Sacred Sounds

Saturday afternoon was birthed clear and blue, shining and new.
What to create on a day such as this?

Dream this:

Souls driving out of the city
and into the southern alpine fields that kiss the feet of tender purple mountains.

A Sacred Sounds Concert on a healing retreat ~
friends, lovers, families, dear ones to celebrate sacred sounds.

Imagine making music because that's what calls you,
that's what frees you, that's what makes community.
There are no mistakes, there is only sound, and there is only laughter,
as you make music together.



Imagine a circle of souls:
of healers, children, teachers, musicians, shamans, filipino tribal chiefs, artists, fairies and farmers
holding hands in one circle, in oneness,
in an old circlular cow shed
singing ohm together
until the sacred sound swirls around them
and dances up through the roof
making spirits creak and souls soar.



Imagine dancing like an eagle,
in a circle of dancing eagles,
with a goddess child in your arms.



Imagine a couple who love each other
tenderly, honestly and genuinely.
Who love this Earth and its people so much that they open their hearts and their land
to make a healing retreat and hold gatherings to come home to.



the entirely beautiful peter and gini



Imagine an incredible band who don't make just music:
they make spirit and magic and dreams play harmony in the air.


Gorgeous George and their sublime drummer

Imagine the Andi and George band that make music that is your soul home.
Imagine them and then buy every single album they own,
because they deserve it and you deserve them.
You deserve their tilting, dancing, miraculous ocean music beauty in your heart.


Goddess Andi

Imagine bare feet
aching to tell
their story
in movement.



Imagine your friends, your circle sisters
swirling together into light and song and dance
there in the cow shed with you.


Angel and Freya


Goddess Kaylia

Imagine a gathering of souls and music
where dogs are just as much a part of the gathering
as anybody else.



Imagine a beautiful man who loves you
so deeply, unconditionally and acceptingly,
always gently watching from the corner,
always watching you fly.

Imagine a man who is a lake of reflection,
soaking it all into his depths,
letting the singing bowl and the didjeridoo
make their music inside him.



Imagine walking by the lake,
coming home to yourself and to the Earth,
strung in a necklace of Goddesses
who have become your tribe.



Imagine finding a woman who is like a twin to you.
Imagine her. She is coming. She has arrived.



Imagine reclaiming the Dance:
the Dance of Freedom, the Dance that makes you Glad,
the Dance your body longs to dance.
Imagine the Dance that isn't about judgements or others,
it is the Dance of Being Alive and Barefoot and Grateful.

All I need to dance now
is hands beating drums
and the dirt floor of a cow shed.



All I need to dance now
is Mother Earth
kissing my bare feet



and Father Sun's light
kissing my bare face and arms



and the sacred sound of our own hearts beating.




All we need is the sacred sound of our own hearts beating.




Imagine it... so it may be...

In brilliance,
Leonie

Putting the GRAND in Grandmother

This is my super sassy Granny and her sister Sally in their early twenties.
Tomorrow I am flying back home for Granny's birthday, and a celebration of ninety years of magnificent living.

I want to hold in my heart all the ways my Gran has touched my life.

My friend Shan allocates a special type of description to the women she respects: she says they have "guts, balls, determination and integrity."
My Gran is that kind of woman. She also has a smile that she embraces the whole town with. She has a way of making people feel good and safe with her. She knows things intuitively before anyone else does.

On the phone not so long ago, she said to me
"I think your sister is interested in a suitor, Leonie."
"Really Gran? Why's that?"
"She's been taking to dressing herself nice of late, and she has a little glow around her... I think she might be interested in a young man."
Sure enough, Gran was right. As she always is.


She looks like she has wings here...

And she has SASS.
That woman looks good every day of the week. I took these photos of her in April, and she was wearing spunky pink stillettos, white pedal pushers, a striped pink flowing top and huge white framed "winkers" (otherwise known as sunglasses, for those who do not speak Gran-language.)

I'd just picked her up from the op-shop where she still works a few days a week.
She said to me:
"Leonie, do you know I sold hundreds of dollars of clothes today?"
"Really? That's awesome Gran!"
"Do you want to know why I am so successful at it?"
"Why?"
"Because I model all of the clothes!"

And with that, she placed her hands on her hips, and waggled.

My Gran has SASS.


My mum and grandmother, doing their dance of love for 55 years...

The morning before we took these photos, I was driving with Mum, and said to her:
"Mum, I've always felt different. Odd. Unique. A bit zany. Just a bit out of skew with everyone else. I wonder if it's genetic, and where I get it from."
And she sighed this tiny whisper of a sigh, and replied:
"I feel like that too sometimes. Maybe you get it from me. I don't know where I get it from."
And then we looked out over the yellow eucalypts rushing by.

Later that day, I told Granny I wanted to take some photos of her.
And she giggled like a schoolgirl, and said dramatically
"I don't know how to pose though... I'm camera shy... I've never been a model before..."
"Sure thing Gran, we'll just go with the flow."

I turned on my camera, and took some test shots.
"I know! Let's play on the swings!" she says, and she is off with a trot.
My Mum sits on the opposite end to even out the weight.

It must have been quite a sight really.

Three blonde women in hysterics of laughter. The two oldest playing on the swings. The youngest with camera full of smiles.

And there in her little pink stillettos, my camera-shy Gran with her little white bob, bouncing up and down on the swings, yahooing like a rodeo cowgirl.



It was at that point I turned to Mum and said
"I think we just found our genetic zany-ness."

This woman must have had ninety years of practice because she sure is good at LIVING.

So this weekend is a gathering of all my family and relatives, and ninety of my Gran's closest friends to celebrate this Woman.

This woman of huge strength, a lion's heart, a mother's courage, a shining smile and crazy diamond spirit. My grandmother has grieved two husbands, two sons and a grandson. But every time I ask her how she is, she replies with a thousand-megawatted smile:
"I woke up this morning. I was still breathing. So, I thought: it's a GOOD day!"

I have so much to learn from this woman. The whole world does, I think.

Happy, happy birthday my beautiful grandmother.
For all the good days that have come before and all the good days to come,
I celebrate and love you with all my heart, and am so honoured to have come from you.

Big love,
Leonie


P.S. If there was any way to get ninety birthday wish comments... that would be oh-so-freaking glorious... I could show her them on Sunday all the wishes from around the world!
All good either way... but just putting it out there ;)


~
Back next week! :)

dear leonie

dear leonie,

i am writing you this so you may remember.

i want you to know what it was like to go to your first shamanic drumming circle.

it was raining, a dark may night.

we turn up early ~ an hour early, i'd gotten the time wrong,
so we strolled up and down the street, us and chris and his mum,
talking of this and that, sticking our heads into the remaining open shops that smelled of patchouli, plastic tubs of turkey feathers on the shelf.

i want you to remember how we at last entered the circle, smelling strongly of grandfather sage. a man with blue eyes and black boots is the guide.

the circle begins to fill with men and women,
black leggings, eyebrow rings, frog shirts, smiling eyes.
the guide walks around the circle, introducing himself, hugging each of us,
and slowly the circle walks around inside itself,
saying our names, hugging each other hello.
i decide there that it is the best way to meet someone:
to embrace them, to say "lovely to meet you" and to mean it as your heart is pressed against theirs.

then there is talking, and you find yourself thinking:
enough with the talking of doing, let's just do
and you grin at your own impatience,
staring at the monstrous drum in the middle of the circle
meditating out and into your own core
the sage smoke takes you there.



we are smudged with a huge wing of eagle
and inside my cells i know
i am being changed.

the drum begins
and a journey into the heart
it is heady and hot and smoky
and without words.
it feels like every part of my body is being smoked out.

and then we all begin drumming
on that huge deerskin drum
a flute is played around us
and i move back from the circle.

the guide plays a didjeridoo, and i close my eyes,
and he begins to play it over my chest.
my heart begins to beat with the didj music,
the layers of pain strip away
and there flighting, flying, dancing in my centre
is joy
and i begin laughing.

there is my joy core. i had been looking for it, wondering where it lived and how it felt since my dear friend D saw it one magical night as we held a rose quartz crystal ball together. there is my joy core.

i lay on the floor afterwards, soaking in the beating of the drum,
the sage of past lives,
the sacred sounds of a life unravelling
to who i wanted to be.



i write you this so you may know it, hear it, feel it again,
maybe in twenty years.
i don't know where you'll be
but i know it will be fucking magnificent.

i love you older self,
24 year old leonie