Hair nests

Over many years I swirl the hair from my brush and place it in an arwerrte-acacia bush   along the Antulye Ridges. These ‘nests’ disappear, unwrap, become cocoons buffered by the fierce sun, wind and occasional rain.

In 2017, I walked to the Sionann’s Pot (the source of the River Shannon) in County Cavan with my sister and nephew Reuben. Sionann is the name of the River Shannon and means “She is an Ancient Goddess”, “She is the River of Wisdom,” and “She is the Honored One”.

Sionann is a goddess of knowledge and transformation. Her story tells how she sought wisdom from the sacred Well of Knowledge. As she drank its waters she became the river that still bears her name today. As a family in the early 1980s we spent days on the River Shannon.I remember its beauty, my visceral need to immerse myself in its waters.

Somehow, in my time along her river, swimming in her peaty waters my hair became bright. I swill my hair to honour and remember these connected stories.