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Butterfly cave saved, Way of life, Way of being, Treasure beyond measure

Site of great significance is saved from developers’ clutches

Romy Stephens reports: NSW government buys sacred Butterfly Cave from developers after 13-year fight for site’s protection, (ABC Newcastle, 17 Jun 2024)

The sacred women’s site is a safe place for women and children to meet and is an area where female elders educate girls.
What’s next? An Awabakal woman hopes it unlocks doors to protect other sacred sites across the country.

Read the full story here

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Way of life, way of being.
The First People’s way of life – their very being – was to be at one with the land, with country.

INDIGENOUS DECISION-MAKING was made paying attention to limits and accepting constraints.  They paid the price for not respecting the Earth. They did not have a monetary accounting system that estimated costs.  The Earth story was their story. They didn’t, couldn’t, externalise or pass off onto future generations unwise decisions. There were immediate feedback loops that helped inform their decision-making there and then, on the spot, in real time.

To ignore these meant consequences were felt within the next season or cycle of nature’s birth-life-death-regeneration process or sequence.

Their children were steeped in the story of how nature could be a benefit or a threat. Theirs was a healthy respect for the ‘great turning’ (David Korten) of the earth’s evolving and expanding story.

They lived in awe of the earth’s magnificence. Through story and dance they expanded their memory code (Lynne Kelly) that contained complex details of how life had been and was unfolding.

Through totems and intimate connections with the web of life – geology, plants and animals – they expressed a deep respect for the mother of their being. The source from which they were born and to which they would be re-embraced. This was Earth Law, this was life.

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Treasure beyond measure

MUNIBUNG HILL IS A TREASURED ASSET. Having said that, Munibung Hill is not an asset like a piece of infrastructure, a piece machinery.  Rather, it is more appropriate to apply ecological accounting principles in the case of Munibung Hill.  While we consider technology and material infrastructure to be assets, they are in most cases liabilities (see Motivated Money, Peter Thornhill), that depreciate over time.

By contrast, Munibung Hill does not depreciate, she matures.  She is a wonderful example of compounding interest, building on earlier generations, adding to her diversity, accumulating knowledge and wisdom, providing benefits to all who take the time to engage and become entangled with her (see Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake).

Munibung Hill is a living, breathing, life enhancing ‘asset’ that has been passed down through the generations of geological time, plant and animals species time and First Nations Peoples’ time, to the present.

Munibung Hill stands head and shoulders above this sundrenched land. For the many she must be preserved, from the few she must be protected.

It is not fanciful to say that Munibung Hill keeps watch over Lake Macquarie, as did Biraban, back in the early 1800s keeping watch over Awabakal Country.

In every respect, provided she is given ‘elder’ status from a landscape perspective, she will be a refuge for the weary, an inspiration for the creative – the artist, the poet – a wow factor to see beyond the immediate to the far horizon, connecting land and lake and ocean.

Note: Biraban, Aboriginal elder – In search of Eaglehawk stories

… From MMM Issue #45, June-July 2024