Volume 18: What Returns
G'day from a hotel in Brisbane.
Join me.
Much has happened since we were last together.
I wish I could share more.
But for now, three feels like the correct number.
Three stories.
In no particular order.
But first...
Check your body.
What is it saying?
Pause.
Then read on when your body says it is ready.
Kaya.
--
A new map of the work.
For a while now, the work of Modern Custodian has been growing faster than the language around it.
Acknowledge This is now in its sixth year. After Acknowledgement has emerged from the question of what comes next. Dabakarn Koorliny takes us further into the life of an organisation. And sometimes, what is needed is simply time together—to think, untangle, imagine and find the next step.
They are different offerings, but they all begin in the same place.
Creating enough space for people to stop performing. To become present to themselves, each other and Country. To recognise what is already alive in the room - and give it somewhere to move.
Until recently, explaining the full shape of that work usually required a conversation with me or Kate.
So, we made a map.
We have gathered the current Modern Custodian Offerings into one place: live experiences, self-paced learning and deeper work shaped specifically around your people.
Power and purpose.
A few weeks before I arrived in Meanjin, I began speaking with Lindal and Nicole from Powering Skills Organisation about what they wanted from the day. On paper, it was a full-day experience: Acknowledge This in the morning, Dabakarn Koorliny in the afternoon. But as we spoke, I became less interested in what I was being asked to deliver and more interested in the room I was being invited into. This was a business built from the ground up by their CEO, Anthea - a woman who had created something strong, generous and deeply human inside an industry that does not always make that easy. The job was not to arrive and fix their culture. The job was to help them see what was already there.
By the time we gathered, I could feel the spirit of the room. People stood when they needed to stand. They stretched. I took my shoes off, and before long, others did too. We clicked our fingers instead of clapping. It changed the rhythm of the room. It asked people to listen differently. Slowly, the usual performance of a professional development day began to fall away. People did not need to sit correctly, speak correctly or prove that they were learning. They were simply given permission to be there.
In the afternoon, the room separated into five mobs: the Personal, the Purposeful, the Philosophical, the Progressive and the Practical. Each group offered a different way of seeing the organisation - and themselves within it. What emerged was not a list of values to hang on a wall. It was a living picture of the culture they were already creating together. The people who give with heart. The people who leave a legacy. The people guided by questions. The people who ignite change. Different ways of moving, all belonging to the same whole.
The room reflecting itself. Each mob selected someone to speak on its behalf. I took my place on the floor and listened.
Later that evening, at their celebration, the finger clicks returned. I was no longer facilitating. Nobody had been asked to continue doing it. The gesture had simply travelled with them. One participant also told me that, after twelve years in Australia, it was the first day he had felt properly welcomed here.
I keep thinking about that. Sometimes the outcome of this work is not that a group learns something new. Sometimes the room simply receives enough permission to recognise what it already knows - and to become more fully itself.
After the day, Kate and I created a reflection of what the room revealed. That part of the story still belongs with PSO for now.
--
The Echo returned. Twice.
First, with her Acknowledgement, as promised.
And then, somehow, on my Country.
I first met Phoebe after delivering Acknowledge This in Margaret River. We sat down for tea, exchanged numbers, and spoke long enough for me to understand there was something unusual about her attention.
She was the woman I wrote about in the last volume - the Echo who noticed the Eight of Pentacles resting on my book and revealed it back to me.
Some time later, she sent me the Acknowledgement she had promised to write.
Phoebe’s Acknowledgement, shared with permission.
Then she appeared again.
This time, at a jazz bar.
I had gone to the Ellington with the Golden One’s partner, my dear friend Sylvia. Sylvia is a jazz singer herself, and the plan was to promote an upcoming performance of hers. Hand out flyers, be seen - that kind of thing.
We were sitting together at the back of the room, watching the show. Everyone was seated except for one woman standing at the bar.
She caught my attention because she was carrying - and enthusiastically writing in - a notebook.
Nobody carries notebooks on nights out except for me.
Then I noticed she was cycling between a green pen and a red one. This was also suspiciously convenient, because those are the colours I use throughout this newsletter - when I decide to write it - as you would know if you have read the previous volumes.
But it was not only the notebook.
She was up on her tiptoes, smiling, writing, engaging with whatever was directly in front of her. She was so present it was difficult not to look at her.
In a room full of people watching a performance, she seemed to be participating in being alive.
That was enough to prompt me to investigate this mysterious woman. I parked myself beside her while ordering my next drink.
She turned to me.
“Kaya,” she said.
“Ah. It’s you. I thought it was you,” I replied.
I invited the Echo back to our table, where we promptly recruited her into Sylvia’s promotional quest. During the intermission, we split up and wandered through the room, handing flyers to patrons and introducing Sylvia to her future audience.
Then the final set played.
As the room emptied, sure enough, the Echo was gone.
She had disappeared as easily as she had appeared. She does not seem to observe the usual courtesies of goodbye.
This woman moves to her own rhythm.
Why - or how - an Echo I first encountered on Wadandi boodja came to reverberate all the way up here, on my Country, remains a mystery to me.
“Serendipity,” Sylvia called it.
Maybe.
Serendipity describes an unexpected and fortunate meeting. Something valuable arriving without being planned or sought.
But serendipity describes the meeting, not its importance.
What struck me was how alive she was. On her tiptoes at the bar, smiling, writing, meeting whatever appeared before her with her whole attention.
In a room full of people, it was hard not to notice how completely there she was.
Perhaps that is what an Echo does.
It does not merely repeat something you have said.
It returns something you are still learning how to recognise.
--
The map has also revealed something else...
There is now more happening inside Modern Custodian than Kate and I have the capacity to properly share.
Every week, there are stories, photographs, participant reflections, drawings, recordings and moments that reveal what this work actually does. Too much of it disappears into folders before it ever reaches the people who might need to see it.
So, we are looking for an experienced content and social media contractor to help us bring those stories into the world.
Not simply someone to fill a content calendar. Someone who can understand the voice of Modern Custodian, recognise the story inside the material and help more people discover the work.
Perth-based would be wonderful, because we would like the opportunity to occasionally make things together in person.
If this sounds like you - or someone immediately came to mind - reach out to us at hello@moderncustodian.com.au.
Let’s meet.
Rhys