As 2022 draws to a close, we might do well to remember that we began this year disconnected, exhausted and perhaps a little deranged. Somehow we dragged ourselves out of the COVID quagmire to try and create some normalcy in our lives.
One of the practices to help me gain a semblance of normalcy this year has been my daily sit-spot. It’s one of the thirty-three practices in Brave Women Write.
A sit-spot is the same place in nature that you return to daily for thirty minutes. Its purpose is to practice Dadirri (the Aboriginal word for deep listening) and to witness the miracle of nature unfold over the days and seasons. It’s a practice designed to help you become one with the more than human world.
View of the Yarra Birrarung from my sit-spot. Can you spot the Heron’s nest?
My own sit-spot is a green wooden bench in an Indigenous garden on the banks of the Yarra Birrarung just a ten minute walk from home.
It’s from here I’ve been spying on four White-faced Heron chicks being raised by their brooding and protective mother. It’s an incredible feat of nature to see them being fed worms and grubs in a nest that’s now barely big enough for these fast-growing competitive teenagers. How they’ve remained intact and not tumbled head-first into the flowing river below remains a mystery.
The White-faced Heron chicks at my sit-spot.
My sit-spot is a place for imagination and creativity. I’ve imagined the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people gathering here in ceremony more than two centuries ago and I’ve dreamed up new stories for Love Stories of the Yarra Birrarung.
And it’s also a place for reparation. I try to leave the spot a little better than I found it by collecting any rubbish or reporting any damage or graffiti to the council.
Today’s plastic collection found from the receding flood waters in the trees surrounding my sit-spot.
Upon my return home, I complete an automatic nature-journaling exercise on a word document on my laptop. I set a timer for thirty minutes and write unfiltered. What flies into my head and heart finds its way onto the page.
There’s no pausing to review the words or correct the spelling. It’s an exercise in flow and the result is more than 1000 words—and a whole lot of bliss. There’s no better way to start my day.
As the silly season is upon us, it can be easy to get caught up in the demands of other people, over-booked calendars and hyper-consumerism.
Perhaps the perfect way to deal with it all is to take time out to find your sit-spot, start writing and find your bliss. It might just be the greatest gift you can give yourself and the very way to get your writing project for 2023 off to a grand start.
If you’re a woman who yearns to write the stories that will remake the world for women and Mother Earth, I can help. In 2023 I’ll be hosting one-day workshops and offering my 90-day private mentoring program to a limited number of women. Read more.
With love
Brave Women Write Book Orders
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Brave Women Write Private Mentoring
Do you have a book or writing project to be brought to life in 2023?
If you need clarity and focus to get started and support to make it to the finish-line, I’m here to help.
Applying the practices in the book and through a unique combination of workshopping and mentoring over 90 days, I help turn your fledgling ideas into a tangible book.
I work with women who have a story to share through a memoir, biography, fiction or non-fiction book that will drive personal and planetary change for women and Mother Earth.
If you feel that it’s time to stop dreaming and start writing, make a time for a conversation to see if we are a good fit.
Interested? Connect with me for a conversation: Contact
