SESSION 1

The following are recommendations only. No pressure at all.

Reflection Prompts:

• Be Fascinated with yourself as the subject of your research. What comes up for you after our first session? What questions, observations and experiences are emerging? What are you curious about? What does and doesn’t make sense?

• Triangulating between the three areas in Fieldwork, how do you understand your relationship with your field of inheritance, the land beneath your feet and your imprint in this world?

• As you are exposed to the ideas and cultural-spiritual-relational framing in Fieldwork, what do you recognise / remember / recall / re-discover / awaken within yourself?

Recommended Documentation:

You can document your growth in many ways. Some suggestions include -

• Journal each day and jot down what you notice in the areas of Land / Country - Legacy / Ancestry and Country / Land. Write poetically and generously and curiously and openly.

• Each day walk outside and engage with the land in some small way, you can write a tiny note to yourself, or bring a leaf or pebble or pick up a piece of rubbish. You can grow a physical collection of treasures or simply write a word each day to remind you of your interaction.

• Make a list of people whose legacy you are carrying forward. Artists, revolutionaries, parents, elders, activists, strategists, writers etc…

Recommended Reading / Watching / Engaging with

• Rewatch our session following the link emailed to you with the recording.

• Watch ABLAZE, the award-winning documentary by my colleague, mentor and family Tiriki Onus, by renting or purchasing on any platform. This documentary gives insight into some of the strength, resistance and incredible stories that come from the land beneath my feet - The Kulin Nations.

• Listen to Natalie Diaz and David Naimon on Between the Covers. Both PART 1 and PART 2 are a deep dive into Indigenous strength, complexity and artistic practice.

• I highly recommend reading INFLAMED by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel.

SESSION 2

The following are recommendations only. If you notice resistance, document that and be fascinated about where that comes from and why? All information is valuable to bring back to the group.

Reflection Prompts:

ACKNOWELDGEMENT IS PRAYER .DOC

click above to download

Recommended Documentation:

BUILD AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT POEM .DOC

click above to download

Recommended Reading / Watching / Engaging with

• Rewatch our session following the link emailed to you with the recording.

• The Ground for Inclusion: Diversity and interdependence Mark Fairfield is one of my greatest influences as a psychotherapist looking to move beyond the confines of individualism. This article draws together anthropology, neuroscience and relational theory to make a case for radical inclusion. I read this (as I read many things) as a yearning for an Indigenous reality.

• This episode of criminal with Sister Helen Prejean was a lesson in humanity for me “do your work for the authentic reason of the work itself and not because you seek the fruits of it. You don't seek any extraneous kind of rewards. As I understand it, it means you do what you do because it's the right thing. And it's a moral imperative. It's written in your bones”

SESSION 4

How do you introduce yourself?

Use the following prompts to practice introducing yourself. What does it feel like to introduce yourself through coordinates of belonging and yearning? What does it feel like to introduce yourself through coordinates of colonial location?

How might you introduce yourself to and ecosystem / Country / Fenua?

You can practice introducing yourself to the sky, to waterways, to constellations, to trees. Using the prompts below have a play with how you might approach a tree. Imagine all the invisible root systems and complex relationships under the soil that you can’t see but are essential to that tree’s existence. Remember you also have entire universes in your field of things we cannot see that are essential to your existence. What does it feel like to call them to the surface?

SESSION 5

How are we preparing ourselves as leaders?

What fingerprints do we want to leave on this world?

How will we lovingly haunt this place long after we are gone?

Have a play with some of the following tools as a way of beginning to develop your own rituals, narrative structures and sequences for your life / work / community practice.

SESSION 7

Links:

• You can read about and buy the poetry collection Mark The Dawn on Jazz Money’s website I referred (through tears) to their poem Since Always

• I referred to the importance of re-writing our own stories and the incredible work of Lewis Mehl-Madrona who says “Beyond any technique, relationships are what heal”.

• I spoke about the simplicity of Oliver Jeffers’ story telling and how I borrow his style to retell my own stories. You can ‘read’ The Heart in The Bottle at this link and also watch the short film adaptation of his book Lost and Found.

• I have re-published some very old blog posts for you to read so you can hear some of my ramblings from 4 years ago.

• You can download my Masters Literature Review HEALING IN/FROM THE COLONY. This is jammed into the shape required for my colonial/ academic framed Masters and it’s also a few years old. I would write an entirely different piece if i were to do this again.

Reflections:

SESSION 8

I have no words. Thank you from the bottom of my belly, my Ocean and my heart.

Here is a link to the poem The Bridge Builder by Will Allen Dromgoole. Importantly this poem is written by a white woman in the early 1900s who was very openly racist in her writing. The poem was introduced to me by an older white woman who was also very comfortably and openly racist. And yet this poem makes me cry every time I read it, because (despite it’s origins) the words call a noble and loving part of me to the surface of my field. I love this poem because I don’t believe it was intended for someone like me, and yet, I draw strength from it in a way that feels like I’m turning poison into medicine.

I don’t know how you’ll figure out how to do your homework. I trust you’ll figure it out. There are no gold stars and no consequences. The poems / prayer / love notes do not have to be long. Try to squeeze the most amount of truth in the smallest amount of space.

For me, I want my children, my fenua, my mentors, my family and the elders who I work for and with, to hear some of the impact of their love and strength down the legacy line.

I would love for future field workers to have some insight into what they are walking in to. I can’t give that insight because I have not experienced this book reading as a participant.

Most importantly, I want you to feel the depth of pride / gratitude / honour / strength / love that you deserve for having done this work. Return this strength to your own self/ selves.

This is not easy. It is devastating and painful work. I need the whole of your inner universe to hear how incredibly courageous and humble you are for embarking on this journey.

We will need reminders and reassurance for the rest of our lives that we are of value and that our yearning and love is not in vain.

Someone (Nevo) said in one of our groups:

We need each other to remember. I can’t stop thinking about this.

We need to remember each other.

We remember to need each other.

We need each other.

This statement is now the title of this list >

Here are some of the many tools we have touched on, referred to or explored throughout the past 8 weeks. The following map our internal work.

And here are some of the tools that help us with our relational work in the va between us.