Emma Farry's Blog

I’m done with patriarchal pleasing. The emperor has been naked for decades, and we’ve been forced to pretend otherwise, swallowing the vulgarity of it, swallowing our own knowing, swallowing ourselves.

There is no more time for waiting this out.

I am furious, on behalf of my children, on behalf of the earth. On behalf of a humanity that seems to have lost its way.

Don’t look away, Mama.
Call up your lioness.
Get fierce.
We will need each other in the days to come.

And it’s not only the red rage that gives us power.
It’s the deep blue and purple azures too,
power with a heartbeat.
Anger that serves love.

Everything of value is being stripped by those clothed only in greed.
And they will not win.

We have fought this before.

We win back our sovereignty, and then the blanket of forgetfulness settles again. We drift into sleep. We go quiet. We act like we don’t have fangs and claws, like we won’t do whatever it takes to protect what we love.

Remember.

Find your ancestors. They didn’t carry you here so you could roll over now. They did not birth you for silence. They did not birth you for obedience.

These hollow ones are nothing compared to the wisdom and strength in our bloodlines.

We need no guns. We need connection. We need trust. We need the superhuman energy that arrives when the heart is unleashed, when we stop performing and start standing shoulder to shoulder, awake.

And we do our own shadow work, so we don’t become what we’re fighting. So we don’t replicate the same domination inside ourselves and call it righteousness. So we can see the shadow puppets for what they are and stop letting them steal our fire.

We sit together in the collective pain and we feel it. We tell the truth. We let the hearth of love burn what must be burned.

What needs to be birthed?

A full-scale ripping of the illusion of separation.
A return to collective power.
A turning away from engineered fear, the fear that has kept us mute.

Roar with me.
Take my hand and fucking squeeze it.

We are in this together. Always have been. Always will be.

Anything else is a dangerous lie.

I am not afraid. And even if I lose my life, I will lose only the illusion of separation. So I have nothing to fear.

Enough now.

Time for the great undoing. Time for the great realignment.

Time for those of us who are unafraid to come together and help dismantle what is already destroying itself.

Come into the heart. We will grieve. We will tell the truth. We will rise as one. We will be shown our next steps.

There is nothing to fear.

Our time starts now.

Two more gunmenopen fireon soft human bodiesand the world flinches,then scrolls on.Mundane.A fresh bruiseon the same old skin.The cycles tighten now.Hate metastasised,moving through uslike a pulse we don’t control.My boy,born with his heart open,says: WW3.And part of my soulyearns for a final showdown,for the end of ignorance,unmitigated suffering,the triumph of good.Then the truth arrives:war only breedsmore of the same.The real battlegroundis in the locked rooms of the heart.Can I find the gunmanand his father,the gunmanand his son,right hereinside my beating heart?Can I locate themwithout flinching,without making monstersso I don’t have to look too closely?Gunmen and victims,humans both.Not equal in deed.Not cleared of harm.Not one beyond love.Because the shunned onewill burn down the villagejust to feelwarmth.How long have they shiveredun-held, unnamed,sent to the edge of the psychewith the rubbish?There is no ‘away’.Not for plastic.Not for pain.Not for the parts of uswe cannot bear to touch.The “other”is a story we tellso we can walk onwith clean hands.Until one daywe catch itthe same hatredglintingin the pupils of our own eyes.We are not aiming for enlightenment.We are aiming for embodiment.Not flight.Not transcendence.Not spiritual escapedressed up as virtue.The work is herein muscle and breath,in ache and longing,in shame buried alive,in the slow sheddingof skin after human skin.So I bow,not to ghosts,not to fantasiesthat let us leave ourselves;but to the tenderness,the fragility,of these soft bodies.I stay.And I ask, quietly,what hollows a person outuntil he turns his own bodyinto a weaponagainst his brother?The answer is in the mirror.Not out there.Not in the other.Not in the distance.Here,where the eyes look backand do not look away.

Last night, a dazzling green praying mantis appeared in my dream. She stood on the doorstep of my childhood home, still as a statue, her tiny arms folded in prayer.

I didn’t pause to honour her majesty. I rushed past, distracted, carrying a comb for someone who had no hair.

That says it all.

How often do we hurry past the miracles in our lives? How often do we overlook the people who love us—whether we are lovable or not? How often do we busy ourselves with tasks as useless as a comb for a bald man?

The world is fractured. Hatred grows more vicious each day. Cruelty seems endless. And yet—praying mantises still appear on doorsteps. Tākapu still gather seaweed for their nests. Two paradise ducks still march their chicks down the middle of the road. The ruru still stitches the night together with its call.

Nature keeps offering her gifts. But grief and horror can make it hard to take them in.

I have decided to listen to the mantis. To slow down. To notice. To let the good of life wash over me, even when the heaviness of the world presses close.

This doesn’t mean turning away from suffering. Genocide continues in Gaza. Our government is tearing down hard-won progress. Racism and cruelty persist. I see it, I name it, I grieve it.

But as Alice Walker so fiercely wrote:

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

We must resist, protest, donate, boycott, gather, plant seeds for a new world. But we must also notice. Notice beauty. Notice kindness. Notice breath. Because this noticing, this gratitude, is itself a revolutionary act. It keeps our hearts alive when despair wants to shut them down.

A tree is not just a tree. When the Buddha’s disciples laughed, saying, “They call that a tree,” they were seeing its infinite magnificence, the miracle of a being perfectly designed to breathe out what we breathe in.

Everything in nature is a placeholder for the Divine, waiting for us to look closely enough to recognise it.

Don’t step over the dazzling green praying mantis on your doorstep.
Notice her. Bow to her.

This is how we keep our hearts alive in dark times.

Come and rest in this place of tender power. 

Here your nervous system can anchor.

Here there is spaciousness, warmth, and the quiet knowing of embodiment.

This is your body. Your true home.

No one else’s needs come before your own.

Feed yourself with love. Choose foods your body welcomes.

Ask your body before each meal: Is this what I need today? She will tell you. She knows.

 But the world has pulled you far from me, a world designed to keep you hungry, to make you believe your nourishment lives elsewhere. It doesn’t. Everything you need is here, in your own belly.

Speak to me. Learn the sound of my voice.

Ask: Am I hungry for food, or for comfort?

Ask: What am I really trying to feed?

This belly of yours is a sacred place. Come home to me and feel the relief of belonging.

 Yes, this is a realm of forgetfulness. You will rest here today, and tomorrow be carried away by distraction, by the loud voices of the world.

But I do not offer a way out. I offer a way in.

Here lives your sadness, your joy, your fire.

Your tears are welcome; they water the roots of return. Your anger is welcome; it points to the ones who take too much, who give too little.

Do not be afraid of your knowing. It is fierce, but it will protect you.

The only true wealth you will ever have is the power of your own self. All else is illusion.

 This holy seat has been with you since your mother’s womb. And yet, for many, it has become a place of exile. You forget. You turn away. You give your power to others.

But I wait. I am always here. Come home.

There is a fire at your core. Gather around it. Remember.

When you sit with me, you sit with all the bellies before you, all the wombs that carried you, all the choices of love that shaped you.

This is your inheritance.

Yes, there are wars inside, but peace talks can be held here too. Yes, there are exiles, but they too can be welcomed home.

Stop looking outward for your authority. Stop searching for answers in the noise.

I hold every truth you need.

I will keep you safe until your last breath, and when it comes, I will release you gently to your first love.

Do not be afraid. You are whole. You are safe. You are free.

You can never be separated from my love.

 

There are times when life feels like too much, when emotions swirl, the world burns, and we are left searching for solid ground. Today was one of those days, I went into the garden, hoping that the earth might steady me. I didn’t expect to find my answer in the stubborn roots of couch grass, but sometimes the simplest things carry the deepest wisdom.

Many of us are living through an unraveling. It can feel like a storm inside, a cauldron of feelings and thoughts too heavy to carry. But even here, in the middle of it all, there is a thread of trust. What is truly ours will make its way out of the fire. Tears may clear the path. Space may open, almost miraculously, for us to release what we were never meant to hold forever.

Unravellings are rarely gentle. They strip us of what we once clung to. But they also invite us into something deeper. Surrender, trust, acceptance. Not so we can be “better,” but so we can be lighter, freer, less burdened.

Life shows us how. I think of the stubborn couch grass I tried to pull from my garden today. It had grown unchecked all winter and the job had grown big. At first, I grabbed clumps too big and fell back in defeat. Then came the whisper: bit by bit. So I took small handfuls, and the roots loosened in my hands. This is how surrender works, not all at once, but piece by piece, in ways that feel almost tender.

Perhaps you too feel tired from the endless changes, griefs, and global traumas. You are not alone. Sometimes surrender feels impossible. Sometimes resistance is the holier act. Alice Walker once said resistance is the secret of joy. I have come to believe that knowing when to surrender and when to resist is the real secret. To balance both is a sacred art, a holy equation.

And here we are, living in a burning world. We are witnesses to suffering we cannot fix. We are distracted while the shadows grow. Most of us would rather avoid facing our own pain, but the shadow of the world has grown too large to ignore. This is no longer business as usual. The earth is trembling, the veils are thinning, and something is asking us to wake up.

If you feel this too, you are not alone. My friend asked me recently, “Which way is up, and which way is down?” I laughed and said, “I don’t know anymore.” Maybe you’ve felt that way too. And perhaps the truth is not either/or, but both. Both surrender and resistance. Both undoing and rebuilding.

The signs are all around us. Birds weave their nests as if nothing has changed. And yet, sometimes the messenger comes. For me it was the piwakawaka, swooping so close they brushed my heart. Wake up, they sang. Wake up.

So we are invited, again and again, into deeper surrender. This is not only grief. It is a becoming. A release. An embrace. We cannot cling to the shore forever. Sooner or later, we must trust the current. Trust the unseen. Trust the heart that knows what the eyes cannot yet see.

And when the tide delivers us to shore, we will not be alone. We will find our people,  those who have also been broken open. Together we will step into the light of a new day, carrying nothing but ourselves. The ancestors are already leaning close, urging us forward. This is an ending, yes, but it is also a beginning.

Those of us who have already been broken open can hold space for you.. If you are only just beginning to break, know this: there is love waiting in the rubble. There is light hidden in your own heart.

So come home. Come home to the place where you can rest, gather strength, and prepare for the rebuilding. Come home to yourself, to the ground of your being, to the love that has always carried you.

 

By the time I reached 50, the battle with my silver hair had become a daily one. My hair grows incredibly fast—once a blessing in my younger years, now a relentless reminder of time’s passage. I’d leave the salon feeling “fresh” (a hairdresser’s euphemism for covering the greys) and polished, only to have those silver strands peek through within two weeks. It felt like a never-ending cycle.

Then lockdown happened. And with it, an unexpected opportunity. I decided to stop hiding and start embracing my natural self.

You’d think this would be an easy decision. After decades of spending hundreds of dollars each month and sitting for hours in a salon while toxic dye (so potent I could taste it in the back of my throat) was slathered onto my scalp, you’d think I would have welcomed the change. But you’d be wrong.

This was a hell of a big deal.

By letting my silver grow out, I was challenging deeply ingrained cultural norms. In my Lebanese whānau, women dye their hair dark brown or black well into their eighties and even nineties. At a recent funeral, as I stood at the podium reading a eulogy, I scanned the crowd. Not a single silver-haired woman in sight.

And it wasn’t just my Lebanese loved ones (my dad, in particular, has made his opinion very clear—he’s not a fan of my hair). Society at large offers little support for women who choose to age naturally. We’ve been conditioned to believe that silver hair equals irrelevance. Many of my friends have told me they would rather die than go grey. Some vow to dye their hair until their dying day. And I understand. We’ve been taught that there’s nothing less desirable than an old crone, an old lady, an old hag.

But did I really want to keep dousing my head in chemicals just to maintain my appeal to the male gaze? Or even the female gaze? Was I ready to embrace my inner crone?

Thankfully, my husband loves my silver hair. As much as I live for smashing the patriarchy, I have to admit, his support made the transition easier. Without it, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to push through the awkward in-between stages.

And awkward it was. The first year was rough. My hair was a patchwork of silver, leftover blonde dye, and darker natural regrowth. Not exactly a winning combination. But as time passed, my magician of a hairdresser worked his magic, colour-matching my silver and shaping it into a sleek short bob.

And don’t get me wrong, once I committed to the change, most of my loved ones came around. One of my best friends, who had pleaded with me for years not to stop dyeing, finally relented when she saw my determination. Now that people are used to it, they accept and even celebrate this silver-haired version of me. At least to my face.

At 55, I know I’m on the younger side for embracing silver. I still scan crowds, searching for women my age rocking their natural greys. Our numbers are growing, but we remain a minority. And in pop culture? Role models for natural aging are few and far between. But I believe that’s changing. As we seek a deeper connection with nature (to preserve the very planet we call home) I hope we’ll also learn to honour the natural cycles of our own lives.

My sister and my cousin are now embracing their natural colour too, and they both look beautiful.

Most days, I don’t mind looking older. By this age, we’ve lost enough loved ones to understand that aging is a privilege, one many never get to experience.

My darling mum, a stunning Scottish Pākehā who married into my dad’s huge Lebanese family, dyed her hair right up until a few months before her passing at 72. When chemotherapy caused her hair to fall out, she handed clippers to my brother and asked him to shave her head. She looked radiant, her beautiful face glowing, free of dye, free of pretence. We all wondered why she hadn’t embraced her silver sooner.

I like to think she approves of my choice. In life, she urged me to wait just a bit longer before taking the plunge. But now? I feel her smiling down on me, happy that I am living as I truly am, no longer hiding, content with the changes nature has woven into my reflection.

Don’t get me wrong, some days, I feel invisible, like a crone, even a hag on my worst days (haha). But mostly, I feel like me—strong, powerful, free.

Capitalist society is designed to make us feel unworthy, to convince us that we need endless products to stay desirable, relevant, enough. I’m as much a consumer as the next person, but giving up hair dye feels like a small yet powerful act of reclaiming my sovereignty.

And really what’s so bad about aging? I no longer seek the same attention I once did. I relish the peace that comes with being less visible, moving through the world with a quiet confidence, held by the self-acceptance I’ve fought to earn.

Luckily for me—and for everyone around me—I finally have a little less to prove.

The other day, I was at lunch at Prego with an older friend. She told me I was courageous for embracing my silver. I hear that a lot. I’m never quite sure if it’s meant as a compliment.

“I just think I need to be presentable,” she said.

“I think I’m presentable just the way I am,” I replied.

And in that moment, I actually believed it.

 

We are all witnessing a slow-motion car crash—watching the world unravel before our eyes. The state of things is heartbreaking, and often, we feel powerless to fix or even fully understand it. The weight of anxiety, grief, and dread for the future feels like a tidal wave poised to crash over us at any moment.

But here's the truth: we are in this together. And we must move forward rooted in that knowing—trusting it with every fibre of our being.

There is no us and them, no simple black and white, no tidy lines between good and evil. We are all human. Fragile, extraordinary beings sharing a delicate, awe-inspiring planet suspended in a quiet corner of the galaxy. We each have a brief life to live, and we live it on a planet abundant enough to provide for us all.

Right now, there may be no immediate solution to end the chaos, the genocide, the war mentality. And so we ask: What can we do?

We can choose to resist despair. We can find joy, truth, and strength within ourselves—and live from that place. We can connect with others on that level and begin to build communities rooted in sustainability and inclusiveness, even with those whose beliefs may differ radically from our own.

This isn’t about condoning cruelty. It’s about recognising the shadows within ourselves, healing them, and allowing our inner world to align with the world we long to see. Because no transformation can happen outside unless it first begins within.

Many elders and visionaries have prophesied this moment. And some now tell us: Wait. Do the inner work. Be ready. We are not just bystanders to the collapse of an old world—we are midwives to the new.

This is not a time for fear. This is a time for fierce love.

Love that dares to reach beyond the boundaries of identity, politics, race, and belief. Love that welcomes the stranger, that embraces the one who seems different. This is the kind of love that heals.

Our shared humanity is not a philosophy—it is a truth. And yes, we must rise. We must speak out against injustice, we must march, we must write, raise our voices, fly flags, and demand real justice. But at the same time, we must do the quiet, personal work. We must bring peace to the battlefield within.

The elders have always said, “As above, so below.” Our outer world reflects our inner one. If we want peace out there, we must find peace in here.

These are times that call us to come together, to create circles where no one is left out. There's an African proverb that says, “A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” We all have an inner child, or many, who were never embraced. Parts of ourselves we exiled, ignored, or judged.

We must find these parts. Listen to their pain. Invite them home.

Because once we welcome them—once we allow them to speak their sorrow, their rage, their longing—we begin to feel whole. We begin to understand what healing truly means.

And no, inner work doesn’t mean life becomes easy. It doesn’t end all conflict. The work is humbling. Daily. It will ask something of us, every single day.

And no, not everyone will belong in our lives. Some people, no matter how much we grow, will remain unsafe for us. That’s okay too. Our intuition exists to help us draw the lines that protect our soul.

But what inner work does give us is the courage to face the things we fear inside ourselves. It expands our capacity to love, to trust. It’s not glamorous work. It’s gritty, raw, and sometimes exhausting. But the result is a quieter mind. A steadier heart.

And in times like these—times that are anything but peaceful—what are we meant to do with that peace and love?

We hold circles. We make space. We stop pointing fingers long enough to turn inward, to stop projecting our pain onto the world. We get honest about our own wounds, our own blame, our own fear. And slowly, we become safe havens—for ourselves and for others.

These are times that call for more love. And love is, first and always, an inside job.

Love flows more freely when we face our fears. That is the paradox: we must befriend the enemies within to become a source of peace in a world bent on division.

While we wait for the new world—and it is coming—we do the work. And I promise you: it is not as frightening as the alternative.

Sometimes the healing begins with a gentle unveiling. A moment of stillness. A walk in nature. A deep breath. And in that silence, your inner guidance begins to stir. The love within you starts to rise, shyly at first, then more confidently—offering wisdom, offering grace.

It’s not easy. But in these times, it seems like there is no other way.

You have a rich inner life. A council of guides within you. They’re waiting for you to turn inward, to take one step toward them. They want nothing more than to show you the truth of who you are—and how deeply loved you’ve always been.

And that, above all, is one thing I know for sure.

My friend,

 

I know you are suffering and I feel there is little I can do to ease that deep pain for you. I wish I could. When I look into your eyes, I see the same sorrow and confusion and grief that I have navigated and at times still navigate. But you are in the thick of it now and I know that this is a very difficult place to be.

 

And a lonely place too.

 

Things that you once clung to are crumbling and this change can feel like a personal assault on you, reaching down to your very core. This is hard work, perhaps one of the hardest kinds of work that we as humans can do, and yet it is quiet work, done in the depth of silence and sometimes despair.

 

It will get easier, but it will take time.

 

This pain is your medicine and while I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, if you stay with it and stop looking for escape routes you will reap the benefits that come when you are able to live in the truth of your own life.

 

Right now you are navigating more pain than can fit into your human lifetime. This pain is ancient and confronting. There is much that has been lost, and yet it will all return to you at exactly the right time. Trust.

 

Stay with it. Breathe into it. Witness the stories that live in that pain, and need only to be acknowledged.

 

It is only yourself that you are becoming acquainted with, and you are so much older than you think.

 

This work is a mystery – you don’t have to understand, merely acknowledge.

 

After my 40 days in the desert and much humbling and difficult inner work I became more myself, embodied, knowing how I truly felt, connected more deeply to the earth on which I walk and understanding a little more about of the pain of others.

 

In retrospect that sounds a fair trade off, but no one chooses to do this work. It is something that some of us go through and others will never have to navigate. And this is just another part of the ever-evolving mystery.

 

So my beloved friend, know that I walk beside you, even though you can’t see me. Know that there are countless guides who sit with you as you navigate these challenging times.

 

Know that you are beautiful beyond measure and that this work you are doing will benefit many others.

 

Our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our shame, they are not the things we must avoid. If they are given the time and understanding they need, they can become strong allies, reminding us to take care of ourselves, to create strong boundaries, to own up to the damage we have caused and the mistakes made.

 

We are just like every other flawed and beautiful human on this planet, and yet we are our own unique person at the same time. We did what we could with the awareness we had, and as we learn, we do better and we help others around us to do better too.

 

This is mighty work you are doing and there are mighty invisible helpers stroking your back and giving you the strength to keep moving forward.

 

With love,

your friend,

Emma

x

 

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The World Wide Fund For Nature’s Living Planet Report, released on Thursday, describes a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.

Global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles decreased on average by 68 per cent between 1970 and 2016, the index reveals.

Many of us are feeling we are being pushed to edge of our comfort zones by the global pandemic and all it entails.  I wanted to share some secrets that help to keep me calm in the eye of this storm that is currently raging.

Nature has taught me many things. Without her, I would not have found the space and stillness to embrace myself more fully, both my darkness and my light.

Thanks to her patience, and the patience I learned as I sat in silence, I was able to acknowledge and accept not just the parts of myself that I am proud of but the parts that I hide, the parts that I am ashamed of, the parts that I would prefer to ignore.

This inner work is not easy to do (nor speak of), and it scares us, for this inward journey, though filled with eventual treasures, can at first be a frightening and confusing challenge.

To embrace ourselves fully we must first see and acknowledge ourselves in all our aspects.

This is the challenge. Society, our families, our pride and some would say our common sense tell us to ignore what is painful and ugly and sad within ourselves and to move on, move on, move on.

And this works for a while. And for some of us this works for a whole lifetime.

But for others there comes a time when we must look within, and make friends with ourselves.

Karl Jung calls our darkness the shadow. He says that in middle life we can choose whether to spend our time on the awareness of the shadow or the denial of it. Both will take up a large chunk of our time but will lead to different outcomes.

Coming into contact with our own darkness can be shocking and deeply challenging, and yet if we give this process the time it needs it can lead us to a better relationship with ourselves and eventually with the world.

The beautiful Aboriginal word Dadirri has been on my mind. We visited Sydney recently and the ancient spirit of that land captivated me and I remembered this word that I heard many months ago and it stared to make sense.

Dadirri is a sacred practice developed by the Aboriginal guardians of Australia.

"It means deep listening and quiet, still awareness. It is a 'tuning in' experience with the specific aim to come to a deeper understanding of the beauty of nature. Dadirri recognises the inner spirit that calls us to reflection and contemplation of the wonders of all God's creation."

A Reflection By Miriam - Rose Ungunmerr - Baumann of the Ngangikurungkurr people from Daly River in the Northern Territory.

I realised that this deep and rich practice of Dadirri was at the root of my ability to sit with nature, to sit with myself. It helped me to know myself, to accept myself, to comfort myself, and to eventually love myself, in both my darkness and my light.

And this process never ends. It is a lifelong journey of being willing to listen, to keep our hearts open, to embrace our sorrows as well as our joys.

Dadirri may be the key to our future here on earth. This practice, deeply natural to us as humans, and largely forgotten, calls us to go deeper, to listen, to breathe, to connect.

The photo of the rock above was taken on the Bondi to Bronte beach walk in Sydney.

Here is a video of Miriam - Rose Ungunmerr - Baumann speaking about what Dadirri means to her. I find it very calming and comforting. 

"The sound of deep calling to deep..."

 

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You came as we all do;

agreeing to a body,

vulnerable and unique.

 

You saw, 

felt

took it in deep.

 

Could I have sat beside you through the deepest of that dark, dark night?

 

You went silently,

tired of the fight

you must have weighed it up

many times.

 

You were astute and you were wise

but your calculations were incorrect

because we are all connected;

tiny, jagged, intricate pieces

of this one nefarious puzzle.

 

If you could have calculated correctly 

the breadth and depth 

of our feelings for you

could you have stayed?

 

You collected us along the way

those who saw you

recognised you

gave thanks for you quietly.

Perhaps you couldn't hear us,

we didn't know 

you were drowning.

 

Forgive us Zari 

for not knowing

that you needed 

more (or was it less) than you had

 

I hope as soon as you were released

from your body

you understood

the mysterious importance

of all you gave, shared, were.

 

You were taken by the dark night 

but we will meet again,

your dreamy eyes only resting a little,

untroubled at last,

as you welcome the multitudes within you

as you surrender to your wholeness

before you bless us again.