the my sister-in-law’s phone in Australia. are absolutely amazing, some a little Camino is so connected. Grumpily she answered this call from less. But they have in common that Like the aboriginal sacred places me in the middle of the night only to they don’t care how you got there. in which I have experienced a positive hear footsteps and me chatting to my There is a thriving business in taxi sense of wellbeing, the whole Camino friend. Then she suddenly noticed that bookings, transportation of packs and feels ‘blessed’ to me, with one or two John’s alarm had gone off but hadn’t fun experiences like horse riding up to occasional places that I don’t want to been loud enough to wake her! I didn’t the top of the steep bits. And the jolly hang about in at all. even know my phone was saving his volunteers in Santiago who check out And I believe there are particular life! Or they can be just nutty. your pilgrim passport are not fussy sacred sites with a higher intensity than My friends and I were tramping either. But you no longer get a replica even the Way. Speaking personally, the along on the Camino talking about of the 14th Century ‘Compostela’ with tiny, octagonal, chapel of Santa Maria wild life, I remarked that I’d never seen your name in Latin. You get a colourful de Eunate, resting in its wheat field, a snake in Spain. Immediately a little modern certificate. a couple of kilometres off the beaten one wriggled across the path right in At first I was outraged. track, is the holiest place on the Camino front of me. In 2010, the most recent ‘Holy Year’, for me. I have been known to sit in The Camino sets up situations. (a year when the feast of St James falls there for an hour, thinking five minutes Special people fall into step beside you on a Sunday), it was rumoured that the had gone by. It was built by the Knights on the Camino and thinking about Church and the government of Galicia Templar and no one understands its them changes you. Some who impacted were aiming to get 500,000 pilgrims to arcane architecture and ornamentation. me: Santiago all having walked a minimum I feel similarly about the even tinier, The elderly German gentleman of 100 kilometres. They got 272,135. garage-sized, 12th Century Ermita lovingly leading his blind wife across That last 100 km of the Camino del Soccoro at Poblacion de Campos; was a misery. Some people saw it as the with it’s ancient tombs and enigmatic CONTINUED ON PAGE 23

22 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 Landcare at Silver Wattle 25–29 September 2017 RAINA EMERSON | CANBERRA REGIONAL MEETING

Out standing in their field. Raina Emerson, Elizabeth Edwards, Mardi Miles Bray and John and Daniel Emerson display their bravery. Naulty and Helen Gould break for a chat during weeding.

andcare at Silver Wattle is now in its fifth year and ‘Working in the environment is always uplifting and you can see the results. Our first plantings around especially so at Silver Wattle. No prior knowledge is needed. the orchard and campground are now sturdy trees, You learn on the job and work at your own pace. Tools are providingL shelter and habitat. Our paddock plantings are provided.’ growing up to meet the acacias marching down from the Children and families are especially welcome at this ridges and along the gullies. It’s Earthcare in action. school holiday time. Last year the children planted some Bill Cady and Raina Emerson are leading the Landcare trees and also ranged over the property, exploring, racing leaf program and implementing a plan developed with Greening boats down the creek, observing kangaroos and wombats and Australia. building forts. This spring we have 100 trees to plant and protect. We will Come along and contribute to Earthcare in a practical also be caring for previous plantings, developing Waratah’s way. Contact Raina Emerson ([email protected]) Peace Garden, and adding to the bush food garden. for more information. Elizabeth Edwards, elder for Landcare in 2016, writes

WALKING THE CAMINO – CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 the Camino by the hand. They would was the only place you could learn how was walking the Camino to decide picnic with a starched table cloth on the to defuse land mines. At the age of 14 whether to rethink his life and follow grass, greeting their fellow pilgrims as he had seen a documentary on the toll his grandfather’s faith. One learned a they passed by. of land mines in the demilitarised zone, lot about human nature by reactions Pierre, a 21 year old French youth on and he felt he had to do something. his fourth Camino. He’d started his first Having served three years defusing to him. I don’t know what decision he as a thief, shop-lifting his way across mines he was now on the Camino to made. But he’s still got the dog. Spain. Blundering into a Cacabelos decide what to do next. He blushed I invite you to check out whether the church, he’d felt a positive force reaching when I asked about his options. My Camino impacts you in the way it did for him and he scurried out. At the hunch? he was going to become a monk. me, or totally differently. But be assured next supermarket he got arrested and Maurice, the Englishman, who, humiliated while shoplifting his dinner. like the mediaeval saint San Roc, got it will lead you to exactly the right Jolted, he has now turned himself adopted by a dog (‘Hi Maurice! how’s learning for you. into a reflective Camino devotee with your dog?’ ‘He’s not my dog! He’s just Ultreia![1] Buen Camino! complex opinions about the Way. following me!’). Maurice’s grandfather The young, Buddhist South Korean, had been Muslim, and Maurice, in a [1]Camino Salutation: Old Latin for ‘Beyond’. just out of the army, who enlisted as it crochet white skull cap and whiskers

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017 23 The Australian Friend is published online at Coordinating editor: David Swain AustralianFriend.org four times a year, in March, June, September and December. Editorial panel: Garry Duncan, Rae Litting, Wies Schuiringa Contributions Production Contributions (articles, poems and other items) are welcome as an email attachment to editor@ Mailing list Michael Searle australianfriend.org. Please ensure that images are [email protected] sent as separate attachments, and not embedded in Layout Sheelagh Wegman, Hobart TAS. word files. We prefer images in jpg format, and a Printing and distribution National Mailing and resolution of at least 300 dpi. Marketing, Canberra. Contribution deadlines Copyright Contributions should arrive no later than one month Articles printed in The Australian Friend are before the publication date: • copyright to their individual authors. Permission to 1 February for the March edition re-publish material in other Quaker publications • 1 May for the June edition is hereby granted, provided full attribution of • 1 August for the September edition • 1 November for the December edition. author and source is made. All other requests for republication should be directed to the editors. Subscriptions Disclaimer The Australian Friend is available free of charge online at AustralianFriend.org. The Australian Friend is The views expressed in The Australian Friend also available by post at no charge to members of are not necessarily those of the editors or of Australian Yearly Meeting. the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY – CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 last event was the recent world Earth Day and we were part and for silence, peace and many kinds of activities. It is only of the Oxford-based University of the Trees which is a mobile fifteen minutes drive out of Albany. It welcomes Servas visitors university. My Steiner friend led us in deep listening of nature and all pilgrims, and you are very welcome to come and share and to deep listening of each other as each participant told of this sacred space with me. their intentions for helping our planet. I do not know where next I will be led on my spiral but I endeavour to listen for divine guidance and am learning to This is an abbreviated version of Rosemary’s article. The full article surrender to Spirit more and more every day. The retreat where I can be found on line at australianfriend.org. live is open to anyone wishing to stay here for time with nature

24 THE AUSTRALIAN FRIEND | JUNE 2017