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Sacred Sites - Wollumbin – Mount
Sacred Sites
By Louise Clarke Wollumbin – Mount Warning
Have you ever been called by Spirit to visit a place? I have, many times.
My journey to Wollumbin was repeatedly foretold by the Earth Power Oracle cards in early 2016. Literally every single time I shuffled the deck, Wollumbin would stare me right in the face. “I create my own destiny and opportunities,” it says. “I am humbly eternal.”
Zorah Neale Hurston once said, “You’ve got to go there to know there” and, in my experience, a journey of Spirit is one best taken without a plan, open-heartedly, with a surrendering to the experience itself to guide you to where you need to be. Trust me; it is never a straight line!
I eventually found myself at sunset on 22 August 2016 at the foot of the impressive and imposing mountain, through a series of introductions and synchronicities that led me on that particular trip from Sydney to Adelaide to Kangaroo Island to Perth, back again to Sydney and then north up the coast to visit another dear friend. “Let’s camp at Wollumbin,” he randomly suggested, though he lived more than
two hours away. All I could do was laugh!
The distinctive curved silhouette of Wollumbin or Mount Warning, located near the border between New South Wales and Queensland in a warm subtropical rainforest, rises 1156 meters above the surrounding area and is a holy place to the Bundjalung people, who call it “Wollumbin”, meaning ‘cloud-catcher’ or alternatively ‘fighting chief of the mountains’. It is said that it creates its own weather and represents the last defiant stand of an ancient volcano that once utterly dominated the landscape and is the place where the first light of dawn touches mainland Australia.
Captain James Cook gave Wollumbin the English name Mount Warning in 1770 as a landmark to warn mariners of offshore reefs found in the area. It became a National Park in 1967 and was added to the United Nations World Heritage list in 1975. A steep and winding path leads to the summit of the mountain, where a viewing platform is located. The strenuous round trip hike is nine kilometres and takes approximately five hours.
As darkness enveloped the rainforest, alive with the orchestral resonance of night, my husband and I and three other deeply connected men of the land, one initiated into the lore of that sacred place, made a fire and settled
into a night of spirited story about journey and initiation and the power gained from spending time in natural resonant spaces such as this. We explored the secret origins of the beginning, in the Place of the Beginning. It was a night I will never forget.
Around three in the morning, the peaceful silence of our campsite next to Breakfast Creek was broken by dozens of cars bringing visitors to climb the treacherous mountain in time for the dawn. Under Bundjalung law, only specifically chosen people are permitted to climb the mountain and I was surprised to hear that 100,000 people ascend the summit every year regardless.
Although Peter and I were unaware that it was forbidden to climb under Indigenous creed, we had prepared to climb the mountain to experience the once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness the dawn at the place where the sun’s first rays connect with the Great Southern Land.
So, in the stillness I meditated on it, coming from a deep state of reverence in having spent all night in spirited story of that place and having been called there so strongly. I felt I was given permission to climb, on condition that we bathe ourselves first in the creek before ascending.
At 4am in the pitch dark, we gingerly made our way to the water and immersed ourselves in the iciness of the bubbling creek at the foot of Wollumbin, before heading out in the serene silence to witness the dawn from the summit of that grand and awe-inspiring height.
When I visit sacred sites, I am aware that my presence there is a spiritual quest, a pilgrimage and I open myself to the wisdom of the earth and what the experience has to teach me. This time, I found it annoyingly distracting, as groups of people passed us on the track, chatting loudly about random insignificant things seemingly unaware of the essence of the place.
It was then I fully understood that to truly understand the significance of visiting places sacred to Indigenous people anywhere, we should first engage the wisdom of the elders and the Lore of the Land.
That being said, I am personally forever changed by the experience of that most spectacular sunrise.
Until next time – honour our sacred spaces!
