When Mother Nature Speaks

Ocean Visit ...

I have just spent time camping on Gunditjmara country at Port Fairy in Victoria. It was cold, it was wet and it was very windy. And Mother Nature was beautiful. I spent time on the beach watching the ocean being picked up and rolled by the wind. It felt like she was singing to me, telling me a story that was uniquely mine. I watched as the ocean formed waves of white foam and could see glimpses of crystal blue waters through the beautiful curve of each wave. There was a majesty and fierceness in the way the waves crashed into the water and a contrasting gentleness as the water breathed in and out of the rock pools. ‘You can be fierce. You can be gentle. And in all states, you are beautiful’ she sang to me. And I knew it to be true. There was a knowing of such depth that the Mother was indeed speaking to me through the wind and the water.

Deep Listening 

Moments like these are not foreign to me. I live where I do because of her. My home is surrounded by forests of Mountain Ash and tree ferns. She called me here through the nourishment and rejuvenation I felt during my forest walks when visiting from my previous home. She guided me to where I reside now through a heart pull. To this house. On this land.

Healing Journey

In 2018 I underwent a hysterectomy and once home from the hospital I knew I needed to move house. No rest, straight into packing and searching for a new home. I had my criteria: this far from work, this much land and no need for renovation. House after house I was interested in sold quickly and for much more than the asking price. And there was one that kept popping up but it needed some love and was further out and, on more land than I wanted. Nudged into doing a ‘drive by’ to see the house I had such a divine moment of otherworldly connectedness that I will never forget. Driving up the mountain to this house it was not my car that was taking me there. I was being pulled up along that road by an unseen cord connected to my heart. And I could hear ‘she is calling you into the Mountain’. As I sit here and write this, I can still feel the pull, heart first to this house, to this land. And when I arrived I felt I was being embraced with the unconditional love of a mother, the Mother.

The Love of the Mother

This home, this land and this sacred forest has been a gift to me and a salve for my wounded parts. I am blessed with three Mountain Ash guardians in my backyard. They have offered me counsel, they have provided me protection and we grieved together as many of their kin fell in severe storms in 2021. These moments communing with the Mother, offer me such connectedness. There is no doubt that that I am her and she is me and we are all things.

By Daniyela Rob

Clan Mother of the Archeress