Encountering your Ancestors

Gembrook Retreat

215 Beenak East Road, 3783, Gembrook, VIC, Australia

Singing Blackbird

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With over 50 years of shared experience in facilitation and training, Colm and Chris have worked together for the past five years on ancestral connection and healing, and lead an annual Samhain weekend retreat for 50 people.Colm McNaughton was born in Dandenong - Boonwurrung country - and spent most of his childhood in and around this area, except for a few years living in the north of Ireland. He has a doctorate in Marxist theory and has worked in a diverse range of industries which include: construction, media, and higher education. Colm was a martial arts practitioner and instructor for twenty-four years. He has spent more than three decades healing intergenerational trauma within an emergent animist framework. He is currently the driving force of Singing Blackbird Enterprises, a storytelling worker’s cooperative.Chris Lynch is a White Papuan-Australian of Gaelic heritage. A poet and fiction writer, he has degrees in environmental science, journalism, and teaching, and taught English and science for over 20 years at universities in Australia, China, and Japan. Previously severed from his ancestry, he has been working intensively on reconnecting over the last six years, visiting and walking the south of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands for the first time in 2023. He lives alongside the Merri Creek, on Wurundjeri Country.