Dyarubbin

12 members of the Earth Listening Circles of the Deep Adaptation Forum visited places local to them and did an Earth Exchange, as part of a global collaboration to listen to wounded places.

Sackville Reserve on Dyarubbin (colonially known as the Hawkesbury River), NSW, Australia. The first phase of the frontier wars in Australia ended with the settlement of the Sydney basin/bioregion. In 1889 what was thought to be the remnants of the Darug nation were moved onto the Sackville Reserve (150 acres!) The last ‘resident’ Andy Barber died 1943; the allocation was revoked 1946.

An obelisk was erected in 1952 as a memorial to the Aborigines of the Hawkesbury – somewhat premature as the area is still home to thousands of Darug, Darkingjung and Dorumbolooa descendants. The stories of the spirits of this Country have been regenerating strongly over the last 3-4 years – books, exhibitions, TV series, online audio histories and interactive story maps. We visited in January this year to offer food to the spirits and purify the souls. The place was sad, neglected and dark. Trees had fallen over the path and had been left to rot. We were the only people there. Yesterday the path was cleared and obviously well used. There were seven other visitors. Of the nine people, seven were born overseas – the Netherlands (5), Malaysia (1), Scotland (1).

I like the way the Moreton Bay Fig has such a vigorous grip of the boulder and how the obelisk in the background is such a misconceived afterthought. Behind that you can see the river spirit. Interesting how similar spiritual regenerative work is to Nature regeneration in that it takes very little effort for Gaia to reassert itself.