In the last few weeks I have had the space to slow down and it is now I am realising what I have left behind in my packed out schedule. I have had much to share and write about during the last 3 months, however, my attention has been on the act of 'doing', the living and participating in experiences, rather than processing, reflecting and sharing. Being in the present moment immersed in being is ok, to a point. Where I am more uncomfortable is in the lack of deeper processing, reflection and contemplation. Without this complementary dimension I feel my life becomes blinded from the connections, the relational knowing that is also present. What might be called the transpersonal experience. All doing and not enough awareness of being is like living as an individual seperate entity and not recognising or engaging consciously with the universal whole. Time can fly and it can feel like I am having a lot of fun, and yet there is no sense of the deeper and greater connection to meaning or purpose to the great universal being beyond the individual separate self.
Last night I was reading Harvey Arden's Dreamkeepers on the life of the Australian Aboriginal. Chapter 17 'The Mystery of Wayrrull' introduced a most fascinating character, David Mowaljarlai.
© Harvey Arden 1994 photo of David Mowaljarlai
This is what david had to share ... "What's important is beyond all understanding - that's the first thing you must understand," ... "Ask me questions if you like ... but remember the same question's got different answers for different people.Maybe they're true for you, maybe not. And never forget - everything's a mystery anyway. Once it stops bein' a mystery it stops bein' true."
"I go to teach in the universities in Perth or Sydney or wherever young people'll listen to me. Give 'm one o' my messages. You call 'm lectures, but they're messages. Words carry the spirit, you know? That's about all we Aboriginals have left to give the world. Spirit. But that's a lot, and we're always glad to share it. So sit down in the sharde here. I'm glad you blokes caught me before I left."
"Identity," he began. "That's the thing."
"I know who I am. I have my identity. I am a Nagarinyin man. My dreaming is Hibiscus. That's my symbol, a beautiful pink flower. And this ... this is also my symbol."
His eyes burned with an incandescent pride.
"This is my brand, my identity. We have to spill our blood on the earth, spill our blood in the country to make it ours. Once we spill our blood there we belong to the country. When another Aboriginal looks at these scars, he knows where I'm from, what my country is, who I am. He knows my identity and I can look at him and know his.
"But these days my people don't belong to their country anymore. They've been locked out. White man took the land away from them. Took their identity away, too. Our people don't know where they're from anymore. They don't know their grandfather or grandmother. They don't know why they're on this earth. They hurt. They hurt in their hearts. They dry up like a desert. They're empty, like an empty drum inside.Got no life inside 'm. That's why they want the grog so bad. To make the hurt go away. To make it wet again inside."
"So they get into all kinds of humbug and kill 'mselves and each other. People I know who were young in the sixties and seventies ... they're dead now. Gone. I have to bury 'm. But I'm an old man now ... they should be buryin' me!"
"And it's all because they don't know their right place. They don't know their country anymore. They don't know their borders, their boundaries. Everyone needs to know their place and where their borders is. If they don't know that, then they don't know their own identity. Without that they have no soul, nothin'. That's their creation place that country. When they die the soul goes back there. Doesn't matter where they die, their soul goes back to their country. But now their soul is lost. They never knew their country so their soul doesn't know how to get back there."
"Even worse, today's generation don't want to listen. They've lost it and don't want to know it. They don't want to know who they are. So that's why I go around teachin' about Aboriginal identity. Teach white people, teach black people. teach 'm about Aboriginal culture. I'm trying to give the Aboriginal back his identity ... That's my work, that's my life."*
David's words spurred me to ask myself to what extent do I know my identity? Do I even want to know? To which I say a big YES. If this is true how do I go about rediscovering who I am, where my country is and reconnecting to the land? Even in a country as small in land mass as the United Kingdom there are many tribes. If I think about my travels about this land I recall many differences in topography, architecture, geology, climate, food and dialects all of which tell varying stories of the people and the land.
When did this disconnection take place?
Was it my generation, my parents?
Or way before that?
Who knows where I am from anymore or where I belong?
I wonder is it possible to start again?
Could I begin relating to the land where I now find myself?
How do I do this?
Aboriginal men scar their bodies. Their blood touches the land and forever connects them to that place. Is this how Celtic people were initiated into adulthood?
So many questions swim around in my mind searching for answers and I am reminded of David's earlier words, 'the same questions got different answers for different people'. And most of all - 'what's important is beyond all understanding.' Maybe it is not about having answers. It's more about asking questions and acting on these questions by allowing this curiosity to light the path ahead.
And back to where I started in this mystery; why did I stop writing my blog 3 months ago? I have no idea. But I did stop. And then I started gain. That is all I need to know.
*Arden, H. (1994) 'Dreamkeepers', HarperCollins, NY, (p.197-200).
