Welcome to the end of another week!

Thanks to the Year 1 Echidnas who shared their assembly with us this week.  Their assembly was about St Mary MacKillop, whose Feast Day is August 8 (tomorrow).  Mary MacKillop is celebrated as she is our first Australian saint! She is well known for starting the Sisters Of St Joseph, who were instrumental in setting up schools around Australia so that all children could access an education.  One of her famous sayings is, “Never see a need without doing something about it”.  She certainly lived by this motto, and is a notion which holds great potential and inspiration for us all.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Bush Tucker Trail this week to lead a meditation for our students in Year 3 and 4.  We all found a different spot  around the trail and spent some time listening and looking at the world around us and appreciating its beauty, which we so often walk past.  Most of our students did a wonderful job and I hope they were all able to take something away from our time.  I always love getting the opportunity to meditate with classes, and it was certainly special being able to do this in our beautiful natural environment.  

Pax

Nick

Contemplative Corner 

Outside Meditation

Go outside if you can. Simply sit and look at and listen to the earth and environment that surrounds you.

Focus on something specific, such as a bird, a blade of grass, a clump of soil, cracked earth, a flower, bush or leaf, a cloud in the sky or a body of water, whatever you can see.

You can also let something find you, be it a leaf, the sound of a bird, the feel of the breeze, the light on a tree trunk. There’s no need to try, just wait a while.

Be still and silent and listen.

Following this quiet time, there may be, on occasion, value in expressing in some way your experience of this quiet, still listening. You may wish to talk about the experience or journal, write poetry, draw, paint or sing. This needs to be held in balance - the key to dadirri is in simply being, rather than in outcomes and activity.