Join Hands to Transform the World

When I was on the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies Program, we were all asked to write something about our country. I wrote about Indigenous Australians. I had always wanted to research their past as I felt we had never known them or appreciated the great wisdom of their ancestry. We confused technology and science for superiority when in truth ‘to know yourself and be true’ is the highest intelligence, for one is directly connected to the spiritual self and the land or as they say ‘country’. The latter of course is the sustainbility we struggle to understand today, it was known intimately for 40,000 years or more. Yet we are still not asking the indigenous how to survive climate change.

I called the poem two hands clapping as the original koan was ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping’. Silence. Although I must add here that silence is questioned. There is much you don’t see that is happening. Silence is one hand which evokes the memory of the Stolen Generation and program of assimilation and cultural genocide. The years of silence around it and the endless number of indigenous Australians that were bundled into missions, enslaved at stations and generally seen as heathens. The legislation of the time labelled their usurpation of power as ‘Aboriginal Protection Act’, the word protection should be called projection as that is how the aborigines were seen which was a reflection of those in judgement.

I interviewed a couple of Indigenous Australians, I never forget the husband he was so gentle and his voice just purred as we talked, felt meditative. He was a kind man and felt such a connection to the country, it meant their body to them. He spoke of a women’s sacred site near Cooma. Many caucasion Australian’s might think it is fairy tales, but all has a reason and indeed a season. We have far to go to really understand how advanced indigenous people really are and were. Such a knowledge we can’t begin to fathom, it is not an emotional intelligence it is an earth intelligence, that is the new thinking (just felt that). In my course we are studying Foundations of Education for Sustainability and only recently are we acknowledging the principle of Gaia as a living system and the affective connection (love) in nature that creates real behaviour change. Recycling won’t do it, feels good, but we must go beyond that. When we come together as one, then I will be clapping for sure, hands and feet. About time I will say.

For me two hands clapping is unison, unity, joining together as a universal family. Also applause for the real success, a celebration. That is how I feel it.

Interestingly I was chatting to a guy about Australia, he had travelled and lived in London, UK, I had also. We both appreciated our experience there, however we both agreed we were happy to live in this country. I felt that deeply.

TWO HANDS CLAPPING

What are the sounds of one hand clapping,
…silence,
What fairness is in cultural dispossession?
What is the anguish of familial separation?

Yet when we reach out to offer a hand,
Not a hand out,
But as the hand of equality,
The hand of friendship,
All I can hear is the sound of endless
Applause,
As that is the sound of two hands clapping,

Ah the truth at last,
For the silence and bigotry of denial,
Belongs in a past that was colour blind

…To justice,
…To difference,
…To spirituality,

Which whispered in the wind of ghost gums,
Which murmured in the stream of water spirits,
Which called upon ancient ancestral spirits,
For are dreamtime stories fact or fiction?

The past, present and future do not exist for a mystical people,
Identifying the trees, wildlife, rocks and streams as kin,
For them separation is a European notion,
A poisonous potion,
That destroys family and the heart of the land.

For those who know oneness,
Can see no differences,
They simply adapt to their environment,
For they know no resistance,
As this is the colour of fear,
Which is blind to truth.

The ‘Sorry’ State of unacknowledged affairs,
Paved a new treaty,
And whilst the message shares sorrow
For the stolen generation,
It is a start,
For reparations are the healing of many nations,
A cost that cannot be calculated in dollars,
But can be repaired with common sense,
For empathy was the compensation they were seeking.

To embrace around a sacred fire,
Sheds light on the darkness,
For the first step of reconciliation has been taken,
There can be no backward glance,
For we will all move forward as a nation.

This is the Australia of my heart,
One of sincerity, compassion, integrity and honour,
For the truth sets us free,
To be one nation under the stars
Of the Southern Cross,
Which combines the aboriginal flag
A new flag symbolizing the earth, the sky and the sun,
Rising with the dawn of a real peace treaty.

And this is the sound of many hands clapping around the world,
For when we join hands we transform together,
Finally we understand the weather,
That we are all brothers and sisters,
Under the sun of new horizons.