• We are destroying the earth and ourselves at an alarming rate.
• This is caused by the current belief that we are all separate.
• The First Peoples of the world knew that as part of the whole, we are delicately interconnected with all things
- and that everything is sacred.
• They have been trying to communicate this knowledge to us for a long time.
- but we’ve thought we’ve known better...
...
The time for waking up is NOW
The time for listening to the First Peoples of the world is NOW
The time to act from our heart is NOW
The time to remember our long forgotten wisdom is NOW
I am passionate about helping to facilitate the relearning of the ancient wisdom of our ancestors. Through my wilderness survival training and my love for the land I hope to inspire new ways of connecting with and experiencing our world. Drawing inspiration from Aboriginal Australians, I provide opportunities for people to reconnect to their own land and to foster respect and love for our environment, one another and ourselves.
This is my story...
I have been visiting Australia for many years, and each time I visited I became increasingly aware of how the indigenous Australians do not seem to have any place, or respect in their own country. I began to feel the pain of the land, and of the people of that land. I realised that thousands of years of wisdom were disappearing under a fog of depression, anger, substance abuse - and general apathy in the Aboriginal communities.
It was when I read a book called Story about Feeling by Aboriginal Elder Bill Neidjie that I felt the calling. It touched me to the core of my being, as it expresses from the heart the deep sense of connection between all things that underpins all aspects of Aboriginal life. Story about Feeling has been translated directly into clear and simple English
- which keeps it true.
Here is a short extract: -
Don’t go round and put your head down.
Listen carefully, careful and this spirit e come in your feeling
and you will feel it...anyone that. I feel it... my body same as you.
I telling you this because the land for us never change round.
Places for us, earth for us, star, moon, tree, animal,
no-matter what sort of animal, bird or snake...
all that animal same like us. Our friend that.
if you got story, heart...
then speak yourself, stand for it!
While reading the book I realised that it was a gift to us - an attempt to reach out to remind us of the feeling of interconnectedness which we have lost. It was at this point that I decided I wanted to do all I could to help spread this message as widely as possible, and thought the best way to do this would be to make a film, inspired by the book.
I left my full-time job as a complementary therapist in a hospice and rented out my home. I then set off back to Australia, and to Bill Neidjie’s country on the border of Kakadu National Park and Arnham Land, to ask permission from the family - and to see if a film would be possible. It was the wet season, so I was faced with daily electrical thunderstorms, extreme flooding, crocodiles, copious amounts of mosquitoes and to top it all - an outbreak of Ross River Fever...!
I never reached Bill’s family home because of the floods - but I learned from his family that just before he died, he had asked someone else to make a film; which remains unfinished. So even though I felt I’d had a strong calling to make the film, I had to let it go and trust that the reason I was there would become apparent.
I was led, through a sequence of events, to Bob Randall and an Aboriginal community called Mutitjulu at the base of Uluru, in the central Australian desert. Whilst staying with Uncle Bob and his family he told me that he had just finished making a film called KANYINI. When he explained what it was about I decided to go to Sydney to meet the producer, Melanie Hogan. She showed me a preview of the film, and being extremely impressed with it, I asked if she would like me to try to release it in the UK, and possibly elsewhere in Europe. She said, “Do you think people would be interested?” My reply was “I think they will be VERY interested!”.
“The Earth is our Mother. That makes you and me – us – brother and sister.”
– This is Bob Randall’s message:
“Walk with me, talk with me, listen and learn with me.”
...
In 2007 I distributed Kanyini to cinemas across the UK, and arranged for Uncle Bob to come for a month - long speaking tour (please see Kanyini page).
Having completed this, having learned, and been so inspired by Uncle Bob, Bill Neidjie and the Aboriginal culture I was left with the feeling of wanting to deepen my own connection with nature, and learn about the ancient indigenous wisdom of this land. I decided to take part in a year - long wilderness survival training course (of which I am in the midst of) and spend as much time as possible in nature.
Feeling that I want to share what I have learned with others, I am now running weekend walking retreats on Dartmoor entitled “Walking Journeys to the Wyldheart”, which enable people to take time to rediscover themselves in nature.