First Nation Women's Business - Law, Culture and Spirituality

This weekend retreat is to support understanding, education, deep listening and knowledge sharing between All men and women in our Country.  It is not exclusive to First Nations people.  FIRDA our Foundation for Indigenous Recovery & Development Australia, has been running these retreats and workshops in Australia and overseas since we founded in 2000.  our information can be found at www.firda.online

This retreat is for women in Australia who want to understand, learn and share in the experience of what First Nations cultural knowledge and traditions are. There will be community circle sharing and smaller men and women's groups to show how we do it in our own way and to encourage collaboration, unity, kindness and understanding between cultures and genders.  You can come with  your families and your children all are welcome.  We have been doing women's business with our own groups and with non-First Nations people since 1996, to support and help bring our  business into the daily lives of people in Australia in order to strengthen hearts, minds, souls and bodies and to assist us understand the strengths and power of our First Nations cultural traditions.  We hold our traditions for those who have lost theirs and for those who want to learn the connections to culture, Law and ceremonial life. 

We are a group of senior First Nations men and women who have travelled for 60+ years now the path of living and learning in both cultures, being with and sharing with All in our dreaming, our visioning and our caring and sharing.  We hold women and mens business retreats separately and now also together following the traditions of our clans from before colonisation.  We have grown up with and lived in our cultural traditions all our lives whilst also living and learning in the western world so our understandings are deeply cross cultural, cross spiritualities, gender, creeds and races.  We are Wakka Wakka Wulli Wulli of the Djwan Djumbe Nation,  Barkindji Kunya and Kamilaroi, Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri, Anangu Pitjanjatjara,Yankunytjatjara- we share, teach and advocate for the foundational Laws of all our nations and clan groups in Ngungynateea (Australia) we hold stories, songs, tjukurpa and knowledge taught to us directly and orally by our senior teachers, Elders ( as is now the modern term) since we were young. We are sharing and caring properly the knowledge we know, with anyone who wants to learn, share in respect self, land and humanity and transform our world for the better whilst learning how to look after self, relationships and country.

Tjukurpa Ngura Waltja: Learning more about Cultural Business Spirituality, Family and Land  - Story Ground and Storying our Future

Come and Share in First Nations business with other people of our region for this relaxing and fun weekend retreat. Everyone is welcome especially First Nations people. Come and share your knowledge, dances, songs, and ways of being to strengthen each other with cultural knowledge, storytelling, dialogues by the fire Circle and sharing history and oral traditions from our clans.  Learning about land, deeper listening, what it means to be men and women, parents, partners and enjoy something unique for yourselves. FIRDA women will be sharing, teaching and learning with you on the journey during the weekend.  We are supported by our local Elders who have requested FIRDA do a retreat for women's.

Kanyini Tjungungku: As a process of sharing and caring and sustaining the environment, land and country that we all lov

We aim to create a deep connection to ancient knowledge that we can utilise in taking care of country, families, children and their own sacred business. We do this through sharing circles, exercises, creating meals and sharing together, learning men and women’s business with men and women’s cultural teachers, learning dances, songs and general story sharing in our Circle.

Sharing our Law, Our Tjukurpa (Dreaming's and Stories) to help you connect and find your own inner strength and knowledge of Law, spirituality, culture and ways to nurture the environment. 

This retreat is a journey to begin, to continue and to imbed contemplation, meditation, sharing, caring, yarning, talking and making food and cultural business together before we finish with ceremony. We will follow the traditions of old, when women come together and BE together to nurture each other, to share with our children and to learn some simple healing practices to help us All be well.. 

Senior men and women have shared this knowledge with others as a way of holding onto and sustaining our cultural knowledge and traditions for many years.  We benefit from knowing more about this country’s rich cultural knowledge and it can assist you as a person/human living in this world with all it’s complexities.

Facilitated by Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng PhD Wakka Wakka Wulli Wull and Kerri Shepherd, Kamilaroi woman, we are cultural teachers of our knowledge, academics in Indigenous Studies, counselling, social work and creative writing and we have worked and lived in our communities for 60+ years. We are parents and grandparents who care about our responsibility to our Law, our Land and our families/communities.

FOOD AND CATERING IS NOT PROVIDED IN THE TICKET COST - AS COMMUNITY WE ASK YOU TO BRING FOOD WHICH WE WILL SHARE AND PREPARE TOGETHER AT MEAL TIMES. THIS WAY YOU CAN ACCOMODATE ANY OF YOUR OWN DIETARY REQUIREMENTS.  THERE IS A LARGE COMMERICAL KITCHEN WITH PLENTY OF REFRIGERATION SPACE.