Story dreaming

We are on holiday.

A road trip of sorts, travelling down part of the east coast of Australia, to see and experience our country.

We visited Coffs Harbour, a coastal city, and then drove up the winding mountain roads to the lookouts at the top of the mountains behind the city.  

The views were awesome,

the facilities provided by local government inviting and well-built. 

To get to the second lookout, we walked along a track, about 400 metres, 

surrounded by towering gum trees, 

tantalising glimpses of the sea and coastal plain, 

and occasionally by reminders of the Story of Gumgali.

The Gumbaynggirr people are the garlugun-gi girrwaa, or “first mob” of the Coffs Harbour area, traditional owners of the land, and last year they granted permission to tell the story of Gumgali the black goanna.

The Story of Gumgali

Jalumbaw yarrang Gumgaliyu nyaawang niigarrin biguurr-garri waruungga juluumba.

Long ago that Gumgali saw men with spears high in the mountains.

“Galang, Yaam ngaya wambi. Ngaya yaarri yarraang giili,” yirraang Gumgaliyu.

“Oh gosh, I’m scared. I’m outta here now,” said Gumgali.

“Ngaaja yaanggu jaliija wajaada gaagalgu waalgaw yarrang muniim barrway manggarla.”

“I’ll go underground to the ocean and push that big rock ahead of me.”

Yaarrigay yarrang Gumgali burraabading gaagala. Wanaawang niigarrin wajaada.

And then Gumgali arrived at the ocean, leaving the men behind on the land.

The aboriginal people all across Australia have stories of their country. 

 Many of the characters in the stories are based on the animals that live there. 

The stories have been passed down from generation to generation,

as have been the stories and myths of our culture.

They give meaning and connection to the country,

and confirm the role of humans, and the view that humans have of themselves - give that meaning, too.

If you read the story again, think a bit about what it says about the humans who lived there and 

a bit about what it says about humans and animals,

and a bit about the goanna head way out into the sea.

The stories that the aborigines tell are called The Dreaming or The Dreamtime.

And as I walked along the track back to out next adventure, I couldn't help thinking that that is just where the magic of story lies, in the dream-state it can create for us as we listen and imagine and travel along with the storyteller, absorbing the culture, the lesson and taking that experience and that lesson into our personal consciousness.

Thank you Coffs Harbour, the Gumbanggyir, and Gumgali.

That thing called The Dreaming that I learned about at school doesn't seem such a "foreign" concept after all.

Saying Goodbye to a TERRIBLE, NO-GOOD, VERY BAD Year

And I have just watched another piece of social media madness telling me what a BAAAAAAD year 2016 was,

All those celebrities died.

America elected Donald Trump.

We went on making terrible decisions about our planet and its future.

We went on making terrible decisions about ourselves and our contribution to the economy.

We went on making terrible decisions about other humans and how they should run their countries, their lives, their relationships.

WOE IS ME!!

Yes, we learn from our mistakes.

I KNOW that.

But we will not learn if all we do is wring our hands and shiver with horror at how horrible it all is or was.

And that's what it's about isn't it?  That shiver, that little, closet ripple, that little flow of adrenalin. We can indulge in it because it's safe.  These things are not me, not us, and we can share in that little shiver, indulge in that little ripple, together.

After all, there's nothing we can do about it.

and

It's not really about us.

In the latest video (quite drastically edited from the original, but well done, nonetheless), the one that finally stirred me to write this piece, a man wakes up after being asleep for the whole year.  His minder lists the achievements throughout the year.  The man grunts.

His minder lists all of the dead celebrities.  The man grunts, and is noticeably moved.

A gorilla who was shot is added to the list with the additional statement that "No-one is safe."

His minder prepares to top the list

"There's one thing I haven't told you yet and it's really, really bad."

The man's response?

"We've run out of ham?"

The answer, of course, was Donald Trump's election, and yet somehow it was a let-down after the possibility of the loss of ham.

Not me, not us, not anything that concerns me, really.

Shall I add the war and killings and genocide, the rapes of the environment and of humans?

Man's inhumanity to man, woman's inhumanity, humankind's inhumanity?

People not being the best a human could be?

"After all, there's nothing we can do about it."

and

"It's not really about us."

In the way of all stories, it always is about us, and there is always something we can do about it.

You will know why it is about you, about us, and what you or we can do about it - your personal lesson from the story, the one you need right now

what you need to learn about death and dying

what you need to learn about humanity and being the best human you, me, we can be.

Right now I have to work on evolving into the best human I can be, in order to contribute to the best humans we can all be.

And right now, I need to learn how we can use story in order to lead us all to being the best humans we can be.




I end as I began - with social media - one of the most powerful storytelling platforms that we have - 




and return to that video,

which in the end, 



turned out to be a wonderful story - 



because it made us all return to just what mattered in 2016 - 

and that's the ham, and Harambe, 

and how we can only really change the world with compassion 

and from within our own lives.







The Video I watched is here  and the original is here .

Commitment to love

Can you commit to love with the same intensity that a hater commits to hate?

Can I?

Can we?

I find that to be an amazing challenge, personally. So ... thinking it through, musing ... Hate is an easy emotion, automatic for many of us. It saves us from hurt, from working through whatever brought it up - fear, anger, hurt, betrayal. But love - has to be intentional ... and then ... just as easy! Turning an emotion outward, just the same, rather than letting something eat away inside. Turning out an emotion that is safer, and healing as well. Tell ourselves that story ... of hurt, fear, anger, betrayal... turning out love. Tell ourselves the story of a hero with the strength to do that rather than giving in to the old story of revenge and destruction. Tell the story of a beloved friend or advisor who takes the hero, battered and hurting and full of hate, and quietly tells them his own story of replacing the self-loathing and carnage caused by revenge and destruction, with an amazing inner strength that came from realising that love and cooperation is so much more powerful and productive.

Oh Einstein, if you only knew!!

This story has been told and shared by all sorts of people, all around the world, but this particular version appeared on my Facebook from Elite Readers

Lets put your logic to the test grin emoticon

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
P.S.
I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?
Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.
By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.
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This is a beautiful story, powerful. 

It is a classic case of combining logic, emotion and credibility to persuade. 

I loved it. 

It worked on its own. 

At the bottom, though, is a fatal flaw 

"By the way, that student was Einstein". 

This is also a classic. 

Lots of people make Einstein the owner of a wise statement to give themselves credit. 

Einstein was not the student. There is no record of his saying that. 

In one sentence, the storyteller reduced his/her credibility, which is a shame because the story stood on its own. 

Isn't it good? 

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.  ~ Joan Didion

[Story] I name you Bronze-wing

This morning I walked along the tracks through Aussie bush not far from our house. 

There are all sorts of creatures living there and I love to stop and see if I can spot whatever it is that is creating rustling noises not far from the track. There are goannas, snakes, birds, lizards, echidnas (though I have never had the luck to see one of those), and the occasional wallaby.

Today, there was a rather large bird pecking about near the dry creek. I could not identify it - a stranger.

As I walked back that way, two of them flew up and into the trees not far away. I was lucky to meet a man and his wife just then. They identified the birds as bronze-wing pigeons. Beautiful people, those people, friendly and kind. The birds are rather dull-coloured, though apparently if the sun shines on the bronze, it is beautiful. To me it was a beautiful experience, though - bringing back absolutely beautiful memories, and the feeling of something clicking into place.

When I was a little girl, growing up in the country, there was a young man - a "bit of a character" - who had a perfectly chosen nick-name for everyone in the district. Mine ... because of my own name, Bronwyn, was "bronze-wing". He was a bit of larrikin, but well-liked, and occasionally, my family would refer to me as bronze-wing, or remind me that that was the name Lennie had given me, always with humorous respect for him and with tender love for me.

I don't remember ever meeting or being shown a bronze-wing pigeon then or since - until today. It was just Lennie's lovely nick-name, and it brings back memories of those days - images, scents, sounds, and the pervading feeling of love. Click!

............................ 

Bronze-wing : Part 2

Lennie, the larrikin.  Lennie the name-giver.

I think life was painful for Lennie.  

He did have a wonderful sense of humour, possibly it could be called a wicked sense of humour.  

I guess he could have been seen as wicked.  When we went back 10 years or so ago to the centenary of the primary school he and I attended, there were the records of the canings he was given - almost daily.  I don't remember what misdemeanors he committed - possibly swearing ..., but he probably made life difficult for the teachers.

I suspect he saw no relevance in school, or its operations.

He loved his car, I remember.  It burbled - certainly a V8.  I remember him arriving at a rodeo, driving slowly behind the cars parked around the rodeo ring, looking for a pace to stop, and creating a jaunty little change to the burble of his car as he passed, as a way of saying "hello".

He grew up on a farm as we all did, but obviously had no desire to stay there.  He drove school buses for a while and then became a long distance truckie.  It must have a been a huge worry for his wife.  He was a diabetic, but rebelled against the stringent diet and exercise restrictions.

He was a person who questioned life and expressed his views with that special witty humour. Everyone  in that community, as far as I know, appreciated his wit.  He did have a sense of humour and there was often a twinkle in his eye, though also often a grimace.  I know he had the knack, whenever he saw me, of communicating both a question as to the most basic of my assumptions about myself and what I was doing, and, simultaneously, a feeling of love, respect and fellowship.

Funny.  Clever.  Different.  Irreverent.  Insightful.

.....................................

Today I have just read that the autopsy performed on Robin Williams showed no traces of drugs or alcohol.  The final indignity.  

But this, too, was a man who was funny, clever, different, irreverent, insightful and with that same communication of love, respect and fellowship.

R.I.P. Robin Williams.

R.I.P. Lenny ...

and thank you for my totem, "Bronze-wing".