Tasmania’s Walking Humbly Journey completed the fifth phase on at Upper Florentine on Monday, 3 October 2011. There will be a sixth step of conclusion in January at Mt Wellington.
Tasmania is an island state in Australia which has a history of trauma – the massacres of the Aboriginal people, the cruel treatment of the convicts sent here from Britain and more recently the division of the community through policies on damming and logging. Consequently many sites around the state are traumatised.
During this year, starting on 11/1/11, an interfaith group, comprising Religions for Peace (Tas Branch) and Greenfaith Australia, have been on a Walking Humbly Journey, inspired by the preParliamentary event in November 2009, Walking Humbly to the Murray. Our purpose is to help in the healing of some of these sites.
We have completed four steps of our journey now –
- Mount Wellington in the south,
- Punchbowl in the north,
- Bolton’s Beach in the east
- Fossil Bluff in the north-west.
The Upper Florentine
After leaving from the Hobart Synagogue in the south, with the blessing and joyful sound of the shofar, and the kagyu monastery in the north, with prayers and prayer shawl from the Venerable Lama, our interfaith group gathered at the Upper Florentine to complete the last step of our Walking Humbly Journey on 3 October 2011, on a beautiful day, at an escarpment over a small valley.
Walking Humbly at the Upper Florentine, Tasmania
We were expecting to spend our time together celebrating and giving thanks, but, apart from the enjoying the beauty of the weather and the site, we weren’t expecting to receive thanks.
One of the ladies, a healer, brought her harp, as she had at Bolton’s Beach, and set it up on the flat rock to play it. However, although the air in the valley was quite still, the harp began to play itself. It played throughout the duration of the gathering, for about an hour and a half – beautiful, harmonious and deeply healing for everyone. We felt that we had been surrounded by the healing we had sought to give. A number of people who set out with personal concerns went home feeling that they had all been resolved in the gentlest way.
It felt as if nature was returning our loving wishes to us with unlimited generosity.
To complete the circle, we will return to The Springs on Mount Wellington on Thursday 12/1/12 from 12 noon to 1.00pm.
Walking Humbly at the Upper Florentine, Tasmania
This activity is a joint activity with Greenfaith Australia
Source: Religions for Peace, Tasmania Branch
Photo Credits: Terry Sussmilch