Sydney’s first MKP Purification & Renewal Ceremony

The winter solstice marked the occasion of the Sydney MKP community’s first purification and renewal ceremony near Thirlmere, an hour’s drive southwest of Sydney. The solstice is that times of year when -- in our hemisphere -- the Earth’s axis is most tilted away from the sun, representing our seasonal mid-winter.

Brett, John, Ted & Dan celebrated the event, while Peter, Daniel, Rick & Denis sent their heartiest blessings. Set in a lovely bush setting, the new lodge is a plain structure made from she-oaks. It’s an intimate configuration, built on a levelled piece of ground that runs down a hillside to a trickling stream. In its current form it will probably accommodate a dozen or so people.

All kinds of spirits came to bless the occasion: black cockatoos crowed their greetings; wombats marked our site with green droppings; and bush wallabies crashed about in the darkened bush, while our blazing fire cast ghostly shadows on the towering fire-scorched gums that border the site. Below, the gully sang a hushed siren song of distant ocean shores, strewn with weed and kelp and magnificent pearly shells.

Inside the lodge, grandfathers hissed: “The place is here! The time is now! Speak your truth, for it is welcome in this place of darkness.” As always, the steamy purifying heat drew lazy beads of sweat from our invisible bodies. Descending now, we left chronological time behind as we spoke to the lover, warrior, magician and sovereigns within. We had entered a portal to kairos time – that wonderfully dreamy space-place somewhere being and non-being.

Stories and songs and questions and tears and laughter swirled and flowed around and through us, as the un-manifest became manifest. No past. No future. Just the simple power of now-ness. Utterly present. Intensely alive. Deeply conscious. Blissful. Peaceful.