Sarah Moss, ABC Illawarra reports on: How Aboriginal culture can teach us how to live with less and tread more lightly.
Jamie Thomas is executive director of Wayapa Wuurrk, an earth connection practice based on ancient Indigenous wisdom that focuses on taking care of the Earth for the wellbeing of all.
A senior cultural knowledge holder for his Peek Whuurrung People of the Maara Nation and GunaiKurnai Communities, he co-created the practice with his partner Sara Jones to honour Australia’s First Nations as being among the oldest continuing cultures.
“It’s an earth connection practice based on earth mindfulness, meditation, physical movements but also the practicality of how we can take care of Mother Earth,” he said.
“At the end of the day, all human beings have ancestors going back tens of thousands of years that did the same thing. It’s just that we’ve lost that connection with Country because we haven’t bothered looking after it.”
The economy and spirit are inseparable.
Such a sentence is unimaginable in Western economics; a spiritually bankrupt mode of thought completely dissociated from the ground beneath our feet. But that ground, that imperiled earth – our only real wealth – is the foundation of the knowledge of country that Pascoe is intent on sharing.
The key idea is that humans come second to Earth. Given climate change, given the way we’re ruining the Earth as if it were not our only home, such knowledge is vital. As Pascoe understands it: ‘Human survival on a healthy planet is not a soft liberal pipe dream; it is sound global management and the deepest of religious impulses.’
Valuing country, Let me count three ways, by Jane Gleeson-White, Griffith Review, No 63
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People
August 9 was International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. According to the UN, there are over 476 million indigenous peoples living in 90 countries across the world.
Despite representing a diverse range of cultures and territories, what indigenous peoples all over the world have in common is that they all inspire us to deeply respect and preserve the land we live in and to build a deep relationship with animals, trees, rivers, mountains, all the other-than-human beings.
“We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.”
—Qwatsinas (Hereditary Chief Edward Moody), Nuxalk Nation
Connecting the cultural knowledge of local Indigenous communities with Western science.
Two-way Science: An Integrated Learning Program for Aboriginal Desert Schools supports schools and communities to connect the cultural knowledge of the local community with Western science and the Australian curriculum. A Two-way Science approach promotes Indigenous leadership in education, and fosters partnerships within and between communities. We can all learn from this resource and from this approach.
MMM > Issue 22, October 2023
