Creating Space Project

The Baradine Country Women’s Association is 90 years old. At the moment, its hall is full of supplies and vouchers, donated from around NSW and Queensland to support farmers and to try and keep the local shops alive.

Nea Worrell, part of a family with five generations in the CWA, talks to the Creating Space Project about the impact of the drought.

“We’ve had that farm for forty-odd years, my husband has been farming for seventy years, and we’ve never had dry dams.”

Nea and her family have been handfeeding their animals, from sun-up to sun-down, for 18 months. They’re reduced to their breeding stock, and are wondering how they get through summer, never mind beyond that.

There is no rain predicted.

Nea’s story is not unique. Farming communities are facing enormous hardship. As well as struggle, though, what shines through is the strength, wisdom and kindness of women like Nea, building community resilience and hope.

“We have ladies burst out crying when they see us. They’re being strong for the men in the farm and then they come in here and we say “How are you? Are you alright?” And then the boom gates open. So cuddles and cuppa teas and cakes are free here at the CWA. They go away feeling restored and better. And if we can do that, that’s great.”

When you interview someone at the Risk and Dare youth justice conference, held in a high school, it's tough finding a quiet spot, especially when you only have 10 minutes...

Elise talks about being moved by the story of two women who arrived in Australia as refugees. 

“The refugees I’ve encountered are so strong.”

The resilience shown by people fleeing vulnerable situations is the key characteristic Elise sees.

She believes young people in Australia need to hear these stories - stories from really dark places and people who have lived many lives - in order to build their own resilience.

She also believes we are stronger when we tell our own stories.

Storytelling shares lived experience. It gives hope for the future. It lets people learn from other’s experiences and create their own stories as well.

Stories form a human connection.

“That’s important, that human connection.”

Christiane Nakhle and I are at Risk and Dare, a justice conference for young people from across Australia. She talks about homelessness, and young people being vehicles for justice.

Women are the most significant proportion of homeless people in Australia, due to domestic violence and lack of support.

Christiane traces her concern for homeless women to the influence of her cultural background, Christiane is Lebanese-Australia, the closeness she feels to her family, and the influence of her mother and grandmother on her life.

Christiane strongly values empathy and using the resources she has to be an instrument for change.

It was an interview grabbed spontaneously as Christiane was very busy, and kindly took time away from workshops to speak to me. So my apologies for the difficulties with the noise. We are in sonic competition with the loudspeaker for most of the time.

Boundaries and being other.

These are concepts that interest me greatly. So there was a wonderful synchronicity to having a conversation with Celina McEwen.

This is the story of the meeting of Celina’s parents, a French woman and a man from the West Indies. 

As well as being the story of the cultural backgrounds of the two people that Celina embodies, it is also about that “big question mark of how people relate across cultures, [what] makes people want to cross those boundaries, and [be] attracted to the other.”

Intersectionality; the politics of relationality; the diversity within a single person; the choreography of relating to other people; the ties between memory and language. Celina is as graceful and light as a dancer in the way she explains ideas that can otherwise be a little bit daunting.

Politics dressed up as the production of spores.

Olivia reads a poem written by herself and a friend, Marcus.

Then the other young poets of the Spark Youth Theatre respond to it.

It's witty and clever, and the conversation does not disappoint either. I loved interviewing these young poets.

Uploading this episode from a campsite in Goondiwindi, with the baby playing in the dirt, the preschooler sulking in the tent, and the birds scattering about the grass, I'm reflecting on this episode from the backdrop of the emaciated cows and bone-dry dirt that I saw yesterday.

The insight and awareness of these young people gives me hope. 

"I feel too much, like it's more than I can hold, and I will break" 

Seb is fourteen years old, enormously articulate, and very insightful. He reads us a poem.

Then Gabe Journey Jones and the Spark Youth Theatre respond.

They talk about many things, including being bullied and feeling down about everything.

What emerges is resilience and strength. The future is not perfect, but you will get there.

This is the second of three interviews with the Spark Youth Theatre. Spending time with them was wonderful. I felt so energised by all they know and share. 

This is the first of three interviews that I enjoyed enormously (I enjoy all of my interviews, to be honest, but this one was something else again).

I got to talk to the young poets from the Spark Youth Theatre. Each took a turn reading a poem, and then the rest of us, including facilitator Gabe Journey Jones, chatted about the poem.

“A witch’s house that goes walking”

Fourteen year old Orlando reads an original poem, Baba Yaga, that he had written moments before.

Then the group respond to it. Their insight, wit and originality is just a delight.

Rachel Menzies researches the role of death anxiety in mental health. She is passionate about ancient history and psychology.

From Gilgamesh and Persephone, to the local death café and anxiety disorders, Rachel came to realise that a fear of death, and an avoidance of talking about it, is pervasive throughout human history.

For Rachel, mindfulness of death helps her to live deliberately and in the moment, living with meaning, purpose, and a deep appreciation of life.

It is about “using death to live well.”

Rachel Menzies is a clinical psychology and PhD candidate. Along with Ross Menzies and Lisa Iverach, she recently edited the book Curing the Dread of Death.

"It’s very rare for me to lose that sense of my own heartbeat."

Meeting on Gadigal/Wangal land prior to the Unspoken Words Festival, poet and percussionist Gabrielle Journey Jones performed The Happening for me.

There's a heartbeat drum at the pulse

Twenty-four hours in the zone - never alone - never alone

Like the voice of women which will not drown in patriarchal oppression

The voice of women in the rhythms...

Powerful and evocative, Gabe's drumming and poetry opened up a fascinating conversation about rhythm, sound, feelings, creative community, heartbeats, intersectionality, queer communities, representation, mental health, self-care and greedy time... a conversation about "bits of debris that float in."

"The many different angles of grief that hadn’t occurred to me until my own father. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was more than one thing to miss. And it’s not always good stuff that you miss."

Poet, Ali Whitelock, and I talk about the unexpected death of her father, a man with whom she had a difficult relationship. 

The experience of accompanying him, holding his hand while he died, brought home to her the reality that one day, she too, would die.

The terror that life was passing her by compelled Ali to leave her job and enter the life she had always wanted - that of full-time writer. 

We talk about the meaning of her work, holding something in the palm of your hand and writing a poem about it.

"The role of writers and poets is to perhaps pare back life and look at it and try to make some kind of meaning to it."

Jenny and I are in an Open Dialogue group that examines how Western psychology is linked to colonisation. Both emerge from the same place. Because of this, psychology can sometimes do harm to people who have been colonised. In the group, we look at ways our own psychology practice can perpetuate colonising practices.

Jenny, an Aboriginal woman, talks about how the term ‘decolonise’ is offensive for her.

It evokes bloodshed and massacres, families torn apart, languages lost, disconnection. The word doesn’t communicate love. It communicates only pain.

The Open Dialogue group is attempting to re-imagine clinical psychology as a place of dialogue, collective action and resistance to injustice.

As Jenny says, “there’s a group of passionate people that want to see change.”

In Open Dialogue, “everybody gets to hear what everybody has to say. But also all the feelings are acknowledged and then you can sit back and assess what was heard.”

Simply finding a word or phrase to represent our intentions and conversations requires finding a middle ground, a place for both psychology and lore.

Photo 'Corellas' by David Warren Noble

Sadiya and Sarah are part of Stop Adani. It is an environmental movement working to block the development of the Adani Carmichael coal mine in the north of the Galilee Basin, Central Queensland, Australia.

Last episode, Sarah told a story for Sadiya to reflect on.

In this episode, Sadiya tells us a story, about a Bangladeshi farmer who lost livelihood and home to river erosion.

Sarah pulls out the themes of loss and displacement in this story. For Sarah, this is a human story of the suffering already experienced by extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and global warming.

Climate change is not just an issue of environmental justice, it is an issue of social justice. Sarah reflects on the increase in child marriage associated with climate change, as families are forced to make horrendous decisions to keep their children alive.

“We know that burning coal, no matter where it’s burnt, is going to keep fuelling global warming and climate change and Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries, although no matter where you live in the world, we’re all going to be effected by it.”

Sarah Ellyard’s childhood, spent camping and bushwalking with her wilderness conservation father, explains her connection to the environment, and her ability to understand its importance to our health, physical and mental.

She finds it hard to understand why Western society places such a low value on nature, and why we find it hard to take action on climate change.

Sarah is part of Stop Adani Sydney, a movement that is trying to block the development of the Adani Carmichael coal mine, in the north of the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland, Australia.

Sadiya Binte Karim is a Bangladeshi woman. Also part of Stop Adani Sydney, Sadiya reflects, for us, on Sarah’s story. She links it to climate justice, both in Australia, and in countries like Bangladesh and India, which are already suffering the consequences of climate change.

“I am a drop waiting to return to the ocean”

Mohammad Ali Maleki is incarcerated on Manus Island. Five years ago, he attempted to seek asylum in Australia and, for this, he was detained.

An Iranian poet, Mohammad writes in Farsi. His friend, Mansour Shoushtari, translates the poetry into English, and Mohammad messages the poetry to Michele Seminara, an editor at Verity La.

Michele and I talk about Expectations, a poem contained in his chapbook, Truth in the Cage.

Michele describes his work as “incredibly sad but also in a way uplifting.”

I think I know what she means. I feel so sad listening to the words of a man jailed for being a refugee, but I also find myself reflecting on my relationship with freedom, through the lens of his relationship with freedom.

“For years the ceiling of my room has been my sky.”

The Australian government does everything it can to suppress asylum seekers’ voices.

Mohammad and others like him have been strong, persistent and ingenious in getting their voices out.

Compassionate and gentle, Mohammad seeks our essential goodness,

“He’s speaking from what’s the same in each of us.”

Truth in the Cage, is a chapbook of poetry, written by Mohammad Ali Maleki, and published by Verity La and Rochford Street Press. It is being launched on Tuesday 17th July, 2018, at the Friend in Hand, Glebe. Come along. Otherwise, buy it online. All profits go to Mohammad.  

For more information, including sample poems and how to buy the book, check out the link below

https://verityla.com/2018/06/28/truth-in-the-cage/ 

This interview with Auntie Josie is to acknowledge and celebrate NAIDOC week, 2018. 

Auntie Josie is from the Wailwan nation. She is a First Nations Person. We were speaking on Darug land. I am deeply grateful and honoured that she has shared some of the stories of her life with me. 

These stories concern sexual abuse, domestic violence, suicide and parental death, among other things. Please be advised of these triggers. Listen mindfully for your own wellbeing and with respect for Auntie Josie.

Auntie Josie is a woman of remarkable courage, wisdom and kindness. I have been moved beyond words in listening to her stories and by the generosity she has shown in sharing them with me.

The purpose of sharing the stories is to help Australians, like myself, understand better the experiences of First Nations Peoples. These experiences are the consequence of colonisation and genocide.

I would like to be very clear that I acknowledge that these are Auntie Josie's stories. I am simply privileged to be permitted to release them here as a Creating Space Project podcast episode. 

So too, the thumbnail image is the official NAIDOC 2018 logo and I am using it, I believe in good faith, to be a part of this celebration. 

Introduction to Conversation with Merle Conyer

I talk to Merle Conyer. I had a particular question, about the interface between Western psychology and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge. I’m exploring that because of a work role I’ll be taking up soon, as part of the Creating Space Project.

As part of my preparation for that, I was put in contact with Merle by Paul Rhodes. Merle has been grappling for some time with the same question that has only recently come to me.

Merle works with Aboriginal communities. She’s a South African woman who’s been in Australia for many years.

As she describes it, she is in that intersection of human rights and wellbeing and social justice.

So I sat with her on her carpet and listened to her, and in listening to her, I have learnt an enormous amount.

For her the word genocidewas shattering. She realised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in her lifetime have encountered the five conditions for genocide laid about by the United Nations (1948) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There is shame attached to that: The shame for a South African woman, and the shame of being in Australia and realizing the systems of oppression that exist here, the structures of colonialism.

A phrase that has stayed with me from the conversation with Merle is about moving from shame to responsibility and how you tease apart toxic shame from helpful shame.

This interview has helped raise in me lots of questions:

As a therapist, in what ways am an instrument of oppression?”

When I’m in a therapy room with a person who experiences racism, structural oppression, in what way do I perpetuate that oppression?

How do I seek restorative action? How do I seek to redress that? How do I deconstruct the racism that I have been raised in?

How do I dismantle those processes of colonization in myself.

Merle explores the idea of cultural humility. As I understand it, this is about making space within my space, and within the spaces I operate in for voices from other cultures and other systems?

Merle then talks about the therapeutic modalities that have served her well in practice. These include somatic therapies and postmodern therapies, including narrative therapy.

I am also in conversation with First Nations Peoples, this interview is just one act of preparation.

Jennifer Jones lives in Myanmar and co-founded the Room to Grow Foundation. She works with children: Unaccompanied refugee children who have experienced enormous trauma. They have swum rivers while bullets fly overhead.  They have worked in factories. They have foraged for discarded cabbage leaves to stay alive. 

But their suffering is not the focus of this story. Their strength is the focus.

“Those kids… taught me about strength, about resilience, they taught me about survival, about what it takes to live in a really difficult world. Their parents teach me about what it means to make choices that are more difficult than any I ever have to make in my life. And above all, the dancing teaches me that kids who have gone through these terrible situations can find a moment of joy. Not all of them, not every time. But all that stuff that they’d been through, they could just drop it to be fully immersed in a moment of joy when they got it.”

This is not just a story about dancing with refugee children.

It's about Jennifer's journey away from pity and into a more ethical relationship with people who are in need. It's about white and non-white relations, international NGO work, colonisation and post-colonisation. 

It's also a reflection on how a government and media can manipulate a society into believing a certain class of people are not human, such as the Rohingya experiencing genocide in Myanmar, and refugees and asylum seekers trapped in detention centres, like those on Manus Island and Naura in Australia. 

Jennifer Jones lives in Myanmar and co-founded the Room to Grow Foundation. She works with children: Unaccompanied refugee children who have experienced enormous trauma. They have swum rivers while bullets fly overhead.  They have worked in factories. They have foraged for discarded cabbage leaves to stay alive. 

But their suffering is not the focus of this story. Their strength is the focus.

“Those kids… taught me about strength, about resilience, they taught me about survival, about what it takes to live in a really difficult world. Their parents teach me about what it means to make choices that are more difficult than any I ever have to make in my life. And above all, the dancing teaches me that kids who have gone through these terrible situations can find a moment of joy. Not all of them, not every time. But all that stuff that they’d been through, they could just drop it to be fully immersed in a moment of joy when they got it.”

This is not just a story about dancing with refugee children.

It's about Jennifer's journey away from pity and into a more ethical relationship with people who are in need. It's about white and non-white relations, international NGO work, colonisation and post-colonisation. 

It's also a reflection on how a government and media can manipulate a society into believing a certain class of people are not human, such as the Rohingya experiencing genocide in Myanmar, and refugees and asylum seekers trapped in detention centres, like those on Manus Island and Naura in Australia. 

Rebecca Langley is an Australian woman who has become involved as an ally in the movement for freedom in West Papua.

Recently, she has been a supporter in the Let's Talk About West Papua campaign that has been launched in Australia, which aims to address the ways in which Australia supports Indonesian occupation of West Papua, including funding, arming and training the security forces. 

She talks here about how she became involved in this community, inspired by the music of Blue King Brown, the activism of Izzy Brown, the 43 West Papuans who came to Australia by outrigger canoe, and the Freedom Flotilla. 

It's problematic that we are two white Australians taking up space to talk about the oppression facing Indigenous people. Rebecca and I are both uncomfortable about that. 

There were particular reasons at the time why it wasn't possible to talk to a West Papuan (including time restraints), and I decided I would rather talk to somebody, given the timing of the campaign addressing human rights violations, even if I couldn't talk to a West Papuan woman. 

Amy Martinez listens to the story of Isabelle from Belle and the Bear, in which Isabelle’s bear was stolen by her mother’s abusive partner.

“I feel like [the teddy bear] stands for something else that has been taken away from her.”

The sadness that Amy feels for Isabelle relates also to her own experiences in childhood. Now, as a young adult, Amy says she is starting to notice the ways in which people hold power over her.

For example, she had a boyfriend who was very controlling.

“He knew that I cared so much about him that he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it because he could say certain things to bring me back.”

Amy’s reflection is a curious mix of vulnerability and courage. It takes a lot of strength to allow yourself to publically experience and express strength and there’s a lot to be learnt here about emotional resilience and getting to know yourself.