HEALING EDUCATION/AUSTRALIA: DAVID TOURNIER

We dont see the land as Earth, we see it as the mother. The land provides and we in turn nurture the mother. So we work hand in hand. The country is very important for healing because it is where you are and where you come from and there is a spiritual connection to the land. Land also plays an important part because it is where the medicine comes from. So if we nurture the land, she assists us by providing the medicines we need when required.

But today a lot of these ideas have gone missing because a lot of our people were forcefully removed from the land and became very sick. They were forced to live in missions and reserves. And a lot of the information in regard to healing has been lost because of rules and regulations. That meant that we were not allowed to discuss these topics. However, just because it wasn’t discussed doesn’t mean it wasn’t talked about. This might sound silly but there were times when people would talk and it became a new language. It became a whispering language. So that is how information was passed on. It was whispered.

HEALING PLACES/ AUSTRALIA: ULURU

by Meme McDonald

‘Uluru is an enormous library – a living, breathing, evolving Story place. The Anangu elders are the librarians. For over 40,000 years people have been drawn here first and foremost because it is a place for watering and food gathering. In a desert, this makes Uluru an important place.

When asked about healing places for Anangu people, Bob explained: ‘The natural feelings of beauty and peace that every living thing feels need to be present for a place to be right for healing. The place is effected by the healer but also by the patient. Wherever the meeting place of healer and patient may be, that place is also effected and added to by the energies of that healer and that patient. In a healing place, the energy of everything there is the natural energy of goodness.

‘Everywhere on earth has the potential to be a healing place,’ he continued. ‘Healing can happen publicly or privately, it can happen walking around or in conversation, here there and everywhere. It is the energy of the patient and the healer together that makes healing happen. Nothing else is really needed. The support of others, of family for instance, can help, can add to the effect, but it is not essential. The healer and the patient, it is between them. Both need the positive energy that healing is going to happen. You can call this faith.’

HEALING TRADITIONS/AUSTRALIA: KUNGGANDJI STORYTELLING

by Meme McDonald

‘Healing that comes from the land carries the power of that land. It is the land then that is the healer. Land not only provides medicine, it is the medicine. In our culture, unless you know the land you live in, the land you walk on each day, you can’t be strong in yourself. If you listen to the mountains, they talk to you and tell you how to survive in them. If you don’t listen to the desert, you will die in the desert. And so it is that you can understand why many Aboriginal people become sick when they no longer have a connection to their land. We don’t own that land, it owns us. Land is our mother. You become separated from the land and you become lost. If you become lost, then you become sick. The same with all of us and with our nation, Australia.’

‘In our way, medicine is most often given to us through story, song, dance, painting and so on, along with the medicine from the plants, from the earth, from the nature where we live.’

Each person is given a totem through which to learn of themselves and their relationship to each other and the world around them. Totems can be plants or animals or natural phenomenon or elements. The story that goes with each totem is sung and painted and danced. It is often through the story of the totem that each person learns to face challenges, or gains powers of observation, or increases their spiritual understanding.

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