Beyond Righteousness Towards Reconciliation

One of my greatest dreams is reconciliation in Australia taking place in my lifetime, or at very least in the lifetime of the next generation. But I’m seeing more clearly that reconciliation is not something we achieve at a distance, not a policy, not an outcome we arrive at. It is something we practice into existence. And we can’t hope for reconciliation at a geo-cultural level if we can’t first reconcile what is keeping us apart and ineffective at a community level. Our relationships and our community fields are the training grounds for the greater reconciliations life will ask of us.

My dear friend Stefanie and I in the Spring Sunshine, Manchester 2025.

Long story short, it feels like I’m being asked to grow into a new way of being. Not to abandon what I hold as sacred, or to stop advocating for the parts of creation I’ve been blessed into intimacy with, but to do so while resting into a deeper patience, and living from a more dynamic, embodied compassion. Something in me is softening its grip on righteousness, not in the sense of losing my stance, but in how I hold it. Less rigid, less adversarial, less certain that truth must be carried through opposition. More open to the reality that reconciliation cannot be led from certainty, only from participation, from relationship, from a willingness to be changed by what I meet.

I’ve spent much of these last 6 years as a refiner, highly sensitive, attuned to subtle currents, aware of our unfolding edges. Now I feel myself coming into a chapter of listening more deeply to my peers, allies and friends, and coming into attunement and coherence with what is already here before feeding the flames of what comes next. Less focused on asserting a voice, more devoted to sensing the field. Less interested in shaping from the front, more committed to meeting what is present and allowing something shared to emerge.

When I go back to Australia, one of the things I want to do is travel through my wider communities and hold circles. Not to teach or preach or seed anything, but simply to listen. To truly take in each individual, to sense our field, to get a feel for what is sacred to my people and what common currents are moving us. I feel called to sit with the wider tribes in curiosity and deep listening, to give what needs to be spoken a space, and to hear what you are inspired or driven to advocate for in these times. Not as a leader arriving with answers, but as a participant in something that must be discovered together.

Reconciliation always begins with presence, listening and honour in all directions. As part of my lifelong commitment to reconciling and rewriting the story of Australia, I want to begin by living that and practicing it with my wider community, and other leaders from my homelands. If you’re in Australia, if you’d like to sit with me in this way, and might like to be part of these circles when they come to your area, please let me know.

For me this is a path beyond righteousness, toward reconciliation. Not the absence of conviction, but a more grown way of carrying it. I confess, I do not know the way in it's entirety, but I’m willing to meet you there in spaciousness and curiosity, to practice this in real relationship, and to give it a proper crack.