This became particularly vivid to me on a recent visit to the vast red centre of our country at Uluru. Just standing and looking at this unique and amazing rock, was a moment beyond words. Almost everybody who comes near to the rock refers to it as a spiritual experience. This was deepened and expanded for me when I was told the stories which come from the Anangu people who are the traditional custodians of this land. Their love of the land and its rocks is expressed in their songs, art, rituals and ceremonies.
The Anangu people discourage visitors from taking away bags of red earth or pieces of rock. In fact, many people have now returned what they took out of respect for the Indigenous view that it is not to be a souvenir but is part of the land and belongs where it was originally laid.
Uluru and the other nearby huge rock formation, Kata Tjuta, apparently rose from the earth at least 900 million years ago. They are composed of two different forms of unique red rock, both of which change hue with the shifting sun. Uluru is 350 metres high above the earth and two kilometres deep below. No-one really knows how it was formed because it is not volcanic.
If the Anangu people do not want tourists climbing around on Uluru, it is because they regard it as sacred, not simply a place for looking at views and occupying in various ways.
Of course, the Abrahamic faiths do give thanks for God’s grand creation of the universe, but we don’t often relate to that creation in ways which enhance our understanding of God and each other. We use the land and travel around on it, but rarely as though it can teach us many things and is sometimes more sacred than we can be.
We might remind ourselves that the Indigenous people of Australia are the most ancient people still in the world. When we arrived and took much of their land, they had been here for around 60 thousand years and this land was occupied by them gently and respectfully – still in good order all around them and shared by their various clans.
We often regard the land as being mostly for our own use (and sometimes abuse), rather than something which can teach us, touch our spirits and invite new understandings and relationships. We might not be facing climate change issues today had we seen things differently.
Maybe the universe has its own special life – hence the spirituality we experience when we get close to some of it. Possibly when the seas surge in tsunamis, the volcanoes rise in flames and rocks or the cyclones rage, they are complaining about the way we treat the creation? Or possibly, sometimes, they are doing the wrong things, just like we do.
Whether any of this is true, or not, Aboriginal people could certainly teach us much more about engaging in creative and respectful relationships with all that lies beneath us and around us and above us. It could enhance our faiths in new ways and join our lives in a deeper relationship with the great Creator who loves all that has life.
