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08/09/2025

pil·grim·age
/ˈpɪl.ɡrə.mɪdʒ/ noun

1. A journey to a sacred place, undertaken as an act of devotion or spiritual seeking.

2. Any journey to a place of deep meaning or transformation.
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Weaving together strands and threads that I saw in a series of visions on Winter Solstice, I now find myself on the majestic island of Java for a lunar cycle.

During these visions, I was shown specific details of temples, geometries and volcanic mountains that I was to seek in Java, and floral and coral frequencies to be rediscovered in Bali.

So, I am here, on a pilgrimage.

As with last year's extraordinary visit, I will also be researching, deeply - different to last year's journey but by no means any less exploratory.

I am botanising and writing, but this time I am also seeking the meeting of souls - soul-as-temple, soul-as-mandala, soul-as-volcano, souls-as-flower, soul-as-reef, soul-as-other soul.

Last night, I discovered soul-as-lunar eclipse.

Experiencing one's consciousness as the animate is deeply healing and liberating.

Banishing the idea that there is no inanimate, only vibration and frequency, right down to the smallest flux tube, is life-changing.

Since I have been here, I have heard ancient stones sigh. Seen flowers beckon bees. Tasted love and kindness via jamu sunshine. Smelled mycelium from the opposite side of a mountain. Held a book in my hands despite it being on a shelf, miles away. Felt the sun caress Buddha's face atop Borobudur. Communed with truly extraordinary beings.

Already so deeply grateful to this beautiful place: its people, mountains, plants, lava, birds, rice, smiles, warmth.

This image is one of my captures of last night's Blood Moon lunar eclipse, seen above Wanurejo Village, Borobudur, in Central Java.

More to come on these journeyings. ࿆࿆

31/07/2025

📚𓂃✍︎𓍊𓋼🍃𓇢𓆸𓈒𓏸.˚🪼
Books, Botany, and Blue- hello, from me to you!

Time for my semi-annual selfie, well-timed with the crescent moon and my annual turmeric harvest.

Is harvesting rhizomes for my community whilst the post-capitalist world collapses resistance?

Is praying via the act of pressing medicinal seedlings into volcanic earth enough?

Is tending to my ark an act of escape, or survival?

Is reading koans and whispering mantras whilst grids falter, people starve, and bombs fly a surrender or denial?

I am privileged to be here, with vibrancy and these lands and my family and my living entity/collective. And even moreso to have the time and space to commune with birds, whales, books, deep thought, fungi, moon, mountain, winds and waters.

But my heart hurts and I feel like (since I was small) that I need to "fix the things". Everything. Sadness. Pain. Famine. Whaling. Homeless orang-utans. Dying forests. If I tried hard enough and studied enough and became enough maybe I could contribute enough to help it all. Broken systems and broken hearts.

I have been of melancholy temperament my entire life, from childhood to now, and it has meant in so many ways that the darkness and pains of the world could be felt, touched, witnessed - and deeply loved.

Deep grief has taught me more:
Loving is not about saving.
It is about presence.
It is about staying.
It is about noticing.
It is about tending.

Keeping the candles lit, creating (and cultivating) altars in the forest, crying with whalesong, standing rooted on cliff tops whilst the wind streams my hair, writing things no-one asked for, creating herbal blends for my community. Gathering the best for my sons. Planting trees for my granddaughter. Half-reading books (especially). Sitting with the plants. Caring for my mother's garden.

It is tending to, and deeply nurturing what remains, from what has gone before, what is quietly vanishing, and most of all... what is here. Entirely, wholly, holding space. With the utmost of presence.

And so, I stay. I stay. I stay.

28/05/2025

Hi Friends, Plant Folk, and Kindred Souls,

As some of you might know, I'm slowly tending to a book at the moment- an exhale into my recent and ongoing experiences of profound loss, trauma and grief, and how the natural world has been both witness and guide to that process.

After years of near-muteness and creative block in every direction, I am beginning to find my voice again despite (or perhaps, because of) these swales of grief and associated unfurlings into this new, unfamiliar territory of "life, after."

I'm also returning to my work in the spheres of ecotherapy, climate anxiety, and eco-grief, where I was working across an international scale - peaking during the global pandemic and ebbing away when my own deep-grief experiences began.

From herein, my account will be dedicated to these pursuits - nature/environmental writings, observational field notes along my scholarly pursuits in evolutionary biology and marine and rainforest ecology (I've returned to university to complement my psychology degree with another degree in the natural sciences before pursuing a PhD and onwards from there), and small glimmers from my life and travels along the way.

This piece of writing is an exerpt from a new series I am writing on my Substack, entitled Letters to a Future Botanist - a collection of meditations and reflections across time and unravelling. Tracing threads of what we once knew, and what we might still remember.

This first letter is about taxonomy, tenderness, and the slow erosion of ecological literacy... it's also about deep presence, reverence, and hope.

You can read Letter I: On Naming and Knowing over at my Substack, Of Moss and Mountain- the link is in my bio.

If you got this far- thank you for reading, for bearing witness to my process, and as always, for your presence.

Much love, always.
Claudia 💜

11/03/2025

Meandering through silky pre-cyclone sunsets - drifting into eventide reveries of my kin in the saltwater depths 🐋🪸🪼

31/01/2025

January happenings... vases and forests filled with the most delightful posies, storms and squalls, jungle beings, salty swims, the birth day of my eldest son, and the most glorious of all, the arrival of my beautiful fae-baby granddaughter 🩷

I pray to be a good ancestor, and can not wait to show her the magic of this world - and teach her of the ways of the mountains, the forests, and the waters. I look forward to learning from her, too - I believe children are the wisest little sages on Earth 🪷

Wishing you all a wonderful Lunar New Year of the Wood Snake - a year of wisdom, transformation, and growth. Personally, I have some interesting things coming up, so stay tuned! 🐍

Claudia x

25/01/2025

💧｡˚.༄𓂃 𓈒⛛

The water in your body is just visiting. It was a thunderstorm a week ago. It will be the ocean soon enough. Most of your cells come and go like morning dew. We are more weather pattern than stone monument.

- Jarod K. Anderson

11/11/2024

Magical shimmering blue orbs. I look forward to germinating your tiny beating hearts and returning them to these lush rainforest soils... as above, so below. 🌴♾️

Some fascinating notes about Blue Quandong (Elaeocarpus grandis):

The skin of the fruits is a brilliant, glimmering, iridescent blue, which is in fact not a pigment (as is the case with most other fruits), but produced by structural colouration - a microscopic multi-layered structure, similar to how the iridescence of bird and butterfly wings is formed! 🦋✨️

The seeds of the Blue Quandong (particularly E. angustifolius, which grows from India to New Caledonia, including Northern Australia - the fruits pictured belong to E. grandis, though there is some dispute regarding the difference between the two by taxonomists), are cleaned and are known as rudraksha in Hindi, from Sanskrit rudrākṣa, meaning "Rudra's teardrops", and are used to make mala beads. In Bali, some of the most beautiful mala I saw were made from alternating rudraksha (called jenitri in Indonesian), and lava stone beads. 📿🙏

In Australia, the fruits were traditionally either eaten fresh by Indigenous Australians, or buried in sand for four days, making them sweeter and more palatable. They were also later used for jams and pickles, and I have also had a very delicious Blue Quandong cordial-style drink before! 🔵🍹

The trees are an important and fast-growing pioneer species in tropical and subtropical rainforests, and are gorgeous when fully grown - up to 30 metres, with elaborate and beautiful buttress roots snaking out from the bottom of the trunk. Native birds and animals absolutely love the fruits, including the southern cassowary, wompoo, superb, and rose-crowned fruit dove, a host of different bats and flying foxes, and even Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo 🌳🦜

I gathered a few handfuls of these beautiful fruits from the thousands fallen upon the rainforest leaf litter and look forward to germinating and planting them out, following the steps recommended by the wisdom of kindred tree-warriors. After I plant out a few on my rainforest lands I'll have the rest available, gratis, at my little space in Nimbin .herbs 🌿💙

20/10/2024

A bit of an update: firstly, hello and here I am. I don't often share selfies or post much in my feed these days, but I’m feeling a shift - to share more as I deepen and refine my writing craft with greater discipline (!) and intention.

As such, this feels a good time to share that my incredible month in Bali in June/July was not just a break but the beginning of something deeper - laying the foundations for a book I’m writing! The title hasn’t come to me yet, but the heart of the book will explore my journey through profound loss and grief, and how the natural world has been both a witness and a guide in that process.

In tandem with this, I’m also deepening my academic pursuits at the juncture of the natural sciences and the environmental humanities, and renewing my ecopsychology offerings. These practices will flow in collaboration with .herbs (plant medicine shop and workshops/thought-space, both in Nimbin). During these moments of shift, my website will be down as I restructure and realign.

Imposter syndrome, alongside my AuDHD and bipolar disorder, has often been understandably challenging, especially when it comes to stepping into spaces that require visibility and confidence. It’s a journey I’m still navigating, so thank you for being here, as I continue to find my way 💜

With love always,
Claudia

1. Selfie whilst laying foundations for my book in Sidemen, Bali, by the beautiful Sungai (river) Telaga Waja (you can just see it in the reflection of the glass behind me)
2. Transformative and emotional moments under the watchful gaze of Tomaree Mountain, Worimi lands / Shoal Bay
3. Divinely scented rose grown by my front door
4. Art imitates life along the , Bundjalung lands / Brunswick Heads
5. Flying Foxes roost and chatter in the trees, Bundjalung lands / Kyogle
6. Study of a wave-break at the wall, Bundjalung lands / Brunswick Heads
7. Elkhorn fern in the littoral rainforest canopy, Sea Acres Rainforest Centre, Biripi / Port Macquarie
8. Fungi in the leaf litter in my rainforest backyard, likely Gymnopus sp., Bundjalung lands / Nightcap rainforest

Address

52 Jonson Street
Byron Bay, NSW
2481

Telephone

+61498835088

Website

http://www.wildforestfolk.earth/

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