Underneath

There’s something about this land that keeps pulling things to the surface.

A few years back I was clearing blackberry and weeds along a rock ledge not far from our home. When I pulled back a large clump of grass, a perfectly shaped round hollow appeared in the rock. Clearly man-made. Old. Very old.

I stood there for a moment. That particular feeling of stumbling onto something hidden for a very long time. Excitement. Reverence. And immediately - what else is out there?

It was the first of many. Aboriginal sites, scattered across the land. Hidden in plain sight for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Patient. Waiting to be found.

What struck me most was what was happening in parallel.

Because the same process was underway in me. Layers pulled back. Things surfacing that had been there all along - underneath the expectations, the roles, everything accumulated along the way.

Not always comfortable. But always true.

This land has a way of doing that. Its stillness doesn’t let you stay on the surface for long. And what’s underneath - in the soil, in yourself - has a way of making itself known when you finally stop long enough to look.