Close your eyes, relax your mind, sit or lay in a comfortable position, focus on your breath. This moment is for you, to rest, to listen and connect. To listen to the land speak. I am taking you somewhere quiet. Somewhere ancient. Somewhere just before the banjamin / the rain begins, the sprinkling banj biik water Country cleanses and nourishes your spirit. You’re hearing a story, but really, it’s a remembering, it is a ceremony for you with biik / Country. As you breathe deeply, settling in, I want you to imagine you are in the wurrgumang / the bush, by the Birrarung / the river, surrounded by the ferns, trees, shrubs, rocks and all the elements. As you sit beside the flowing Birrarung / river, your feet touching the banj / water. Above you the wurru-wurru biik / sky country is grey and full bellied and the banjamin / the rain is coming. You are surrounded by many baban darrangs / mother trees and grandmother trees, and they are whispering the kind of secrets only our baban and baggarrook, our mothers, aunties and grandmothers sisters daughter, only the secrets they know. You lean into the birrarung / the river and your fingers trail the surface of the stream, the banj / water feels cold, rippled, ancient, the murnmut biik / the air changes and this murnmut biik / the wind starts to move the trees, rustle leaves, your hair is being flicked about and your face softly caressed, the hands of Country connect with you, the leaves swirling in the murnmut / wind currents, these leaf currents are the liwik / the Ancestors showing you they are here. You stay present as you immerse in this elemental ceremony until the pace slows down, slower, slower, and slower to stillness. You feel the liwik / the Ancestors arrive, first in the silence and stillness, then again in the murnmut biik / the air Country, you feel them all around you. Wurundjeri liwik / Ancestors, and your liwik / Ancestors, with supportive hands on your shoulders either side, and hands on their shoulders either side, and on it goes way back, starting with one, then two, then many, hundreds, thousands, you are surrounded by your Ancestors. Your connection and kinship exists in the spiritual plane as well as the physical, they are always there to talk to, to feel and to draw strength and support from. Breathe into this knowing for a moment, feel it in your heart, in your body and remember... The resonance of the possum drum is slow and steady, this ancient instrument was played on Wurundjeri Country. The walert for thousands of generations, like footsteps through the soil and like the heartbeat of baban biik / mother Country. The sound of banj / water, banj-min / rain, trickling, like a soothing soundscape. The resonance of Country and the heartbeat of Country. In this moment something bigger than you arrives, the certainty of your creation, of your purpose, folding you in, like the baggarrook / women who came before you, you are right where you are meant to be, made of murrup / spirit and durt / stars. You are never alone, and you never were, the liwik, your Ancestors and mine are with you, straightening your shoulders and brushing your hair back, whispering their support and guidance in every moment. Some of us grew up far from these voices and some of us have forgotton what it feels like to be protected by this presence. But the land remembers. And when you slow down enough to listen, she brings them back. These are the ones who see you, the ones who walk with you and the ones who say “you are always watched over” your Ancestors and Country. And we always say if you look after country, it will look after you. Whenever your murrup / your spirit feels like its longing for this kind of remembrance, come back here and sit with me, whenever you feel the need, in this dreamy moment, by the water. Immersed in the walert / the possum, the drumming, the murnmut / the wind, the banjamin / rain, by the birrarung / river, with our liwkl / ancestors, surrounded by the baban darrang / mother trees and biik, Country. Make time to sit in this stillness and connection. This world is within you and it’s always waiting to be felt and connected with again. Let’s return to them... together.