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When I was 16, one of my favourite places was a beautiful bookstore named The Sanctuary. Quite the perfect name for that Nag Champa scented haven, really. I would curl up in the green director chairs there, letting my fingers wander over the book friends there. Perfectly positioned by the chairs was a panoply (quite literally: a splendid array) of SARK books.Finding SARK was like finding home. A friend, a teacher, a kindred spirit. Her books were a place to sleep in, to find absolute faith in my own rainbow soul. Susan, over the years since, has become like a lighthouse for me, shining her light to the sea so I could cast my own sails and shine my own beacon light.Today, a brown box from Amazon arrived. This is an incident which, in itself, creates a great amount of joy, but today was an Extra Special Amazon Delivery Day. I stuffed the box into my bag and bicycled home as fast as these little Amazon legs would take me. Once at home, I setup a picnic in the backyard for me and Charlie, with celebration Aloe juice at the ready.
Welcome home, Fabulous Friendship Festival.So we read that book together, there in the backyard on a warm May afternoon, witnessing a dream being birthed into the world.When I was sixteen, could I have ever dreamed that my name would be in a SARK book? That my dog would be a friend of this soul~lighthouse?Somewhere, sometime, sleeping in the moonbeams, I must have dreamt this awake.This Universe is one big Miracle unfolding, and I feel greatly blessed.Dream High, Big and Wide,Leonie
It reads:My dog friend Charlie lives in Australia with Leonie and her partner. We've never met in person, but as soon as I saw his photo, I knew we were friends.
Sometimes Charlies and friendships and SARKS make this whole world go round. Make that all the time.Off to bed now ~Charlie is in need of some feet to sleep on.
It's true - in a round-a-bout-six-degrees-of-separation kind of way. I am possibly even closer to Paul Simon than I am to my (almost) bestie MacGyver.Let me explain this miracle, and other miracles.Yesterday me, my love and my love's mum went out to the Spirit of the Forest Festival on my beautiful friend Gini's property. I wore my turquoise cowgirl hat, a sure sign an adventure will come about. The afternoon was filled with drinking chai, planting trees to honour our Tree grandmothers, watching a horse~whisperer, hanging out by the tipi, listening to talks. 
Once the sun dropped behind the mountains, everyone gathered into the round building that once was a cattle feeding shed. The shadows were dreamy against the brick-hewn wall.
And the dance began. Led by Prince Mama Kiama, an Unahi tribe chief from the Phillipines, a group of men dressed in loincloths began to dance. They leapt through the air, beating on drums, running like warriors. Women dressed in long skirts sashayed around the edges with arms like gentle eagles.
I want to tell you how that felt, how my heart beat quickened and breath shortened as they danced. That somehow, seeing that Prince and those mostly white boys in loincloths dancing, made a primal owl in me screech into the night. I want to tell you how I had tears in my eyes and a snake uncoiling in my belly, wanting that initiation for every man, for these ceremonies to be a part of every one's life, for dance and movement and spirit to be the way we celebrate each and every sunset. And mostly, for some inexplicable reason, I want to bring loincloths and long skirts back. They call in me some ancient memory that is deep and instinctual, as though they are how things should be.
my love at night.
The drums kept drumming into that night. The musical instruments came out, and songs were sung. A melting pot of traditions, wisdoms, songs and open hearts. I just kept feeling incredibly blessed to witness it all.
The entirely beautiful Prince Mama.
His Earthmamadrummingloving wife Lisa.
The quietly compelling Craig Six Bears playing a Native American flute.
And then, a man by the name of Trevor Knight joined the stage. And he and Prince Mama sang John Denver songs together, as brothers. Trevor told us that in the 1960's he played the folk circuit in England, and often played shows with an upstart short dude named Paul Simon, who later went back to America to play with his mate Art Garfunkel. Yep, THE Paul Simon, one of my biggest music idols and on my Top 5 to see live list (along with James Taylor and the five member version of Fleetwood Mac).
So last night, in an old cattle feeding shed, I tucked my djembe under my arm, and I drummed along with a Philipino tribal chief and a dude who had played with Paul Simon. I drummed like there was nothing else to do but echo the heartbeat, nothing to do but herald a miracle.
I danced with that drum like a woman possessed by the earth, the music and the moon~drenched air.
All my life I have been waiting to be this woman.
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West of Proserpine, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
(Lyrics by John Denver, as sung by Leonie Allan)
"There are two laws we have. To translate them, it means Love and also Peace."
~ Prince Mama Kiama
I will meet you in the dancing circle,
Leonie
