Dreaming

I feel like I've been away forever.

Maybe I have.

Forever in time, place, heart.

Forever, to places where time is measured in thousands of years, or in generations, or in Dreamtime.

Where you can feel forever in the soil, the sunrise, the rocks, the sunset.

"We acknowledge the Anangu People as the traditional owners and custodians of the land ... "

A man saw Uluru as something to be conquered, his right to walk all over. The gate was closed by the aboriginal ranger for sunset and safety, but the man insisted on walking through the gate and wanting to climb; To climb that rock which The People ask him not to climb - but he sees as his right to climb. I'm not sure whether the ranger's response was immature ("I'll count to five and I want you off"), or whether the man's immaturity deserved it.

Sleeping in places where our food is cooked on an open fire, sheltered by a rock and a cliff that holds the memories of the fires of other campers, explorers, wanderers, and locals ... over hundreds of years; (where you dig a hole for a loo!); where we wake, unzip the tent and lie in our sleeping bags gazing over a riverbed and listen to the gentle zephyr in the reeds, a crow, and ... Forever (is there a word for hearing nothing else, ... and everything else?).

A mission station where my people tried for a hundred years ... tried, and now their trying is a reputation of goodness and mercy, and a village of people living in safety and possibility, and a Museum to 'Trying'.

Two nights later we are in sheets, in a bed, (showered!), in a motel, behind electric gates in a town called Alice.

Lying there, staring at the ceiling and trying to make sense of those sunrises, that rock, the open fire, sunsets that set fire to rocks, queues of aboriginal men outside a pub, others congregating in a supermarket carpark in a curious mingle with suits who have arrived in the latest Mini Cooper or Beemer, roos at sunset, dingos at dinner time. 

Occasionally the smell of the fire smoke in our clothes reminds us that this was not a dream.

The sun rises, but is hidden by curtains and electronic gates.

So we pack the memories and the camera and the smoke-soaked clothes.

"... We remember their ancestors with respect & commit ourselves to work for reconciliation & justice for indigenous people."

And go to listen to Anne - an (Ab-)Original grandmother who holds the stories of her people, explains rights and rites, "our lore" and "British law", clashes and customs, edible berries and skin systems and a human world and a spiritual world and symbols and women's world and men's stuff and nature and ... 'Dreaming' as a world view, and a way of living, now.

I feel like I have been away Forever. Maybe Forever is a place (!?)

A Forever bookended by a man with rights, and a woman with rites.

Maybe I am Dreaming, after all. 

But I can still smell the smoke in my clothes ...