One Day Vision Fast Under the Banksia

I woke before the sun, greeted by gentle bird songs and cool air.

As I emerged from my tent to set off on my quest, my eyes adjusted to a deep blue sky and droplets of water dangling from prickly bushes.. I knew it was going to be a good day.

My intention: to know my enough-ness.

With my backpack strapped and my shoes on I set off on my hike into the national park in silence. As I traversed the terrain, I would come upon several thresholds that I used to take myself deeper into the ritual even before I had made it to my spot, so I would know I was greeting the land as I went.

There was one point maybe 3 thresholds in, that I could feel an energy container.. sort of like a wall of frequency to step through where I knew I had been taken into the realm of timelessness.

When I arrived at my spot, before I entered the circle I had created with broken limbs and fallen banksia pods, I stripped myself bare of all the everyday human clothing I was wearing and dressed myself in clean flowing garments that signified my intent to be a clear channel for what ever wanted to be presented to me in this time with the land.

As I did this, a curious grey kangaroo popped out from the bushes and stopped in their tracks to take me in. A creature who would later visit me again.

I entered my circle with drum in hand, water and a sleep mat and bag, then closed the circle around me.

The sun was just beginning to peek through the trees and I was freezing! but I sat on the ground beneath the Banksia tree I set my camp up under and offered it my first ever rabbit pelt I made.

I shared with it how I thought it was incredible that it and the land was so giving, always in service and yet here I was having reservations about offering this pelt, for fear of someone coming upon it someday and not understanding the context of why it was there. It was a perfect representation of how I had been nervous for so long to share myself fully with the world, how I wanted to be a part of the network of everything and yet I feared it's rejection of me too.

My tears fell and I allowed myself to just be fully present with Banksia, feeling it's presence and holding.

After this I fell asleep for a while, which I did many times throughout the day, I recognized this was because I needed to integrate what was happening.

When I woke from my first sleep, I registered where the sun was in the sky, 10am maybe. My body wanted me to move so I began walking around my circle, while watching butterflies and birds. My arms began to move through shapes and I eventually formed a body sigil, a series of movements that were a representation of me taking in energy, transforming it in my heart, giving it back and surrendering to the earth and then sharing it with everything. A powerful symbol I still know in my body.

Again I fell asleep and when I awoke I was called to my drum and make songs.

I created beautiful medicine songs that I repeated over and over again through the rest of the day to call myself back into presence.

Wild Wild, I call you in.

Wild dirt, wild hair, wild thoughts, wild prayer.

Wild Wild, I call you in.

wild love, wild skin, wild pain, wild kin.

Wild Wild, I call you in.

wild talk, wild plants, wild rites, wild dance.

Wild Wild, I call you in.

wild knowledge, wild community,

wild power, wild unity.

When I had finished these songs it was late afternoon, perhaps 6pm.

The mind monster came in a few times during my quest... mainly questioning the validity of the simplicity of my quest. "is this it" "am I really going to sleep through all of it?"... I kept being told by the Banksia tree.... It's enough.

Ok Banksia!

I sat for a while until I felt a stirring of what I needed to do next, then I got up once more to repeat the body sigil and as I did, I looked up to see 3 black cockatoos land on a dead tree around 50 meters away from my spot. I watched them preen themselves in the gentle breeze and the spark of curiosity called me to go and wander to see if I could collect any fallen feathers below this tree.

I opened my circle and began to wander towards the tree, following a path through thicket left by critters. Over fallen logs and through spiders webs I finally found myself just under the tree where the cockatoos still were.

They were alarming at this point and just as I began to come around the corner a gigantic brown wombat bolted into the bushes, clearly startled by my presence.

This made me curious to wander around the back area of my spot to see what else was around, and I later realized that I was creating a sense of safety for myself by understanding the area I was in.

Through my awareness and curiosity came a deeper connection with my surroundings.

I wandered back to my spot without feathers, but a beautiful twisted piece of tea tree wood that has now become an altar companion.

As night was falling I made sure my spot felt secured and settled myself into my sleeping bag to watch the sky transition.

I spotted Venus, some wattle birds, then the first star, then the second, then the details of tree branches became silhouettes, and soon enough I was asleep.

I woke in the middle of the night to thumps and munching right near my head, an overly confident kangaroo had decided to visit, so too did some possums and bush rats. Of course my heart was pounding several times during the night, mostly due to my own inner animal fear of not being able to fully see who was visiting, but the sounds were enough to assure me of who they were.

As the morning light began to appear. I packed up my things and sung a long good morning greeting and thanks to the land that held me, then I took my leave.

on my drive home through rural Victoria, I was suddenly faced with a painful surprise.

right in the middle of the road a giant brown wombat had been hit and killed. thankfully this was a quiet back road where I would be able to enact a ceremony for this beautiful creature.

with all my strength I collected the wombat who hadn’t yet gone into rigormortis, so I knew it was a relatively fresh kill, and placed them in a safe section of overgrown grasses where they would be able to decompose in peace.

I gathered wild flowers from the area and with each sprinkle of petals I honoured the gift of this animal, what it was able to experience while incarnated here on the earth, and that my prayer was that it’s soul never needed such a death like this again.

my tears came at the knowing of how careless humans can be, that someone had hit them and yet never stopped to honour the life they had taken.

This I feel is a huge problem in humanity.

I recognise the interweaving of life and death, creativity and nothingness, play and pause in this vision fast I enacted within such a short amount of time, and I choose to sit with it as medicine for the unfolding journey I have with my own wild… how it is I can honour, tend and remember my place in the ecological web of all things.

In joy,

Aleira x