Kindness Company

25/06/2026

Itha Mari Yapara. This way, in the right direction, home. 🌿
So many of us spend our days holding others. The grief in a family. The weight in a community. The pressure of leadership, the long hours in health and care. We become so practised at being the steady one that we forget what it feels like to be held ourselves.

This winter, for three days at Byron Yoga Centre, we are making space for exactly that.

Itha Mari Yapara was dreamt into being by Aunty Lyiata Ballangarry, Baaka Wimpatja Elder and River Keeper. It is her vision, her cultural wisdom, and her Healing the Heart teachings that hold this retreat at its heart. Guided by Aunty Lyiata alongside Harp Kalsi-Smith and Ed Coney, you will be invited to slow down and set things down.

There will be storytelling in a small safe circle, where a yarn shared becomes a yarn lightened. Fire ceremony on Country. Sound healing that settles the body into deep rest. And unhurried time by the mineral pool and the ocean.

You do not need to arrive with anything sorted. Come as you are.
Places are strictly limited, and 10% of every booking supports the healing work of the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, so your rest helps carry others too.

📍 Byron Yoga Centre

🗓 Friday 31 July to Sunday 2 August 2026
Learn more and book your space: kindness.company/itha-mari-yapara-retreat

FRIDAY JULY 31ST - SUNDAY AUGUST 2ND, 2026 A RETREAT FOR REST, RECONNECTION AND RENEWAL BOOK YOUR SPACE Itha Mari Yapara Retreat - Byron Bay 2026 Friday July 31st to Sunday August 2nd A space to slow down and come back to yourself WHY THIS RETREAT In a world that moves fast and asks a lot of us, it....

01/06/2026

Some gatherings change you quietly.

This July, I have the honour of co-holding a retreat. Itha Mari Yapara, which means this way, in the right direction, home.

The name says everything.

We'll be gathering at Byron Yoga Centre from 31 July to 2 August, and the heart of this retreat is Aunty Lyiata Ballangarry, a Baaka Wimpatja Elder and River Keeper of the Gurnu Baakintji clan. Aunty Lyiata's life work centres restoring power, dignity, and identity for communities impacted by dispossession. Her healing the heart model is rooted in deep connection to Country, to ceremony, and to the understanding that belonging is a pathway to healing.

Being guided by her is not a small thing. It is a privilege I don't take lightly. This retreat is for people who give a lot of themselves, in health, in community, in leadership, in family and alone. People who are carrying stress, grief, or the quiet weight of holding others. People who haven't had much space to simply stop.

Together with Ed Coney, we'll be walking alongside Aunty Lyiata as we move through storytelling, fire ceremony, sound healing, songline mapping, and time on Country. I bring over 20 years of trauma-responsive practice to this work; but honestly, being in circle with Aunty Lyiata is its own kind of learning and healing for me too.

10% of all proceeds go directly to Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, because healing, when it's real, is always collective.

If something in you is ready to come home to yourself, we'd love for you to be there.
🔗

03/04/2026

I know many of us are exhausted.
The news keeps coming. Each development more devastating than the last. And there is a very human temptation, when things feel this relentless, to look away. To protect ourselves by going quiet.

I want to gently name that, and ask us not to.
This week, the United Nations condemned Israel’s newly passed death penalty law as a discriminatory regime of capital punishment that violates international human rights law.

The law, passed by the Knesset on 30 March, applies almost exclusively to Palestinians, tried in military courts with a conviction rate of over 96%, where confessions extracted under torture are routinely used as evidence. Death by hanging, within 90 days of sentencing, with no right to pardon. UN experts have called it a war crime. A grave escalation. An entrenching of apartheid.

This is not a distant, abstract legal matter. This is state-sanctioned killing, designed along ethnic lines, condemned by the International Court of Justice, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and governments around the world.

And it is happening while we scroll.
I’m not here to add to the guilt many of us already carry. I know the overwhelm is real. I know that for many of us, especially those working in communities that have faced their own histories of state violence and dispossession, this kind of news lands in the body, not just the mind.

But silence, even exhausted silence, becomes complicity over time.
So here’s what I’d invite, wherever you are on the Gold Coast or beyond:

🫶🏾Stay informed from credible sources: OHCHR, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch. Share what you learn. Information shared by real people in real networks still matters.

🫶🏾Contact your federal MP and Senator. Tell them you expect Australia to use its voice at the UN, and in bilateral relationships, to call for the repeal of this law and accountability for what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank. You can find your rep at aph.gov.au

🫶🏾Support Australian organisations doing solidarity and advocacy work: the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, and others doing local policy work.

🫶🏾Join or follow your local Palestine solidarity group, there are people organising.

🫶🏾You don’t have to be an expert or an activist. You just have to show up.

🫶🏾And perhaps most importantly: talk about this with the people around you. At the dinner table. At your community group. In your workplace.

Normalising the conversation is itself a form of resistance to the numbness that atrocity relies on.

We are people who believe in dignity. In the right to life. In the equal worth of every human being. This is a moment to let those values be louder than our fatigue. 🙏🏾 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/04/israels-death-penalty-law-constitutes-discriminatory-regime-capital

GENEVA – Israel’s new law effectively providing for the death penalty solely against Palestinians constitutes a discriminatory regime of capital punishment and manifestly violates Israel’s obligations under international human rights law, UN experts* said today.“We condemn the Knesset’s ad...

18/03/2026

I was recently invited by CareSearch: Palliative Care to write a blog on Community Solutions to End of Life Care for their series.

The work Linda Kurti and I undertook with Conversations That Count brought me back to something I hold close, that community-led care at end of life is not an either/or story. It’s both.

Us, as community members, stepping up, having the conversations, showing up for each other, building the kind of death literacy that makes a real difference. And meaningful investment to scale what’s already working in our local communities.

Grassroots movements are doing extraordinary things. But community-driven work can only grow so far on goodwill and volunteer hours alone. When we combine the heart of community with the resources to sustain it, that’s when real, lasting change happens.

“Community solutions to end-of-life care don’t begin in hospitals, they begin with people. They begin with us.”

I’d love to know, where have you seen community step up around death and dying? And where do you think investment is most needed?

👉🏽 Read the full blog 🔗 https://www.caresearch.com.au/About-Us/Newsroom/Palliative-Perspectives/Palliative-Perspectives-Blog-Details/ArtMID/17907/ArticleID/6477/Community-solutions-to-end-of-life-care-Where-connection-culture-and-community-meet
Compassionate Communities Australia

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

19/02/2026

I’ve shared some personal reflections on my experience as a child migrant, four decades on. If you have a few minutes, I’d value you reading and sharing it. If it makes you a little uncomfortable, that’s ok. That’s part of creating space, growing the conversation and understanding.

And thank you to the allies, past and present who listen, advocate, make space, and stand alongside those of us telling these stories. We must stand together in fostering more kindness and compassion. Your support matters more than you know.

Introduction by Croakey: Racism is deeply embedded across Australian universities, and has profound impacts upon students and staff, according to

14/12/2025

This afternoon, Lynn Berger, Gina Conolly and I held a Sunset Loss and Remembrance Circle, a space dedicated to honouring the many losses our communities have and continue to move through. As we retuned to our homes we were confronted with fresh, unimaginable grief, grief now carried by the Australian Jewish community, by families, and by our nation.

We stand in solidarity with the Australian Jewish community. The loss being carried right now, by families, by community, and by our nation is profound. There is no place for violence, hatred or harm in our communities.

In moments like this, unity and compassion matter. They are not abstract ideas, they are lived through how we show up for one another, how we listen, how we check in, and how we refuse to let fear or division take hold.

If you are feeling shaken, overwhelmed or grieving:
•Slow your breathing.
• Put your feet on the ground. Step outside if you can.
• Limit news exposure if it’s heightening distress.
• Reach out, to a friend, a neighbour, a community space, or a support service.

Hold your people a little closer. Let children know they are safe. Let elders know they are not alone.
If you or someone you love needs extra support:
• Griefline: 1300 845 745
• Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24/7)
• Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636

In this moment, may we choose care over cruelty, connection over fear, and solidarity over silence.

We stand with the Jewish community. We grieve together. And we hold one another, now and in the days ahead.

14/12/2025

Gentle reminder for this afternoon …
As the sun sets over Burleigh, we’ll gather by the water to honour the many kinds of loss that shape our lives: loved ones, places, identity, connection, and the ways of being we’ve had to let go.

This simple community ceremony is a space to pause, breathe, remember, and renew. Through shared ritual, story, and quiet reflection, we acknowledge both our grief and the strength that comes from standing together.
🗓 Sunday 14 December
⏰ 4:45 pm – 6:15 pm
📍 Echo Beach, Burleigh Headland (southern walking path entrance)

Bring a picnic rug, a flower or small meaningful object, and your open heart. Together we’ll create a living artwork of gratitude, love, and resilience as the tide moves in and out, a reminder that endings and beginnings are always intertwined.

All are welcome: families, carers, kids, individuals, and community members from near and afar. Whether your loss is recent or long ago, visible or unseen, this space is for you.

Held on the lands of the Yugambeh peoples, with deep respect for Elders past and present.

24/11/2025

Festival of Death and Dying is one of the most unique gatherings of community and compassionate deathcare practitioners I participate in. Curated with so much integrity by Peter Banki and Victoria Spence of Life Rites Funerals, the Festival places somatic practice at its centre, something too often missing in collective spaces.

Here, embodiment isn’t an “add-on”, it is the method. It’s what allows grief, memory, connection and community to move, transform and settle in the body.

I’m grateful to Peter for welcoming us so openly and guiding us through the Five Remembrances, a profound reminder of balancing wisdom and compassion, the impermanence of our lives and allowing the body to breathe at the pace life rarely makes room for.

There were many highlights:
• Kopi Healing with Maree Clarke and Nicholas Hovington, a powerful, embodied ritual of shaping grief into clay and learning the deep mourning traditions of South Eastern Aboriginal communities.

• Home Funeral wisdom with Rebecca Lyons and Before & After Life - Emma Beattie, opening conversations on reclaiming community-held care for our dying and dead.

• The Village, an extraordinary evening of performance, testimony, movement, art and music that re-awakened our sense of shared responsibility.

• Worn Grief with Pia Interlandi, Maree Clarke and Hini Hanara invited us into intimate, creative ways of wearing and honouring loss.

Rhee Duthie and I shared experience, learning and tools from many years in community development and from those who have paved the way before us, reminding participants that Compassionte Communities along with community development is never a program delivered to a community, but a process built with them. We explored the Building Compassionate Communities in Australia Toolkit, ABCD practices, the Good Life Conversation, We Can Game resources, and Inverclyde principles to map strengths and spark the “one action in 30 days” compassion movement.

Throughout the Festival, the Remembrance and Mourning Installation created by the Muslim Collective with Sydney Friends of Standing Together held space to witness the grief of Palestinians, an essential reminder of how somatic, collective grieving becomes a political, communal and spiritual act when the usual frames of mourning are shattered.

Deep gratitude to Peter and Victoria for curating such a richly embodied, culturally grounded and community-held gathering. This Festival shows that when we bring somatics, culture, ritual and community development together, grief is not something to survive, it is something we can meet, move, honour and transform together. Compassionate Communities Australia

29/10/2025

A very critical conversation with the imminent aged care reforms coming in. The number of ageing Australians who simply won’t have the income to meet the increases in co-contributions for essential services and care is deeply concerning. Collectively finding solutions to this impending crisis must start now. Register to be part of the discussion.

Sweeping changes are coming to residential aged care with the introduction of the Aged Care Act 2024 on 1 November. At Compassionate Communities Australia, we welcome reforms that strengthen rights and transparency — but we also ask: will these changes translate into genuine relational care — where our older people are seen, valued, and cared ‘about’, not just cared ‘for’?

Join us for an engaging panel discussion exploring how policy reform meets human experience. Together, we’ll unpack what the new Aged Care Act could mean for everyday relationships between residents, their families, care staff, and communities — and how we can ensure compassion remains the foundation of the system.

This conversation builds on insights from our National Forum in Brisbane and the Residential Aged Care Advocacy Statement , which calls for a re-orientation from clinical models to community-connected care that restores dignity and belonging. It also builds on the 2025 Progress Report of Inspector General of Aged Care.

You can egsiter here - bit.ly/47mVnb8