Dreamtime

Questions for Pamela Cummins to be on my blog: Jan, what an honor it is to be on your blog. Thank you so much for having me here. Q: Pamela, you write in a very different genre than me. Can you tell our readers about your genre and how you came to write it? A: I write in the self-help nonfiction gene to help people with their personal growth, spirituality, and love relationships. The way I came about writing in this genre is through my own self-growth and spiritual journey that began back in…

In Native American culture, folktales are passed down from generation to generation and used as a means of conveying messages and lessons about life. Many times in folktales, there are supernatural spirits that become embodied in human or semi-human characters and their stories are then often left up to the interpretation of those reading or hearing the tale. Much like folktales, ambiguity within “Deer Dancer” by Joy Harjo is leaves the story up to the interpretation of the reader. One way to…

The aim of embedding indigenous perspectives in education is to embrace Australia’s First Nation, their culture, identity, and their dreamtime stories into Australian mainstream schooling. Aunty Tina Quitadamo (cited in Beresford et al. 2003, p. 149) comments ” similar to our dreaming, I see quality education as an evolving, holistic, spiritual and educative process providing meaningful opportunities for personal growth”. For the past 200 years Australian education formulated post-colonial…

Multiculturalism in Australia is often defined as welcoming, inclusive and judgement-free. In fact, we often include this notion in tourism campaigns that advertise the country (Come and Say G’day - Corporate - Tourism Australia 2023). However, as strong as our words might be, our ‘exclusive and very judgemental’ behaviour requires a firm and actionable response if we want to be the accepting nation we love to claim to be. Modern Australia is not as multicultural as we say we are. In this…

Before the arrival of the British First Fleet in 1788, Aboriginals and their spiritual dreamtime beliefs dominated Australian culture. Once the predominant British and Irish convicts arrived in Australia, Christian based faiths like the Church of England, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist became the only religions approved (Green…

Imagine this; you are extremely happy and carefree, having the best time of your life with your family. Suddenly, your mother is trying to hide you and is telling you that you need to get behind her. Your emotions are a mixture of confusion and worry but you follow your mum’s order. Then, a tall white man approaches you and your family and grips onto your arm. You cry out in pain and fear, as you have heard the stories about all the other half-caste children that are taken away from their…

ranging in size and color (Outback) Going bush – to break away into “the bush” and be uncivilized (Dictionary.com) Bush (as Terrian) – an area of terrain covered by diverse plant life; terrain which is has been unfarmed by man (Dictionary.com) Dreamtime – “any remote period” detached from the present facts (Dictionary.com) Walkabout – a walk that is done with no set ending time and done “in the Outback by Aborigines” (Australian Slang) Frame tale as a literary term – a way to present a series…

the island. This displayed the ethnocentric attitudes of the British which gave indigenous Australians no rights to their traditional land. This issue was highlighted when Eddie Mabo was told that he had no claim to his father’s ancestral island. Dreamtime stories about the creation of the world strongly connected Aboriginal people spiritually with every feature of their indigenous land. Thus, the acknowledgement of their deserved ownership motivated many Torres Strait islanders to lodge a legal…

“Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?” The Flaming Lips has left this lyric embedded in the hearts of many people, but not everyone realizes this basic knowledge of human existence. There is a vast number of fundamental themes of our human existence that are not acknowledged, but is present in literature throughout history in every culture. Myths are fictional stories use metaphors to present and explain a mystery in the world—the source of study for human nature. They convey…

Modern Paganisms such as Wicca serve primarily to fulfil the spiritual needs of believers in a manner supporting their pre-existing ideological convictions; as is shown by the diversity of opinion regarding the sacred within this spectrum of New Religious Movements. There are a multitude of sects within Modern Paganism, all claiming roots in the primordial past. In reaction to the growth of secularism throughout the 20th Century, various groups self-organized based upon a revived ‘natural…