A Remembering - A Celebration of Golden Helichrysum - Music of the Plants - 15.16. December 2023.

Our ReWilded Highlands Retreat - the fields are filled with  Golden Helichrysum - untouched by sprays, chemical fertilizers, or destructive tilling for over 20 years - indigenous and native flora thrive – and in mid-December - Helichrysum -  Earth’s potent healer - is in full bloom.

Together with a special friend Shasta Goodfellow, we decided, in mid November, to put together, on the long weekend 15.16 December, a weekend which would hero this magnificent plant – late in the year and with most people already with December Summer Holidays all planned – we took a chance and sent out our message.

We would walk through the Golden Fields of helichrysum where guests could experience this wonderful plant – pick great buckets of helichrysum to take home and dry and make own tea and other – we would invite guests to step into the enchanting world of the BambooM –  a device capable of transmitting plant electromagnetic  impulses into melodies.

And so, with a small but wonderful group, we started our weekend of magic on the Friday the 15th December 2023. Saturday morning after breakfast we all gathered at Dassie Guest House to savour Helichrysum Tea – eat decadent chocolate cake – and explore the incredible healing qualities of helichrysum – where Shasta - who lives in a beautiful valley to the East – then joined us.

From there we all wandered into the Golden Fields of helichrysum to pick and also to listen to the strange, lilting somewhat haunting song of the helichrysum on the BambooM – which was totally fascinating and very beautiful – an emotive experience – in the afternoon Yoga with Shasta in the shady cool garden at Dassie Guest House.

Saturday evening all gathered around the dining table at Dassie Guest House  -  glowing with the light of many candles – to enjoy a delicious organic vegetarian supper.

Then the absolute magic of a Fire Cleansing Ceremony – the fire pit piled high with wood ready for lighting  - during the week we had dug up many big helichrysum plants – left to dry in the farm store and piled around the great fire ready for a Clearing Ceremony.  

The group had spent time sitting quietly –  meditating on what they wished to consign to the fire – to the Universe - to Gaia – and arrived with messages penned and ready.  Gathered around the fire pit – excitement as the first flames licked into the night sky and the beating of the medicine drum filled the night air.  Great balls of helichrysum were gathered up – and messages tucked into the fragrant depths –  an invocation – a blessing – then hurled into the great glowing depths of the Cleansing Fire –  messages to clear the old and make way for the new.

Sunday morning up early long before the sun – the group gathered at the Look Out on the mountain - and  with the backdrop of the magnificent vast valley –  a sunrise Yoga session led by Shasta completed a weekend of absolute magic.

It  was a beautiful weekend  -  in this  ReWilded Sacred Space – where you know you are in a place of remembering - a place from the world of doing into a world of being -  where you enter the Quiet, Healing Wellness, the still core of your own Wild Self.