I hope you’ve had a good week. I’m a bit unsure about whether to wish you a happy Australia Day or not. I certainly wish you a happy day today but I am very aware that there are mixed feelings about celebrating Australia Day on January 26th.
This day is the date that the First Fleet landed on Australia shores and claimed it as part of the British Empire. Understandably the descendants of the indigenous people who had already lived here for 60,000 years, don’t see that day as a cause for celebration. I’m ashamed to say I had never given it much thought until I came across this video and an Avaaz petition yesterday. I actually agree with the idea of changing the date of Australia Day to Jan 1st which is the day we actually became a country rather than the day we arrived with 11 boat loads of convicts (slaves) and invaded a continent.
A number of years ago Harry and I did the Grey Nomad thing and spent 6 months travelling around Australia in our caravan. It was fantastic but I do remember being quite disturbed as I learned more about the history of the Aboriginal people and the appalling way they were treated. This is something I never learned about in Australian History at school.
I won’t go into detail about the violence and injustice but one of the things that happened in the early days of white settlement was that Aboriginals were “employed” to work on the cattle and sheep stations. They were paid in tobacco, alcohol, sugar, tea and white flour! As a natural health practitioner I cringe at the thought of introducing 5 of the most addictive and health damaging products into the diet and lifestyle of people who had, until then, had lived purely off the land. It’s clearly had devastating health consequences generations later.
While we were travelling through the outback I was also intrigued to learn about bush tucker, bush medicine and the Dreamtime. Although most of today’s Aboriginal people have lost their connection with the land and their ancient culture and wisdom it was lovely to see that there were attempts being made to resurrect and preserve this wisdom. The hospital at Halls Creek, for example, has a garden with native plants that are used for medical purposes.
Many of the Aboriginal Heritage Centres teach about the connection with the land and the amazing Dreamtime stories. Many of these stories, apparently, were a way to teach the next generation how to navigate their way across the land, find water, food and shelter. These people were also very psychic and spiritual. I heard one story of Aboriginals communicating with dolphins who would then swim out to sea round up fish and bring them into shore directly to the waiting fishermen.
An interesting “Secret Women’s” health tip I learned was that eating the clay from a termite mound would alleviate menstrual cramps and help during childbirth. Now who would have thought!? I must admit I’m quite pleased I’m beyond needing to try it, but analysis has now shown that this clay is very high in magnesium, the mineral needed to relieve muscle cramps! These are just snippets of a culture with enormous depth that I make no claim to understand but believe we should honour.
Of course the wisdom contained in native medicine and culture has not only been dismissed or suppressed in Australia, this has occurred throughout history all over the planet. When you stop and think about all the ancient knowledge and wisdom that’s been lost to the world due to colonization and our version of medicine and science it’s really quite disturbing.
I did a Pacific cruise a few years ago with some girlfriends and I remember having an amazing conversation with our taxi driver in Vanuatu. I mentioned that I thought it was such a shame that so much of their culture had been lost because Christian missionaries had labelled their traditional healing practices as Black Magic and had forbidden them to practice it.
The driver reassured me that the wisdom was not lost but was still practised in secret. He told me some amazing stories. Believe it or not we talked about childbirth and he told me that there were never any complications. This taxi driver said, for example, that the medicine man could connect with an unborn baby in a breech position and turn it by talking to it and rotating his hand gently on the mother’s belly. The baby would simply turn itself. I love that!
He also told me that the medicine man in his village had treated him when I had broken his arm recently. It was a compound fracture and the medicine man had used his magic to reset the bones, packed the wound with a medicinal plant and it had healed completely in 3 weeks. He proudly showed me the scar.
I believe that 2016 is the year for us to wake up to the truth of our reality. There are psychic, spiritual, intuitive and vibrational aspects of our being that have been suppressed, ignored and even ridiculed for far too long. We are all capable of so much more than we’ve been conditioned to believe so maybe it’s time to open our hearts and minds and allow ourselves to become more intuitive and remember our ancient wisdom.
I truly believe that the future of healthcare will incorporate all these aspects of our being and all of our ancient wisdom in order to be effective. That’s why we offer and encourage those things at our Clinic that people sometimes find a little weird like sound healing, light therapy, mind-body medicine, energy healing, psychic development and psychic readings. It’s important to unlock and embrace everything we’re capable of to reach our potential for health and happiness. True holistic healthcare is about treating ALL the aspects of our being with ALL the tools available.
Last Thursday at our weekly Kindred Spirits group we did a past life regression and the times and places some people went back to and remembered were astonishing. Believe it or not this is potentially a wonderful way to retrieve our ancient wisdom. One of our practitioners says she has very clear memories of the healing work she did in Atlantis and is getting amazing results doing that same work now. The Kindred Spirits group asked if we could do the same process this week so join please join us if you’re curious. (10.30am Thursday)
I also want to encourage you to come along to the “Love Your Life – Awaken to Your Heart’s Desire” Workshop this coming Saturday that’s being run by Kara Kovacs and Julie van Nispen. I’m sure that both Kara and Julie have had many past lives as powerful healers and this workshop will take you through some beautiful rituals and processes to create a much deeper connection with your own inner wisdom. I would love to attend myself as I have enormous respect for both these practitioners.
I will be busy, however, at the Afterlife Explorers Conference at the Shoppingtown Hotel this Friday, Saturday and Sunday where we have a boom stand. Take a look at www.afterlifeexplorersconference.com.au for more details and perhaps I’ll see you there.
I hope you have a fabulous week,
Warm Regards,
Alison Burton
Health and Happiness Guru
Simply Natural Therapies
41 Tunstall Square
East Doncaster
VIC 3109
03 9842 7033
info@simplynaturaltherapies.com.au
www.simplynaturaltherapies.com.au
TAKE OUR HEALTH ASSESSMENT
TAKE OUR 30 DAY WATER CHALLENGE
SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE HEALTHY PREGNANCY AND BIRTH TOOLKIT
VIEW OUR WELLNESS WEBCAST on our Secret Remedy for Health