Scatterlings

When the threads of us are many.

I have always felt profoundly lost. There was no place or people that I felt completely understood what lived inside of me.

There was nothing that completely met the endless questions or the yearnings or the restlessness that relentlessly asked to be met square in the eye, deep in the heart and nested within a lineage of stories that reached right inside and touched my soul.

As a young person that expressed as clinical depression and as an adult it expressed as endless soul searching.

I am peaceful with both of those paths. The inner and outer expression of the same lack of roots.

This long winding path lead me through many seasons and terrains but inevitably I was still haunted by lack of true belonging.

The only place I have felt true belonging is around the imagined fires of the Scatterlings.

It is the only fire that I felt I could remain.

When I first heard the term “Scatterlings”it stopped me in my tracks. Just the name reached out off the cover of Martin Shaw beautiful book “Scatterlings- Getting claimed in the age of amnesia” and grabbed my heart. Finally a concept that might describe me.

And while my initial ponderings came from his words touching the lost part of me, I’ve continued on my own journey as a white European women living in Australia on stolen land. I’ve now grown the concept into my own version of it.

As a women who has so many different threads of ancestry running through me. My roots are vast and diverse. Which sounds poetic and wonderful but has been deeply confusing.

My body was formed here in Australia on Meeanjin country. Which means home of the blue water Lilly. Home of the turbal people. My body eats mainly food from, I breath the air of and I grow my plants and herbs in Bunjalung country.

I have been deeply thankful to have received stories from the local mob here. Deep stories. Stories that make the soles of my feet tingle , tears fall from my heart because they make so much sense to me. I feel so deeply moved. I feel it in every fibre of my being. They visit me in my dreams. I feel them and yet there is also a grief because I am not them. I come from elsewhere. I belong, but not fully because I have had nothing I feel proud of to contribute back.

My love for those who have shared with me is beyond colour and theirs for me. It is the love of humanity. Strong and true.

And yet there is this lingering feeling that I’m from elsewhere.

And questions.

What are my roots?

What are my stories?

What is the contribution of my people to our shared Earth?

I have searched and have dedicated myself to learning from elders and sisters from my bloodlines. They have taught me stories, lores, knowledge and lifeways that my ancestors have shared for thousands of years. They have rocked me to my foundations. They have filled a void I have been longing for for so long. From the women of Dartmoor to the the crones of the craggy cliffs of Scotland, to Ireland and Germany.

Soul nourishing.

These women filled me in a way I thought for sure would quench my restlessness and longing.

And they did for a long time until I began to realise that I am not them either. Part of me is. A big part.

But not fully.

Because you see, again, I am from elsewhere.

And those same questions arose.

Because I also grew up with a bonus father from Greece. And his ways have also woven their threads into my soul. The stories, the language, the rituals, the dancing, the food, the old ways, the old women, the oracles. I have been immersed in them and they have also become a part me. Of who I am. The grandmothers visit me dreams to teach me.

And whilst I feel claimed by these ways so deeply , I am not Greek.

I am from elsewhere.

I have known in a very real way, that has been quite preoccupying at times, that we are not alone in this universe. That the universe is teaming with life forms and that there will be a time this is part of our everyday life. That crystalline threads from the stars are within us.

But we live in a time where have forgotten that life expresses is so many different forms that this seems inconceivable. We have forgotten that animals were once our teachers and plants our healers. That everything is in literal communication in an old language we have momentarily forgotten. That life exists beyond our physical plane and also our planet and that we are all woven.

I’ve always known this. The indigenous cultures I’ve learned from have always known this. And yet the current western narrative doesn’t even include the star nations as truth.

And so I feel I am this mixture of things. A conglomeration of so many places, stories and experiences. I don’t live in my ancestral land because I have many and I love with all my heart the land in which I live, and yet I don’t have any ancestral relationship with.

So I don’t have and set traditions. I don’t have any set rites of passage. I don’t have a set of ancestral stories neatly passed down from my grandmothers. I have to scrounge around here and there and work really hard to find them. Hidden under the patriarchal overlay of lies.

And so here I am like a warm hearted mangy mutt at the glowing fire of the Scatterings with a spindle, just like all of my grandmothers did, weaving a beautiful tapestry that includes threads from all of these wonderful ways and places and people I come from. I’m creating an offering that will give back to them. That will honour and nourish them and me to. Perhaps even you?!

As I weave and spin I see so many similarities between these people. So many cross cultural ways that Mothers have created and nourished life. These stories speak to me in a different way now. I keep the integrity and bones of the stories yet I find myself bringing them to life with my own experiences relevant to life as a Scatterling.

As a person who has been scattered far from their ancestral land and ways and speaks to the beauty and complexities that comes with that.

So the stories and prayer rituals in The Mother Cave live will be a re-membering of our ancestral stories and ways.

Stitched together as a tender offering to the place and people we currently call home. So that we have something beautiful to offer and contribute to this shared Earth, from our people.

The Scatterlings x