Blog by Valerie
Honour all ancestors – of land, lineage and spirit. Live in balance. This is a steady life’s mission.
And even after years of this commitment, I can still feel profoundly torn at times, like I’m being called to discard a deeply engrained aspect of identity. Coming up lately have been some foundational traumatic experiences that caused me to feel unsafe in the world. My father, an reliable ancestral helper, recently apologised for being cowardly in not tackling his trauma, and I was reminded/warned to keep honouring (demi) goddesses like Freyja, Inanna and Changing Woman. (Image of Changing Woman from a Diné sand painting)I have also recently gotten the message that I have been doing well to ground on the land here and honour Mother Gulaga. And I have also been aware that I need to continue to do more to honour my totemic responsibilities with earthly non human kin, including supporting healthy marsh habitats and birds (my middle name is Schwan, swan in German, after all). I recently joined a local wildlife rescue group, and I’m visioning additional plants for our dams as visiting herons and ducks have been asking me to make the ‘ponds’ more comfortable for them, as well as water storage for us.
Similarly, I feel the need to honour food and medicine plants more. I’ve been working in the garden here, and collecting and drying herbs for teas and smudging. I have found that small acts can make a big difference; that plants and animals have pretty endless compassion and low expectations of us humans, and each intentional act of honouring is noticed.
Strengthening social connections honours our ancestors too. I heard someone recently refer to reading the news as a vice. I don’t see it that way. I see it as a social responsibility to the collective to do my best to hold compassion, give grace and send love each morning when I read ‘the news’. I am also in the process of becoming a citizen of Australia to deepen my social commitment where I am now.
We said goodbye to our dear Chloe last year, and welcomed a couple of cute guinea pigs. We are ready to let another dog into our hearts and home. 
Nurturing my self, child, partner, and friends, sharing my medicine with community, and stabilising our survival and well-being continue to underlie all of these activities. I look forward to further home schooling and home steading, and Earth Ethos-ing with Jos and all of you reading this.
May you and we all be healthy and well and live even more fully and authentically in this time we refer to as the year 2026.
Reflection: What life’s mission is steadying your journey?
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If 2-3% of the news and goings on in the human social world were highly toxic and potentially lethal, it would be easier to live with witnessing the death/decay aspect of our being. But that isn’t the level of toxicity I now perceive, nor the level I grew up experiencing as a child.
We talk about avoiding toxic people, toxic chemicals, but we can’t totally escape our environments. Sometimes we hear about miracle bacteria that can eat petrol and clean the ocean. I feel like that’s a better metaphor for what we socially need to aspire to rather than just avoiding. Avoiding means we’re giving space to poisonous people to keep going down their path. And that affects us all. Fighting, even with the most righteous and pure hearted warrior energy, literally creates toxins in our bodies. So we’re still fuelling the poison. But transformation or alchemy is a different spirit. It is at the root of the metaphor I love of turning sh*t into fertiliser. (Image from 
Earth Ethos 