Giving voice to the fire...

Have you been struggling to make sense of the fires and it’s link to our need for indigenous wisdom?

This may help to shed light on the complexity of the issue…

If you are living anywhere in Australia, I’m sure you can agree that the last few weeks have been quite trying. There has been widespread upheaval as the raw power of fire has saturated our hearts and the land.

It’s felt painful to see large tracks of native land burn, nesting birds die, koalas needing to be saved from death and hear our friend’s stories of houses being burnt to the ground.

It even felt like waves of panic and fear began to pulse into our collective experience.

Could you feel this?

In the face of the drought and the power of wind and fire, a lot of us felt helpless.

At one stage our program venue and our home were both in the path of the fires. We had to evacuate our venue, get ready to evacuate our home and postpone the Vision Quest program to April 2020.  Fortunately for us the winds eased and the fires settled. This gave our local heroic RFS teams enough time to create fire breaks, which have slowed and, in some places, stopped the fires.  

Among all of this I was so grateful for Roslyn’s offering to our community of the water ritual. Roslyn is a female Yolngu elder from the remote Mäpuru Homelands Community, NE Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. We have visited with her every year for over a decade and she has adopted me as her daughter. From afar, Roslyn’s traditional wisdom has been guiding our fire ravaged community. She has been urging us to grow into our potential, to call in the rain and stay strong in the face of adversity.

Through our Social Media channels Roslyn’s words reached over 100,000 concerned humans and are a testament to how deeply in need we are of mentorship by indigenous Australia. Calling for water gave us all hope and direction at a time where otherwise we could have easily been overwhelmed by fear.

I can’t thank her enough. She has been a rock to our community.

And thank you - if you were a part of sharing her message to the broader world - I know in my heart it has made a difference.  

Although at the same time I also began to feel something else deep in my heart.

Pangs of shame.

Let me explain…

I first saw the mention of a police shooting in the Northern Territory while the fires were raging. I didn’t really have enough time to look into it then and I felt the normal response rise up within me… disbelief that this was still happening today and concern for the community affected.

I then started to see the story pop up more and more in my feeds. So, I gave some time to learning about what happened.

The story is not a good one. The officer who shot the 19yr old Yuendumu man has been charged with murder and the community is understandably bereft with grief at losing a young man at the hands of a white police officer. If you haven’t already, I recommend you seek the story out. It’s not a comfortable read or at least not if you care about the welfare of remote communities.

The story is what triggered my shame.

I haven’t danced with shame for many years but no matter which way I felt into my body, shame was alive within me. I was feeling ashamed of seeking help from my Yolngu family while other members of my culture were killing their kin’s children.

The event has triggered an epic pain in Aboriginal Australia which of course reaches into the darkest days of White Australia’s colonial invasion. As the fires raged around us, I began to feel this epic pain raging inside my internal landscape too.

The situation in Yuendumu is fraught with the cultural complexities we have heard of so many times, complexities which often become hard worn excuses for why change just isn't forthcoming.  My husband, Sam heard about the murder first from his adopted Yolngu brother & Mäpuru Community elder, Jackie Minbirk. Minbirk and Sam are very close, often a week doesn’t go by without them connecting. He rang us up and in distress asked “Have you heard that story about that little boy?, Did you hear? It’s yaka manymuk (not good) that the police can shoot a little boy.”

It felt like Minbirk was hoping we would have an answer or somehow know how this impossible cycle of death kept happening to his kin.

Talk about feeling powerless.

That’s when it really hit me. It just didn’t feel right – that on one hand I am ringing up my Yolngu mum in distress, asking for help and benefiting deeply from the love and help she is giving me AND at the same time, people from my culture, my side of the fence, are continuing to use violence and murder towards them to “shoot a little boy”.

I couldn’t escape the wave of emotion. It felt like the thunder I was so desperate to hear, with the effect of stripping away the crystal-clear waters between us and our Yolngu family.

I gave up resisting feeling the full weight of this event and gave way to this impossible pain.

I discovered how edgy it is to really feel into the darkness of human violence associated with the global colonial movement.

It’s edgy to accept that I cannot disown this violence today, that it is alive as a fundamental part of the life I enjoy now. The lives a lot of us enjoy.

It felt like the wind and fire took my hand, moved straight through me and moved my body, pointing me towards this place of deep discovery – a necessary place where the sins of my culture, the shame and the grief are required to flow through me.

In order to change me.

This entire story still remains an uncomfortable feeling that I need to unpack further. I know it’s complex, a web full of dark transgressions, pain and deep regret. And yes, I know I’m not personally responsible for what that police officer did. But that mindset won't release the shame I feel in my body. Or release me from this voice inside, which is whispering relentlessly, this is my murder and my double standards.

I’m finding it difficult to digest.

I can see how deeply held I am within the privilege of my life.
I can see how deep the disadvantage is for Aboriginal Australia.
I can see how the help they need just isn't there, when they need it most.
I can see how desperately we need their help.

I know a lot of us want this festering wound to heal. It will take love, healing and forgiveness from all sides. But considering the past and our current system, sometimes I wonder if we really deserve the love or forgiveness of Aboriginal Australia at all?

I know this is a sharp offering. I can’t apologise if reading this makes you uncomfortable. I’m sharing it because it feels important to further strip back what is happening here inside my body. Inside our collective body.

To give voice to the fire and song to the wind that fuels it. To be in the chaos of these times and find meaning. To somehow search for a way forward, a pathway into a new world where we can all claim safety and security as a basic human right.

And, as a white woman with adoption into Yolngu family, it feels critical that I am not afraid to dive beneath my white, thick skin - which so conveniently offers to numb me to the pain of Aboriginal Australia.  

OUR 2020 NATURE CONNECTION PROGRAMS

In the wake of these powerful times we are doubling down our efforts to create positive change in a way that makes sense to us.

Sam and I see the global environmental crisis as our collective opportunity to transform culture. To rewild the most domesticated parts of our world so we can collectively remember sustainable and ancient ways.

In truth, this is the transformation we have been working towards for many years.

We know this transformation is arising from within all of us. So here’s to continuing to point towards a path of earth connection as our only sustainable future.

Our next big program announcement will be the official launch of the 2020 Nature ONE Teacher Training program.

We’ll be in touch again in the coming days with details. Once we enter 2020 we will also be announcing a few other amazing programs which I’m sure will support your personal transformation and ignite your passions.   

If you and your community have in any way been affected by the fires, please know that we see you and send our deepest support.

In Connection,

X Kate

Kate Rydge

Nature Philosophy, Founder