A couple of days before Xmas 25, I am sitting in the Byron Community Centre. I am aware of a growing spiritual frailty within my body. I watch the wonderful volunteers at the centre aid a young mother with children, directing her and her children to further community aid in these hard times of war, climate angst and global structural poverty. The resonances of the Bondi tragedy seem trapped in my cellular body. I have contacted my Israeli and Palestinian friends sending mountains of love. I feel trapped in pain.
I am a pacifist. I pray in nature daily. I see only the senselessness of profit-making militaristic war machines and the death of innocents. I hear the words of my friend Lilith Rocha, ‘Jo, come upstairs, the women are dancing the hula – the healing dance of aloha. We need an audience’.
I am ‘the audience’ with two other community volunteers. The room is filled with beautiful women from the community. Many I have known for years. The music commences, arms ascend to the heavens, hips sway gently, the music punctuates the bass, and quick dancing feet and knees respond. Swaying bodies turn and turn, painting circles in the air. Each woman emanates a deep inner beauty. Then accepting arms seem to unwind before me and a gesture from the closed hand to the gentle, opening of same – welcomes me. The words, ‘Oh, how we have forgotten the “feminine”,’ spring from my unconscious. The hands draw out my inner repressions. My heart thumps in my throat, tears well in my eyes. The women have captured the power of peace and its sacred narratives. I let my tears flow.
‘The rhythms learned by our bodies and souls over hundreds and thousands of years are syncopated with nature. Walked through the world and integrated it viscerally, tangibly in sounds and fragrances, sensations wafting over skin…’ (Francis Weber).
I have had a necessary catharsis. I know in my deepest heart of hearts that the remarkable community of civil society in the Byron Shire is strong and will maintain its spiritual power and vision into the challenging future – aided by compassion, love, caring, mutual aid to all, respect to all life – and community art.
Thanks Lilith for years of hard work and vision. I want to be ‘an audience’ for as long as life visits my declining body. Folks, do try love and peace – a collective, conscious, imperative, ongoing action. Let’s ‘come together’.
Jo Faith, Byron Bay
(gypsy, hippy, and proud black Irish)
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
