The Beauty of Away.
Posted by Goddess Leonie on July 7th, 2009. Filed under: Joyful Goddess Life.Holidays are holy days. They are days and nights of journeying and learning. They are going away from home in order to return home to myself.
Holy-days are not one neat, small story bundled into one. They are a cornucopia of the little stories, the little blessings, the tiny miracles, the shifts and the moments.
What if I just told you some of these little stories? Would they all thread together so you might know just a little of what it was?
Sitting in the tree with my big sister. Talking and laughing and getting each other. Her laugh makes me feel like she totally and utterly gets me. When we were kids, we were so connected we were more like twins. It kinda feels the same now.
Waking up in the morning to the most beautiful dawn in the world – there is always a soft fog over the paddocks and between the trees. The dog and horses are always outside waiting. It is quiet and heavenly.
Little sis & her lil pony, Storm
Having a huge lunch beneath the trees. Large, mismatched tables with white tablecloths. Twenty brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. Family.
Just some of us.
Sitting out by the campfire every night. Perfecting how to cook a marshmallow. Talking. Laughing. It’s my very favourite thing in the world to do at night.
Planting a crystal grid all around our farm house with my sisters, cousin, niece and nephew. My niece and nephew showing everyone in their pure, precious way how to listen to crystals through your ears and heart. My beautiful, intuitive nephew planting the generator crystal, blessing it, breaking a stick over his leg, and cleansing the home with his clapsticks. Sacred wonder. Hawks dipping down, circling to watch over us.
Finding a hippie healing+crystals+bookstore opened up in my small-town home town. Walking in to find one of my friends from school is the owner. It’s been twelve years since we were adventuring in astral travel and spell-creating. So beautiful that she’s still doing her journey and living it… and that I’m still doing mine. (Yay! I can move back there now, knowing my kind of store+people are there.) Going back again and again for talks and healings and chai tea. Best.ever.
Waking up in the morning to go climb my favourite tree. My Dad drives up to the house on his motorbike. “Where are you Leonie?” he calls. “Up the tree!” I call back. He comes out to stand beneath the tree. Some things just never change. And I like that.
My little sister and I giving my grandmother and nan a spa day in the sun – using gorgeous moisturisers to nourish their skin that’s been living for ninety years. Holy and blessed.
Mamma-kins!
Not being Goddess Leonie for a while. Not even being Leonie. Just being Boney – my childhood nickname. Stealing bear hugs from my dad. Playing “four in the bed” with my mum and sisters in the morning. Climbing my favourite tree. Just being quiet and still and not working and not thinking. Making campfires the most important part of the whole day.
Motorbike riding with my 15 year old cousin Lokkie up into the hills. Only slowing down to give each other a big, happy grin before careening off again. I remembered just how zenned out I feel on a motorbike, feeling the wind all around me, and the grace of the earth beneath me, and the flowing movements like a fish swimming.
Missing my love like a bear misses its cave. I don’t want to be all crazy love song, but he really is my starlight.
Going crystal shopping with my sweet sister-in-law Sharne, and her full moon belly where her daughter is growing, getting ready to bloom. Taking photos of her floating in her pool, the sunlight dancing all over her like stars on a night sky.
My beautiful big brother taking Sharne and me to a secluded beach. I photograph them together, laughing and holding each other and the belly where their daughter lives. They are all white and drenched with blessings. A dog swims out into the sea beside us.
Crystal gridding the land with my mum in the sunset. Rainbow colours of calcite beneath trees. Making a labyrinth on my family’s farm with cousins and siblings and children. It sits by a rainforested creek bed, beneath white gums. We are undoing all that has passed, and blooming our beautiful new tomorrow. Feeling the energy shifting, changing, blooming.
Going to a beautiful, secluded beach with my big, beautiful tribe. My dad has organised a surprise lunch date for us all there. We sit beneath leafy fronds by a swirling turquoise sea, blissed out and happy. I photograph my tribe. How is it that family teaches us how to love so utterly what could be complete strangers? Family is not just my kin-kin: it is the people they love too, and the distant threads that weave us together. All the ways that our cells could light up at seeing each other.
Playing the “who is my cousin” game with my cousin Sherrin. She has the most beautiful laugh in the world that warms me up like cumquat syrup. I am teaching her that in Proserpine, the town named after a Goddess, we are all related. We are all cousins. To prove the point, another cousin pulls up a chair to our table at the airport. As we walk through security, a security guard is a cousin. We take bets on the air host being our cousin. And the reason we know our cousins here in Proserpine? Because our elders are still here, still remembering, still knowing all the ways we are connected and intertwined.
And maybe if we still had the elders of this planet around, they could teach us too how related we all are, how we actually are all each other’s family, how our genes sing to each other too. How at the end of the day, you are my cousin too.
I think everyone in the world should have a big brother like mine…
I’m not kidding, cuz. I don’t think we’re really that far apart. Proserpine is just a microcosm of the world.
The End.
{The End is a Leonie Trademark of finishing up a story. I say it all ze blinking time. It all started because of Chris. I’d tell him a hilllllarious story (to me), and finish it… and he would say “Is that it? Where’s the punchline honey????”
So now, it’s all about saying The End so he knows when he’s supposed to laugh. Because he’s awesome, and always does. As long as he knows it’s The End.
The End.}
And home again. But this time with this little dream in me that has remembered who I am when I’m on the farm. The parts of me that wake up at sunrise, because the sun is calling me out to play on the dew-kissed earth, playing with the animals. Playing.
I remembered how to play again, like I always have.
The child inside me is not so far away.
For all these gifts and more – I am crying as I write this.
Thank you farm. Thank you Proserpine. Thank you for teaching me who I am.
Love, as wide as the Proserpine sky.
xoxoxo
P.S. I’m slowly adding more photos to my Facebook album if you’re up for more holiday journeying goodness.
____
July 7th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
o my goodness! so much gorgeousness! so much light! so much love!! i adore it all!
Leah – Creative Every Day’s last blog post..Sound Shifts Stuff:An Interview with Fabeku Fatunmise
July 7th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
glorious celebratory luscious and dripping with love and spirit… how fitting!
July 7th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Oh, sweet Leonie, you grew up with such beauty and it shines in you now. Thank you for posting these gorgeous photos, and for sharing your beautiful stories of being home with your family.
Many blessings and lots of love,
Hiro
Hiro Boga’s last blog post..The Art of Belonging–Happy Birthday, Canada!
July 7th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I have little tears in my eyes reading all your words…
thank you.
just,
thank you
for being here.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I was crying while reading this. Fantastical and magical and beautiful and nostalgic and just utterly perfect. Thank you so much for sharing your family and your holiday and Porserpine. I feel like I got to peek into some warm and sunny magic cove. Lovely.
Marissa’s last blog post..Expanding your reach through inclusion: A plea to my local library
July 7th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
ha… marissa! you totally just made me cry!
and i know you totally get it sweetie… i just know how much you love AND adore your family too
xoxoxo
July 7th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
beautiful beautiful…as you Leonie….. where the rainforest meets the sea…a magical place …which shows on your beautiful Mama”s face…….. BROTHER mmmmmm all i can say is Daniel Craig eat ya heart out !!!!:) sending goddess love on a big white fluffy cloud to YOU XXOO xxoo
July 7th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Oh,
Leonie,
It was the greatest ~ closing out my night after reading your words and seeing all of the gorgeous pics of your family! I felt as if I were right there with you, through it all! Thank you so much for sharing!
And, the photo of your sis in the water with her baby belly
is the bestest ever!
Love you, my friend,
Bella
(Petunia~Face… *giggle)
July 7th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Bless you sister, I’m crying.
Yollana’s last blog post..Business as Art with Heart
July 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Oh Loney….just too freakin beautiful
July 7th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
awwww oh my goodness leonie!! that was soooooooo incredibly beautiful and heart warming!! your amazing
and you are so blessed to live in sunny warm austrailia and be able to take trips to the beach and lie under the trees – i live in the uk as you know, and its raining as i write this. you are so incredibly blessed to live in such a wonderful sunny and exotic country, never forget that. xxxxx
July 7th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I love how you share your journeys-you make them magic.
brandi’s last blog post..mission monday:: personal independence
July 7th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I love the way you intersperse photos from your childhood with new photos. amazing. It looks so beautiful.
JoVE’s last blog post..JoVE’s guide to CIHR for SSH researchers
July 8th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Whoa. Okay first I have to ask would your family consider adopting a 34-year-old American?
…No?
Sweetie, I am blown away by the beauty of your photos, the moments you describe, and just your overall ability to *see magic*. That’s all you. Lots of love to you ~ Eileen
Eileen’s last blog post..Gumshoe’s Guide to Getting off the Couch, Part 2: Context
July 8th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Thank you for sharing your beautiful photos and family and holiday and expressing your feelings so sweetly. It feels like we are (almost) there with you!
Barbara Martin @Reptitude’s last blog post..Understanding Creative Anxiety
July 8th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Hola beautiful souls…
I am so blessed to know you all…
and so grateful to share this miracle journey with you.
Once I have a retreat up there… you are all invited to come and visit
And sweet Eileen ~ there’s totally room for adopting you! the bigger the family, the better!
xoxoxo
Goddess Leonie’s last blog post..The Beauty of Away.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Holy-moly-gorgeous blessed family!!!
You are such a gift Leonie, and I enjoyed seeing where it all originated.
Such beautiful photos – I especially love the black & white of that swelled baby belly!
* Absolutely thriving with your e-course!!!!
July 9th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
So fantastic. I have a huge family (200+ cousins) most of who are 3000 miles away. I’m going to see 50 of them next week for my parents 50th wedding anniversary, and this just made me look forward to it more. What magic, no wonder you embody the goddess in all forms.
Christine Martell’s last blog post..Exploring with images
July 19th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Beautiful photos and remembrances, Leonie. Thank you for sharing your gorgeous family and home town. How perfect that you are from Proserpine. You are Persephone, the daughter, who comes home to her Demeter world part of the time and rules your own goddess realm the remainder of the time. It’s so important to stay connected to our roots and our ancestors. The beach looks so heavenly and you look so peaceful and alive.
Much love!
Stephanie’s last blog post..The Teachings of Spider Woman
July 21st, 2009 at 3:13 pm
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July 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 am
i was off on my own lucky extended sunny adventure when you posted this, and i missed it the first go around–
! ! ! L O V E L Y ! ! !
and i just needed a little reminder for my return that extended family means more than obligations and struggle, and that family is what you make it.
thanks so much for sharing your Love with us, and letting us share in your treasures–they really are best shared!
you are a ripe fruit that grew in great in a lovely grove surrounded by juicy others and rich soil and streaming light and blessing rain and curious seasons that WE get to eat now! Y U M M Y, thanks family!
August 4th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
So beautiful: you, Proserpine, past, present, all… Gorgeous. Love, Heidi
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September 29th, 2009 at 4:06 am
What an amazing place you come from! How beautiful you all are! Thank you for sharing with us and blessing our days with your days.
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