In nomadic societies a boundary marks a sacred site where the being of power dwells, where its power is strong and its children are protected. These sacred locales and sanctuaries are everywhere in Aboriginal Australia. In societies where village life is more rooted, there is a tendency to situate the boundary between nature and culture. In either case, this separation of the mysterious and the familiar has a practical advantage. It segregates the world of mystery from the world human beings have control over. Without that boundary, the world of mystery does not stand apart from the world of human making; each world contaminates the other. On this side of the boundary, a space needs to be held open for ordinary human ingenuity and predictability: it cannot become dense with superstition. On the other side of the boundary there must be room for intelligent nature to behave in all of its wild unpredictability: that realm can never become uniform with the human capacity to remake the environment, as on the maps of explorers and colonizers. The societies that have not survived are the ones that have not respected boundary or that have had their sense of boundary obliterated.
Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers pg. 102
Dylan 9/17/09
1 comment:
Some of my writing from our trip:
Storm Clouds
Roots hold near my lover.
Tongue to taste you.
Leaves, swept free
heartbroken bows.
Bones scream
I was here.
Say the river
is in my veins.
The mountain is my body
carved with vessels.
My blood
to slake your thirst.
Rebirth begins
with death.
Post a Comment