Where stories of feminine power, Mother Earth & regenerative living converge.

It was April 2022, an unusually cool and dreary spring day. I was home alone in my apartment in Melbourne curled up with a cup of tea on the couch trying to muster up the enthusiasm to get back to my desk and the second draft of Brave Women Write.

Joanna Macy’s book Active Hope: How to face the mess we’re in with unexpected resilience and creative power, was sitting on my coffee table just waiting to be read. As a steady, drizzly rain began, a spontaneous decision was made. No writing today, just reading.

It was almost midnight as I turned the last page and finished the letter.

Write a letter from Mother Gaia to yourself. What would she ask of you? Joanna had urged. The question landed with a thud. Pen poised above my journal, I closed my eyes and listened. What came out was a ten-page letter. Gaia asked me to write more truthfully, to listen more deeply and to be a storyteller in service of women and Mother Earth.

I didn’t know it then, but I was standing on the edge of a profound shift.

Within days, I would meet Ric. Within a year, my life would become one of regenerative living with the land and one of radical active hope.

"Recognising that we can choose the story we live from can be liberating,” Joanna Macy wrote. “Finding a good story to take part in adds to our sense of purpose and aliveness.”

These words live in my bones.

As a writer, educator and community builder, my words and work bring together feminine power, Mother Nature and regenerative living. I live and write between two hills: our city pad in Clifton Hill (Melbourne) and our off-grid retreat in Red Hill (Mornington Peninsula) — a ten-acre sanctuary we call Kookaburra Rise.

At Kookaburra Rise, Ric and I are creating a safe and happy haven for humans to connect with the earth and live in harmony with Mother Nature — a place where people come to learn, reconnect and reimagine the future. We host working bees, tours and community gatherings, sharing practical knowledge and soulful connection for off-grid, Earth-aligned living.

As the author of six books — including Brave Women Write — I help women reclaim their voice. Through writing circles, private mentoring and weekly essays on Substack, I guide others to connect with nature and write the stories that matter — stories of healing, justice and hope. (If you’ve never explored Substack but crave words for the soul, I invite you in.)

Nature is my co-conspirator. As a river swimmer and activist for the Yarra, Birrarung, I serve as the 2025 Birrarung Riverfest Producer with the Yarra Riverkeeper Association. Every strand of my work is rooted in this belief: storytelling can reshape culture—and the future. And the stories we most need now are those that honour justice, equality and our sacred bond with Mother Earth.

This is the story I choose to live, and the story I invite you to live into, too.

Contact the host of Brave Women Write | Workshop your Story over Dinner with Carolyn Tate