I wrote in my last blog about Archie Roach’s Memoir ‘Tell Me Why.’ It’s taken me a while to finish the book as my reading time is limited to the evenings and mostly in bed.
This book stirred some deep emotions in me.
As those of you who have read my memoir may remember, we spent three months living on an Aboriginal settlement on the edge of the Tanami Desert. This experience will be indelibly etched in my memory forever. These people were still living on their country and while there was a small grocery store, they were essentially sustained by the land. Their culture, traditions, stories were still intact.
Archie writes of a different life – of being taken from his parents at a young age, and being fostered by a Scottish family in Melbourne. While he was deeply loved by his new ‘parents’ and well cared for, he became aware, as a teenager, of his roots, and the ache to find his family drove him to leave the security of his foster home and set out to find his people. I try to imagine how I would feel, what I would do, how I would have my heart torn out if someone were to have come to my house when my kids were young and said ‘We are taking your children. Today. Now.’ And then nothing. No sounds of play. A desolate home.
The story tells of a life that would seem impoverished to some, but he ended up gradually finding his siblings – one by one. And this was more important to him than anything else. Tragically his parents had both died.
As I read I was made even more aware of how important family is to the Aboriginal people. They have no qualms about living communally – aunties, uncles, cousins, siblings, children, all in one house. Its the tribe looking after and helping each other. Archie was always able to get work but alcoholism prevented him from keeping a job, as it did many of his family members. One day he stared self-destruction in the face. His music career took off and he eventually became sober.
The book gave me an insight into how our Aboriginal people live in cities. It’s very much a sad plight but Archie was a great example of how it is possible to integrate, work hard and realize potential.
The ending of his book is truly beautiful and I will quote it for you here.
‘Most people look to Africa to trace the origins of the human race, but the latest DNA studies confirm that the most continuous ancient human civilisation can be found on Aboriginal land in Australia, dating back over 50,000 years ago. So all of humanity is Aboriginal – meaning ‘from the origin.’
We were a hunter-gatherer society that lived within our clans, gathering around the fire to commune and share stories. Over human history, some people chose to stay around that fire, while others chose to leave.
Those who left spread across the lands and seas, forming tribes and later villages, moving away from the fire. The Industrial Age further disconnected us from Mother Earth, from our origins.
But there were Aboriginal people who stayed by the fire, who never left and are now calling us back, to retrace our steps back to the fire, to reconnect to our origins, to a love of the earth and each other. I believe they have a story, a wisdom and a way of life that can help everyone who lives in this country.
New research on my mother’s ancestral country, in Warnambool at the mouth of the Hopkins River, has just been released, suggesting that my ancestors were living here some 120,000 years ago . . . .
. . . . . For so long we have been divided by ‘isms’ – racism, sexism, fundamentalism, individualism – but when we come back to the place of fire, I believe we will discover there’s far more that connects us than separates us. I believe we will be one humanity again, that we will find release , healing and true freedom.
The ‘place of fire’ is a place of love and connection. We’ll all be there. I’ll be there – to welcome you back , wrap my arms around you and say “I’ve missed you. Welcome home.” ‘
He was a special man.
How I see this my way, is to imagine a picture of the earth in blocks of colour that depicted where each tribe lived thousands of years ago. As men became curious and built boats and learnt navigation, they took to the sea in a quest to find what was over the horizon. Gradually they spread out and settled around the globe. In the last few hundred years, as methods of travel have improved, the painting is now more like a water-colour with the tribal blocks of colour diluting, merging, swirling until we have become a global village. In the beginning every land was trodden by primitive feet but now the earth is peopled by us all. It is shared.
I have lived around the fire. Not as wholly as our Aboriginal people did of course but I have lived in the bush where life revolved around the camp-fire. A simple existence lived close to the earth IS free-ing – of mind, body and spirit. In this period of my life we were families living together. There was music, singing, stories. Our children wandered and explored the bush, without toys. No physical boundaries, but they knew where home was. And sustenance. And love. This I believe, is an inheritance from our people of old – a love and an appreciation of mother earth, our shared land.
Our small group of poets gathered again last Sunday. As I listened to the poetry read, I thought about how this was story-telling. The format has been broadened to include prose and short stories. It’s almost getting back to ‘around the fire,’ but in a cosy wine room instead of in the bush. I have delighted in sitting with this group that extracts narratives from their daily lives and shares them.
The poem I want to share with you this time is called – SUNDAY MORNING SUMMER DREAM. It is from a time where life was a little like this for me. Or maybe a life dreamed of. I don’t know about you but every now and then I have a dream of the most extraordinary detail.
If you’re reading this on your phone, turn it sideways for the poem’s best format.
The dream was the experience of seeing a distant figure
Featureless
A speck
Apart from the cabin
Tenderly turning the loamy earth
with dreams of providence
food for family
A summer hazy mull arrested me
and told me of your mettle
your willingness to dwell at Nature’s feet
My spectral movement brought me close
until I knew all but your face
The sun caressed your golden body wet with work
then you sensed my timid presence
In dream’s slow lope
your morning eyes like a beacon’s beam
scanned wide
and then met mine
with godly depth and brilliance
The figment stilled the motion
while I cast a dream smile at your eyes
A smile to move a mountain
to change a river’s course
In my hands I sifted Mother Earth’s damp warmth
and gladly climbed the steep hill of humility
No words
Just an age of thoughts between us
I would have stayed
but soundlessly you sent me on
your eyes speaking truth
age old knowledge
and I acquiesced
You were on the home stretch
My roadway drawled before me
lorn and lank
and I began to tread it
As I went
a cold wall of misgiving leaned on me
crushing me
but I could not recede
There were seers and old soldiers
travelling your way
but they would not enlist me
till I’d scanned the signs at the Out line’s limit
There were those who questioned my position
in the marrow of the night
Well who are you they asked me
Did you see the seers said I
Their eyes have told me who I am
I saw your dawn eyes deep with knowledge
Your body toil torn and chastened
waiting
to receive my revelation
Then the tunnel of the dream closed on me
as in waking
cold waves of reality
took paradise away
I am about to hit the road again. A trip to some of the loveliest parts of Victoria. Will tell you all about it in my next blog.
Be safe.
Warmly,
Sue
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