Once upon a time there lived a child who travelled much with her family. They travelled through many lands, through small country towns, through cities and through varying natural landscapes.
The little family was mother, father, younger brother and a four legged brother who was ever watchful of the family, keeping guard as well as holding loyalty and love.
The daughter, was a quiet child, an observant child who learnt to navigate the many worlds of which the family wandered through.
She fascinated over how many ways people could live and think, as she was often in ear shot of adult conversations and enjoyed learning about patterns in life via listening.
Many of the travels included always connecting in with her mother and fathers family, one indigenous the other with origins in other lands. This in itself exposed her to such contrast in ways of being, ways of caring. Ways of sharing. She experienced shades and colours of love.
In between brief moments of living in or close to towns, the family always lived in nature. They had a huge canvas tent that served as their home. It could be moved and adjusted in response to what nature commanded.
The father often found employment driving trucks and the mother for a time followed seasonal work. This fueled the families travels and the continent was opened to the children who learnt via actual experiences as well as through storytelling and amazing books!
As I grew, for I am her, the daughter, I met people from all around the world, as well as first people all across the Country, such multicultural exposures right here within our own continent. I saw how different families operated, I tasted so many different foods, listened to many languages and walked Country with mob in many places.
My mother has heritage within Wailwan and Gamilaraay Country, she was a stolen child and found her way back to family when she was 16yrs old, I was 3 months old. We met her family together and were embraced and learnt where we come from.
We always went back to family in our travels, always.
This is anchored within me. Memories, smells, feelings, places that have watched me grow over the years and when I revisit them; we recognise one another. The land is very much aware and in presence.
I have grown to feel good within myself in all natural landscapes. In cold country, in rainforest country, salt water, fresh water, mountains, desert, snow, rain, dry heat, humid heat….. I feel relational.
As a woman in life now, I live in a canvas tent in the center of Australia, it is both bushland and desert like. The heat is dry when it is hot and evaporates the moisture form your breath. The cold is freezing when it is cold. The sky is always a magnificent blue and the sun is always warm even if the air is chilled.
The local mobs here are beautiful in their being, with rich language reflective of regions of Country. It’s raw, it’s real.
It’s true of all my exposures in life I feel the health in being close to the living world. In being in its song and rhythms. In living simpler and feeling enlivened and grateful in doing so.
Welcome to an element of my story, Knowing In Nature for me is a living breathing way of life. Informed by my foundation years, by my family, by all first peoples and every person I have ever met and witnessed, and deeply informed by Nature’s tapestry.
Mostly it’s a choice to hold a beautiful strong relationship with the living world and everything else flows from there.
Here is my home. A bell tent with a little food garden surrounding. A bush shower of which I heat my water on a fire to bath, all built from reused materials. A little bike shed next to the shower. My little bush kitchen. All cooking or heating of water is done on a small fire or with my little metho cooker.
My futon bed sits atop many found milk crates that double as cupboards for my clothing beneath my bed.
A swag serves as a little couch in my tent and a spare bed for friends to stay over.
Among it it is little bush clinic available for remedial therapies, it’s accompanied by the sounds of the many bird songs here, its nurture in nature!
And my car holds power from the sun to run my small fridge and smoothie maker!
I’m doing my best to live simply, to hold the balance the best I can in this modern world and continue to refine my Knowing In Nature.
Have a wonder-full day everyone 🌳👣
Rachel Shields
Knowing In Nature
You have made an excellent camp with all you need. A very fine tent too.
That is good living.