There are many stories which can be told. These are some of my stories, some that have been told, some that are in the telling. Some that may be in the living.
This week was rather intense. We had a couple of meetings with some people about a project on banking and finance. These meetings are the beginnings of a research relationship, but not just a research relationship. There were many stories told. This is part of my story. Some of it will not be shared. Some of it cannot be shared.
I grew up in the sixties on stories of the Western Australian people, the people from the Kimberleys. My parents were missionaries there before I was born. My father built the church in Mowunjum, near Derby, WA. He and Mum told the story of the minister who shook hands with all the blacks (their word), then washed his hands before shaking hands with the whites. My parents told me they would get out of the white line and mix with the blacks so the minister had to shake hands with whites before he could wash his hands. This always struck me as a powerful story. It gave me strength to push the limits of some boundaries, to question the perceptions of some people, to find different ways of acceptance.
When my parents left the mission, they were given walking sticks. These sticks were hand carved, with snakes entwined around them. If you twirled the stick, it looked like the snake was climbing the stick. They were fascinating. I remember taking them to school for ‘show and tell’. I do not remember how they were received. It didn’t matter, they were part of my heritage.
There was also a platter which had the Windjina gods on it. These were the gods of weather, There was the thunder god and the lightning god. Five different gods were dipicted. I haven’t seen the platter in years and cannot remember all their names. But this platter became a link for me. A link to the land, to a land I have never seen.
I grew up on stories of a different way of life, of a life connected to the land, where people didn’t own the land, the land owned them. It seems now to be an almost spiritual existance, an existance that a patriarchal, land-owning culture cannot and does not comprehend. It seems almost surreal, something beyond what can be seen and felt by our normal senses. I suppose this set me up for rejecting many of the christian mythologies. It was almost the antithesis of what we’re taught within christianity, the righteousness of one’s position being embedded in a book that is multiply interpreted depending on what one needs to get from it.
But those stories seem to be a new mythology, one that I am no longer sure of. The belief that the land owned people in some ways led me to my interest in environmental studies. I know I struggled with different perceptions during my degree, that the environment was part of a larger social process, processes that in white society were a part of a god-given right to use (and abuse – go forth and multiply).
The more recent history of land in Australia, some of which I have not followed in detail, seems to negate that perception of the land as a spiritual entity. I hear the phrase that people are land-owners and it confuses me. There seems to be an appropriation of white values and I suppose it’s because of that lack of understanding of the spirituality in which the land was held. A statement which may be saying you cannot understand my way, so I will use your words. I hope that is what is happening. I hope it is not a full appropriation of the patriarchal way.
On Thursday, I was priviliged to be welcomed by the traditional people of the land on which the Uni stands. In that welcome, all that spirituality which I craved as a child came back, left me feeling both connected and bereft. It stirred the darkest recesses of isolation that comes from living in a patriarchal ownership society. The sound of the didgeridoo and the voice of the people came through and touched both sadness and happiness in me, touched a long-hidden part, a separated part and in that short time, I was once again for the first time connected, was one of a people.
I want to go back to the yarning circle and tell my stories. This yarning circle was not the time for my stories, was not the space for me. This was a space to connect in a different way. That connection was achieved. There are many more to make.
