TUFFY TAKEOVER: It is with such sorrow that I let you know I will finish working with Kynan this week. I'm starting a new full time job in the conservation industry, and so, my journey switches gears to another path for now : ((((
For me it has been a rare and valuable encounter to get to know a teacher such as Kynan and to get go deeper with my meditation practice with him. He brings a creative flair to everything he does, a neurodivergent attention to detail with the Buddha's teachings, and a gentle disarming quiet sensibility to working with others. He also brings a lived experience in shifting systems of power, whose effects we spend so long transforming on the cushion. Honestly, he's a unique gem, and one we need so need.
I won't be disappearing for good; you will still see me pop up online in the Coalescence Sangha on Thursdays at 6pm (register via Kynan's website) and at future retreats, but for now, goodbye dear online sangha! 🌱🌈🧘♂️
Burnout is a brutal experience. It’s something I’ve had to deal with a number of times and in different ways: professionally, in activist work, through caring roles and secondary traumatic stress, and as someone who is neurodivergent. I know the pain of this experience and have also felt the relief of coming out of it with clarity and motivation.
I’m leading a meditation retreat in September focused on burnout, where we will use the practice of meditation as a way to create space and care. We will explore meditation practices that move us towards regulating the nervous system, stabilising attention and allowing the body and mind to calm, and then connecting with the Four Immeasurables of Equanimity, Love, Compassion, and Joy.
The practice of meditation creates space to be able to let go, release, and gain insight that relieves suffering. You will return to the world refreshed in body and mind.
Tending the Fire - Silent Meditation Retreat
3-nights, 11-14 September / Vejjasala, Southern Highlands
link in bio
Very excited to have Ju @ju_bavyka , Tuffy @tuffguts , and Rohan @rohan.equanimous.fly helping to make this retreat happen.
#meditation #silent #retreat
Found these beautiful photos of little dear pickle of our hearts. @endlessspirit you raised a beaut. Can't wait for this next gen you are bringing through <3
Native Forest Logging to end in Victoria by Jan 2024!! Unbelievable news. There will be rolling celebrations. Still trying to feel it in my bones.
Of course still work to do but for now we celebrate.
This is a massive win for the environment and climate.
Victoria's anti-protest came through on Saturday for forest protectors. To mark the occasion we organised a mass survey action action across the state. 189 people showed up across 5 sites for both day and night surveying, with over 130 plant and fungi observations recorded in the iNaturalist app. 4 greens MPs stood with folks as the safety harvest zones were contested.
Truly a beautiful act of resistance and defiance for climate and the environment.
#ProtectProtest #ProtectForests
Photo credit: @matt.hrkac and Tristan Pierce
Some beaut pics from the mass meeting on the right to organise for climate and the environment. Epic event. Go to link in bio at @goongerah_environment_centre to access the blog post for the full run down of highlights and motions.
My two favourite quotes from the night:
"If you don't care about the right to organise for climate, you do not care about workplace safety. And that is just a fact."
From Godfrey Moase, United Workers Union & CoPower, busting a hole in the entire premise for Victoria's anti-protest laws.
"We're talking about employment, this is ongoing employment, that (sustains the environment) instead of destroying it. And i think these are the things we need to protest for. We don't just need to protest we need to fight for this, because this is fighting for our very future... That's what we have to do. And if they want to lock us up, well lock us up."
Marjorie Thorpe, Gunnakurnai elder and senior Djap Wurrung woman.
Photos by @trudys_photography
Big mass meeting coming up on the right to organise for climate and the environment!
At the start of 2022 I started working for @goongerah_environment_centre . They are widely known as having run the longest longest blockade in Australian history - 5 years, over 500 arrests at Goolengook. In August 2022, on trend both nationally and internationally, Victoria introduced anti-protest laws specifically targeting forest protectors. We had awesome solidarity from the ASU public, ASU private, MUA, and UWU who spoke out publically and First Nations senator Lidia Thorpe who said these laws had no jurisdiction on her sovereignty as a blak woman.
We are trying to amplify and bring all this solidarity together in this mass meeting, and also affirm together that these laws won't stop us organising for the environment or climate.
We wanted to go old school. Lift the spirits of the movement, as mass meetings are so good at. More broadly I don't think we have a practice of them, only really in the union movement, and even then most of that is online these days or the power is deferred to the executive body. Around 2007 we had a big mass meeting in Sydney on whether we were going to contest the exclusion zone applied as part of George Bush's visit for the APEC summit. It was an incredible moment, despite the factional stacking and eventual undermining by a various left agendas. But I do remember it. Publically nutting out the politics and making a commitment to each other.
I hope mates in Melbourne can come. You don't get many moments like this.
In the context of increasing repression, climate collapse, racism, and the perpetual application of market logic to deal with all this - we have a chance to come together. After years of Covid lockdown, I think we need this!
I'd love to hear other peoples stories of mass meetings if you'd like to share them? I'm sure the anti-globalisation movement has a few!
💚✊🏻
To RSVP follow the link in @goongerah_environment_centre 's bio
Final piece in my surprise tryptic post! The foam from the upper catchment of Bung Yarnda (Lake Tyers) coming through the breach to the sea, and back onto the shore.
Very satisfying wobble...
