NAIDOC and Indigenous spirituality

Revd Gary van Heerden Chaplain

We celebrated NAIDOC Week at Scotch in Week 2 of the Winter Term.

As Chaplain, I’d like to highlight three aspects of Indigenous spirituality, as I understand them, that are worth celebrating.

At the outset though, let’s be clear that there isn’t one Indigenous spirituality. Prior to invasion there were 250 languages, each language group with its own creation stories and spirituality.

“Aboriginal spirituality is so incredibly diverse,’ says Aboriginal director Warwick Thornton, ‘there are 50 languages left, 30 of them critical but all of them with their own culture, their own spirituality, their own creation stories, their own everything” (‘Warwick Thornton in Conversation with God’, SMH, 1/9/2014).

First, the notion that everything is connected.

Aboriginal spirituality, according to author Mudrooroo, “is a feeling of oneness, of belonging, a connectedness with deep innermost feelings. Everything else is secondary” (‘Us Mob’, Mudrooroo, 1995, p. 33).

There is no distinction between a material world of objects/things, and the sacred world of creative energy. As with our Celtic forebears, there was a belief that God/the Other/the Divine is present in everything. This connectedness, this presence, wasn’t just an idea, it was a way of living, of being. It undermines the false dualism so often present in Christianity today, that the body is sinful, but the spirit is good; that one is being religious when in chapel, but a sinner when engaging in almost everything else.

This interconnectedness is expressed “by learning to restrict the ‘mine-ness’ and to develop a strong sense of ‘ours-ness’,” explains Aboriginal Elder Uncle Bob Randall (‘Songman: The Story of an Aboriginal Elder of Uluru’, Bob Randall, ABC 2003, p. 24).

This notion of the sacred in us, around us, in whatever we are doing, all the time, means that we have a responsibility to care for each other, particularly those who are struggling.

Secondly, because everything is connected, there is naturally a very deep connection to land and country.

The earth is “impregnated with the power of the Ancestor Spirits”. This connection with land is at the heart of Indigenous spiritualities.

“We don’t own the land, the land owns us. The land is my mother, my mother is the land. Land is the starting point to where it all began. It’s like picking up a piece of dirt and saying this is where I started and this is where I’ll go. The land is our food, our culture, our spirit and identity.” (Knight S., 1996, Our Land Our Life, card, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra).

Finally, these connections, these relations, our interconnectedness, are expressed in sacred stories.

These sacred stories describe how powerful creator ancestors shaped and developed the world. Also known as Dreamtime, Dreaming stories, Songlines, these sacred stories find expression in performances within each of the language groups across Australia.

The sacred stories of Indigenous Australians encourage us all to connect with our own sacred stories, which offer a means of connecting with the divine, making sense of complex concepts, finding moral guidance, and strengthening the bonds of community. Through these stories, individuals are inspired, encouraged, and equipped to live meaningful lives.

Together we celebrate the history, culture and achievements of the oldest surviving culture on the planet. In terms of the legacy of its spiritualities, we recognise the importance of valuing, respecting, and learning from the wisdom and knowledge embedded within these spiritual traditions.

A prayer in the form of a poem by Yorta Yorta woman, Hyllus Maris (1934-86), ‘Spiritual Song of the Aborigine’

I am a child of the Dreamtime People

Part of this Land, like the gnarled gumtree

I am the river, softly singing

Chanting our songs on my way to the sea

My spirit is the dust-devils

Mirages, that dance on the plain

I’m the snow, the wind and the falling rain

I’m part of the rocks and the red desert earth

Red as the blood that flows in my veins

I am eagle, crow and snake that glides

Through the rain-forest that clings to the mountainside

I awakened here when the earth was new

There was emu, wombat, kangaroo

No other man of a different hue

I am this land

And this land is me

I am Australia.

(Spiritual Song of the Aborigine, Hyllus Maris, in: ‘Discover...The Australian Aborigines’, 1998, p.18).