Brian’s Weblog

33 – Part Two

“This is not the real reality. The real reality is behind the curtain. In truth, we are not here. This is our shadow.”  - Rumi

The landscape was becoming more and more barren – and breathtaking – as the Ghan neared Alice Springs.  Occasionally interrupted by sightings of kangaroos and these dark people, the Aboriginals, running towards us waving happily, the three-day journey yielded little sleep.  With no idea of what to expect, I toiled the hours away talking to other backpackers who advised me to avoid the dangerous natives, especially at night, in “the Alice” and wondering what the big red rock was on the cover of my Lonely Planet.

Only a week before I suddenly threw all my belongings into storage in Amsterdam, leaving behind who I thought I was.  Arriving in Australia on New Year’s Eve, I knew that 2003 would be different than that from previous years.  Typically I set goals of who I want to become in the new year, but this time, it was simply about listening and feeling.  I only had to recognize what was right in front of me, and know that which is hidden from me would be revealed.

There was no plan.

The first days in Melbourne, I stayed with my good mate Fleech, who suggested I start with the Red Centre.  Although he thought I was a bit impractical, I insisted that despite time-constraints, I needed to take the trip by train rather than by air.  The journey was more important than the destination.

Dropping me off at the train station, Fleech mentioned in passing that the guy who played his brother a decade ago in the Australian soap “Neighbors” left the acting world and last heard was a tour guide somewhere in the Northern Territory, which is almost three times the size of Texas.  I briefly wondered what would make this guy leave everything behind to become a tour guide, but quickly put the thought out of my head to catch my train.

The first days I took it easy in Alice Springs becoming more acclimated to the desert climate.  Floating in the hostel pool, staring up at the night sky one evening, I couldn’t help but notice a very profound change coming over me.  It was as if a layer was being peeled away; that I was reaching a state of relaxation that I had never before experienced.

My interest in the Aboriginals was quickly piqued, and I wanted to understand more about how they saw the world by going out to the bush with a local guide for a day.  The naked Aboriginals wandering the bush of yesterday are in stark contrast to the Aboriginals wandering the streets of Alice Springs today, plagued with alcoholism, diabetes, drug-abuse, depression and suicide – the ultimate state of disconnection. It was as if they were at one time the salt of the earth, but the salt had lost its flavor, and now cannot be seasoned. These people, who were strong and connected, are now good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by white men.

I learned about “The Dreaming,” a time when everything all around us was created. In the Aboriginal view, supernatural beings that later disappeared into the earth or into the heavens traveled across the formless land singing the world into existence – man, animals, plants, and everything else we sense. However, we are still in the Dreaming. The concepts of past or future in Aboriginal culture do not exist – only the present exists. The Dreaming is beyond time and space.  It is the continuing creative process in which we live.

The Dreaming is Life.

And we sing Life into existence. Singing is joy. Life is joy.

I learned that these Aboriginals wandering the streets of Alice Springs were not homeless.  The government provided them homes, but for 40,000 years, until a couple hundred years ago, they were outside sleeping under the Milky Way.  And they continue to do so.  It is a part of who they are.

It was rapidly becoming clear that Aboriginals knew about a Connectedness that too often eludes us in the modern world.  The Aboriginals feel a strong connection to nature that shaped their view of the Universe and their place in it.  They know they are an element of a much greater entity.

We often mistake Aboriginals for homeless and lost souls because we can only see them from our very limited paradigm, or box, and are unable to see the bigger picture.  For example, in a pub I overheard some locals complaining about how Aboriginals would not integrate with our society.  Immediately I began to wonder if they were looking at the speck in the Aboriginal’s eye, without considering the boomerang in their own eye. Perhaps it isn’t that the Aboriginals should become like us, but rather we should become more like them; we should first remove the boomerang from our own eye, and then we will see clearly to remove the speck from the Aboriginal’s eye.

After my modest introduction to modern and ancient Aboriginal states in Alice Springs, I began to feel something else – an intense desire to sleep in the bush.  I asked at the tour desk about possibilities for me to go out to the bush alone for a few days, but was told it was far too dangerous with snakes and other creatures.  Regardless, they managed to sell me a one-day tour of local watering holes.

Our guide for the day was Dan, a very peaceful bloke in his late 20′s or early 30’s with a ponytail and a few days beard growth. He was very knowledgeable about the geology and especially the Aboriginal culture.  I came to respect him quickly and felt a bond with him.

Dan taught me the Aboriginal way of seeing the world and Life.  He told me about how Aboriginals rely more on intuition than systematic thought – the opposite of our culture.  He also spoke of their mental abilities, including things we think of as superstition, such as psychic abilities, telepathy and prophetic dreams.

The answers I had been seeking for over a year were being placed right in front of me.  These people, who we have discounted as primitive and even non-human, had a different kind of intelligence, could throw their thoughts and even dream the future.  I was beginning to understand that they lived on an entirely different plane of consciousness. A higher plane of consciousness. Theirs was a place of magic where they could warp time and space.

Because time and space do not exist.

At one point Dan took the group to a hilltop and explained a bit about Aboriginal ceremonies and the paints Aboriginals use in those ceremonies.  He asked the group what we thought the colors of the paints represented.  Maybe it was the unexplainable bond I felt with Dan, or the relaxed, flowing state I was in, or maybe the desert air, but in any case I was the first one to respond every time, not really knowing the answer, simply saying what came to me – what I felt. Every time the answer was correct.  Soon thereafter, as we all climbed into the van, a young English girl spoke up and asked, “Hey Dan, did you ever star in ‘Neighbours’ ?”

That was the moment the curtain dropped.

Although Dan shrugged off her question, saying he only resembled a guy that played on the show, at the next watering hole, alone with Dan, he confirmed he was indeed Fleech’s brother on “Neighbors”.  It was then I knew I was not alone, there was no such thing as coincidence and something was guiding me.  While I could not see it, I could certainly feel it.

And it was beautiful.

Back at the hostel bar that evening, a shadowy figure standing by the road caught my eye.  It was an Aboriginal woman looking worn and ragged, beckoning me to her.  Instead of ignoring her, I went to the roadside where she asked me for a dollar.  Smelling alcohol on her breath, I instead offered to buy her food at the convenience store across the street. To be a force for Good. After filling her basket with bread, meat and other tucker that sustains Life, she offered her thanks, taking my hands and bidding me farewell.

Her parting words to me were, “Jesus will take care of you.”

And there in Alice Springs, with a blessing from a broken Aboriginal woman, I knew nothing hidden would fail to be displayed.  I was 33.

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