We had to Forget to Survive

As I sit here in France, I have so much flowing through me, creative, feminine energy, remembrance, tears, and all the emotions. It's been a huge trip, and we are only halfway in.

I have been writing every day while my children also write in their travel dairy. Writing, to me, is my medicine. Things seem to land and integrate more when I express through words. And even as I write this, I feel sad and emotional for all the men and women who couldn't read or write, their stories lost and forgotten.

Over a thousand years ago, the British Empire destroyed the Indigenous people of the British Isles, murdering the Pictish people, the Druids, and the Celts. I’ve spoken to many Welsh and Scottish people who shared stories of the English, and this pain still exists today.

One man told me that, when he was at school, there was a horrible act done by the teachers called the "Welsh Not," where if a child was caught speaking Welsh they would wear a token, often a piece of wood on a string around their neck. At the end of the day, the child wearing the token might receive punishment, such as caning. This is a true story! This happened between the 19th and 20th centuries.

These days, so many Welsh people are proudly speaking their native language again, and even young people are learning how to speak the language of their ancestors. All I heard in wales was people speaking welsh..called  Cymraeg (pronounced kum-RAIG) in Welsh. It's one of the oldest living languages in Europe and holds indigenous status to the British Isles, particularly Wales. Now Cymraeg is taught in schools and even used in government!

I think about how, hundreds and even thousands of years ago, the Celts had to change to survive. They had to become more English with the rise of the Roman and later the British Empire control, power, and dominance.

The Celts, some convicts, some slaves, and some free people came to Australia for the so called "great Australian dream" for fertile land, more work opportunities.

Some fled hunger and hardship. Some sought adventure or salvation. But whether by choice or circumstance, they became part of a designed orchestrion that would tear through country, culture, and kinship.

They came to a land that was already stolen.

They had no idea how to work with the land a different ecosystem and they weren’t taught how to live in harmony with it. It brings such great sorrow in my heart to say that in 1788, the First Fleet arrived on Australian shores.

The convicts came first, men, women, even children cast out of overcrowded prisons, punished for poverty, theft, and survival. They were followed by free settlers, chasing land, gold, freedom, or escape.

Eleven ships carrying convicts, soldiers, and officials arrived and with them, men with guns who murdered the Indigenous people of Australia. As our Celtic culture faded after hundreds of years of war between the English crown and the pagan Celts, so too did the Indigenous cultures of our land.

People were forced to become like the Empire or be killed for resisting. We all had to forget to survive.

Before the invasion, Australia was already alive with over 500 sovereign nations, custodians of songlines, sacred waters, and stories woven into the land for over 60,000 years.

But the British didn’t see it, didn’t want to. They called it terra nullius, nobody’s land. And in doing so, erased what they could not understand.

It created a global epidemic of trauma and amnesia. An empire expanding and in its shadow, cultures were forced to disappear.

We were told to abandon our roots, to leave the old ways behind, to succeed, achieve, and strive. To have the Australian dream was an illusion promised by the big guys at the top, it was their plan all along. To seperate, divine and take what ever they wanted.

We see how colonization didn’t just displace others, it disconnected us so much from the land and our culture making us all sick, depressed and displaced.

It disconnected us from our ancestors.

From the feminine.

From spirit.

So we need to relearn. We need our elders again, but where are they? Most are sick and programmed by the empire too.

So many of us carry this history without even realising it. We inherit not only trauma, but amnesia. Forgetting was survival.

We still see the effects of this pain in our society today, intergenerational trauma shows up in youth crime, substance abuse, and violence. These things aren’t accidents, they’re symptoms of deep, unhealed wounds from a not-so-distant past.

It hurts even to write this. And I’m sure you feel that ache in your heart too.

John Smith and Pocahontas

My family arrived only a few years after that first fleet. There is no recorded history of my family being convicts or soldiers, so I’m assuming they were the ones who put their hands up and went.

Here’s the thing… not all of our ancestors were “the good guys.” I hate to break it to you, but they could have been the soldiers or even the royals calling the shots.

They were brainwashed. Have you seen Avatar and Pocahontas? These stories describe brainwashed men working for the empire who both fall in love with an Indigenous wome, and it’s this spiritual feminine women who wakes them up from the illusion they are being fed.

-Jake Sully wanted new legs, he was promised a dream.

-John Smith was a brainwashed solder wanting wealth and following dictatorship with each breath he took.

Jake and Neytiri

I feel like this is what is happening now. It’s the women who are showing men the grail rites. It’s the men who are dropping their shields and pride, materialism and waking up. Their hearts are expanding. Their lower canters are starting to purify as they connect to God

Waking up isn’t easy.but this is where the collective healing begins.

When we are brave enough to lay down our weapons, rise from the aching bend of the knee, and stand against tyranny, genocide, and war. We are then strong enough to hold the sword of truth. This is where the magic begins.

The reality is.. we are the daughters of both the colonized and the colonizers. We carry the pain of both. And we carry the power to heal.

We are being called to unlearn the empire and to remember our roots, the old ways. We have to, before it's too late.

We cannot heal what we do not remember.

And so, at the Celtic Rose Academy, we remember.

We return to the body, the womb, the earth.

We honour Indigenous wisdom of our lineages.

We reclaim the songs, rituals, and stories that were once silenced. We listen to the land.

This is sacred work. It is messy, it is humbling, and it is Holy!

Thank you for being here and reading these words.

May they stir something in you.

May the frequency of these words support you and your family in remembering, in healing, and in gently releasing the pain of the past.

With love always,Amanda

May the ancestors walk beside you.

May the waters cleanse you.

May the earth hold you.

And may the rose of your heart bloom open, again and again.