well, hello there
I am trying my darndest to find the best way to describe the past three days to you. it was so much, very deep, too real and I want get that across, frands. so bear with me.
you see, we've been camping on Aboriginal Freehold Land with an elder and that experience is hard to fathom:
- on the one hand, we had great camp - eating delicious meals cooked on the fire, sleeping out under the stars (so many stars and a great view of the milky way), sitting and soaking up the sounds of streams amidst the total quiet, and tonnes of coke zero - and, well I could go on (but I won't, because there was no toilet and that was new to me)
- on the other, there were lessons and thoughts and moments that have cut deep. getting to see an elder on ancestral land which they now own is pure magic. there's the deliberate pace of conversation while all senses are firing and picking up the country you're standing in, the beauty, joy and almost innocence in the absolute connection to land, and the perception of a world just beyond our own.
by nature I am a gap-filler. I let no opening in conversation go unfilled, I take every chance I can get to grab laughs, and I push the words in the direction I can best see. and yet this weekend I was left wondering whether that is the best version of me. with more grace, I could be a better, intuitive and more compassionate person. maybe then I could trust my forward steps, confidently choose to be silent and find myself on the path mapped out for me (totally in tune with the universe).
there is a lot to learn from our first peoples. we miss out on that when we talk the loudest, thinking we know the most and can direct the discussion the way we like to head. what would happen if we listened and moved in that slow, deliberate manner that I am getting used to up in the Cape?
goodnight, frands. I am tired and my nursing home bed is calling out to me.