Return to The Woods

The Rainforest ......
Atherton Tableland, Far North Queensland, 1990

My story:
From personal pain to transpersonal consciousness

air conditioned nightmare
the world spins
as the alphabet is shuffled
time loses its meaning
and terror sets in

Contained within an academic and suburban reality of Townsville, the Tower card of my newly-acquired tarot deck told me I was experiencing the “shattering of my ego”. This was the most terrifying experience of my life. I was losing my 'sanity', my rational hold on 'reality', and my well-prized academic expertise! Having studied mainstream psychology for many years, however, the last thing I wanted to do was visit a professional psychologist. The forest was calling me. I headed up onto the Atherton Tablelands with my partner Andrew, where we began to live at ‘Mingara’, a beautifully disintegrating log cabin on the very edge of the rainforest.

forest so deep
place of darkness
security
blanket of night
providing
safety to turn within

A year of deep healing ensued. I climbed trees and sat alone on tall tree stumps, soaking in the bird calls, insect trills and shimmering energy. My partner Andrew, an ecologist and nature photographer, introduced me to many of the creatures of the rainforest. With a strong spiritual connection to the place, he encouraged me to embrace the forest, become immersed in the forest, in ways I never had before. On my first overnight wilderness walks to the peaks of mountains, across rivers rushing through and roots and boulders, I faced physical challenges and discovered my strength. During night dreams I faced the 'monsters' of the forest - wild pigs and dogs - learning not to run and hide, but to slay them (whereupon human forms would inevitably emerge from their fur-coats), and finally to stand before them and project a beam of love (and they would melt into happy and contented creatures). This was, indeed, my own personal journey to the underworld.⁵

darkness
intertwining complexity
rich dank smells of
sweet rotting leaf mulch

Day and night, I was held and loved by the dark Feminine, contained in the dark safety of Her embrace. I surrendered and let the Spirit of the Forest heal me.

wet rain dew drops
licking moss-covered vines
snaking their way to the light

So, was this experience in the Australian rainforest merely a ‘living out’ of my European roots, my connection with childhood and cultural memories of ‘the woods’? Was it my European understandings of the forest which drew me into an archetypal realm, where I could deal with my psychological and spiritual transformation? I think not. The spirit of the Australian rainforest, for me, was certainly no White Lady of the woods!

The Goddess of this forest
is lewd
snaking her leathery body
thick and twisted
writhing
from the rotting leaves
disappearing into darkness

On the border between light and dark we dwelled, between the familiar tamed land of bright green rolling dairy pastures and the mysterious writhing intertwining of life-death-life in the shadowy greens. While the darkness of the forest drew me down into my own primeval unconscious, the safety of ‘the edge’ allowed me to delve so deeply.

Mingara Magic
sweet gentleness of home
interface
healing place
of heart, mind and soul

Throughout that year, I tended the garden and practised hatha yoga in the sun-shine. I cooked. I learned about alternative medicine from a friend and healer who was helping me through this difficult passage. I recorded and worked with my dreams.

I read a lot - especially about women's spirituality and ecofeminism, deep ecology, and shamanism.⁶ Within these readings, I found ways of articulating my own spiritual awakening and connection with the Earth. The depth of my feelings, the strength of my passion, was echoed in the words of others. As Susan Griffin writes

“I am a woman born in and shaped by this civilisation, with the mind of this civilisation, but also with the mind and body of a woman, with human experience. Suffering grief in my own life, I have felt all the impulses that are part of my culture in my own soul. In my resistance to pain and change, I have felt the will toward self-annihilation. And still the singing in my body daily returns me to a love of this Earth. I know that by a slow practice, if I am to survive, I must learn to listen to this song.”⁷

Finding a cultural framework for my personal experience was profoundly affirming. I discovered I was not alone in the ways I understood the world. I began to practice rituals derived from Wiccan and Native American traditions, and through these developed an even more direct connection with the Earth, Great Spirit, Goddess Gaia. For the first time in my life, I prayed. I prayed to the spirits of the four directions, and to Mother Earth, Father Sky, and the Great Mystery within. Every sunset I stood at the interface between light and dark, gazing out over the landscape around me. Watching the golden sun disappearing over the hills, I raised my arms high and wide. Grounded in place, I drew the energy of Father Sky through my body and down as a gift to Mother Earth. I then lifted the energy of Mother Earth to Father Sky. I turned sun-wise to face each direction.

west
place of the setting sun
source of the rivers
of emotion
place of the forests cleared
teach me to embrace loss
to make space for the new

south
place of wisdom
place of earth
and darkness of the forest
please guide me
on my journey within

east
place of first light
rising over forest green
source of sea breeze and mists
illuminate my life!

north
firey place of heat
and summer strength
the distant coastline stretches
nourish the warrior in me
and the innocence of childhood play
give me the courage to step forth into the world!

Each day, my prayers were different, but I always sought connection with and support from nature around me. I completed with the statement “Not my will, but Thy will be done; for Thy will is also mine.” This ritual put me into an altered state of consciousness in which I ‘heard’ the Earth respond to me. The boundaries between my ‘self’ and my environment - the rainforest, the sky, the rolling hills - were blurred. From then on, I then received guidance which led me out into the human world again, but this time on a clearer path, one more deeply connected to the inner reaches of my being, and to the planet itself.

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