Nicola Lambert
Relational Engagement Consultant
About
“I hold the middle space between institutions and communities in ways that centre trust, relationship, and cultural authority.”
We’re process-led, not product-driven. Our work is relational, adaptive, and grounded in care. Like a Ngunnawal water tree or the Irish Crann Bethadh, we believe in shaping space that holds water for others. This is slow work, generational work, community work. We listen to what Country is asking of us—and we follow from there.
Tree as Compass, Tree as Kin – What I've Learned from Country
Over years of walking alongside Ngunnawal People and listening deeply on Country, I’ve learned that trees are more than landscape—they are relationship. Country, when you’re listening properly, teaches you how to live, how to work, and how to take responsibility beyond your own lifetime.
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One of the most powerful teachings came through a Ngunnawal water storage tree. These trees were carefully shaped over generations—branches trained outward, a stone placed at their centre to form a hollow that could hold water. They weren’t just functional. They were ceremonial. These trees held water for those yet to come. They were wayfinders, survival markers, and acts of deep care.
What I’ve learned from this is that restoration is not a project—it’s a relationship. Cultural knowledge lives not only in language, but in the shape of a branch, in the hollowness of wood, in the slow patience of intergenerational tending.
This understanding has echoed something deep in my own cultural memory.
In Celtic Irish traditions, trees weren’t manipulated—but they were read. They were portals, not resources. Sacred groves (nemeton) were chosen places of assembly and ceremony. The Crann Bethadh—the Tree of Life—stood at the centre of the world, connecting the ancestors, the living, and those yet to come.
Ogham, an ancient Irish script, was built around trees. Each letter corresponded to a species—birch for beginnings, oak for strength, yew for endings. Bent trees were honoured as guides—pointing toward wells, fairy paths, or hidden truths. Like the Ngunnawal water trees, they were not accidental. They were invitations.
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These teachings—from both Ngunnawal and Irish lineages—remind me that work worth doing is work shaped over time. My consulting, facilitation, and creative practice is shaped in this same way: slowly, relationally, and with deep care. I don’t aim to direct people—I aim to walk with them, to build containers that hold water, story, and space for those who follow.
This is the heart of Create and Sow. Not just consultation, but cultivation. Not just facilitation, but ceremony. A way of walking guided by trees—on this Country, and from my own.
Contact
Interested in working together? Want to yarn about a project, or explore what relational consulting could look like in your context?
0434 518 200