These Are Patterns That Connect
[A tribute to the Bunya Dreaming Festival — 26th January, 2019]
Like spiders’ webs with life-force gone, the old ‘ropes trail’, a test of skill and balance and courage, strings from tree-to-tree across ephemeral waters.
Ageing — tenuous — connections
Holding fading memories of past supports…
Can these still be trusted?
Across the water, floating above the reeds
— rooted in the dark and reaching for bright sky —
Tilted angles bundling light and dark together
Like parallel cross-hatching; pointing, askew, skyward —
The sounds of laughter call from a nearby shore.
Afternoon sun shines bright through backlit branches, and glistens off water — rippling and still.
From across the tannin waters and lily pads,
Hidden by blue-grey reeds and gold-green trees, and webs of light, and leaves of colour, and dancing light and dark…
Raucous cheers beckon again; Bunya Dreaming! Festivities in full swing!
Earlier, a Welcome;
A calling-out, a calling-up to say your piece:
Wherefrom? What’s up?
A naming, an invitation, to celebrate or mourn,
A skilled story-teller drawing laughter and reflection in equal measure
As people and country, passed and present, are honoured for all assembled.
A sob rings out; uncontrollable in the moment,
And a firm-hand on tattoed-arm reaches out, and gently-rubs between shoulder blades to comfort heaving, still-raw grief.
A Barkindji woman mentions her Darling, dying,
And people collectively sigh for a river, source of life and culture;
Neglected, abused, exploited, disrespected and stolen, far away in still-white mans’ New South Wales…
Those grieving — for damaged Country or lost Family — get heartfelt hugs, respect and love,
Shows of feeling, of collective emotion…
These are patterns that connect…
For country and kin are related, collectively felt, and mourned as one.
As the sun sinks in the west
Ochre-painted clay-smeared silhouettes arise
From waters of shimmering light and shade in a way practiced for millennia, laughing, excited.
Two transhumans, hearts both damaged and fixed by white technology, prepare to lead to the dancing circle.
Jandamarra enters the circle to gift a Boomerang;
shaped by Shane, an embodiment of graceful strength,
a sensuous curve-following-timber-grained artful symbol
made stronger by intentional design,
Light and dark, parallel, paired, to fly together.
Aunty Bev receives it with outstretched arms and humble grace
As she does the embodied culture she is calling back into being;
Like a boomerang’s arc, spinning beautifully, lifting and then spiralling, back,
To be caught and gently held by this inspired Dream Catcher.
As the Didgeridoo’s deep-throated resonance starts,
Summoning the spirit of this land, calling it forth,
The dancers take to the circle, to dance.
To dance, among the gathered clans and invited newcomers,
Calling culture to spiral back,
Back, into their hearts
Back, into the hearts of all…
White and Black….
What is seen is only part of what is felt…
Respect rings loud from young and old,
This deeply embodied emotional connection,
This deliberate circle of cross-cultural gathering,
Celebrating humanity, together,
In this liminal zone between land, water, sky, and time.
Last light blazes, bathing all gathered — light and dark —
In golden moments of collective presence.
Circling ripples of conversation and deep-time, shared,
Bearing witness, transcending time, space and culture;
The honeyed-light strengthening ties and healing wounds.
This is Bunya Dreaming,
Transforming…
Transformative…
No soul-less credit card transactions here… these are soul-full relationships;
Relationships…
Relationships based around Sharing, Grief, Joy, Love, Hope,
Sadness, Respect, Trust; and, most of all, Connection.
Gathered here,
On common ground where all can weave together
Across differences that make a difference….
These are patterns that connect
In places where primordial Earth, Wind and Fire enhance cultural experience,
Where renewed culture is willed back into existence,
Sung into being, still, again,
By encouraged souls connected.
Walking back through steamy hollows on wooden boardwalks,
Past scribbled signatures on ivory bark sending messages skyward to where goannas and crows peer down on those cheering the roll of the Bunya Cones,
Spiral vine tendrils and curled fern fronds provide the anchors for new webs to be spun.
This ancient mastery of the patterns that connect,
Serves well as a metaphor for what is happening here:
Finding anchor points, creating threads, making it strong and flexible,
Conserving energy by recycling the old,
Remembering how to maintain in ways that, if strung in the right places, at the right time, and “proper way”,
Can tune the vibrations to catch both light and dark, and become a web of life-affirming, life-sustaining, life.
As Bunya Dreaming grows, from strength of will, determination, and spirit,
As tender custodianship renews connections, creating deepening memories of fun times present,
A new ropes trail, a test of skill, courage and balance is emerging,
Stringing open-heart-to-open-heart beside ephemeral waters,
Like spiders’ webs with life-force
Enticing and catching
Both dark and light,
In a story-telling Dream Catcher’s golden embrace…
These are patterns that connect…
Neil Davidson, January 2019
[Written in deep appreciation to the wonderful Aboriginal communities that trusted me enough to invite me into and make me welcome at their Bunya Dreaming Festival at Ewen Maddock Dam on the Sunshine Coast, Southeast Queensland, on 26th January 2019]
