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 summer rains.

In 2017, I walked to the Sionann’s Pot (the source of the River Shannon) in County Cavan, Ireland 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 this sacred Well of Knowledge. As she drank the water she became the river that still bears her name today.

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

In the early 1980s, my family spent days on the River Shannon.I remember its beauty, it’s expansiveness and my visceral need to submerge myself in its waters.