Dreaming is not a very accurate word. It is an English word that we use to try and capture the meaning of an indigenous concept.
Oomera Edwards (Guyunggu) describes the Dreaming as “the spiritual concept of purpose, time, connectedness and spirit. The Dreaming encompasses spiritual knowledge, past, present and future.”
Land
For Aboriginal people, land is sacred. It may be said, to Aboriginal people, land is God. For Aboriginal people, to look at their country is to see God near and present.
“Without land we are nothing…Without land we are a lost people.” (Djon Mundine O.A.M in Catholic Earthcare Australia On Holy Ground , p.9)
Aboriginal Dreaming This was a chart which Kevin (an Arrente man from the Alice Springs area) shared. Although it isn't perfect, it tries to show how every aspect of the dreaming fits together. The sacred world is not separate from the physical world and the human world - it is all connected.
“People talk about country in the same way that they would talk about a person: they speak to country, sing to country, visit country, worry about country, feel sorry for country, and long for country. People say that country knows, hears, smells, takes notice, takes care, is sorry or happy…country is a living entity with a yesterday, today and tomorrow, with a consciousness, and a will toward life. Because of this richness, country is home, and peace; nourishment for body, mind and spirit; heart’s ease.”
What can you learn about country from the following story?
The Lost Girl The girl had lost her way. She had wandered far from the Mothers, the Aunties and the Grandmothers, from the Fathers and the Uncles and the Grandfathers. She had hidden in the shadow of a rock, and fallen asleep while she waited for her brothers and sisters to find her. Now it was night, and no one answered when she called, and she could not find her way back to camp. The girl wandered, alone. She grew thirsty, so she stopped by a waterhole to drink, and then hungry, so she picked some berries from a bush. Then the night grew colder, so she huddled beneath an overhanging rock, pressing herself into a hollow that had trapped the warm air of the day. Finally she saw a crow flying in the moonlight, flapping from tree to tree and calling ‘Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!’. The girl followed the crow. She followed him through the trees and over the rocks and up the hills, until at last she saw the glow of her people’s campfires in the distance. The people laughed and cried at once to see that the girl was safe. They growled at her for her foolishness, and cuddled her, and gave her a place by the fire. Her little brother asked her if she had been afraid; but the girl said – ‘How could I be frightened? I was with my Mother. When I was thirsty, she gave me water; when I was hungry, she fed me; when I was cold, she warmed me. And when I was lost, she showed me the way home.’ Source: Meaning of land to Aboriginal people - Creative Spirits, retrieved from https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/land/meaning-of-land-to-aboriginal-people
Connecting to Country
There can be a number of different communities within a country. These communities have their own boundaries. Within these boundaries, each community has its own special places and stories about natural landforms. Families visit these places at various times of the year to perform ceremonies and teach the young. Children gradually begin to understanding their connections to country as they learn more through the stories, histories, songs, dance and ceremonies.
In learning this way, they also develop an awareness of connecting to country on a deeper level. This sense of country is an ever-moving journey, on levels that are spiritual, emotional and intellectual. As they grow in understanding, so does their ‘sense of country’. Aboriginal connections to land are based on all levels of a person’s being, the physical intellectual, emotional and spiritual. The relationship with the land is a two-way thing – one of receiving and giving. The land provides shelter, food and a place to belong. The people have responsibilities to the land, which they perform in return for the nourishment, both physically and spiritually, that they receive.
Aboriginal people walk with the land which is a two way process of returning nourishment. In caring for the land as part of the process of ‘giving back’, Aboriginal people perform ceremonies, rituals, sing the songs necessary for that particular place, dance the dances that belong to their country.
In doing this, people give back, in both a physical and spiritual way, for the nourishment they have received (both physically and spiritually) from the land. In this way, people walk in balance and, therefore, with the land.