.png)
Voice Within: A Storybook by Storytellers
This podcast narrates to you short stories, poems and letters from a collective of authors. It is a simple cup of tea in hand, or a long drive kind of moment, to truly immerse yourself in a tale or two. For the love of a good story!
Voice Within: A Storybook by Storytellers
A Journey with Storyteller and Writer Lee Rickwood: an interview.
Have you ever imagined a world where childhood fantasies merge with storytelling's transformative power? Join us on a heartwarming journey as we sit down with Lee Rickwood, contributing author to "Voice Within," who shares her mesmerizing tales inspired by the whimsical wonder of waterfalls. Together, we dive into her captivating story, "Happy, Happy 11th," celebrating the magic of storytelling and its ability to capture innocence and positivity. With multiple guests adding vibrant dynamics, we also celebrate milestones in their creative journey, all while sipping on a comforting cup of tea.
This episode explores the inspiring journey of storyteller Lee Rickwood, discussing how childhood experiences and music influence her storytelling. Lee shares insights on the healing power of narrative, her creative processes, and the significance of community in fostering storytelling.
• Lee Rickwood's inspiration for writing
• The role of childhood memories in storytelling
• Insights from narrating "Happy, Happy 11th"
• The connection between music and story
• Experiences at the Bellingen Readers Writers Festival
• Importance of community for aspiring storytellers
• The healing nature of storytelling and personal narratives
voice-within.co
voicewithin_anthology
voicewithin_publications
Voice Within, a collection of short stories, letters and poems narrated to you. Get cosy, warm cup of tea in hand and take your ears and imagination to places a number of authors aspire to take you with their tales. So we have a special guest today which I'm pretty excited about, someone I've been working with for some time now in the storytelling realm. Not only have I joined her classes and courses, but she's also been a contributing author to Voice Within. So it's just fantastic to have the archives from 2 BBB Radio Days, which is a Bellingen community radio station where I was honored to be able to narrate books of famous authors as well as interview special people like Lee, who are in the storytelling realm. So I'll get you straight into it. So Lee will share a few insights, but also one of her stories, which may or may not be interrupted, but anyway, I won't say anything more. You just need to find out. Enjoy this wonderful experience that I had with Leah Rickwood, an interview done a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1:Now Bye, we have a little something special for you all this morning and a little bit special for me as well, to be honest. We have Leigh Rickwood in the studio and we've just spent the last hour or so recording the audio for the stories that she wrote in the collection, the anthology of stories known as Voice, within a Storybook by Storytellers. So we had a bit of fun with that and today I'll be sharing one of the pieces because she has two in the book, but one of the pieces today with you through this segment, but we will actually have a bit of a chat. So, as I always say, I hope you're having a beautiful Wednesday and grab your cup of tea, because this is the first time not only has it been allowed in the studio to have more than one person, but also that I've actually had more than one person on the show. So welcome, lee, welcome.
Speaker 2:Yay, great to be here, darling, and celebrate that moment with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lovely, and also today you've chosen some music to play for the listeners. But I just wanted to ask you first of all, the piece that you wrote that we'll be narrating today, I think Happy, Happy 11th would be amazing to share to the listeners, because it comes from a mother's point of view and it's so soft and I just really loved how you narrated it today and I just wanted to know how did you come up with I believe there's more than just the one or two pieces. How did you come? What was the writing process through that? How did it come up for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how it all started was I wanted to just write without feeling it's coming from my head. So I tapped into a beautiful feeling that I had when I was a little girl of going to the waterfall and how much I enjoyed that, and I kept reflecting on that experience. So then I created a fantasy for myself when I was a little girl of waterfalls. And it was just a beautiful fantasy that I carried around in my head so that whenever I was having a hard day or feeling a bit down or whatever, I'd go back to that fantasy. And I won't go into all the details of the fantasy, but it just filled me with this beautiful feeling of freshness and aliveness and positivity and the sense of anything is possible and how amazing this planet is and how expanded the world is. So that waterfall was a symbol for me and that waterfall fantasy fed all those feelings.
Speaker 2:And so I thought I'm just going to write a series of stories about the waterfall, however they come out. And, yeah, the first one was from the young girl's point of view, because I went back to that childhood voice and those feelings in their really raw state. And then I thought, okay, so I want to write another story, I want to keep clinging to that beautiful feeling in an adult form. So I wrote one from the mother's point of view, and then I think I've since written about 12 other stories.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all from the different perspective of all the things, the living things that witnessed this waterfall story. And basically, the story is simply that the young girl goes there and for the first time in her life, at 11, she's going to jump from the top of the waterfall.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the one from the little girl's point of view is called Jump, and that is quite an excitable one as well, and I just want to share as well Lee will be narrating at the Bellingen Readers Writers Festival, I believe on a Sunday of the weekend her two stories. So please, if you know you want to come down to that, or we'll meet you there as well and we will share the piece, one of the pieces, with you today. Uh, but uh, I just wanted to go into a song for our listeners is there? Is there a particular one that you wanted? She chose five songs today and I just think it's really up to her to see how she's feeling. Lee's feeling for these moments. Which song would you like to play first of our choice?
Speaker 2:I don't know. The first thing that jumps into my head from the selection we've made is the Children Came Back, because that's what we've just been talking about. So, briggs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did do that. We did also think about Shadows as well, by Briggs.
Speaker 2:Okay, whichever one of those you chose, but we'll do.
Speaker 1:The Children Came Back because that's just such a beautiful one and, to be honest, this morning I was singing that song and then Lee brings that as one of her selections, so it's quite serendipitous. So here we are, by Briggs featuring Dwayne Everett Smith.
Speaker 4:The Children Came Back. Thank you, yeah, I'm Adam Goodes, and Adam should be applauded when he stands up. You can look to us from that time. Stop, I'm Patty Mills with the last shot. I'm good. I'm Archie. I'm everything that you watch. I'm everything that you count for. I'm the dead hottest I've been. I'm good. I'm Archie. I'm good, I'm Archie. I'm good, I'm Archie. I I'm Groome. I'm Archie, I'm Groome. I'm Archie. I'm Groome. I'm Archie. I'm Groome. I'm Archie.
Speaker 4:I'm Groome. I'm Archie. I'm Petty Mills with 12 million dollars. I'm Doc Nichols. I'm Jimmy Little with a royal telephone. I'm the world champion, 68, boy. I'm Lionel Rose. I'm William Cooper. I take a stand when no one even knows. I'm the walker. I'm the sounder, the children coming home. Boy, I'm Gumi. I'm Machi. I'm everything that you ask. I'm everything that you count. I'm the Dead, hot, hot. I'm Gumi. I'm Machi, I'm Gumi, I'm Machi, I'm Gumi. I'm Archie. I'm Goon. I'm Archie, I'm Goon. I'm Archie, I'm Goon. I'm Archie, I'm Goon, I'm Archie, I'm Goon Boy.
Speaker 4:I'm Paddy Mill, let me take it home. I'm Rumble. I'm the Sandhills. I'm Cummins. I'm Les Briggs. I'm Paul Briggs. I'm Uncle Ringo, with all them kids. I'm Uncle Bud. Everybody loves me. Ain't none below, ain't none above me. I'm the carving out of every scart. We on those flats, that's the party. Now, mr Apple, think about me, me and you, we feel the same and it might sound strange, but I'm just saying we both unsettled when the boats came. I'm blue. I'm the dead, hot, hot. The children came back. I'm the dead, hot, hot. The children came back. Black baby heart's cold, strong, let's get it on. The children came back. I'm the dead, hot, hot. The children came back. The children came back Back where they understand, back to their mothers land. The children came back. The children came back. The children came back. The children came back Back where their hearts go strong, back where they all belong. The children came back.
Speaker 1:Welcome back here. You're on Storytime with Simona and we have a special guest today, lee Rickwood, one of the storytellers amongst the Mid-North Coast region. So that was Briggs, also featuring Goromal, which I forgot to mention, and Dwayne Everett Smith the Children Came Back. What an amazing, uplifting beat. I just love that song so much and I've played it for the Australia Day in inverted commas, we won't go into the political of that, so we have a narration coming up very soon of Happy, happy 11th, which we will share with you here, probably at the end of the show, just so that we can have a little bit more of a comfortable chat here with Lee. So to you, what does it mean to write and when did you first become inspired? When did you find the inspiration that you knew? Hey, pen to paper is actually a thing that I love doing. I love to write.
Speaker 2:I'll begin with the second part of that question. So I never really saw myself as a writer, really at school. School I was more active and sporty and going a bit crazy in the playground at lunchtime singing and carrying on. But in year 10, I was listening to David Bowie and his Future Legends album and there was a track on that called Future Legends and there were three words there. That's red, mutant eyes.
Speaker 2:And at that age I was starting to become more aware of some of the harder things that happen on this planet, the things that I'd prefer weren't happening on this planet won't go into all of that but where people suffer, and one of the most recent things at that time was there was a big movie out about, uh, what happened in rome and in the coliseum and all those people being slaughtered, and I remember just thinking you know, red mutant eyes. It brought that back. So I wrote a story called, and it was called at the first line, first word words were red mutant eyes. And yeah, I wrote that story and and it was in a competition and I won the competition, but then I felt really guilty because I felt I'd plagiarized. So I didn't really write much after that.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, just lately, in more recent, I've really gotten back to pen, to paper.
Speaker 2:I went more into the performing side of things and I did write in a way, but in a very different way to sitting down to creating a story, because I was creating stories to perform live on stage.
Speaker 2:So it was a different way of accessing the language and the material, because it was more going to my body and letting my full person tell the story, whereas now I do sit down at a desk or lie down in my bed and and write, and yeah, so all part of that story as well, is why I write is still that same process of trying to understand the world a little better and trying to be the opposite to what, that energy of why I was writing to try and understand and to comprehend those terrible things that happen on the planet and to be a part of the change. And I'm very optimistic, and so I see the world becoming a magical. The world is a magical place, but without it being interfered with in the way it is, with all those things. So that's what my stories are about. I'm in that world. The world as I know it exists in its full spectrum majesty and glory, and around that creating all these stories. But that's the world in which they all happened and that's the essence of life for me and my stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it brings me back to the memory of being with you, in your presence, of creating space, creating circle, with some storytellers who I don't know if any of us knew what was going to come out. We thought, okay, I'm going to be able to tell a story at the Coffs Harbour Library. This was in 2019, I think it was yeah. Yeah, it was for the mental health month and we gathered in coughs on a weekly basis for 12 weeks and my personal story was about domestic abuse and I thought, wow. But also, to be honest, I just wanted to follow Leah Rickward around, to be honest, because I don't know. It was just. There is a light about you whenever you are expressing yourself and the magic of the world, the magic does spill out in your body. Thank you for saying that. I hope so.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's true, it's absolutely true. And you know I don't make stuff up just you know to say a good story, but you know I like to tell a good story and usually my stories always come from a place of truth. And so, anyway, we gathered and you know, you held space, you got us into our bodies, you got people who were extremely anxious and fearful to tell their story. They did and they did and they got up there with tears and all and shakes and all. They got up there and they did it because you created enough of a safe space for them to realise that this is their story, and the public were there merely just to be present.
Speaker 2:And witness Witness their humanity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely yeah. So that's wonderful, and I believe we're going to play David Bowie's Future Legend isn't it. It's about a one-minute thing, so take a moment, listeners, to really listen to. How old were you when this came out, the song. The song came out when you were 15?.
Speaker 2:So it came out in 74. So yeah, I was 15.
Speaker 1:And then the story followed, the story that you wrote and you won about yeah in high school, beautiful, all right, so we've got David Bowie Future Legend.
Speaker 6:And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting in the slimy thoroughfare, the shutters lifted, an ancient entrance building high on Boch's Hill and red mutant eyes g gaze down on Hunger City. No more big wheels, bees the size of rats, saturn rats the size of cats and ten thousand peploid split into small tribes covered in the highest of the sterile skyscrapers, like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Lovenia, ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver throats. Now their family badge of sapphire and crack them on.
Speaker 6:It is now the year of the Diamond Dogs.
Speaker 3:The, the, the, the, the, the, the the.
Speaker 7:The Thank you, violence, and so is your silence when it's rooted in compliance. To stand firm in loving defiance, make archer alliance. Give voice to the fire, move people to the beat of the wind, gather yourself and begin to dance the song until it ends. We are winners, champions of the life forming in numbers. Thank you. This in man. Walk in with grace. I know your face and I trust your hands. Find your teachers in the voice of the forest. Some plug. You can't ignore this wisdom of the voiceless. Remedies are bountiful and surround us from the garden to the farthest prayer made of stardust. Find your healing in the music that calls you, the voice that enthralls you. What do you belong to? Eyes up, there's the setting of the sun. Give thanks to each and everyone. The lesson is the medicine woman, medicine man. Walk in with grace. I know your face and I trust your hands. Medicine, woman, medicine man. Walking with grace.
Speaker 8:I know your face and I trust your hands, hands, I believe in bending backward and extending my trap strip back until the message is in action. The artist's feeding stops. Dark, the disbelieving, because the garden holds the shards. The medicine is in the seeds. We hold tight to our right to protect and we know our might is tenfold in connection. Our elders hold them bright lights, we protect them. The medicine is evident. The wolf, the hawk, the bear clan we hold tight to our right to protect and we know our might is tenfold in connection. Our elders hold them bright lights, we protect them.
Speaker 7:The medicine is evidence the wolf, the hawk, the medicine woman, medicine man Walking with grace. I know your face and I trust your hand.
Speaker 1:So you just heard Raising Appalachia, the last song there, Medicine, and prior to that that was Future Legend by David Bowie, and when they were playing, we were just discussing why did you choose those particular songs, Lee?
Speaker 2:So the David Bowie one, just referring back to what I talked about earlier, but then just wanting to bring us totally into something contemporary, move us from 74 into 2022 with Rising Appalachia, because I feel like they've got a great voice in what's going on in the world at the moment and the positive things that we're all putting our energy into.
Speaker 1:Definitely, and I feel and I'm not sure about you guys out there when there's a story that inspires, that takes your breath away or moves something within you, whether it be a personal story or, you know, fiction If it moves something, is there not medicine that's actually happening within for change, for change of belief, for change of perception, or the exact right time that you needed to hear something, because you are growing along with the stories that are coming to you. So I find that amazing about storytelling. So I I've asked this question to many of the authors within the anthology uh is to to ask what does it feel like and look like for what you are striving for? What does it feel like within? What is it that you're actually striving for in life?
Speaker 2:well, I can't remember what I answered you last time. Oh, but it's an evolving thing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I guess part of it we've been talking about already to be on this planet and to be experiencing everything around us in all its complexity, and to feel that inside and know that at the heart of all that is the vibration of love and positivity, and that everything is interconnected.
Speaker 2:And when everything is functioning like that, in a healthy way, like we were saying earlier, it's not like it's all perfect and la la la, it's many, many colours, but it's in balance and there's harmony within that of this energy being interfered with by that energy. But then this other thing comes back in to rebalance it. So it's dynamic, it's fun, it's alive and vibrant, but it's not always in one colour of la-la-la, you know, beauty, beauty, beauty. No, it's challenge and like the weather, all the different kinds of weather that we experience, it's all those shades of experience and in my story, so putting, that's what I'm trying to achieve to have all of that in them but at the same time they're held by this understanding of reality as being from the heart, from the centre, from deep, deep, deep within, maybe deeper than the heart, just the centre of life and creation.
Speaker 1:So, with you in particular, do you find that everything that you do, you find that everything that you, the steps that you take, are striving for that ultimate balance? To understand, there is challenge, there is adversity, but within that, you can always have the love that carries it through. So, throughout your your own, I like to call which was stated by a friend a long time ago when he outed his inner monologue. So our inner monologue, you know, is that what it tries to teach you or tell you is like there is that challenge but you can overcome it with love.
Speaker 2:There is that challenge, but you can overcome it with love, yeah, whatever life throws at you, if you stay in that place, in that centre, and live from that with the hours you have in your day to the best of your ability. And that's the reference point, that's what you keep coming back to, no matter what goes on and no matter how complex or how smoothly the day goes, there's that place to come back to and to be held by and to anchor onto.
Speaker 1:And do you feel like this has been something that you knew at a very young age, that 15-year-old, or was this something that I mean? I guess you know? It's for everybody. We are growing and evolving and life experiences teach us how to feel and think, but do you feel like this has been the undercurrent of Lee Rickwood for many, many years now?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think we all have that when we're children in a way, and we're not consciously processing it, but we're living that when we're children, so we all know how that is. So it's that, but in a conscious form. As an older person, we're living that when we're children, so we all know how that is. So it's that, but in a conscious form as an older person, and I just remember all those ecstatic moments in childhood and then I had a difficult 20s and that through that time I began doing a lot of work, trying to understand things in more depth and understanding that I have, instead of being overwhelmed by all that, that I have the opportunity to be medicine for that to counteract it.
Speaker 1:Wonderful to counteract it Wonderful? Well, I think we should go into your narration Happy, happy 11th. Okay, which is a wonderful piece. So please stay tuned, and I hope you've topped up your cup of tea and got a couple of bickies, because we're going on a lovely journey here of the waterfall, witnessing a waterfall, and then we might just go into the songs that you have chosen. So we might just wrap up here. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we will let the narration take its course. Oh, apologies, story lovers, lovers, to interrupt this wonderful interview. I promise it will return after this, but you may or may not know, lee rickwood is a contributing author, which means that her publication is available to you upon subscription. Now, I know that sounds pretty unfair, but listen out. Voice Within is a platform and its foundation is based on authors, storytellers and writers to be heard. And as Lee Rickwood is one of our storytellers and writers to be heard, and as lee rickward is one of our storytellers who has contributed both to voice within edition one and voice within edition two, called voice within the storybook by storytellers, which you can find in the link below or in on the website, we endeavour to pay her for her written art form.
Speaker 1:So for hear me out, for two cups of coffee per month and, if you're not a coffee drinker, two donuts per month or two of your favorite cakes per month. Anyway, just for a very small fee per month, you can subscribe and have access to all of our authors' works, and your subscription will be going towards compensating them for their work. So we will return to the interview, but if you would like to hear Happy, happy 11th. Please join us for premium content and you'll have access to more than just one story by many authors. Anyway, I'll let you get back to it. Lots, lots more music, lots more insights by Leigh Quickwood.
Speaker 3:Bye.
Speaker 10:I got a really really special guest, really really special person in my life. It's my firstborn baby. Let's give a big round of applause to little Kinchy. I made it, she made me. I get emotional. This song was the first track, like one of the first tracks that we wrote together. It's what's the word? Inspired by Nas' song. I Know I Can and I used to listen to that song when I was a little girl and this is a. That sort of music was the thing that pushed me through to know that I can be whatever I want to be, that my future's in my hands, that, even at the hands of the system I've been locked up and got a criminal record. I write my own future and I want my baby to know that the futures in her hands, about her mum's gonna be no matter what, because you can, my baby, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 5:let's get it. Can I just say one thing Sure, yes. This is to all the little girls who are like doing random stuff, I guess but like never give up on your dreams, because if you do, you don't know what will happen.
Speaker 10:Just keep reaching for the stars. Yeah, let's get it. My deadly baby, ready baby. See I red against the odds, breaking cycles, stopping drugs, paying respect to who I've lost. See, I'm caught in this position where I have to set it off. I had no choice but to get straight to let fate Could do it's course. See, I'm trying to be a better one, trying to be a better mum. I ain't stopping till it's said and done and set in stone till I become Someone that you'll always see. So you can look up to me, place my footprints in red dirt, but please don't step. Like me, I'm trying to get things right. I ain't trying to get it twisted, but I'm hopping on the bike just to tell you my lived experience.
Speaker 10:Raised by a single mother, she taught me to just believe and if I have a dream, I can be what I want to be. See, let me tell you a little bit about my situation. I grew up in a generation still angry at a nation. See, I'm trying to get my trauma out, but do what I do Air chair in his heel and sell a chair and shave a brief. What's up? And this is a beneficial projection. I know I can. I know I can Be what I wanna be, be what I wanna be, and if I work hard at it, if I work hard at it, I'll be where I wanna be. I know I can. I know I can Be what, I'll be where I wanna be. I know I can Be what I wanna be, and if I work hard at it, I'll be where I wanna be. See, I'm destined for greatness. Baby girl, you'll get them chances. Just make sure that you take it, and my boys do. When you get it, just make sure that you chase it.
Speaker 10:This is start line, my baby. Here's the record. Go break it. Yeah, I'm here to pay you back. I just want to be your mummy. I dreamt of you before you were even seeds in my stomach. I prayed to Anjana and I prayed to Bayami, and you's are everything that I ever wanted. See, I just want to teach you strength and that you are strong and through every situation, you can right your wrongs. I just want you to see what you mean to me, and everything about me is about family. This is destined for me. You's a destined to dream. You's a destined to be Whatever you's wanna be. And while you follow your dreams, i'ma be on your team, cause that's where mommy is supposed to be. I know I can Be what I wanna be. If I work hard at it, I'll be where I wanna be. I know I can Be what I wanna be, and if I work hard at it, I'll be where I wanna be. Love you, my baby.
Speaker 3:If I work hard at it, I'll be where I wanna be.
Speaker 9:Love you, my baby Earth, my body, water my blood, air, my breath and fire my spirit.
Speaker 11:Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit. Hey na-na, hey na-na, hey ya-ho, ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. I'm going to make a, but I hear you outside. I can hear your heartbeat Hey-ya-na-na, hey-ya-na-na, hey-ya-na-na-ho, hey-ya-na-na, hey-ya-na-na, hey-ya-ho, hey-ya-na-na, hey-ya-na-na, hey-ya-na-na-ho, hey. Thank you, I hear you in the river song.
Speaker 11:Eternal water is flowing on and on. Hey na na, hey na na, hey na na, ho, ah ho, hey na na, hey na na, hey, ah ho, hey na na, hey na na, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Father, I see you, when the eagle flies, light of the Spirit's gonna take us higher, father. I see you, when the eagle flies, light of the Spirit's gonna take us higher. Hey na-na, hey na-na, hey na-na, oh, ah-oh, hey na-na, hey na-na, hey, ah-oh, hey na-na, hey na-na, hey na-na, oh, ah-oh, hey, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Thank you, we're going to be a city too, brother, I hear you, I hear you In the river song. Brother, I hear you, I hear your heartbeat.
Speaker 11:Hey, na, na, hey, na, na, hey, na, na, ho, ho, hey, na, na, hey, na, na, hey, ya, ho, hey, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. We're here on Storytime with Simona and Leigh Rickwood. Today we just heard Jessica Serena Mother, I Feel you, and before that we had Barkha. I Know I Can live at the Sydney Opera House alongside her mother, so that was….
Speaker 2:Alongside her daughter.
Speaker 1:Oh, alongside her daughter. Sorry, I do apologise. So that was alongside her daughter. Oh, alongside her daughter. Sorry, I do apologize.
Speaker 2:And also.
Speaker 1:We just also heard the narration happy, happy 11th.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, lee, my pleasure. It's such an honor to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Oh well, you know. Yeah, I don't know I could go into the corniness of how I feel for you, but I think I've tired you enough with my you know appraisals.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's mutual.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's wonderful, and so we're going to be at the Bellingen Readers Writers Festival, which is going to be held at Bellingen Readers Writers Festival, which is going to be held at Bellingen between the 9th and the 11th of June, and the local author's tent is up and running. Thank you to Brett Harrison for coordinating with such enthusiasm. It was such a pleasure to work with him. He was more excited. He just came out of a retreat and he was like grounded as, and he was like I'm springing up and I'm so excited. And he did a very wonderful job because he's been able to get 33, 34 authors local authors of the Mid-North Coast region to come and submit their applications. So really wonderful effort. So I hope we will see you all there. Is there anything you want to add, Lee, before you introduce the last song that you have chosen for today?
Speaker 2:I guess I just want to give a shout-out to the book the Voice Within, a storybook for storytellers. It's been a great experience and, yeah, simone has done such a beautiful job of being the midwife for that project.
Speaker 1:That's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 2:actually, yes, or the story pollinator a story pollinator, Story Pollinator. But yeah, it's in Bellingen Library and, like Simone has been talking about, some of us are going to be reading our stories at the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival. So please come along, Look forward to seeing you there. And the last song that we're going to play is called. It's just one of my favourite songs. It's a bit random, not at all relating to anything much we've been talking about, except everything we've been talking about, and it comes from a place of just loving the earth and she gets a little bit sensual, a little bit sexy around all of that. So I love the way she does it so playfully. So it's called Dirty by Redwood Ryder.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So we will have more of the local authors here and also, hopefully, some of the local authors that I will be reading at the festival. So stay tuned, and I hope you enjoyed this segment. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and blessings to you. Bye, till next time.
Speaker 3:I'm dirty.
Speaker 12:I'm dirty, I'm real dirty. I'm not talking about my skin, I'm dirty within, cause every morsel of food I've ever chewed grew From molecules of this earth. My mama did too. So I've been dirty since birth and I just soiled myself, cause when I eat, earth's putting soil into me. We're basically trees exchanging energy with below and above.
Speaker 12:It's all love, but so many forget the umbilical connecting us back. When the grocery aisles scream of can this box that low sugar, low fat? Me, I chop veggies grown from composted cow poo keeps my body healthy, heart mind humming, sacred Frequencies. So if you say I'm full of shit, I'll say well, yeah, wouldn't you like to be full of such holy shit too? And if you'll excuse a little more dirty talk y'all right now I'm wet, I'm real wet, by which I mean I'm 70% water, blood pulse purple through me, floating molecules of emotion, nutrients, poetry, one in three cells in your body, red blood. That blood holds exactly the same salinity as the sea planet. Coursing these veins, I am river, I'm rain, pounding the roof and under full moon rising as ocean, currents surge, clouds drift. We thrive At this precise distance from the sun. This spiral dance, chaos forms where we come from. And y'all.
Speaker 12:I love to come up to my garden plants one by one and say Up to my garden plants one by one and say Thank you, strawberry, nice going cucumber. Oh, hello, dear pumpkin, you're loving that compost. I see, here's the deal, I'll feed you, you feed me. This plant came from a neighbor. That seed from a friend Community is my vitamin C. So I'm lucky that everyone around here is so hot, just like me. Hot as in every molecule we are was once burning in stars, now the nearest galactic bonfire. Our sun sings green into each leaf, in each cell. Sugars weave into grass, into goat, into milk, into me, until life becomes we.
Speaker 12:We've got great chemistry, which is good because, as previously established, I'm hot, wet and dirty and I like to blow. I blow like wind. When trees breathe out, I breathe in, which is a reminder we extend far beyond our skin. We got to blow out one breath before another comes in, which was a reminder to let go completely before you begin. And within each atom we are open space, we are particle clouds, an electric embrace. So could we walk through walls, or at least walls in our minds? You got to lose it to find it sometimes. How to even bless this ball of warm food. Do I say thank you, or is there a new word to say? This eye is a grateful sweet potato Floating in interconnected soup, expressing joy at the symphony In which this body-mind stream strums apart. I'm cosmos, I'm blood, I'm wind, I'm heart and, please pardon me, I've just got a dirty mind and dirty toes, dirty hair, dirty bones, dirty eyes. But you know, you reckon you look pretty dirty too. Thank you, did you know?
Speaker 1:Voice Within has exclusive content from our authors who have published with us. For a subscription of no more than two copies a month, you can enjoy narrations, talks around, the art of storytelling, writing, publishing, all that arty juicy stuff. So subscribe now to support all our authors and, of course, this program to receive more stories for your enjoyment. And if you are someone interested in receiving a passive income for your stories, get in touch today and find out more on wwwvoice-withinco.
