The Aussie thread....

[Aurora]

mmmmmm mead

Congrats reliz81 I hope you enjoy the course

[reilz81]

ive only left it for 30 mins since i got it lol read it over a few times very interesting stuff btw reilz is fine you dont have to add the 81 but if you feel the need thats cool too lol

[Aurora]

Glad your enjoying it so much, I've gotten so much out of the course and i hope others get just as much if not more out of it.

I like to be polite when i first start communicating with someone, a bit like using some one's whole first name rather than a nickname, but if you insist reliz it is then

[reilz81]

i think i will get alot out of it though i will probally take longer then others

thats a good way to be i use names rarely unless it is a busy topic even irl

[Aurora]

Don't worry about how long it will take you cause in the end it's the journey itself that matters. But if it helps any i'm coming up to five years and counting on the bardic grade

[reilz81]

i have a friend that learnt druidry the old way and aparently it was like 25 years of study so anything under that id be happy with lol

[Bronzewing]

Hi Reliz, wow, 25 years is some commitment in this day and age! Mind you, my learning in the fine arts of horse riding and dog training is running at nearly 40 years and I haven't lost interest yet. I'll happily leave the numbers off names. I can't remember them two seconds after reading them and end up scrolling up and down the replies trying to find them again. Numbers are not my friends. Ra3vyn's name gives me difficulty and she only has one number. I keep forgetting where it goes!

Ra3vyn, I am sorry to hear you didn't get an acorn from your Grandma's tree. I wonder if it would still be there if you went by? My Great Grandma died two weeks ago at the very ripe old age of 108! The family tried not to be sad that she died as she had long ago felt she'd outlived her peers and was ready for a rest. We concentrated on her amazing life and telling stories of the things she did. She was such a great character and a very strong woman. Just imagine, when she was born there were no cars and no electricity! She lied about her age to get married at 14, then took on her new husband's brother and sisters when her mother in law died, all while raising her own four babies as well. We only knew she had been younger than we thought when she had to admit that we couldn't have her hundredth birthday celebration for another two years yet.

Hi Sandra! Great that you made Druid grade. It shows great determination to keep going despite all the distractions a family brings. My poor sis has one teen and two littlies and has been on Gwers 9 of Bardic grade for a couple of years now. I was over your way this month to see my Da in Rockhampton. Too humid for me, but lovely! We were lucky enough to get relatively cool, wet weather. They were freezing and kept apologizing, but we were very glad. Then it was back to dry, dusty, stinky-hot old Perth, where we are desperately trying to keep even our hardy local natives alive and having to watch some of the grand old trees die after giving up waiting for rain. I was so jealous of my stepmum's beautiful, lush, Rockhampton garden, but i know they have had their drought years too.

Hugs,

Bronzie

[reilz81]

well he learnt off a druid the old way had to memorize several hundred stories that part i dont envy as i cant even memorize jokes lol hope your one of the ones that dont whip the horses i hate how they do that in horse racing i now boycot horse racing and anything to do with them due to that my grandfather passed over a couple of weeks ago at 99 he was well over it yet was too stubborn to do it i texted my aunt i wish he would just let go so he wont be in this pain next thing i heard was he had let go the funeral was actually not to bad either i thought being in a christian section it was going to be all about death and holey spirits and such but was more about a celebration of life only part i cringed was the lords pray why do they always have to have that old piece at funerals they should have a version 2 or something lol

[Bronzewing]

Sorry to hear about your Grandad, Reliz. Yes 99 was a grand old age but I do wonder why people are so keen to live to such great ages. It's always at the wrong end.

No I am not one to beat my horses, or my dogs for that matter. I use lots of treats and also clicker training these days as well, which involves not using any force at all to train them, just looking for a tiny bit of the thing you want and clicking it with this little tool, which they understand means the treat is coming for what they did when the click happened, so they do more of it.

My current riding horse isn't far enough along with her training that I can ride her without a bridle or saddle yet, but past horses have been. At the moment she is learning to fetch a colourful toy, and she loves to try all sorts of obstacles like poles on the ground, and bridges, because she is so highly reinforced for them. Each thing she learns to touch, pick up, walk on or over helps her be braver and to make more decisions for herself. It is a fascinating way to train, and your animals really become involved in the process.

Australians are really in the forefront of doing it with dogs, but behind the Americans and some of the Europeans in getting it into horse training. The Aussie horse world is very old fashioned, sadly. I had such a great time teaching my dogs that way, I couldn't help but incorporate it into my horse work and luckily enough people in other countries had gone before me that there was lots of info online about it.

Anyway, whoops, you got me onto my pet topic there. Ha ha ha, PET topic.

[reilz81]

yeah i wouldnt want to live that long myself everything starts to fall to pieces

thats great to hear about the no horse whipping my grandfather was a horse whisper not that he advertised it or even talked about it but it was quite obvious he had this ex racing horse that was mistreated and was going to be put down because it was blind in one eye but he put his hand up for it and she was very wild yet one day he just climbs on her and rides down the paddock on her as if she was the gentlest thing in the world if my jaw was any lower i would of been tasting dirt lol

[Dragonwyst]

Aah Bronzewing, you make me soo jealous being able to train horses that way and have such a wonderful relationship with them. None of my childhood dreams came to fruition in that regard. I still have my copy of "Thinking With Horses" somewhere among my books.

[reilz81]

horses are such beautiful creatures theres just something about them

am having a weekend treat my fiancee bought me a bottle of mead havent had mead in such a long time its great must learn to make my own as acording to the grog shop its very short in supply which is a shame

[Bronzewing]

Dragonwyst, every day I try to remind myself I am lucky to get to spend so much of my time with my animals. To get to be that way, I also got to have a stupid illness that makes me very tired sometimes and some days unable to manage much but care for them. But, since I feel I was born to care for animals and plants and I do still get to do that, I do stay mostly positive about it. Every cloud has a silver lining hey?

There have always been horse whisperers, but most of them weren't such self promoters as the current ones. I was lucky enough to spend some time with one as a teen so got a good head start on many of my peers. I was breaking in and retraining in my teens, but that is all in the past now. Now I just enjoy my own. I wouldn't call myself a whisperer, I just try hard to think of things from the horse's point of view and aim always for calm communion. I don't want a servant, I want a friend. Horses are extraordinary animals; so capable of harm, so full of instinctive reactions and fears, and yet so willing to oblige. People don't give them credit for how much they put up with and how hard they try to fit into our world.

Reliz, it has been years since I had mead. I still remember when my hippy friends and I first discovered it in my early twenties, and bought and drank two bottles each in one night. I don't think I ever remember such a hangover, or so many bad hangovers all at once. We recently bought a bottle to use to bless and celebrate a block of land we bought that we named after the Welsh land of honey, Moy-Mel, but we haven't used it yet. We're waiting till the poor old land gets some life in it after the drought. Feels like all the spirits of that place have gone into hiding just now, and who can blame them?

Hugs,

Bronzie

[reilz81]

sounds like you have had some great experiences with horses they have a way of looking into you to see if your good or not i remember when i first met rosie(the half blind horse) i was told she could only see through 1 eye so i was to stay on one side of her she towered over me as i was just a child i was terrified of her but i reached out to pat her on the nose and it was like she knew i was terrified because she bent down and stayed absolutly still so i could touch her i later found she somehow could still see out her blind eye i had walked over to the fence on her wrong side and she turned to face me i am guessing somehow she had over copensated like in a spiritual sense

oh 2 bottles i could drink them and probally only just be tipsy lol i drank a bottle to myself and didnt have much effect but it just tastes so good so much so i started looking up how you make the stuff lol where abouts are you bronzewing?

[Bronzewing]

Hi Reliz, I'm in Perth.

Horses are just like people or dogs; some have more tolerance for kids than others. Sounds like your Rosie was a gentle soul, though.

We've had a little rain here overnight. You can smell all the trees taking deep breaths!

Hugs,

Bronzie

[halffix]

Hey thought I'd drop a line in here as well, seeing as I live in Australia, just starting out on my journey but I'm enjoying it. Currently residing in Brisbane, I have come to find there isn't alot of Australian resources/material available, is understandable I guess.

[reilz81]

hey halffix welcome hope you continue to enjoy it australian material is quite hard to come across one of the people in this thread posted a link for an australian druid newsletter which i recommend having a look at if your trying to find something in particular post about it and im sure we can all provide linkage or something useful

[Bronzewing]

Hi Halffix,

Another vote for Serpentstar Newsletter here.

No there isn't that much stuff for us out there. I think part of the problem is that as usual, Oz is so spread out that we are not even experiencing similar weather across the country, nevertheless matching our seasons to the UK, even in reverse, as is often suggested. Here in the west we are doing rain dances, dodging the marches of the ants and the clouds of mozzies (who seem to be the only creatures thriving) and watching our big trees get drier and drier (The local banksias are dying in whole groves now. Heart-rending!) while you guys over there have had a really wet, green year. Our preoccupations are going to be so different at any one time, and with this being such a nature-based path, of course things will need to be worked out locally. Then there is the difficulty of getting folks together!

I don't see it as a bad thing particularly. I just remind myself that the long ago people moved from land to land and took their spirituality with them, and even though there probably weren't many of them at first and they had to be brave and determined without the numbers to keep them on track, they evolved their practices and festivals to match where they ended up, so it is a good long tradition we are following.

Hugs,

Bronzie

[reilz81]

when i moved here(ballarat) most of the serounding cities were having major draught even ballarats lake wendouree had nearly entirely dried up then it took a complete reverse and now the lake looks more like an ocean so i think places can ressurect themselves sometimes they just need to go through some dry times

[Aurora]

Hi halffix

There isn't much on local wheels of the year for this part of the world, add to that what Bronzie said about the sheer variety of our landscape and the best you can do is spend a year or two or more observing, interacting and being in your local environment and seeing what cycles unfold for you.

If anyone is interested I did spend the last few years looking at and being in my local environment and have written about what i found for the seminar series here on the board viewtopic.php?f=326&t=38219. It applies to here in Sydney where i live but if anyone else wants to share their own discoveries of their local area that would be fantastic