Speak Up! Speak Out! A Herstory
What began as a small group of women in Bridgewater on International Women’s Day in 2017, inspired Joan to dream of creating an avenue for women to share their passions in a safe, supportive environment.
In November 2018, after Joan and Urs bought The Farm for Wellbeing earlier that year, Joan invited some women to the Earth Mother Retreat. The weekend offered those women an opportunity to share what they love.
Joan invited the women to come to the farm, bring some food, stay overnight. They would each have time to share, and the others would give feedback and support each other to grow their passion. And it was so much fun! Some had never shared before or just finished training and didn’t know how to share. Here they were with women they knew, they felt safe so they already had trust, they had to put something together because they said they would. The women for whom it was their first time loved it and wanted to do it again.
So…they want to do it again…Joan began pondering what it would be like if she invited other women and had it a little bigger and had it at the Farm.
Joan started dreaming it up. She was thinking about the name. She wanted women to speak about what they’re passionate about and….’Speak Up! Speak Out!’ just popped in! And it felt good.
Joan started talking to people and formulating a plan and the first Speak Up! Speak Out! was born.
It was held around International Women’s Day in March 2019 and the same in March 2020. In 2021 it was brought forward to February. And here it is, in 2022, with the fourth Speak Up! Speak Out!
In 2019 and 2020, it was still small with around 30 women gathered outside the back of The Wellbeing Centre. The workshop was transformed into a stage area. Some women presented and others offered massages and reiki inside. Some women stayed overnight in the dormitories, others just came for one day. Some women set up stalls to sell products and offer healings. Volunteers were enlisted to help to weekend run smoothly.
2021 saw Speak Up! Speak Out! start to take off. More presenters, more women offering small group workshops and 1-1 sessions and more participants. Other spaces around the farm began to be used for group workshops eg Luna Tent, Grandmother Tree and a number of stalls were set up for selling products and offering healings. Camping overnight amongst the trees was popular and the dormitories were full.
In 2022 it was moved to November as February and March this year became complicated. Covid made it tricky, so it was postponed.
The Farm has been busy mowing, whipper-snipping and generally getting ready. There is a full program for the Main Stage and lots of other things happening this year. The whole land has been opened up and women are running sessions at the Luna Tent, Grandmother Tree and other sites around the property.
Joan loves women to be spontaneous and to trust their intuition, “You know what, I want to do this embodiment practice. Let’s go over here in this grassy area and just do it!” Allowing women the space to trust that inner knowing and follow it is so beautiful to watch. It brings confidence. It’s like strengthening a muscle…’When I listen to my inner voice, and it turns out good then that allows me to trust it for the next time’ and you take that out into the world. How wonderful is that!
To feel empowered, to always trust what you’re thinking, and feeling is a base line for a lot of the work Joan does…sitting in circle with women, posing questions for them to ponder to get to know themselves better. It occurred to Joan recently, she’s 63 and still learning. She doesn’t have to be better, but she would like to know herself better.
“When I know myself better, I trust myself more and I’m more in line with what keeps me being authentic and more genuine. I can be clearer with how I speak with people, how I listen to them,” says Joan.
It’s from working with hundreds and hundreds of people over the years that Joan feels so inclined to do Speak Up! Speak Out! It’s a lot of work to organise and a lot goes on behind the scenes but it’s important. If it makes a difference in the life of one person, then it’s worth it. Seeing women connect over the weekend, make new friends or have an experience where, perhaps, they realise it’s a belief system, or a block and they have these AHA moments and then they share with Joan and other women. That is wonderful because #togetherwegrowstronger!
The movement that Joan is encouraging is the Sacred Healed Feminine Sisterhood – eye to eye, womb to womb, heart to heart, listening, as Jane Hardwicke Collins says, from the School of Shamanic Womancraft, with the ears of our heart. Not trying to fix anybody, not interrupting eg ‘when that happened to me…blah blah blah’. Yes, we all do that sometimes. When you’re sitting in circle and you’re practising listening with the ears of your heart, you observe when you feel are going to interrupt and remind yourself that you’re listening, you’re listening, you’re listening.
Joan feels the world would be a different place if we listened to each other more and didn’t try to fix each other.
So…come join in!
Get a ticket! Come for the day, come for both days. Camp if you can.
It might just change your life.
If you don’t need your life changed, come and listen, enjoy the greenness, have a massage and just chill. Bring your own picnic, sit under the trees. Come as you are and soak it up!
Sending you so much love from The Farm for Wellbeing and we hope to see you at Speak Up! Speak Out!
