From snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, plus sharks, jelly fish and turtles, and a taste of cattle farming in Queensland, I went on to spend just over a week in the desert country of Alice Springs, where I learned more directly about the rock art and creation stories of the people who have cared for that part of the country for 50,000 years. It is a wonderful landscape of red earth, ancient rocks, water holes and cave paintings. I saw sunrises and sunsets and, at every turn, was reminded of a spirituality which tells its stories of creation through the shapes of the hillsides and plant medicines and animal familiars, who protect and heal human and non-human alike. At every threshold the guest is invited to greet the spirit ancestors, explain their intentions, and ask permission to pass through. Alerted to this in advance, by my own spiritual director, I had some inkling of what was involved….and endeavoured to follow both her guidance and that given as we travelled. The wisdom of the old customs is around avoiding waste, walking light on the earth, avoiding all extraction and exploitation – and much of the mythology revolves around sharing the earth’s bounty. No one hunts only for themselves or for their own family alone…..at least in theory.
It feels presumptuous to say anything much about the rupture of ancient tradition in which Europeans, settlers and tourists alike, have had their own unpleasant part to play. The ‘lost generation’ of indigenous children deprived of their history, language and family, forcibly sent to boarding schools by the British of the last century, in the attempt to ‘integrate’ them, can never be recompensed. The scale of the damage to inherited eco-wisdom is incalculable. Recent wild fires, for instance, have done long-term damage to mature trees simply because no-one listened properly to the necessity of creating firebreaks at the exact ‘right’ time: a moment that varies from year to year and season to season according to immediate weather patterns. Much of that knowledge is being dissipated in the alcohol-fuelled violence we saw in the centre of Alice Springs, evidence of trauma and dysfunction. Even ancient and secret initiation rites have been distorted and debased over the last century. Well-intentioned equal pay legislation from the 1960s and 1970s had unintended consequences in taking so many people off their ancient lands. Reconciliation processes were formally introduced in 1991, much progress has been made politically – but, as I said in last month’s postcard, the failure of ‘the Voice’ referendum is seen in many quarters as a sad setback. The conversation goes on.
My final days in Australia were spent in Western Australia where some of my own family roots lie: the history of mining rare minerals and of the penal colonies on Rottnest Island – added to the complexity of the experience. Taking a ferry down the Swan river from Perth to the great port of Fremantle, I was able the witness a show of the quite extraordinary luxury earned from extracting rare minerals. If the world is to move away from fossil fuels, we will need these mines to power renewable energy sources such as wind turbines and solar plants. This can be a dirty process, ravaging the environment, and leading to human rights abuses. Nothing seemed straightforward.
I said in last month’s postcard that I had four intentions for my journey to Australia: of which learning from indigenous spirituality and facing both the horrors and the achievements of the great British empire, were the most challenging. I now have indigestion and recognise that understanding and integrating so much is going to take a while.
See you back home soon
Love Georgie
Photos from Northern Territory and Western Australia. Clockwise from left: A water hole; Rock art; Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock); a Spikey Devil lizard. All photos Georgie Bell.
ABBA’s winning song, WATERLOO, at the Eurovision Song Contest is 50 years’ old this April; read on here
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