Wonder- Presentation Family Centre

At the Presentation Family Centre, we aim to embrace a certain wondering approach that is both inclusive and welcoming. This attitude helps us remain open to the world. It is within in this wondering attentiveness towards each other, our guests, and our built and natural environments, that we take this opportunity to consider both the basic disposition of wonder and reflect upon how it is embodied through our work. 

Through the various forms of programs offered (including holiday programs, women’s retreats, beach education programs, to name a few), we share the centre’s indoor and outdoor spaces. Encouraging guests to be curious in exploring the grounds and surrounds, we safely introduce them to new physical spaces. We are currently running programs to help guests feel confident in both bush and beach spaces, where they are free to explore the stunning regenerated bushland at the rear of the property, and the beach at the end of our road. Guests are then able to further investigate the wonderous natural spaces in the local surrounds, including Coolart wetland and homestead, Merricks creek, the Balbirooroo wetlands, and Balnarring Beach and foreshore. This exploration provides fertile grounds for the concept of wonder to emerge. 

Through giving our time, we warmly invite guests to embrace a calm, restful and wondering sensibility; with many visitors describing their stays as ‘peaceful’ and ‘restful’. When the external environment is calmed, and time is given generously, and non-judgementally, guests are given the time to pause, take in the fresh air, and gain a sense of tranquillity.

Through our bodies, we put our ethos into action, allowing guests to enjoy their surrounds in ways that best facilitate their needs; be it respite, relaxation, or recreation. 

In all we do, we strive to uphold both positive human, and human-nature relations at the Presentation Family Centre. In programs and through our environmental charter, we bring guests into closer relation with themselves, others, and nature. During programs, we also make use of our recreation centre, set with vistas out to the wilderness. Here we create beautiful artworks, cook up feasts, share meals, and play games together. This is where strong bonds are built that span between program participants, staff, volunteers, and the natural world around us. 

We hope that after gaining a sense of respite from the business of the outside world, that the time spent at our centre results, if even if only momentarily, in being swept away with a sense of wonder; be it wonder experienced through space, body, time and/or human and human-nature relations.