Winter Solstice ~ Courting the Sacred
Sat, 22 June
|Gathering Place
A night of ritual and prayer with spoken word and song for the winter solstice.


Time & Location
22 June 2024, 4:00 pm – 11:50 pm
Gathering Place, Monbulk VIC 3793, Australia
About the event
Inviting the community into a night of prayerful song, spoken word and music for the winter solstice. A free gathering for the community to come together in ceremony over the longest night around the hearth. Your song, poetry and listening presence is the contribution that will create this sacred space that I call ‘A night of courting the sacred”… or is it been “courted by the sacred”. That which we yearn for beckons us and calls out our name. Come dear family, come gather round the fire in ritual and prayer. All welcome, including the lil ones.
We will begin at 4pm before sunset and go deep into the night.
Please bring food to share in a potluck dinner.
Bring an instrument or tea or chai or treats… or maybe a poem?! Something that will nourish us as we gather.
If it’s raining we can gather in my dome with the fire in there.
I will be dropping us into the space, acknowledging country and custodians and opening with a circle of intention and my favourite companion plant… cacao!
Please if you can arrive before sunset so that you can easily find the place and be a part of the opening ceremony.
Please book your place to receive the address, this is at my home in the Yarra Valley.
Please let me know if you will be coming later. I will have my phone on me and my number on the email that gets sent when you book, you can call if you have trouble finding the place.
My intention for this space is to bring blessings and warmth to the hearth of humanity. It’s not so much a fireside chat. There is a lot going on in this world and rarely do we get to have a chance to sit together in song and prayer. This space is for anyone who shares this intention.
…
Here’s a bit about me…
I had the privilege of growing up in remote Australia, on Kamilaroi country. It is these beginnings, in the bush that continue to inform me as I walk through life… mostly barefoot.
I started to focus on Spoken Word as a form of activism in 2020 when I was walking with Custodians of Country in central Australia. I wanted to use my love and my pain for the people to speak to the hearts of those willing. Each year I would write in the desert and come back to Melbourne to share the Poetry, and what I discovered was the power wasn’t in the message, the power was in how it moved through me as a form of healing. And so, I discovered that my own poetry was healing for me, and so, it could be healing for others. When we speak from the heart, we speak to the heart of others.
I am a romantic, but I also acknowledge my upbringing in remote Queensland and my time in communities with Custodians confronting the impacts of colonisation have weathered me into a deeper wisdom of the pain and injustice that exists in this world. So for me, Spoken Word is a way for us to speak truely from the heart, to unravel us from the rigidity of the man made world and bring us back to the ancient art form that was once used to bring healing and hope to the people. In ritual, our poems become invocations, prayers for the living. So come join me round my fire, on the edge of the rainforest on Wurundjeri country in the Yarra Valley, to remember our way back home to belonging.
… I acknowledge the ancient lands on which we gather, the stories, language and ceremonies that exist within country and the custodians that have taken care of these lands since time immemorial. I pay my respects to the sacred art forms that exist within the original culture, to the ceremonies and rituals. May we learn to live in harmony, may we listen and may we continue to learn from the oldest living culture in the world…