Wild Fairie Adventure Picnic

While I was in Brisbane a few weeks ago, I wanted to connect with some of the goddesses in my life that I have met from so many parts of my journey: high school dearhearts, internet un-met lovelies, womens circle sisters. Instead of meeting each of them for different cups of tea, I decided to Create an Event. Something a little bit wild, a little bit delicious, gentle but surprising. I considered having a Turkish banquet: too boring. A midnight rendezvous on a mountain: adventurous, but I'm more awake during the sunshine hours. A wild fairie adventure picnic: just perfect.



Now, I only needed to find a place for it!
I woke on the day of the picnic just as the sun was rising, my two sisters still slumbering. I slung on a long green skirt emblazoned with elephants, and a black singlet, and out into the morning I walked. I journeyed north, and found a park: it was bare, with small trees and traffic on all four sides. I journeyed on. I wanted to find the river, but didn't know where it was. I followed no map but the gentle pulling of my innards over sloping hills made of crumbling concrete and tropical jungle.



Down past a large white house, I found the river: wide and rumbling with skiers, hedged with mangroves. I clambered into the mangroves, and cried for a while. The distance of weeks since has blurred my memory of what pushed the tears forth. It could have been tears of joy at finding the river, and gratitude of being guided there. It could have been tears of gentle sadness at feeling all the emotions of a human with a fractured, precious heart. It could have been all of these. I only know is I cried with gratitude and honouring of the tears. And then I looked up, and the mangrove leaves were shaped like hearts. I smeared mangrove mud on my legs. I walked on.



I spoke to the fairies as I walked:

Dear Fairies,
I would like to find a pretty-ish bit of wildnerness* to co-create a magical event with. I would so love to create a space for goddesses to connect with mama earth and each other. If you could please help me find this place, I would be so grateful.
(P&P reference, for those of you playing at home)





As I gave my request, I decided that in return, I would do something for the fairies to thank them, and to make it a true energy exchange. After reading Doreen Virtue's "Healing with the Fairies", I know that fairies are custodians of the natural world, and need help in nourishing and protecting the earth.





A few minutes later, I looked down into the mangroves and saw an abandoned shopping trolley stuck halfway in the mud of the river. I looked back up the steep rocky incline to the road. Not an easy hike. I decided that a wild adventure fairie picnic is worth fighting for, so I hitched my skirt up and made my way down to the mangroves and mud. I hauled that shopping trolley inch by inch up the rocks, giggling away to myself, reminding myself all the way "I'm doing this for the fairies... doing it for the fairies..." Once up on the road again, I fixed the shopping trolley to a handrail, and high-fived myself.



I walked on. And on. And on.
Past pandanas trees and kayakers and large green leaves piled in gutters. Past huge sporting ovals and cute cottages. And then, just over a tiny creek, I found a little green space between the houses. I couldn't see where it ended, so I walked in. Past purple jacaranda trees and green jungles. Golden flowers sang and butterflies danced. I swore I saw fairies.



Past a well loved basketball hoop and a handmade pizza oven. Past voluptuous trees, into a clearing that was hemmed by a river and jungle. There were lizards and blue kingfisher birds and brown wild turkeys. It was a piece of wilderness in the suburbs, a well-loved but unowned slice of magic. Someone had mowed the clearing in a circle, forming a beautiful spiral in the grass. I had found it. The place. The one I trusted existed, even if I didn't know its name. Even though it wasn't on the maps. I had found it using my heart, and it was just what I wanted it to be.





So I sent out the call, giving wild and elaborate directions for a place that didn't exist. I wonder even if it would be there if I went to look again, or if it existed only for that short space of time, like the secret garden, or the place behind the grandfather clock.





That afternoon, we gathered there. Women and children and a tiny puppy named Bella. Goddesses of all different flavours, all stunningly beautiful in their own ways. Friends of friends meeting friends. Women finding each other and sharing. Eating and laughing and speaking. Soaking in the fairie magic. Painting wildly. Throwing the canvas as far as we could across the spiral oval. Getting hands and feet and noses and faces glistening with rainbow paint. Wearing paper tiaras. Being just as we are.





I don't know how to express just how much sacred and sublime gatherings fill me up now. Just how much I have learned that when you take the path less travelled, adventure and magic flow in as easily as breath. I see the glistening, shimmering beauty in every soul I meet. I feel blessed beyond belief. And onwards I walk, knowing there is more work to be done, more life to be lived, more joyous celebrating to be had.






Onwards I walk, to a new place, and to a new self.
I journey onwards now, to India, to dreams come true, to lotus flowers and Kali Ma.
I kiss the palm of all I meet, and hold my own.



I am off on a journey ~~~
I return in a month.





Until then, may your journey be blessed with light.
May you have magical, sublime, sweet times.



May your eyes fill up with goodness.
May you dare to be your own wild adventure fairie.

Namaste,
Leonie

P.S. Remember: Magic can happen anywhere at any time. Ya just gotta give it the space to enter.

the cowgirl hangs up her adventure hat for now

lena

I have returned, hung my blue cowgirl adventure hat on the doorknob (for now).

I have been on 12 plane flights in the last month. Adventure upon adventure. See what that hat does?

It is odd to be back here ~ I am still in two different places.

More than two actually.

I am:

Walking the streets of Adelaide.
Holding my breath, watching magnificent buffalos.
Making inspiration sandwiches with my magicmakingmistress Donn.



Making silly with my rather hilarious lil sister.


no, seriously, don't make me do that dumbass poetic look outside the window...
oh, okay then...

Breathing in the sea salt air of Hobart.
Living the pre-wedding week of my soul sister Shan and a gaggle of new goddess sisters.



Chanting by the river.
Leaving my personal belongings splayed across Australia (clapping sticks are planted in the sands of a creek. I hope the pigs don't gnaw on them.)
Dancing ecstatically with a new friend with the same mermaid hair as me.



Meeting a woman with priestess eyes and finding a crystal with stories in it.
Gathering with women for sacred rites.
Running barefoot down the dirt road of Shan's property at dusk.
Walking all the way home in the dark holding hands with my sweet friend Lena from school.
Photographing one of the women I honour most in this world marry her beloved, letting rain tears of joy and light.



Dirty dancing with my imaginary friend Patrick Swayze.
Laughing until it hurt (and it hurts so good).
Asking for healing, again and again.
Learning how to live in this world with my Spirit showing.
Meditating on a single bed with my big sister, niece and nephew. A breathing love sandwich.
Walking in the morning with my mama, finding two eagle feathers as gifts from the universe.
Meeting my mum's tai chi guru and being thoroughly told off by him in a loving kickbutt kinda way *gigglesnort*.
Looking for frogs with torches.
Laughing through the halls of a nursing home with my ancient kindred.
Being an angel.
Kneeling on the ground at my ancestral home, praying and smudging.
Playing on the see-saw with my mum and 90 year old goddess crone of a grandmother.
Crying and laughing and growing and healing and sharing all at once.
Family. Family. Family. Need I say more?
Savouring the moments at each place I travel to and each heart I meet.
Returning home to my crazily colourful and cozy home. Into the embrace of his arms and eyes, and the lickety-lickstering of my joyful dog.
I ask him: Why do we live here again? Away from our families and the land?
He doesn't know the answer right now either, but that is okay. We know for now, we are here. And we are here for a reason that is simultaneously unfurled and still blossoming.

This is where I am at.

I am a radically blessed woman,
Leonie


on the travels, charters towers beyond my window

good things

good things in recent days ~

cockatoo medicine.

synchronicity.




still shaking it as a cowgirl.




bushwalking barefoot.




this picture of chris... so very much "he"




sitting in the carseat behind him, watching his hand dance out in the wind.




playing grand finals of billionaire with my love and his parents, all of us wearing obligatory silly hats for it.







having artists circles ~ gathering at bek's with our womens group just to create, laugh, share and eat good nosh for a few hours on a sunday afternoon.


all good things. so very, very good.

just like you, hottie.
love,
leonie

rain on

my love welcoming in the new year

A little more than a week ago we celebrated summer solstice on a sand island in the shallow river of the Murrumbidgee.

As part of our summer solstice service, we connected with the hearts and minds of women manifesting rain, a movement which started in Victoria in an effort to end the rain.

Large tracts of Australia is in drought, and the state of Victoria suffered from some large bushfires a couple of weeks ago. So much attention was placed on the dry and the fires that we were attracting that which we didn't desire. Womens circles across the state, over Australia and around the world were asked instead to manifest rain, to imagine gentle soaking rain to fall for a week to quench the thirst of mama Earth.

In our circle, we visualised the drenching rains, filling our spirits with grey clouds lumbering across the sky, soaking us with her plentiful abundance.

As we spoke to the sky, asking it to rain, I voiced the words:

May the rains fall so this river fills, and the sand island we are on be reclaimed by the water again.

We raised our hands, eyes closed, feeling the gentle drum of rain coming inside us, delighting in the small light drops which fell lightly on us as we spoke. They were as gentle as a kiss, as light as a whisper, so soft we had to ask each other at the end: did you feel it too?



Over the New Year weekend the storms came, the clouds ranged over the mountains. Hail fell leaving our background to be smattered with white globes. And the rain fell.

Yesterday, I went for a walk with my lover.

This is the river a week later.



In the middle of the water in the photo was where our sand island at circle was. The beach where we watched a boy play with his dog was gone. The small waterfalls that we explored in bare feet was now part of the swelling mass of rain water surging through the trees.

It was the most perfect new years surprise of all.

We stood by the rocks for a while, smiling at all that water.

More needs to fall, but for now, let us savour the moment of the rain.



We walked along the sides of the riverbank for a while, breathing in the sweet scents of damp Australian bush, delighting in the wombat holes and the soft moss on the rocks.
A gum stripped of old bark captured our attention, and we knelt in the damp soil so I could capture that perfect time in my new journal.



This was the best way to welcome in the new year ~
with arms wide open to the rain.


love,
Leonie

divinely guided: summer solstice

A few weeks ago, a chance conversation happened.

We were driving through the toll booth as we do everyday. I was soaking up the attention of the old toll booth driver who we have named "Wilfred." All in a day's work really - talk about the weather, laugh about the traffic, anything to have some small talk with a stranger.
But this day he says something unusual:
Only a few more weeks until the longest day of the year!

I exclaimed my surprise, we waved our goodbyes, and drove on.
From the backseat Mr P berates me joyfully:
REALLY Leonie! What kind of PAGAN are YOU!!! Not even knowing about Summer Solstice! I mean REALLY! I thought you would have been up a hill celebrating it naked with your womens friends or something!

I laugh at my pagan ignorance. I've never had the opportunity to celebrate a solstice before in other circles, but now I have my own circle, and the opportunity lay before me.
A seed was planted, a resolve grew:
YES, I must celebrate summer solstice.

So I sent out the call. A few responded, as I expected. Christmas falls so close to Summer Solstice, I knew my sisters would already have plans.

I did some research, and felt like I was learning about a history I hadn't heard before. I knew about Christian festivals created in the last two thousand years, but what of before then? Cultures all around the world have celebrated the longest day of the year with various festivals. In the ancient region of Sweden, a midsummer tree was set up and decorated in each town which would be danced around. Women and girls would bathe in the local river as a magical rite to bring rain for the crops. You can read more about the traditions of summer solstice here.

Last night I drove to the local river, dressed simply in a blue skirt, a black singlet and a serendipitous, sacred goddess necklace received in the mail today, woven with love from the hands of Darlene.

Another woman soon arrives by the river, and after waiting some time we decide the Universe has gifted us with the opportunity to experience a two woman circle.

We walk through water to create a simple circle of white summer roses. We ground to mother earth, watch father sun descending into the mountains, meditating, sending healing energy out into the world, chanting, telling stories of the old days, praying for rain, honouring the warmth, energy and light that the sun gives us.

When we close I follow the old swedish practice. I leap into the river water, baptising myself as the light fades, calling the rains with laughter.

When we leave, we look back. I say to Mich
"Would we have done this? If I'd said to you - meet me at the river, just us two, to meditate as the sun went down, would we have done it?"

I'm not so sure - and yet we DID.

And that is the most beautiful thing of all about this work ~ doing things we never thought possible, living life in the wildest, most alive way possible.

Happy Summer Solstice.

May your world be blessed with ancient traditions, divine guidance and ceremonies "just because."



Today we paint the hallway spontaneously a deep red, womb red, henna red. An entryway into new possibilities, an initiation into the womens way.

Today a rain descends. I cannot stop from smiling.