The Magic & Beauty of the Australian Bush

Ged always says I drive around with my eyes closed!  I say that of him too.  It does seem that we all have selective vision as we traverse through our lives.  I have been in love with the Australian Bush Flower Essences as healing remedies for years – magic in a bottle that have helped me let go of my past and move through my rage and grief to become happier, calmer, wiser.

Last year at this time when I was walking in Kendall State Forest, still sobbing about the loss of my beautiful Baby, there were thousands of delicate purple flowers scattered through the bush.  Purple was baby’s colour.  Everything she owned was purple – her head collar, leg bandages etc.  So these flimsy flowers on their strong green stalks seemed like messages from her from beyond the grave and I sobbed all the harder.

Still crying one year on.  Not so much, not every day, but still sometimes at a loss to deal with the loss.  And suddenly there were those flowers again.  I stopped and looked closely at them and all the other delicate tiny flowers blooming in the bush.  Each so small and perfect.  Tea tree with their five round white petals, like perfect rounded stars which remind me of the wonder and attention to detail after 10 days vipassana meditation in the Blue Mountains.  Little purple orchids on tiny climbing vines.  The golden yellow of gorse which I thought was a uniquely English bush.  The delicate tendrils of Eucalypt flowers with their wonderful sweet smell and caressing quality.  I made a collection and once more stooped to examine that papery purple flower.  Like a lightbulb in my head I realised that it was Bush Iris.  Familiar name, but what is it for?   I picked one and stroked my face with it as I grieved for Baby and realised that death is an intrinsic part of life.  In winter all is dead and dormant.  The land sleeps, the life forces stilled, nothing grows or flowers.  Yet in the spring time all is new and fresh and vibrant.  Singing and springing of resurgence and new life.  All is reborn.  So too is Baby as my beautiful Second Chance.  Nothing really dies. All is recycled, all is reborn.

I got back to the car and opened up the computer to check on the ausflowers website what the healing properties of Bush Iris are.  ‘The realisation that death is just a state of transition.  Opening of the root chakra and trust centres.’  All the things I have been meditating on recently and realising I needed to shift.  Funny that.

And then after taking the poor ailing child to the doctor who confirmed an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics, I spotted thousands of gorgeous flannel flowers on the sandy side of the road and stopped to harvest them in the hope of replanting them where I can see and adore their velvety smiles.  They bring me great joy and awaken the childish innocence I lost so long ago.

Suddenly my eyes and heart are open to the bush flowers all around me.  I can make my own!  Instead of being dependent on others for my healing I can seek to communicate and commune with nature on my own terms, make my own remedies, allow them to speak to and heal my heart and soul.

I have been an apprentice for too long.  It is time to become the master of my own healing and soul journey.  To step up to my magnificence and soul path.  To own myself.  To embrace myself.  To be myself in all my glory.

Our first Koala

Our First Koala

We have to make a new enclosure for the Alpacas with a shelter so they can get out of the weather, so Ged has been up in the bush with Nathan, who is the fiance of Shannon who helps with Ben and Ben adores!  Shannon volunteers at the Koala Hospital and has worked in bush regeneration for years in Sydney so she is our resident expert on all things native.  When I found scat and scratches on trees a few months ago, she checked them out and confirmed they were koala marks and droppings.  I have since examined every tree I come across and according to the markings we are over-run with Koalas!  As I spend my life looking down at the ground checking out the grasses and weeds, and where to put my feet in case of snakes, I haven’t seen any . . . so I have been training myself to look up all the time but haven’t seen anything bear shaped.

But when the boys were up in the bush cutting down tallow woods and I had gone up to report another tractor fault (oh no, Mummy broke the tractor AGAIN!) Nathan spotted a koala watching in horror as they chopped down another major food tree.  The poor thing lost 6 trees from its home range that afternoon and now I have made Ged promise not to cut down any more tallow-woods, they are sacred trees at Avalon from this moment on . . .

Anyway, he was beautiful.  Not old and very healthy and just stunning to see one on our own property.  Incredibly exciting.  I had a koala as a small child (probably made of roo or wallaby  skin in those days) which I wore all the fur off with my loving.  I was as excited as any child to see this one (if only he would come down for a pat and a cuddle!)  Ben was nonplussed as he sees them at Billabong Koala Park all the time!
And it just goes to show the power of positive thinking and what you focus on comes to you . . . for 3 years I haven’t even thought about koalas but for the last three months I have been thinking about them, looking for them, calling to them in my mind . . . and now one answered that call!  thank you, Mr Koala . . .  here he is  . . .