Dumbo Feather – July 2019

the most beautiful, expansive, gracious way because it’s so easy to turn your heart cold after

those kinds of experiences. And many people do and I understand that as well. But to live

through this trauma that these people have lived through and come out the other side and

still see the good in people and the wellness of the earth. Even amongst all of this chaos, see

the peace in people’s hearts and the beauty and strength of culture, that’s what they focus on

and maybe it’s a coping strategy or maybe it’s actually the way that things get better as well.

Yeah. We just did a documentary, my partner did a

documentary with Uncle Archie Roach...

I know. And still just loving each

other. That song that goes, “We

won’t cry, we’ll hold our heads up

high,” it’s so simple. But most of the

most amazing things are. I think that’s possibly where I get lost when I’m not in that space.

Where I’m focusing on everything that’s going wrong and all the things that need fixing

and what should I be doing differently and better, and actually I feel like the climate justice

conversation in particular, caring for country is what I would call that. But actually we are

country. It’s getting back to how our Old People would have thought about this if such a crisis

had happened during their time. We are country. So

’Cause it has everything within it that it needs to heal. I think part of our relationships with

each other are a big part of the climate justice conversation. And the non-Indigenous and

Indigenous relationship is critical in this country when it comes to that.

[Laughs]. Well you know my teacher I was saying before who was a

painter, he also used to say there’s a reason why the wise men don’t

stand at the top. And it’s because the strongest have to stand at the

bottom. They have to stand at the bottom. ’Cause they hold everything else up. He’s passed

away now but he gave me a lot of wisdom at a time I really needed it! Bless him.

We are not just one consciousness in terms of

being human. It includes all of the creatures and

the land. And we’ve got our own ways of doing

things and our own business. I guess what I

would say to those people in those boardrooms

is that we did manage to survive for a very, very,

very long time here on our own. And that doesn’t

just happen by accident. There was a highly

sophisticated kinship and land management

system. There was obviously a very strong spiritual and cultural reality. Some of the stories

that I feel are so inspiring right now, and these are the things that I try to focus on, and

I love that Lydia. I love it so much. Because I’m

hunting around in the dark for restoration.

You sent me a short clip. And that man has been, like, to hell and back.
He is just soulful goodness. And to see him and the three men in the
documentary sitting in the studio together crying and singing.

Could you just try to become Prime

Minister? That would be excellent.

I feel like this conversation we’re having is so radical.

Because I keep going into boardrooms where everyone’s

trying to think and engineer our way forward. Like

maybe technology will save us. And I’m like, “What part

of us is it going to save?” That’s why I’m leaning into this

conversation. I don’t know but I feel like the things you

know and are talking about, if we can take them seriously,

the medicine that’s in them has to affect us as a collective.

the first step is caring for each other. And then

watching how that manifests in the way that we

treat the land and the way that the land is able to

be restored and heal itself.

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