"Singing in Flowers"
Online Hand-held Labyrinth Walk – “Singing in Flowers” - Sunday September 17, 2023, 6.15pm-7.30pm AEST
(SA, NT 5:45pm, WA 4:15pm)
Facilitator – Judith Keller, Southport QLD
The inspiration for “Singing in Flowers” is a short poem by the First Nations poet Charmaine Papertalk Green:
Wildflowers Singing
Like a feast laid out
On a long table in
Front of me
My eyes welcome
The sight of my
Ancestral lands
Singing in wildflowers
Source – Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella, False Claims of Colonial Thieves, Magabala Books, 2018, p.60.
Ushering in the Spring Equinox in Australia, this hand-held labyrinth event, “Singing in Flowers,” is an invitation for participants to acknowledge and celebrate the first footprints of First Nations peoples on the lands where participants live, work, love, and walk labyrinths.
Just as the coming of Spring, with its abundance of flowers is a sign of new life, the title, “Singing in Flowers” references Charmaine Papertalk Green’s poem and serves as a metaphor for possible new beginnings of inclusion and reconciliation with First Nations peoples of Australia.
The First Nations peoples of Australia are the oldest continuous living culture on planet Earth. Charmaine Papertalk Green’s poem is a poetic celebration of her connection to her “Ancestral lands.”
Biographical information about Charmaine can be found at the following link on the Red Room Poetry website. You can also scroll down the link and listen to her reading a recent poem, “Etched in My Mind.”
https://redroompoetry.org/poets/charmaine-papertalk-green/
Materials/equipment needed by participants
- Hand-held labyrinth or you may have your own three-dimensional hand-held labyrinth made of timber or another material.
- For around 15-10 minutes following on the hand-held labyrinth walk participants will have time to process their walk. This can be done in silence or via free writing or haiku writing, or via a visual arts practice. If you want to write or draw bring paper and pen or coloured pens, soft pastels or oil pastels if you have them, or other art materials, if you have them.
- Acknowledgement of Country to share with other participants in breakout group of 3-4 participants. Please prepare this beforehand, Some examples of Acknowledgement of Country as well as a few additional poems by First Nations Women poets will be emailed separately to participants before the session.
- Spend some time with “Wildflowers Singing,” the short poem of Charmaine Papertalk Green before we meet in the online Session. Together with your Acknowledgement of Country you will be invited to share with others in relation to the poem:
(i) What resonates for you?
(ii) What feelings arise in you?
(iii) Do you notice any resistances?
A Statement about Judith Keller
Judith Keller grew up in Brisbane. Shas a background in education, spirituality and the arts. She is a former academic in Qld and NSW and is now retired. In 2022 she completed a Certificate in Deeptime Leadership with the online global community, the Deeptime Network DTN. Judith is currently half way through the completion of studies in spiritual direction with the Tabor Institute in Adelaide.
Judith now lives at Southport on the lands of the Kombumerri Nation of the Yugambeh speaking peoples of the Gold Coast Region of SE Qld. For five years in her retirement she was a trained guide in her Regional Botanic Gardens at Benowa on the Gold Coast where she was involved with First Nations custodians in leading walks in The Story of Our Country garden, and For the Love of Trees and Our Fragile Earth.
In the first half of 2023 Judith facilitated the online events required for completion of her Veriditas Certification. As well, she facilitated ten online hand-held labyrinth sessions in the Brisbane U3A titled Creative Paths on the Chartres Labyrinth. Over July this year she facilitated five weekly online sessions combining the calligraphy and poetry of the Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh with Chartres labyrinth hand-held walks. She is currently facilitating an online hand-held series, monthly over five months titled The Cosmic Labyrinth.
Judith also occasionally facilitates online poetry series and loves to combine her love of the eleven circuit Chartres labyrinth with poetry and music. Her style is immersive, poetic and contemplative and she is interested in building a body of work, and skills, for facilitating online hand-held labyrinth events where her background in education, spirituality and the arts can be expressed and be of service to those around her and to the world. Judith is a member of ALN, ARRCC, ANSD and Treesisters Int’l.
