July | 2018 | Astarté Earthwise

Have you ever had the misfortune and the grief of watching someone die of cancer? You stand by knowing there is nothing you can do, except watch as they waste away in front of your very eyes. You lend your support you give all the love in your heart to no avail, and you lose sleep, you are tired beyond anything you have known, and you are working as you never have before, the sisters of fate have weaved and spun, and your being fills with a sense of hopelessness and despair, for the loss you know you will experience.

This feeling, this inkling of knowing how that feels, gives you a lens of sorts into the hearts and the grief of our farmers, these men women and children, are too, in the fight of their lives. Every day they watch the slow death, the crippling of their land, the crippling of their stock and their produce, like a cruelty unknown to city folk.

Tension builds in the long shadows of every dawn and dusk, the land is stretched so taught, not giving, not nurturing, she is simply in decline, hope fades and the dust builds and the feed disappears. Something you love and feel so connected to, is rotting and dying, this is a part of you, your soul and every fibre of your being is connected to this land.

Can you imagine looking into the eyes of your breeding stock, animals you’ve spent all your days with, seeing to their needs, their cycles of births, separations and deaths, you’ve been there together supporting each other through the good and bad, the storms, the floods, the fires, the heat and the cold, illness, predators and injury only right now, this time it’s very different.

No one but a farmer can explain this stress of this tangible tension, and what it does to your value as a human, it is extremely painful to watch your beautiful domesticated animals and your livelihood diminish and suffer. Watching the innocents that give and give, slowly lose their condition, fat bellies now gaunt, bones stretching up begging for a mouthful of green grass, there simply isn’t enough to go around, as days turn to weeks then months, it’s too much, the weakness arrives, the will to live is taken over by starvation, each day more and more animals hit the dust, their legs too weak to carry them, and they wait silently for the end of their misery.

And what happens when the rains don’t come, and all the animals are gone…who is looking after the farmers?

The Earth is waking us up…..we need to stop separating…..for we are all one.

What hurts the farmers hurts you.

What will you do to help the farmer?

~ © Astarté Earthwise July 2018

Because of Her we can….

The feminine energy of the indigenous sun…touches my skin, she grows freckles on my skin…my skin was born of this land, so she belongs to this land…

I’ve taken time this week, to reflect, to sit in the sun, and to listen in the dark, I’ve nourished my mind…and stilled my soul.

Firstly I honour and pay respects to Nungeena Tya….our Earth Mother…She gives so much…without Her there would be no human life here.

Here quietly in this sacred space on this land here on the farm, Worimi land, I have quietly celebrated the essential role that the indigenous women have played and continue to play in my life, in community and this entire nation, and the universe.

I would like to thank all Indigenous women for their strength and determination through the atrocities they have lived and breathed, that they carry and that which has come down through their bloodlines and their songlines. I am both grateful and blessed to have listened and to have heard your stories. I am humbled by your raw honesty and tenacity.

I feel your strength growing, and I support your dreams and the dreaming. You have my compassion, empathy, attention and respect.

Two very special women have personally touched my life deeply and I am a better person for having known them, worked with them and learnt from them.

Maureen Smith – Minmia and Sal Lavallee – Ngarigo Gin I am forever grateful for your friendship, you continue to amaze me with your potency for healing self and for bringing more and more of yourself and your message to the world. Your service, wisdom, writings and your art are miraculous gifts for all women, and humanity.

Thank you deeply, from my heart to yours as I honour you with the deepest of love and respect.

So many Indigenous women, known and unknown, have been my guides on my crooked path, their light shines the way, as does their shadow, and in this naidoc week I acknowledge each and everyone of you.

The bones that lie in this dirt beneath my feet are my ancestors, as are the tall ironbark’s swaying with the gum trees here, I hear their voices and their calls on the breeze.

The blue cloudless skies this week with the post solstice chill, take the green from the paddock grasses, as the light increasing plays patterns on the tall Kangaroo grass, and is more magic at sunset. I am connected to all, we are one.

I love this land, this nation and this continent, it is unique as are its people its flora and fauna, I am humbled every day to wake up in such an enriched environment, of ancient sacredness and clear enthusiastic indigenous young minds, steering our future may we all unite to heal, what was lost.

In ten to twenty years from now the very belligerent patriarchs, and their unbalanced ideals will be laying in this dirt, their ways will be gone forever, a thing of the past…. and all women will breathe easier.

Respect, balance and femininity is rising, wrongs are being righted….and because of Her we now Can!…Yes!!!