Shortly after my return home, I ventured to the first ever Reclaiming Witchcamp held in Australia. I knew nothing of Reclaiming and wasn’t sure what to expect. My return had confused me on a number of levels as the way that I had connected to land was different somehow. Harder to connect with and foreign. I hoped to find something that I could use to help with connection and understanding.
In Boscastle, Cornwall, Bob and I walked in the early morning beside the stream, through paths strewn with holly and oak and along the cliff paths. As I walked I felt my roots go deep into the soil; it was sometimes hard to move my feet. It felt like home, despite being my first ever visit and to my knowledge I had no Cornish ancestors.
Back in Australia, even though I was born here (as were my parents and their parents) and lived here, it felt alien to me. I had no roots in the soil when I walked; just an emptiness of being far from home. I couldn’t explain it and found it hard to understand.
The path I chose to explore at camp was called Earth Song and it showed me several things: connecting with land can result in emotional turmoil due to environmental damages caused in recent times that needed to be addressed (or at least considered); that I was not alone in my connections to land and the vibrational energies that I had encountered in England and Ireland; and that different people worked with these energies in very different ways, yet there were also similarities.
Wandering around at camp on my own, I found myself reflecting on what was missing and realised that it was in many ways spiritual connection. But this caused considerable conflict within me as the spiritual connection with the land on which I lived I saw as being linked with the Aboriginal peoples who were here long before my people arrived. And with that guilt at what part my own ancestors may have played in the terrible crimes that were inflicted upon them as the land was cleared by my people for farming and towns. How could I connect with a land and spirits that my people most probably helped to harm? I sat at the side of a track and poured out my conflict to the land and was answered by a spirit of an Aboriginal woman (she appeared as a disembodied head at first). She said that she had heard me and could feel my anguish. And that she would be willing to act as a ‘go-between’ for me in connecting with land. She said to call her Mother, and called me by a new name. Her totem was the blue wren, which I have in the heart of my home now in her honour.
I didn’t realise at the time that Mother was a land spirit, or how important she was to become in my learning how to connect and work with earth energies in Australia. But that is for another post.
Those wanting information on the Australian Reclaiming Witchcamps please explore their website: http://australiareclaiming.org.au/
Please note that the Featured Image photo is from a later Camp, held in a different area from the first one as I don’t have any photos from the first camp.
Green and Grey 