promising news for Teresa's "paws"

relief upon successfully completing my ASSESSMENT course with Tom ... I DID IT!!! ... pretty nice charcoal spirals & whiskers on my cheeks in this pic. & one below ... courtesy of Ellen one of our "girls" (September 6, 2007)

Hello my friends & family,

My big roo friend & I have a most excellent update for you on my "paws" ... at least as it pertains to my feet for sure ... following the appointment I had a few days ago with a new podiatrist Michelle Prophet-Pearson, based here in Canberra ... & finally, some pic's from my ASSESS with Tom & the ROMEO's graduation ...

big kangaroo ... our "watch roo" at Link Gully campsite

I am considering it somewhat of a breakthrough in getting this whole thing sorted out. Michelle is quite confident that these tingly/numb sensations can be treated with a pair of orthotics that are meant for my type of foot, as opposed to the ones that I got from the 1st podiatrist, which are too hard, not the full length of my foot, and have added support behind only some instead of all of my 5 toes. She also identified how my posture will be significantly improved by the new orthotics she will make for me :)

Sooo, the next trick is to work out if/when I can get in on an appointment earlier than the next available one on the 26th of October, so that I can get fitted for my new orthotics before my plans to head back up to Nan & Hugh's so that I can housesit for them at their farm near Terania Creek. The potential is high given the higher likelihood of some cancellations over the upcoming school holidays. So please keep the positive energy going for me that an opening is offered to me for as early as possible the week of the 10th October.

Once I muck about between here & northern NSW, I will be making my way back over to WA to visit my Seed Mates & OBA friends in Western Australia (for hopefully ~ 15 days), then over to Melbourne (3rd week of November) to reconnect with Glenda , Ruth, & hopefully Dot, possibly to Tassie to reconnect with the 4 Seed Mates down there before hopping back to Sydney & Canberra briefly before my flight to Aotearoa (New Zealand) on December 1st. I'll update this travel plan once I connect with some of my Seed Mates & confirm travel dates, etc. Lookout Pheebs & kt and all the rest of our Seed Mates, I can't wait to catch up with you :)

If anyone is interested in a splendid vacation in NZ, do let me know, I am planning to be there for the 1st 10 days of Dec. before I fly back to N. America, where I'll land into San Francisco for ~10 days before I head up to Seattle & beyond to Edmonton before Christmas ... phew!

wispy clouds & the blue sky splendour of the Orroral Valley (September 2007)

I am getting very close to winding up my Cert. IV ... only one final assignment to go and a few practical sign-offs, which I will take care of this week when I help out the Staff with the Vision Australia group. It's a great group of visually impaired kids, some of who are completely blind, others with some amount of vision or ability to make out shapes/colours/shadows and a few with the ability to sense things such as large buildings and other objects using echo location!!! I helped out with their climbing wall activity this morning and hung out with them while they had their abseil tower fun this afternoon. What an amazing & special group of young adults and what a privilege to be able to work with them today ... plus a few more times this week when I'll be out with them at NORA for their abeiling on Tuesday & back here when they do the High Ropes course.

Speaking of NORA, here are a few pic's I've been wanting to post from my ASSESSMENT course with Tom ... these ones were up on the ridge before getting to the abseil site ...

Tom practicing his "Atlas" pose

The main activity at a site called "Legoland", which is understood to have significance to the local Indigenous people in the area, is scrambling around in the big cave-like spaces created by a whole mess of very large boulders. As it turned out with our time when Tom & I were there with the Ascham Girls College, we only ended up with 30 minutes, instead of the ~1.5 hours I had intended for us. So, I had the girls enter in silence and we circled up around the fire ring in the center of the main chamber. The girls were amazingly attentive and respectful as we sat there in the chilly, windy, and inspiring space and I read them the Gaia Meditation from Joanna Macy's book Coming Back to Life. It was such a special experience and I am so pleased to have made the decision I did in facilitating our time in this way :)

Gaia Meditation in the main chamber

main chamber at "Legoland"

We had a great afternoon at NORA with everyone doing as much as they were able to at the abseil site ...

Teresa's "comfort zone" briefing

learning & growth happen when? ... when you to go into your "stretch zone"?

abseil briefing (con't)

Teresa's abseil demonstration

spectacular blue sky day amid the greenest I'll ever see these hills along Honeysuckle Creek!

Tom & Tess ... knowing that I have successfully completed the most challenging sections of my assessment course, including the steep 2 km downhill walk the day before from the ridge to our campsite near Honeysuckle Creek ... yippee!!!

The Ascham group were a great bunch of young womyn whom I am very pleased to have had out with me for my successful assessment course. What a treat to connect with such amazing and unique individuals and to be able to bring them along through the 9 days we were together, form somewhat squeamish, hesitant girls to more confident and critically thinking young womyn :) Thanks Carter House "girls", you are truly mahvellous!!

That's enough for this update, I am overdue for getting myself to bed for some much needed sleep. I need to be especialy diliget tomorrow in making great strides on my final assignment so that I can wrap it up by the end of this week ...

I will share a few final pic's with you ... of my ROMEO buddy Christopher & his grandmother Jan from the afternoon at the low ropes course on our ROMEO graduation day ...

Jan on the low ropes course

Chris & his grandmother (she's 76 years young!)

A few more of our ROMEO mob with Mount Tennent in the background on August 28, 2007, our graduation day :) Unfortunately, these pic's are not from my camera or my set-up ... but they still capture us ... THE ROMEO's on our special celebration day






Be well my dear ones, I look forward to reconnecting with many of you in the next few months, YIPPEE!!

Hugs 'n' Bugs,

Teresa

time to check in ... long overdue

Teresa at Protestor's Falls (near Terania Creek, NSW - August 2007)

Hello my Dear Family & Friends,

So sorry it has taken me much longer to post another update. I've been waiting to do so until I have something more concrete to report on my next steps, but alas, it is taking longer to get these details sorted out ... so here is a little update from me now & a few pic's to fill in the overview I shared about my recently successful assessment course.

Given the state my "paws" have been in since our Expedition Training mid-March, and more significantly since April/May and even more significantly since August ... I am now able to be giving my feet a break from the long hikes with a backpack adding extra weight to distribute over my feet. My feet & hands are not as majorly tingly this week as they were the past few weeks & I have had a chance to get out to my Shiatsu massage therapist, my chiropractor, (once each of the past two weeks) ... and out to the swimming pool (4 times in the past 2 weeks this is expecially excellent since it is not so easy for me to get any decent exercise out walking ... or even cycling just yet :(

Resting my "paws" is exactly what I have been doing for the past 2 weeks & will continue to do until this tingly/numb toe thing finally clears up. Instead of going out on any of the more recently offered OBA courses, I have been diligently finishing up the last half dozen outstanding written assignments that I need to complete for my Certificate IV in Outdoor Recreation. Only 1 major assignment left for me to write up, which I intend to do by the end of September, along with a few outstanding practical sign-offs that should be fairly easy to take care of.

The details I am awaiting are pertaining to decisions by OBA on the timing they would like to proceed in moving forward on the proposal I gave them, to rejuvenate OBA field approach with some new facilitation processes such as The Work that Reconnects of Joanna Macy & Molly Young Brown which includes the deep ecology, systems thinking, and spiritual traditions that I have come to be quite familiar with since 2003. Another main body of work I would like to introduce more completely to OBA is that of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) ... I'll post a new note once I know more hopefully later this week ...

As much as I would like to share pic's from my assessment course with Tom, I haven't been successful in downloading this last batch of pic's yet, so that will need to wait until I sort that out. In the meantime, I realize I haven't shared any pic's or many stories from my great time off in the Terania Creek area of northern New South Wales.

So, I will share some of the higlights of this 3 week break with you now ... I will also endeavour to share more than just a few pic's with you throug my BLOG by way of posting them to my new Facebook site ... you can search me out through the "badge" I have added to this blog.

Highlights of my 3 week break go like this:

* similarly, reconnecting with Nan, Hugh, & Teri Nicholson, the friends I made from Terania Creek when I was volunteering at the Womyn, Earth, & Change conference 2 years ago

Nan & Hugh Nicholson in their splendid, sustainable "home sweet home"

* staying out at Nan & Hugh's farm near Night Cap National Park with their chooks (chickens) running across the open grass as I sat every day out on the verandah (of their first house just near their second, somewhat larger but still very modest sized house, where I had the house to myself) ... eating breakfast, working on assignments, & reading ... listening to all the lovely bird songs, watching birds, chooks, & Amber the Australian cattle dog, and just immersing myself in this most peacefully delightful, beauty-fillled place :)

"chicken run" ... chook running across the grass

* visiting with Nan & Hugh (& Nan's mother Erma) and enjoying the stimulating, entertaining, and thought-provoking conversations we had over lunch & dinner ... as we enjoyed fresh veggies, fruits (heaps of bananas & oranges, plust many others), macadamian nuts, pecans, & eggs from their gardens, orchards, and chooks

* showering and HAVING BATHS in the outdoor tub ... what a TREAT!!!

relaxing under the clear, star-filled skies was a most delightful treat at Terania Creek :)

view from "the loo" (outdoor composting toilet) ... of the banana trees in the garden

Nicholson Farm at Terania Ceek

blue skies, lush rainforest terrain, and the tranquility of Nan & Hugh's farm


rainforest solitude of Terania Creek

It was lovely to hear the cows calling out from the section of the farm on the other side of Erma's home
cute little chocolate coloured "calfer"

Nan's delightful Brahma bull

Since I had offered to make myself useful to my Seed Mate Bobbi, she aranged for me to help her good friend Anne with some of the final sorting and cleaning up of things as she prepared to move from The Channon to Melbourne ...

"tea time" with Bobbi & Anne

* reconnecting with my Seed Mate Bobbi (& her partner John) in The Channon, the little town where they live in northern NSW

After spending 3 nights with Nan & Hugh, I hopped over to Bobbi & John's & spent 3 nights with them in The Channon ... on the second day of our visit, I joined Bobbi for a trip out to Byron Bay to pick up her grandchildren ... it was great to finally make it out to this amazingly beauty-full coastal area of Oz again ... & to have access IN & OUT without getting caught up in the tourist side of things!

Bobbi's grandchildren playing in the tide at Byron Bay

Bobbi & her granddaughter looking for whales off the shore of Byron Bay

lone goat still living on the cliffside by the Byron Bay lighthouse

Teresa at the most easterly point in Australia along the shore of Byron Bay ... I waved to everyone back in North America when I was here ;)

It's time I finally post this update ... I'll post pt. 2 of my splendid adventures during my time off in northern NSW much sooner than it took me to finally post this one ... stay tuned ;)

Hugs 'n' Bugs, love,

Teresa

Teresa's ASSESSMENT course with Tom ... SUCCESS!!

Hi Everyone,

I finished up my ASSESSMENT course with the Ascham Girls College year 8's and I have news of my SUCCESS :) At the end of our final debrief/wrap-up circle yesterday morning, Tom announced to me & our group that he would be signing me off for my assessment course ... YIPPEE!!

So, while I am waiting for Tom to put the finishing touches on his assessment report, I have a chance to share this quick update with you. Once we meet up to discuss his report, he'll also sign me off in the various sections of my logbook pertaining to my assessment course, plus a few other expedition related sign-offs.

Overall, this course went very well, ...

* I was quite comfortable with all that I needed to do to deliver this program,

* we had a great group ... we had 12 young womyn and an excellent teacher, Johann, who had done a few OB courses as a teacher before,

* Tom & I worked really well together ... we were T 'n' T (Teresa/Tess & Tom) ... Tom's mentoring style and his relaxed approach were great,

* we had a few weather related challenges including gale force winds in the Orroral Valley on our first afternoon while we were trying to issue the girls their OB gear and frosty overnight temperatures most of the nights but I/we were able to deal with it in good form and the group was not too phased by these weather challenges, although they likely would have been had we experienced more rain or more severely cold nights,

* I was able to share a few of the Work that Reconnects practices that I have learned from Joanna Macy & Molly Young Brown's work during our Enviro Day (Systems Game, Open Sentences, Mirror Walk, & the Web of Life Meditation) and ...

* on another day when we explored some of the massive boulders that have special significance to the indigenous peoples here in the Orroral Valley ... we experienced this sacred space in silence and circled up in the main chamber (which is quite large, yet under a variety of massive boulders that are all supporting each other above this large space) and I shared the Gaia Meditation with them, separating each section with a few notes from my clay okarina that I brought with me from Canada (if I remember correctly, this was a gift from Evon, thanks friend :) Johann, the Ascham teacher was quite pleased with how respectful and attentive the girls were during this activity, especially with the colder temperatures and winds blowing through this cave-like space. Tom & I were quite pleased with how this activity went as well.

* all in all, I was very pleased with how the course went, the progress each of the young womyn made from the beginning to the end of the course, the connect I had with their teacher, all that we did, and the all the catch up chats I had with Tom throughout the course ...

more soon ...

I'll hop into cyberspace again, likely tomorrow to post a more fulsome update of my course & pic's of course, since what I most need to do after I meet up with Tom & Marcelo the intern training manager is sleep, stay warm, and give my feet a good rest. I am looking forward to catching up with a bunch of you over the phone this week-end, please feel free to post a comment on my BLOG or send an e-mail to my sherpadoginoz@care2.com e-mail address with a time it would work out best to call you.

Tom's just given me my copy of my assessment report, so I have to sign off now & post this update. I'll be in touch again real soon.

Until then, be well,

For the Earth,

Teresa