POSITIVE CHANGE THROUGH YOGA
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Jrumpinjibah - Yuin Elder - South Coast NSW
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Focus on Oneness
Being of Service
Being fully present
Caring for Country
Importance of Community
Chanting
Ceremony and Celebration
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What else could those of us who love and value the teachings of our 6,000 year old culture of Yoga, learn from the 80,000-plus year old continual Culture here in Australia?
And, what could yoga with its accessible tools, contribute respectfully in assistance with the physical and mental aftereffects that have wreaked havoc in Aboriginal communities since European arrival?
How can our yoga community best assist Traditional Owners to heal Australian society and practice Custodianship of this land? What would a healthy way of life in Australia that supported all of us and this beautiful land, sea and sky look like? This conversation has begun between the Yoga and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. It may take many years but will bear fruit along the way.
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Yarn Circle Monday 11/04 –
Eve White interviews Jrumpinjinbah
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This Thursday 7th May 4pm join us online for
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Each Thursday afternoon at 4pm Yoga Australia hosts a wonderful hour long program to enlighten and educate yoga teachers. We hope you will join us for this one.
Join us for a yarn about Connecting to Country and Yoga Australia's Reciprocity Action Plan. Experience three ways to deepen your understanding of Connecting with Country.
Eve White, Jem Stone and Cate Peterson of Ngungwulah Aboriginal Corporation will talk about the historical and current understanding of Acknowledgement and help you think into how you might best incorporate it when sharing your yoga practice. Explore the benefits of a Yarn Circle with us and be introduced to the traditional mindfulness practice of Dadirri. Come with questions.
We will be running this session as a 'Virtual Yarn Circle'. If you are comfortable participating, we invite you to bring along one or more of the following :
- a single leaf and if you like a small leafy native tree branch to 'sweep' with
- a little local ochre if you know where to find it or even just a tiny bit of mud or dirt
- if no smoke alarms at your house, some dry gum leaves, incense or a smudge stick
This is absolutely by choice, your presence is all that is really required 🙂
We are asking everyone to contribute via the DONATION BUTTON when booking in the spirit of Reciprocity. This will be divided between The Miriam Rose Foundation which is a not-for-profit organisation working to empower Indigenous youth through education, art, culture and opportunity and Ngungwulah Aboriginal Foundation which is also a not-for-profit, expressly set up to connect yoga teachers and students with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Community and Country. We will elaborate on both these organisations during the call.
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“we are human beings, not human doings”
Dalai Lama
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Miriam Ungmerr Rose, Nauiyu Elder, has been finding ways to bring this to our attention since 1985. Asked to attend a Liturgy Conference in Tasmania in the early 1980s, she found her public voice in a crowd brought together by their common sense of reverence for the holiness of existence. At first it was “really hard” to find the words to tweezer out and present what exactly differentiated Aboriginal Experience from Western Experience, but Father John Leary, who helped found the Daly River Community in 1955 was insistent she give it a go :
“I didn't understand what was going on when it came to Dadirri until I was in my early teens and this priest pulled me up and said hey sit down, I want to talk to you. He started talking me that what he felt and didn't know what it was and that the people have taught him to understand. I was wanting to know what he was talking about. And then he said, explained, that :‘you guys have got a really, really good gift and I envy you. I did my best to try to understand what it was that the elders were trying to teach me', and it was in relation to that. 'Dadirri'. I mean the word was there all the time in our language, it kind of fitted. We talk about Dadirri, you know, its to do with sitting silently, listening and being still and being aware.” Miriam
Dadirri, or Deep Listening, is a fundamental part of Aboriginal self definition. Whilst it has different Language names across this nation, it’s meaning doesn’t vary. It defines being present, here and now, within each moment and each action. Perhaps more importantly, having our attention brought to Dadirri, moves us further in our currently expanding Western understanding of Mindfulness. Mindfulness is the current buzz word, with the opening of Centre of Excellence in Mindfulness Research at City University of London this year and its incorporation into the framework of business with companies such as Deloitte marking its central role in their development of an Agile workforce.
These initiatives are part of a tidal wave of Mindfulness spreading across the globe. What the Western world is striking out for, is best defined by the Nobel Peace Prize nominated Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh :
“I define mindfulness as the practice of being fully present and alive, body and mind united. Mindfulness is the energy that helps us to know what is going on in the present moment.”
Dadirri extends this concept. Many Aboriginal friends have differentiated yoga’s trilogy of Body, Mind and Spirit from their own Cultural understanding of the trilogy of Body, Land and Spirit. This difference speaks to the Aboriginal understanding that we are all in a two way dialogue with our surroundings, with nature. Beyond the surface appearance of you and me, the birds, the rocks etc., all phenomena on this planet share a common source.
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" It's our make up. Its our spirit. Sometimes our spirit is waning or hurting and we have to call on it to revive our dropping spirit I suppose.. And to do that we say that we call on the deep and the deep calls on us .. And so we want to connect and feel that we belong still. And nature plays a part in that healing, of you becoming a whole person. The water makes things grow. Without water you die. There is a spring within us as human beings and we have to use this to help us become better people.. And it's this spirit that I'm talking abut that's deep within us. I suppose you can say soul. I suppose it's the same thing. If you are at peace with yourself, you know, within your spirit and the spring within you, you can also support other people to be strong because everyone has this gift and they haven't been told that each and every one has a spirit."
Miriam at Edge of the Sacred Conference
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April 2019, a small gathering of yogis and members of the School of Philosophy journeyed to Miriam’s traditional Country in the Daly River. Winding down from Darwin and finding ourselves deeper and deeper in Traditional Country there was no doubt that the ‘deep’ had called us there. The quest to be more centred, connected and present in this country was what drew most travellers to this journey.
“I've come to see and feel that we're all practicing Dadirri on different levels and perhaps just need to tune in to that practice a little bit more..practice, practice, practice. But it has brought a sense of ease that we are in part of the country that just allows you to feel the ages and eons and have brought us here, an amazing place , which makes it a lot easier to access that ease and that feeling of quietness to reflect, to be.” Judi Gaal
Our first stop in Nauiyu country was in a small creek winding its way through dappled bush and waterlands. We arrived in Wurr Bengim Miyer, one of the 13 seasons, the beginning of the dry season when the dragonflies abound and the big black kangaroo wakes and sings as the easterly winds ripen seed pods. During the preceding wet, the land lies submerged for months of the year with waters as deep as 2 metres. Floods regularly mean abandoning the riverside town of Nauiyu as the river breaks its’ banks and crocodiles wander through the streets.
Although the weather in southern parts of the country had started its Autumnal trajectory, here it was still 35 degrees. We jumped in that creek rejoicing in local knowledge which had brought to a crocodile free stream to cool off at midday.
As Miriam observed later in the trip :
"When you do yoga you got to be in a good mood and relaxed before you can find the spirit, eh? The deep listening, I suppose that was just what we were talking about before. Yeah. It's the same as me wanting to paint a picture - you’ve got to feel at peace with yourself."
That jump in the water got us there!
Journeying on to the Daly River community we stopped again by a creek bed where we met, for the first time, Miriam and her family. This was a pivotal moment for all of us on this trek, keen to understand the context of Dadirri and this one woman’s vision for spreading its' message across Australia. Miriam was as natural and welcoming as expected.
After a wonderful sharing of fruit and story, Miriam’s last comments were that where we had just sat and eaten was the site of one of this country’s many massacres. She estimated that between 500 and 1000 men women and children were slaughtered right here in 1884 after a disproportionate response by copper miners to the killing of three (some say 5) miners by the Wagiman. Miriam let us know that they the miners acted indiscriminately ‘ killing the wrong mob’. Such devastation.
We traveled on now, across a bridge, over one section of the Daly River. Stopping the minibus we piled out to gaze down on our first Jabiru and our first Crocodile, a sense of wonder gripping all of us from the safety of 50 metres up!
The River is a mighty strong serpent wending its way through huge sandy banks and forested shores. At this time of year it is powerful but not swollen. A key concept in the Traditional Custodianship of water is recognising that story and memory are held by Water as it snakes throughout the country..
This is echoed by the research conducted by the late Masaru Emoto in his book - Hidden Messages in Water
“Water records information, and while circulating throughout the earth distributes information. This water sent from the universe is full of the information of life”
and in the scientific efforts of the Aerospace Institute of the University of Stuttgart in Germany outlined on this video..
Our Western culture is only just beginning to catch up to what people in this land have known forever, that memory and story are carried in water around the world.
At a further bend in the river we pulled over to make ourselves known to the Ancestors. The river ran strongly along the sandy banks at this point and we were advised to wade in up to our ankles only. As we had just discovered, this is Crocodile Country, a fact that demands respect. Miriam officially Welcomed us to Country, granting us safe and fruitful passage in her lands. Her family members took water and poured it on our heads ,arms and navels calling on the Ancestors. As the water poured from our skins, the Ancestors knew that we had arrived and who we were.
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Minimindi-Water Lilies by AC Mulvien – Nauiyu artist
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The Water lily or Lotus is dearly beloved to yogis, being seen as an analogy of the transition of the human spirit via yoga from the mud of ignorance, desire and aversion to the sweet fragrance and beauty of the flower of self realization. Up this way, Christianity and Culture have woven themselves together. Miriam as the past principal of St. Francis Xavier Catholic School and Member of the Order of Australia is also a respected Law woman and Elder in these lands. She too uses the Water Lily as an Analogy:
“So that painting there is about the water Lilly seeds
that we gather in the billabongs. We've got blue
water Lillie, We’ve got the red water Lilly, that’s the lotus, Really
that you can see on the left side going up to the police station
or the pub. There's the lotus lilies, they’ve got
big Pink flowers. This one is the blue one of these things. And
they come up about Easter time. And they’re there now. And,
when the water recedes you will wade into the water and
collect the pods from underneath the pad, the lily pads.
Because it happens during Easter time this is also a good way of
explaining it to children. The flowers of the lily, it’s got a
beautiful perfume that represents, that that could mean that
that is Christ. That there is Christ. And then when the petals fall
off and the bulb forms and then the petals fall off. It falls
back, its heavy, into the water but it’s still attached through its
stem to the lilly pad and then that’s Christ staying. And then
when we collect the Lilly seeds its like receiving communion.
That’s just one of the ways of talking to the kids about it.”
Painting and playing cricket with the kids at Naiyu, hanging out, sharing bush tucker, story through dance and music, all brought us closer to the reality of being present here on Miriam’s land… at one with Country, Culture and Community.
Absolutely. I think the way we’ve been included into community here is such an incredibly special gift and not an experience that, you know, we as white folk often get the opportunity to do. So I think that’s what I meant before about embodying Dadirri in every moment and that’s what’s come up by being in community here. So yeah. Rather than expressing Dadirri as a concept, just more as an embodied practice that permeates everything and every interaction in every moment.” Meren- yoga teacher and participant
We got down to brass tacks, asking Miriam to articulate for us what had propelled us to make the journey this far into Country.
"Miriam, what role do you think Dadirri has in the healing and the evolution of Australian culture?"
“Making people aware that caring for nature is important and not destroy things around them. When it comes to like mining and fracking and farming, taking all the water from the aquifer. Well all that sort of thing and killing the rivers. I suppose through farming. We are meant to live with nature and like I said before, as in we are in the digital era that look… we can have timeout as in, not dealing with nature, just being there for it. And then nature will look after us.”
AMEN!
As the younger members of Miriam’s Community put beautifully in a video they produced with Red Dust on YouTube entitled Wakai – Daly River Strong Young Women..click and listen on these words below. Be inspired!
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This Book is Ground Breaking
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" My hope is that one day everybody can find a place under the lore of the land where they live, transitioning our living systems into something that is sustainable in the true sense of the word. Old man Juma calls it the seven families coming home and uniting again. We'd like everybody to look up at the stars and see the same stories there once more and stop asking the question "are we alone?". Of course we're not. Everything in the universe is alive and full of knowledge... we'll need living land and bodies to ask one of the bigger questions so let's put these hands of ours to work."
Tyson Yunkaporta
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This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrödinger’s cat. Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it’s about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world. GoodReads
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Calling all Yoga Teachers
Get Off Your Asana is a Not for Profit Co-op for Yoga Teachers. It provides services to amplify, support and assist projects being done around Australia that bring about positive change through the practice of yoga.
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