About Tynon - Heartland Didgeridoos ( Didjeridus )- Bellingen, NSW, Australia

Today is Saturday 28th April 07. Its been about ten years since I updated my page. Anthiam and my girls are 16 & 21, we've recently moved into a home we built while living in caravans for three years, and we've been running Heartland for 13 years now. Nice number!. I still love playing and making didgeridoo and I'm still passionate about growing Heartland over many years to come. Its classic to read my1997 version below, and whilst it certainly isn't how I express myself now, the sentiment is still very alive for me. I thought of wiping it, but nah, that was me and was the foundation of Heartlands journey. Long haired visionary. I love that part of me, lifes for living and dreaming. As we used to say in my skateboarding days GFI...Go For It...a motto for life.

Running a business, being in relationship, bringing up children into teenagers and supporting them becoming adults are big ingredients that bring a more pragmatic part of me forward. There's been ups and downs, times when I wondered whether it was time to do something else. Its been a challenge working something I love, that ties in with my spirituality in the business world. I like that challenge though and its working better all the time.

These days I still love going bush finding didgs and making them. After building my home, I am getting more time once again to focus on didg creations, and I have such a nice build up of cured logs to work from.

I also get much enjoyment from teaching didg, I have developed some techniques teaching that are so effective and my success rate getting people circular breathing is a 100%. DVD coming out soon.

Another big part of my life the last 3-4 years has been grounding rites of passage programs for teenage boys and also supporting local women doing the same for the teenage girls. This feeds that part of me that knows the old ways, its cellular, I believe we all have it. I have felt drawn...well compelled to be part of seeing teenagers supported in their transition from boy or girl into young man and young women. In Australia we now have an organization called Pathways and we run 5-6 day bush camps, and whilst it is contempory in how it needs to be related to our millennium it brings age old ways back into being, young men and women hearing stories from their elders, them being challenged and growing in what its is to step into adulthood, being honoured by their peers and elders and welcomed back into their community as having taken the next step in their life's journey. Awesome, every time, for every one at some stage tears are shed. Core human needs being fulfilled.

And one bonus for me is I get to incorporate didg playing into ceremony, which is a privilege and a pleasure. Playing in places where I cans support a shift in energetics through playing, is great, it is what didgeridoo does with ease and grace. There's no pretence that we are anything but modern people sitting down sharing stories of our life and having fun the way that any 50 men and boys do when together isolated in the bush for close on a week. The didg, or a particular setting or the way we do something, creates what we call ritual drama, and supports a different headspace, or a deepening of an experience, even though what we do is simply creating the space as I said above for fulfilling core human needs...connection, brotherhood, challenge, learning, true listening, being honoured and supported. Doing it in a light way, we manage to take people who may live very conservative lives and at camp end both father and son for example realize they are deeper, more accepted, more empowered, more connected and more accepting of anyone and anything, and consciously or unconsciously the indigenous or tribal part of them is alive.

I am a leader on several camps every year in my region and in other states, and the gift of being able to bring didgeridoo playing and clap sticks into this realm, has only further deepened my relationship to the instrument, and tribal ways. Its all about bridging the worlds, ...... These days I love to dress up when I go and give a talk at a school for parents about raising teenagers. I live in a modern world but I can bring many worlds into today's world. I have in the past and I hear many folk pine for tribal culture now fragmented or gone, and yet culture is alive today we just need to water it, and definitely music and rhythm are a big part of giving life. When I play with friends or play with an intent for others or for myself. I love how didgeridoo can be such a bridge of worlds and support balance.

1995

Back in 1997/8

Didg has been a major force in my life since 1990 , the bush has all my life .Bush adventures were fed via my family,school outdoor leadership programs and scouting.After growing up in Melbourne City , I left to travel Australia at 21,with my best friend Anthiam

.Friends -Lovers -Family was the progression .We lived and worked mostly in country Victoria and have been settled in Northern New South Wales since 1995 and the next progression -clan unfolds.

Being awakened to exploring alternatives has drawn us along the path from ,turning Vegan , environmental activist,Rainbow/ Down to Earth gatherings,Massage,Healing Work , being part of a group establishing a Multiple Occupancy Community and exploring all forms of circle space from mens./ women's to couples circles ,anything that draws us towards greater healing and wholeness.

Having both had strong grounded families has meant we've also got a strong worldly part that brings through a passion to find the balance of a spiritual and enriching community life and experience abundance and groundedness.

That passion encompasses our relationship to this beautiful land and how we relate and live as caretakers.Unfolding relationship with the earth is a life long process . Its full of highs and learning's from the slip ups along the way.

It was during a time building Farm sheds where I had the opportunity to work and travel across the countryside , that didg came into our lives. It was both an enriching and challenging time and didg was the friend that helped guide the way.

Didg was a balancing force along with the varied landscapes I worked in .Centering me and reminding of a part of myself I’d shelved away in my efforts to be successful in business. Teaching me that neither giving all to the spirit journey or all to the material journey is the answer;just as the didg is one a long phallus and also a womb or birthing canal. Both go hand in hand , its so obvious but that's the path we all walk somewhat- to find harmony. In ways I cant explain fully ,I felt didg to be a guiding influence and amidst lots of change, a centering clarifying force.

Greg McCormack was the fella I bought my first two didgs from,a passionate unassuming didg player who keeps to himself in his playing and didg making yet occasionally busks in a way that puts out the vibe of his passion and centre.I’m thankful for our connecting , as some time down the track Greg invited us bush to find didgs .I am for ever grateful. Along with Didg,Greg's background as a potter with his wood fired kiln is the recipe for a strong earth man and I learnt much with out words. There's a fire in his quietness that shows and a fragility in his sensitivity that I respect .He has always felt like a brother from another time,a brother from this land , both of us having difficulty integrating life in the 20th century.

Didging has on one hand been a very personal journey ,playing for relaxation enjoyment and healing and on the other side through making , performing and running workshops has taken me outward sharing Didg. On a community level didging at friends homebirths ,a funeral and in ritual spaces including regularly in sweat lodges are the high points of didg for me. Also being involved ,with the Baga Baga Dances over the last two years ,has been a gift of didg. Baga Baga are the only Indigenous/Non-Indigenous Dance troop on the East coast and has been a force through Wirruungga Dunggiirr a local Goori ( Aboriginal ) fella.

Going bush looking for didg has taken me from the dry country of the south to the topend ,day trips and month long + trips.Didging has been an extension of the part of me that's so comfortable heading into the bush for a week or weeks with next to no food or none and see what happens .Walkabout is the most comfortable thing in my life, the time when I feel most at home ,safest, most looked after.When I moved into the Bellingen Valley I didn’t feel at home until I’d disappeared for ten days and got to know the power of the Mountains ,the escarpment ,the old volcano,the life blood of the beautiful river created from the rich fertility of the Goanna(Mountain) Spirit and Snake (River ) Spirit. You don't need such a majestic landscape to unfold rich relationship with the land. In Ferntree Gully -Melbourne I’d walk fence hopping through the first farm properties on the city border to a hill top,on many full moons, or just walk and see where the evening would have me lay down. Even in the middle of a city the earth will sing for us if we’ll stop and attune.

Didg has most powerfully strengthened my journey re-discovering sacred rituals in my life ,and amongst my friends, and this is my ultimate passion. Its time to come together in circle and in safety and rekindle culture based on love not fear. Didg is a powerful catalyst in a world starving for the warmth of family,tribe and a shared connection with an area of earth that is heart filled with awe and reverence for life. For me didg has helped fertilize a seed and I feel ready for another phase of growth.This Internet Site is a big part of this new phase Its about inspiring and supporting what many of us are desiring . A new way and it may start by drinking in the best of the old,and all the lessons of what's not working and claiming our power to make changes .Each of us is part of the web of life and each change even small sends major ripples strengthening ,supporting each other.

All strength to you sister/ brother,and Thanks for being interested in my journey and passion. ,     Tynon



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Helping a customer2007	Anthiam & Tynon 2005