Don't Go Back to Sleep

2024 Offerings & Announcements

Glasshouse Mountains, Queensland, Australia

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And so it begins. Another year. A new symbolic dawn that brings with it what Rumi might refer to in his poetry as a momentary awareness that comes as an unexpected visitor¹ and beckons us not to go back to sleep.²

There is a liminality to this time of year. It’s as though we enter a great and fertile field that longs to be sown, to be seeded with dreams that carry something a little bit truer than that which we are leaving behind.

A great chasm beckoning us to cross it. To see with the inner eye and hear with the animal ear and listen for the quiet but persistent thrum that pulsates throughout our lives and seems to get louder at the turn of the year.

“What more is there?” It seems to ask.

“What more am I?”

These are gnostic questions. Existential. Foundations for anyone who hears that eager thrum and seeks to heed the call. There is a New Moon in us, Rumi says, that teaches us how to give birth to ourselves, again and again, each year a little more.

On the 12th of December, I embarked on a flight to Australia. For the second time in a year, I found myself flying across the world to what Ursula le Guin would probably call “the Farthest Shore”, not just for its distance but for its absolute otherworldliness to a born and bred European like me.

Love carried me here. And like the west wind Zephyr catching Psyche when she jumps off the cliff, as she turns away from her expired life and toward the great unknown, he lays her gently onto a crescent moon covered in wild flowers. And on this wondrous vessel, he blows her across the worlds to the Palace of Eros, her soon-to-be most beloved.

‘Go the way your blood beats,’ writes James Baldwin on love.

I’ve found that when we do, the west winds will catch us.

What happens next is in the hands of the gods. Aphrodite sets the tasks and it’s up to the lovers’ tenacity and persistence whether the ship will sink or fly.

And what makes a ship fly?

Russian and Eastern European fairytales about flying ships tell us they are given to fools by old men when they show kindness to those they think they can receive nothing back from.

Kindness for the sake of kindness.

I think ultimately, that is what love is: a giving without expecting anything in return.

It is this kind of love that makes Zephyr blow a ship’s sails.

And so it is from this place, emerging from a love nest and deep rest over the holiday season, that I write to you lovely readers from the Australian Bush.

We live out in the subtropics with our little blue heeler, Dusty Blue, who we found lost on the dusty Outback roads back in June. Our home is a cabin on stilts, a traditional Queensland design from the 1900s loosely based on British Edwardian architecture. And our land is scattered with banana, guava and mango trees currently ripe and feasted on by parrots that wake us in the mornings with their delight.

It is green and lush and jungly, with visiting black cockatoos and wallabies and a snake living under the house who comes out to hunt lilac lizards in the dark.

And after enjoying a month off, I’m slowly getting back to my online teaching and sharing fresh pieces of writing with the usual audio recordings every-other Sunday.

As some of you may know, I am also in the midst of writing my first book.

I sent out a call a few weeks ago on my Instagram account to reach 100 paid subscribers on here so that I can make more time for writing this year. There are currently 62 paid subscribers - thank you if one of those is you!

If you have been touched by my work over the past few months and want to support it, please consider upgrading your subscription from free to paid this year.

Part of being an independent scholar means that I am fully reader-funded. So thank you in advance for all your support! It’s about the price of a couple of cups of coffee a month.

Going forward, all my pieces will be for paid subscribers other than the free monthly entry on the start of each month.

I will also be holding online events for paid subscribers, and will be in touch in due course with more details.

All that said, sending out my gratitude again to all your blazing hearts, and feeling deeply touched to be able to share my work here.

May this year bring you all a freshness in your life, your relationships and your imagination. And may we draw inspiration from the sages of old who knew that every new day is an opportunity to make ourselves anew. As the Welsh poet and my fellow countryman Dylan Thomas wrote, ‘Every morning I make God in bed.’³

Please read on for the monthly poetry offering and the announcements of all my upcoming online events this winter.

Thank you again for being here!

With love from the wilds and enchantments of the Bush,

Gabriela x

Dusty Blue and a Sea Eagle at Dawn. Noosa, Queensland

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Poetry Offering

Invitation
By Mary Oliver, from Red Bird, 2008
I reckon it's hard to top this as a poem to ignite the New Year!


Oh do you have time 
	to linger 
		for just a little while 
			out of your busy 


and very important day 
	for the goldfinches 
		that have gathered 
			in a field of thistles 


for a musical battle, 
	to see who can sing 
		the highest note, 
			or the lowest, 


or the most expressive of mirth, 
	or the most tender? 
		Their strong, blunt beaks 
			drink the air 


as they strive 
	melodiously 
		not for your sake 
			and not for mine 


and not for the sake of winning 
	but for sheer delight and gratitude - 
		believe us, they say, 
			it is a serious thing 


just to be alive 
	on this fresh morning 
		in this broken world. 
			I beg of you, 


do not walk by 
	without pausing 
		to attend to this 
			rather ridiculous performance. 


It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

---

Announcements - Upcoming Online Events 2024

All the upcoming online events can be attended live or via recording. Please follow the links for all the details.

17 JANUARY | Online Course | Darkness Dreaming | 8-10pm UK | More details

28 JANUARY | Monthly Rite | Dismemberment Ceremony | 8-9:30pm UK | More details

1 FEBRUARY | Seasonal Rite | Oraculum: Oracular Guidance | More details

13 FEBRUARY | Online Course | The Three Secret Selves | 8-10pm UK | More details

1. The Guest House (1997) Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

2. Don’t Go Back to Sleep, Ibid.

3. Everyman’s Poetry (1997) Dylan Thomas