Landwork Is Lightwork
In recent months I've been spending my days playing with soil, as I am on this mission to grow my own healthy food and of course good food starts with good soil. So this journey to regenerate soil of this ex-camel yard into healthy compost so that I may grow edibles that aren't loaded with toxins or come from halfway across the planet or country - is a sloooow journey. Back in London, I had an allotment for 3 good years, so I knew it wasn't going to be an easy road to my destination and indeed the best journeys are when you can forget the destination and be on the road fully with eyes open in present moment awareness. I guess this is what they call Landwork. A term I've heard being used a lot - through a new friend and land/lightworker- though am fully understanding to be my work right now...
Landwork is about healing and regenerating land, so that in can be healthy, activated to have full Life force and biodiversity in it. Though I am beginning to understand and embody on a much deeper level that Landwork is also about our own connections and relationships to the land and of course the people that previously occupied the land before I showed up. Ancestors are hugely important to me - especially since my parents have been my ancestors for awhile now- so I do give a lot of attention to the living memories of my ancestors. More and more I am feeling into the ancestors of the land that I live in. The land of Sinai is Bedouin land, so I'm learning about how they used to live and operate before this hippy little town became this hippy little town. When the Bedouins were roaming the land without the gaze of the Egyptians and foreigners who have come to settle here. Personally the more I rewild myself and get back to nature away from the over - domestication and hyper - individuation of the western worlds ' values', the more I resonate with native people and crave the old ways and wisdom that they live by. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way as the more people I introduce to Dahab and Sinai's incredible natural beauty, the more I know and feel that this way IS the way; returning to how our ancestors cared for the land by respecting the elements, rhythms, season and cycles of the year is the future. If we can also bring the positives of technology into that, then the past and future can marry themselves in the Present - which after all is the gift, right?
Landwork; of which I am in service to, with this garden that I've chosen to commit to, I see now is actually Lightwork. As we all know and that I talk about often is that there's no light without delving into the darkness. Indeed working with the land, especially the soil of Sinai, I find myself regularly faced with challenges that I need to surrender my will and control to be able to overcome.
The soil also helps me transmute heavy emotions into lighter states, often on a daily basis. The sadness turns to joy, the grief into love, the fear into courage and my old friend anxiety flips back into excitement. Showing up - which is often the hardest part- allows me to receive love and nourishment from the earth, the elements, the neighbouring kids and of course from the plants, flowers and trees. Right now, while writing this I'm drinking the yummiest blend of rosemary, mint and sage tea homegrown on my yard; plant friends that give me insights, energy and healing to be able to keep going and more importantly keep me connected to life.
Landwork through the compost making process has taught me through my own hands how important it is to let go of holding the shit we no longer need, to lighten our loads by giving it back to mother earth, so that she may hold and transmute it into something else that can be of service to some other little beings in the soil.
To me, this work has brought me more into the light. I no longer feel allergic to the term lightworker, as I've been integrating the darkness on my shadow-work journey for a very long time. I know from experience that the brightest of lights have always come out of the deepest darkest of black holes.
We only need to look at Gaza and Palestinians who are the most powerful reminders me of what it actually means to be connected and committed to the land, their land. To be Indigenous. The Template of Darkness that the colonisers have copied and pasted on all native people from my birthplace of Australia to Canada to South America to Africa is now slowly but surely being composted by Mama Earth herself and all of us land-workers who are in service to her.
No Darkness no Light. Landwork is Lightwork.
Ameen..x