A New Map — Continental Drift
I made this image of tree bark in the north of Finland, about three weeks ago, now. A forest that edged the coast; moss and lichen and bare trees beginning to bud in the late arriving spring. Conifers that bent in shapes that told the story of the prevailing Arctic winds.
It was still cold. It had blown a snowstorm the previous week, leaving patches of icy flows on the ground, still. Very different to my native Bush-Coast in Australia. Where coastal healthland breathes sunshine and eucalyptus.
For a long time I have walked coastlines. It is my path. My Songline. Listening to waveform and sandscape and wide open sky, singing the reflection of clouds in the wet littoral.
I am in an interim period. Unexpectedly. Usually I would gravitate immediately to Coast; to Home, to Beach. But not this time.
.
For many long months last year, my songlined path of beach was also a Saltwater Songline of grief, as well as one of open beauty. It was a path of release and of hope, of light. It became a path toward new life.
.
Until, it didn’t.
.
I asked for a new path. And it found me. Quickly. A path of deep Australian bushland, of Rainforested National Parks and ancient calderas of long extinct volcanoes. Of grandmother rocks and ancestor spirits of Place.
.
For a decade, when my children were small, we lived in the deep and sacred bushland of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Canyons, escarpments, ridges, waterfalls, giant tree ferns, towering gums. And everywhere, the sky. The bush, where my Dad walked with me every chance he could drag me out of the dance studio, so I could “learn to listen to Country”.
It is to the Bush I return, now. Not the Blueys, somewhere more remote, much smaller, a different climate and geography altogether; a nestling into sanctuary. For around six months. No internet. Little distraction. Simplicity.
The Bush.
To walk with trees and rocks.
To write new Songlines, layered onto old.
To come Home.
I write about Songlines;
the paths we walk as we listen to and create the Land, as it creates us.
You can read more about this work by visiting embodiedterrain.com
Deep Beauty always,
Narelle
