Symbols, sign posts to the unconscious, the deep rich soup of potential.
As we drove down the rutted soggy track to Windgrove last Saturday, the sun suddenly emerged from the dull fug of a storm stained sky to grace our arrival. What a bold symbol for the beginning of our time together, illumination, life, emergence, light and dark, surprise…We gathered to journey, to strengthen community, to wake-up to who and what we are, to cultivate our Ecological Selves and work consciously for change.
Precious and vital work!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

Dear fellow Journeyers,

Firstly we want to thankyou all for the time we shared at beautiful Windgrove over Easter. Each one of you precious people, with your unique contribution co-created a rich time for us all.

As mentioned, going back into the world and our daily lives can be challenging, after sharing deeply with others. There can be a sense of being on a high and feeling very optimistic and clear about the next steps at the end of a retreat, only to be sabotaged by our enculturation (both inner and outer) when we return home/work. To support this transition we are offering each of you one follow-up integration session so please negotiate a time soon.

We will also be organising another potluck gathering to continue building our community of practicing Ecoevolutionaries. See you there!

Love to you all, Jill & Astrid

What is true prosperity? The dominant unexamined assumption of our modern culture is that health, happiness and wellbeing come primarily from economic wealth and consumption. Consequently, economic growth and continued consumption are the major concerns of government, and a large proportion of the population.

Contrast this with life in Costa Rica, which ranks first in the world on the Happy Planet Index, www.happyplanetindex.org. Costa Rica generates 99% of its electricity renewably, its people are amongst the happiest in the world, they live longer than people in the USA and consume about a quarter of USA consumption.

How can we create a socially just, environmentally sustainable and spiritually fulfilling world? Ultimately it is about the kind of world we want to create for our children, our grandchildren and generations to come. What kind of ancestors do we want to be?

Evolutionaries (people who align their passion, their unique gifts and their purpose, with the evolutionary impulse) know that focussing energy on what is wrong tends to strengthen the object of attention. We urgently need to create a new uplifting vision for the future. Let’s make Tasmania the exemplar model.

We are called to envision a radically different way of life, and to powerfully, courageously and joyfully, take the steps to bring our vision to fruition. Like Martin Luther King, we need a dream, a dream that is for the benefit of all beings, and to keep that vision before us as we take action. What sort of ancestor do you want to be? What brings you alive? What are you already doing to create change? What are your ideas, poems of inspiration, questions?

Jill Nolan 1.12.2012

Wildmindfulness – Earth, Spirit, Action weekend at Windgrove 24,25/11/12

…within the liminal space of silence, is the voice of mystery…the threshold of our emergent future

David Orr says…the difference between a future ranging from outright catastrophe to the evolution of global civilization moving toward justice and sustainability will come down to our capacity to understand ourselves fully at all levels…

Courage, creativity & community… cultivated as we align inner and outer nature, purpose with passion, and experience an embodied knowing of our interbeing…a life-long dance woven by the ecological, the evolutionary & the egoic…

Earth, Spirit, Action

A day on the mountain with John P Milton 20/11/12

Seventeen of us came together for an experiential learning day on Kunanyi (Mount Wellington), with John P Milton…how will our unique threads & community connectedness weave us?…what do we envision for our future?…what are the steps we need to take?…what does this community want?..what does earth and all her members need?…what sort of ancestors do we want to be?

John Milton says…the next great opening of an ecological worldview will have to be an internal one…

Lost…Stand still. The trees ahead & bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or bush does is lost on you, you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you…by David Wagner

Shedding skin in the Tarkine April 2012

A few months ago I visited the Tarkine in Tasmania. This exquisite temperate rainforest is the next Mecca for mining. One afternoon, the sky clouded over and a violent thunderstorm swept through. Rain came down in sheets and trickles turned to torrents. Finally the rain turned to slush and soon hail beat the tin roof of the shelter with a cacophonous drumming. Lightening sparked, and lit up the darkest fern fringed hollows. The wind clawed its way through the canopy, tossing trees from side to side like a mad dancer. All of a sudden the storm passed and the sun pierced the forest with a luminous brilliance. It was wild and beautiful and cold!

That night, the cold crept in even more intensely and our chunky sleeping bags felt like thin inner sheets. I dreamt that a golden Labrador, a guide dog no less, approached me. It held its front paw in the air, entreating me to attend. I bent down and said, ‘oh darling, you have a sore paw’ and stroked the dogs paw gently to relieve its pain.

Suddenly I woke up. I found to my horror that I was stroking my right hip which was extremely painful. In an instant I realised that the dream was about loving self, compassion for self, vulnerability, and I cried and cried.

In the morning my hip was still very sore. As a strong fit woman it seemed even more painful! It was very difficult to ask the others in the group to share my load, which of course they did willingly and lovingly. I hobbled out of the Tarkine that morning, supported by the gnarled limb of a sister tree and my friends, humbled, lighter and loved! What a great lesson it was and how powerfully facilitated by this wild and precious forest!

The Tarkine Rainforest is exquisitely beautiful and alive. Mining companies are preparing to penetrate the earthly skin of this wild place, as they mine what has been laid down over millions of years, for the benefit of a few, in this one generation.

How can we see the wood for the trees?

How will we wake up from this dream of the modern world?

If nothing more, sit quietly in the forest and listen for a while and don’t ignore your pain!

Astrid