Chit-chat Wednesday and Drinking the Well

I've been involved in pursuing spiritual adventures for quite a long time. I've walked on fire with Stuart Wilde's Warrior Wisdom course. I trekked the Ashram path in India and stood next to faith healers in Manila. I've sweated in sweat lodges, spent countless hours in churches and danced Sufi, and around cauldrons. I've seen many impossible things. I follow a very electic and unusual path at times when it comes to spirituality. My father describes it as 'going down strange fox-holes' I put my interest in varying faiths down to my early upbringing in Papua New Guinea where there was a lot of magic practised by the locals. Reports of people being raised from the death, telepathy and spiritual healing were all common.

This weekend I went bush with a group of women to pursue Secret Women's Business at a retreat in NSW. It was a glorious weekend as I had been feeling very burnt out caring for my daughter, writing books and domestic artistry. My battery was running low. I wasn't happy with my stress levels and was finding it difficult to breathe properly at times.

I feel very different now. As the facilitator of the weekend, Suzanne, said, "The Wise Woman drinks from the well first." This is similar to the instructions on aeroplanes when the oxygen mask drops and mothers are advised to take the oxygen first before sharing it with their children.

I made new friends and reconnected with old. We sat in circle and shared of ourselves honestly. We broke away old conditionings and found a freedom in that ancient practice. Some of it was straight from scenes I might have mocked in my earlier books. Passing a crystal wand and discussing menstrual cycles with a total stranger is easy to be cynical about, until you find yourself in circle doing just that.

We revealed ourselves on multiple levels and found a new inner wisdom. It was a time I shall always treasure. I won't go into more details as Secret Women's Business should remain Secret Women's Business. But we have so much to learn from the traditional owners of this land. And from now on, I vow to sip from the well first.