RED TENT BLUE BUCKET

I have sent this blog in various forms and they have all failed. Having no reception for days has been great. Our days are so full that writing this blog is a pure indulgence on some levels. I feel dedicated to observing the feminine side of this journey and the blogs that I lost were about the uranium stuff. Maybe that just isn't meant to be my focus.
Red tent; in my red dust green tent I had a day off from the walk and just relaxed.  I surrendered to my period and mused about how essential it is for women to have several days of each month for our mental and physical health. We so often work around the clock or past our daily capacity; as is the nature of mothering.  So stopping for a day or so each month with no household jobs, meals or child care would be so nurturing for many of us.
Blue bucket; see photo. On our last day off we stayed at an oasis and it was sensational. While the children played in the water we women lit a fire and heated water for washing clothes. It truly was a wonderful thing an each woman commented on how right it felt to be together like that doing our washing.  The washing area has always been a central point for women and children; an inportant hub of any community.  Must go, no more power and this has to be sent now or the phone puts it in the outbox where it is unretreavable. Goodnight.
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PACKING UP OUR STUFF

Day after day it is packing up camp, tents, sleeping bags, clothes, books for a bit of schooling, plates and cutlery and life's general stuff.  Having two disasters in a row that blew it all apart or saturated it all; first a mini cyclone, then a flood at three am.; I was feeling the weight of our belongings like a yoke around my neck. So today I had to stay at camp simply because all our stuff got wet in the early hours. Now a big storm is mounting at sunset and I now find ourselves  getting prepared for another blast.
NEXT MORNING
We all squeezed into our little two man tent and slept wonderful deep sleeps.
Yesterday I was on camp set up. The ground was rock hard and only two of us were up for work. I worked like a convict, digging the fire pit and toilet pit in such compacted ground. We stayed at a large cleared ground most likely a truckies spot. Anyway Evita has hurt her foot and I had promised to give her time yesterday but the set up was essential. I massaged her foot and gave her a precious bath but there is a yearning and I have just decided to completely have the day off. The boys can walk,  Chris can come back with the support van when he is ready. Shanti can stay with Eve and I. I will swap the shovel for some lotions and potions!
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Half way to eternity

A red monstrous cloud appeared in the west. It was a terrifying sight, promising to bring chaos and change. We were at Centenial park, just beginning our public barbecue when we saw it. I hastily gathered my children and thanked God we had the preacher with us because he had his van; this was not going to be walking weather.
It hit within minutes. Red dust so thick that we could hardly see or breath. Winds of 100kilometres an hour raced around, taking whatever was in their path. As our party of thirty or so peOople were driven, crammed together, back to our camp we all watched in a shared fascination at the power of the wind as we passed roofs blowing off buildings and whole streets of trees down.
I was expecting that all my belongings in our flimsy tents, would be no more. I did not care for I was filled with love and gratitude for my children and the protection we had been given.
When we got back it was heroes we met at the camp who had somehow moved forty people's tents, swags and washing inside the cultural centre where we were staying. This centre in Kalgoorlie, our half way mark, is an old converted house. This amount of tents, mostly still opened was quite a sight. All our belongings had been picked up, stirred and thrown together. We were all contained in this house, forty people, tents and stuff and a cylconic storm outside whose rain arrived after we got safely inside. Finding places to sleep was not easy but I secured a little corner for us. I slept in the only place left which as I finally went to bed after all the sorting, discovered that it was a walking machine I was sleeping on. The irony of that was too much and I crashed onto sleep laughing.
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THE MAGIC OF WALKING

The magic of walking has awakened some deep part of my humanity. I feel connected to people throughout history who have put one foot in front of the other and travelled miles and miles. Nomads and gypsies, beduins and shepherds, the dispossessed and the refugees are among the multitude of reasons for walking along way.  Nicole who is here with her young family, walks with her nine month old tied to her, and today commented how wonderful the act of just walking is and how much her baby loves the rhythm of it. "Normal life has so much stopping and starting, feels so scattered compared to this lovely rhythm. " 

• We wake early in the cold hour when the first birds have heralded the morning and we pack up our camps then make our way to the fire place for porridge and tea.  After a brief circle, we hit the road and walk seven kilometres before stopping for a short break. Then another seven kilometres,  another morning tea and then five kilometres to lunch.  Then we sprawl under bushes in whatever shade we can find and eat some lunch. Often we have ten more kilometres to walk to camp, which we break up with a rest in the middle. That is a basic rhythm that carries us between twenty five and thirty kilometres.

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EAGLE ON BORDER PATROL

Suddenly we were at the end of the Eagle dreaming country,we had walked to the limit of the elder' s country. There, between the countries, Lachlan had spotted an eagle, resting on the ground just a few short feet from us!
We felt it was a sign, a strong one, to stop and give thanks, take stock of where we had been and where we were going.  But the group had gone on ahead and we were being told that we all had to walk quickly across the causeway as someone ahead with an orange flag was going to stop traffic for us. Gauging the situation with my truck driver's eye I quickly yelled out "there is no way we are going to do that" and single file with no children would be the only safe way. We went under the causeway, through exquisite flowers and expansive views. I knew there and then that the land had gifted me fwith a sign, a warning and now blessings of the flowers. 
This was the first day without our guide and there seemed to be a straining for leadership with ego entangled and a slip stream of panic from suddenly having such massive trucks hurtling past us.
'God grant me the courage to change the things I can change,
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
and the wisdom to know the difference.'
It has taken me two blogs to partly capture this lesson which only took a moment to happen but the lesson under pins our modern ego and the drive that takes us as individuals away from our collective intelligence.
It also holds hands with our limited understanding of time, place and space which are governed within the confines of measurement. "How far are we walking today?" 25kms or 30kms, with a headwind for the former and a tail wind for the latter, which is further?  "How long will it take to get there?" A wonderful communion with nature while we walk will make short time out of any stretch. Signs in nature are gifts and deviations of the mind at wonder are communion with spirit. Getting to the desired outcome does not necessarily achieve the aim if the intent is peace then the unfolding moments already contain that.
As mother of four children out here, I must check every thought and nip my ego in the bud so that spirit can safeguard us with strength that far outweighs our precarious position.

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BLOGGING NOW I KNOW HOW TO DO IT

Apologies for the haphazard blogs. I have suddenly woeked out how to put photos in and how to title each entry....

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THE HONEYMOON IS OVER cont...

        The honeymoon was our introduction to this land and the way of life we are living out here.  When we started we were supported by large numbers and other than initial blisters we were high in spirits.  We have been walking on dirt roads along a song line that has been supported by a weight of thousands of generations who walked before us.  This energetically has fired our souls with inspiration and connection.
       We mostly spent days without seeing another vehicle; although the last few days we saw an increasing amount of trucks.  The country was abundant with such an array of desert flowers. Budgies and wedge tail eagles daily passed us by.  Each step of the way heralded something wonderful to see, smell or ponder.  We walked the Eagle Dreaming and our guides and elders that came filled our hearts to brimming with stories we could still see in the land scape.
       Our numbers are greatly reduced. Today we lose a family and I am crying already for that loss. The microcosm of life out here is a macrocosm, each separation feels so powerful because deep down we all know we are in the dreaming.  We are walking for a new dream to come out of our culture's nightmare.
       Our honeymoon is over. Now the hard yards. Real roads, trucks and traffic and single file.  We also have to navigate one another's baggage that is now getting aired. But we have the united intent to look further to our collective reason for being here and like any marriage, we are ready to get on with the living and the walking.  Honeymoons are only one part of an arrangement and our one has carved itself in our beings.

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THE HONEYMOON IS OVER. Stage one has finished. Stage two commences tomorrow when we walk out of Leonora. We have just walked through one country and are about to enter another country. From Wiluna we had a guide, an Elder from the region, he showed us bush tucker, shared with us stories and land features; connected us with the dreamtime. We walked a song line together, with our children as the people around here have done since time began. We just have more stuff to pack up and carry! I am falling asleep so this must wait. Birds are singing nearby, though it is the middle of the night. Blessings.

FATHER'S DAY. We have walked hard miles this Sunday, thirty-five kilometres; walking started at six in the morning. It has been hot and the flies intense. We finally reached our camp to find our long march today has culminated at a camp full of rocks. Metaphores abound as this pilgrimrage steps up a grade to the place where people's stuff is coming out. My spirit tells me to regroup, find quiet places for myself. This evening I have just held my children close. And at that point I fell asleep. When I woke it was a full on pack up in the dark, we had to leave early, 7am and we were off. More than anything, I wanted to let the kids have a long lunch with thirty kms in front of us on a hot day with lots of flies, my motivation was sound.

FW:

WALKING TO THE BEAT OF MY HEART. We slept last night near a mine site. It's drone at first sounded like a very large truck approaching. The same sound has continued all night, without changing pitch or volume. It fills this quiet land with the persistant and relentless sound of a loud drone. There is no rhythm, no variation in pitch. It is monstrous; disturbing the surrounding land for miles. The earth itself now eminates this same persistant drone as our modern lifestyle merges together to form this cacophony of an unbroken roar that extends into space. We are desensitized through the process of vibrationally being bombarded by this relentless sound and vibration that energizes the modern world. One has to go a long way away from it to actually hear it. Or maybe not...maybe there is no need for the proof, there is enough indigestion in the pudding. As adults, our right brain does not like allowing in information that we can' t do anything with. Our thinking brain is so limited that it blocks the potential that we are. Our ability to love and feel can supersede this flaw. We can remember that Eve was framed and humanity was tricked out of our garden. We just need to acknowledge, without the attachment to what that acknowledging might mean, that this noise, this pollution and barage on country and stars, on indigenous peoples, is immoral and unsustainable. When we collectively accept this, God, Power, choose your own name; can transform the sickness into unimaginable possibilities. So under this dark and star spangled morning with a heavy plume of smoke just released by the mine curling above our camp, I sign off with peace in my heart and a cacophony in my head!

THE WEATHER IS OUR GUIDE. We are all sleeping together in one of our tents because it is the only one I could find a cover for when I packed. It is a tiny three person tent so us five are snug and tight together in here like fingers in a glove. Outside the wind presses hard against the western side of the tent in an impressive force. Today we walked our twenty six kilometers at a great rate with the building winds at our backs. By this afternoon our two boys turned Mick and Nicole's baby trailer and bike into a land yacht using the large peace flag. It was a spectacular sight and they raced past too fast for me to get a photo. Around this time the clouds on the western horizon mounted up, turning the sky many shades of gray. As I walked along in my donkey harness with the trailing last of the walkers, the temperature suddenly dropped and rain drops began to fall. At first they were barely felt, just visible on the road and with the wind like a "hurry up" warning we were ushered into our camp site. Our children worked like clockwork, together with each one doing this or that to get our tent up and sleeping bags in. Young Charlie also helped us and all around the camp everyone was hastily and efficiently helping one another. It has been evident that the weather has been responding to our group's needs. We have been blessed with all the perfect conditions as we have been moving through this country. It has been hot and the flies have been part of it all but, really, the weather has been there guiding us with it's messages. The indigenous peoples were not the only ones who took signs from the weather around them; sailors, farmers and anyone who works in the elements knows to varying levels of understanding that we affect the weather as we are affected by it. Our culture of logical thinking does not put much stock by such musings. We lose much sensitivity and therefore intelligence when we reduce life to a logical process. My writing is not intended as critisism of our culture. My intention is to expand our culture's vision through the splicing of ancient knowledge. I have intentionally, since the conception of my first child, set out to fish and farm this precious knowledge by living simply on the earth with my young family. This ten week walk through this desert country to Perth, walking away from uranium mining, is the pinnacle experience of all this seeking. This is where I learn to soften and surrender while our children experience the bounty of living in a community that daily works together.