Land of Oz

April 15/18 - 09:00

Seriously ? The Exit of Flight Cancellations ?  My long flights to Oz are all but forgotten but this picture, snapped in the Guangzhou Baylun International Airport, is worth sharing. The third busiest airport in China. Someone illuminate me...

I was also wondering why Australia is called OZ? A quick glance at a Lonely Planet chat offers varied explanations - because Sydney is the Emerald City where streets are all paved with gold as per L. Frank Baum’s classic, The Wizard of Oz. Ha! Because Australians are called Aussies for short. Because the Australian dollar is the aussie. One writer suggests it’s the fault of the British. Another claims that Australians don’t use OZ to describe their land down under. Whatever the origin, I’m here, in the land of OZ and it is truly bloody far away.

YUL to JFK to CAN to PER. Left on a Friday at 6am. Arrived in Perth, southwestern Australia, Sunday at 6am local time. Somewhere in there, one whole day simply disappeared. Luckily, it will magically reappear when I re-enter my home orbit in 9 days.

I’m here for a walkabout and to meet with mediums and shamans as research for my Master’s Thesis. More about that later. And yes, the paper will be entitled The Wizards of Oz. Couldn’t resist...

I rented a stick shift at the Perth airport. Had a moment of nostalgia and thought it would be fun. Oops. Didn’t realize that they drive on the left which means stay on the left, look right. All gear shifting is done with the left hand. Stay on the left. Stay on the left. Snapped me quickly out of that brain fog that comes from sleep deprivation. Luckily it was a sleepy Sunday morning in lovely Perth.  Had a few close calls on the roundabouts and managed to make it safely into town.

April 15/18 - 21:00

It’s the end of a hot summer here in Perth and my first impression of this land is Parched with a capital p.  I visit 2 homes this first day and they are both eerily dark inside.  Roofs slung low over windows.  Verandas covered.  All the house blinds drawn. For a sun deprived Canadian, it’s a greater adjustment than driving a stick shift on the left. Houses are deliberately somber inside. Blinds are seldom open and if they are, only after 4pm.

I wonder how anyone will live here in 100 years but Aussies are nothing if not resourceful.  My friend Bev, who’ll be hosting me for a couple of days, tells me about Coober Pedy and their homes carved out of rock.  Inhabitants live literally under the ground.

My first meeting is with Jacqui Pavich, shaman.  We meet at 5pm.  The sun is still blazing.  When I leave over two hours later, the air is cool and crisp in true desert fashion. Jacqui is a trained shaman who uses rattles and drums to connect to the worlds of the shaman – what she describes to me as the upper and lower worlds.  Humans exist in the middle world.  Today Jacqui and I are going to do a spirit journey to discover my power animal as well as a ceremony to help promote healing.

Some shamans, she explains, use hallucinogens to connect to spirit.  Jacqui simply uses the power of sound. An executive assistant by day and a shaman by night, Jacqui would love to practice her passion full time. As she begins the ceremony, I initially wonder about the neighbours and how they tolerate the chanting and drumming but that quickly gives way to just enjoying this rich, in-your-face experience.  It is powerful and I feel the rattles even more keenly than the drum. Jacqui tells me my power animal is the male lion.

I show her my desktop picture, the woman with the red lion.

There are other confirmations as well.  As I leave, ears ringing, I vow to give this further deliberation during my three hour drive south to Capel to learn from my medium / healer friend Bev Bryant.

April 17/18 – 21:00

I’ve had two wonderful days in Capel, Wa, with Bev Bryant, psychic medium and healer.  Bev committed 100% to serving spirit years ago, establishing The Krystal Light Healing Centre in a small building steps away from her home.  Bev does training circles where she assists others to develop their mediumship.  At one point, she was doing 3 circles a week, a time consuming task that has borne fruit.  There are more than 15 well trained, working mediums in this part of Australia who are of service to others because of Bev.

In addition to teaching, doing readings and connecting people with their deceased loved ones, Bev offers colour and sound therapies as well. I experienced several including the crystal bed light therapy and the ajna light therapy.  Both were relaxing, rejuvenating and offered tangible, long lasting positive effects.

Perhaps most significant was that they opened me up to accepting the information given to me in a 22 page report on my aura that was generated by the Biopulsar Reflexograph machine.  As I initially read the results, which were so much less than flattering, I categorically rejected them as untrue / impossible / flawed.

Several deep breaths later, I reopened the report at random and began to digest the material.  We can lie to ourselves.  We can lie to each other.  But we can’t lie to this machine.  Our own soul may seem hidden from us but it reveals itself through the colours of our auric field.  Organ by organ, the program translates the language of the soul through colour, revealing our deepest past, present and future self.  A light therapy machine can heal our aura temporarily but we must do the real work – examining beliefs, letting go of fears, following our bliss.

Not for the faint of heart.  And neither is driving on these crazy roads.

April 20/18

Sorry Mum, been too busy to write…

From lovely Capel, I drove south, to Denmark, Wa. Google maps told me it was a 3 ½ hour journey. The journey took 6 hours.

Two hours down that narrow ribbon of road, sun drenched plains dotted with stubby trees and shrubs gave way to a lush rainforest with large, tall trees 10 storeys high. I thought of Canada’s west coast and the eerily beautiful arbutus tree, whose bark shreds and strips off continuously. Its close cousin was here, on the back roads of western Australia. The most amazing thing was just to actually be there, doing that. Bombing along, trying to remember to stay left, sharing the road with trucks big and small. And me, pint sized insignificant me, free.

In Denmark, I met up with New Zealand shaman Tony Norgrove. I had paid for an all-day private workshop with Tony and true to his word, Tony took me from a classroom style lecture on shamanism to doing a healing and soul retrieval session. This is big work. Our day lasted 9 ½ hours.

For much of it, I was both intensely present, immersed in energies that are difficult to describe, yet also trying to be a witness, observing the scene in all its richness. The workshop took place in a large room decorated with symbols of shamanism from different native cultures including North American, Egyptian, Mayan and Asian.

Tony was keen to support my Master’s research and allowed me to record the whole day. When doing research for a thesis, all contributors sign a consent form which creates a framework for how the material will be used. Here’s a piece of the consent form that answers the …

‘Purpose and Objectives of the Research:

I am a student at the University of Victoria, in Victoria, British Columbia, currently completing a Masters in Educational Leadership. Two years ago, my daughter Chloe passed away after a long illness. Five weeks after her death, she began to dialogue with me in such a clear, audible manner, that I was able to transcribe our conversations. They lasted for five months.

This research project has the purpose of exploring what I call ‘Dialogic Nonmaterialism‘ or the capacity to enter into dialogue with nonmaterial beings – discarnate entities that may be spirit guides, angelic beings, masters or deceased loved ones.

Through interviews with shamans, mediums and others, this type of dialogue will be explored. The concept of servant leadership – the desire to serve others and in so doing, become leaders, is the lens through which this research is undertaken.

I believe these practitioners do the work they do in order to be of service to others. The truly great ones possess the courage and humility that are landmark traits of great servant leaders. They endure being maligned and ridiculed yet they continue, in true servant leadership fashion, to serve others and to move our knowledge and sensitivity forward on the subject of the nonmaterial world that exists all around us.’

My day with Tony was further proof of the capacity to raise the veil between the worlds. More and more inclined each day to call it one world, not two, meeting Tony was worth travelling across the planet.

This picture of Denmark’s legendary Peaceful Bay is as close as I got to a beach.  My schedule was tight and the next morning, I headed back to Perth via a direct inland highway to meet the creator of One Tribe. Their website www.onetribehealing.com.au opens with the words “There was a time when everyone was loved, held and secure. When your place among the tribe was understood and accepted.” I was looking forward to meeting the man behind those words.

I had met Jacqui, Bev and Tony and now would meet Sydney businessman turned Perth shaman, Mark Steinward.

April 21/18

Since the age of six, Mark had felt spirit around him. Rejected it through his teens and twenties and was beckoned back to his true calling after conducting a sound healing event a decade ago.

Sound healing is simply that – the use of sound to raise energy and promote healing. The sound can be generated by any type of instrument that vibrates, including the human voice.

Mark and I met outside his home in Perth. He suggested we go to a nearby park and spend a few moments silently lying on the grass. As I felt the stress of my 6-hour drive slowly seep out of me and into the earth, he sensed it too and knew when to begin speaking. Wise, acute, deeply connected to spirit, Mark spoke of his difficult childhood, of the present day growing thirst for connection and understanding of spirit and of his service through One Tribe.

His first event had been a sound healing evening for a few friends. After that, he held another event and invited a dozen people. A dozen people showed up. He switched to a larger room to accommodate double the numbers and double the numbers came. And so on. Today One Tribe does sound healing concerts every Friday evening, healing retreats, workshops and shamanic training. Mark explained that shamanism is simply working with the light. He gave generously of his time and was an enthusiastic participant in my research.

Then it was time to return the rental car. What a relief! Hours later, I caught a red-eye to Sydney, on the east coast of OZ, and spent three lovely days with family I hadn’t seen in decades. Sailing in the harbour, dinner out at Bondi beach, easy moments at home. And no driving.

The real work begins shortly as I turn all this research into a coherent analysis of the servant leadership these outliers provide.