Even the thousand mile road has a first step. - LAO TZU
One of the courses I chose for my first semester of university is called Aboriginal Sydney - which focuses on the connection that the Aboriginal People have with the Sydney region, and the misconceptions that many people have of there being no connection between this part of the world and it's original inhabitants. I chose to take this course to learn more about the country where I am living in, and it's history, I think it's respectful to acknowledge the people who originally occupied this country.
For the final assessment of the course, we were divided into groups in our class to take one of the walking tracks along the Sydney Coastal region to see first-hand sites of Aboriginal significance in particular the rock engravings. For those of you who may be unaware of what an Aboriginal engraving is, here is one:
Although I am EXTREMELY pushed for time at the moment - I have a test for Chinese next week, Philosophy (God help me!) and a report written out for this very walk, I decided it was still important that I take the time to go back and find this site to experience it for myself - it's hard to write about something without having experienced it first-hand.
I'd told my new friend Monica about the engravings and the significance they have. She was very keen to come do the walk with me.
I'd met Monica about 2 and a half months ago. One night after doing yoga at the uni gym, we both were watching people partake in a bizarre-looking asian sport - they wear a kind of gown, yield a kind of baton, and kind of lunge and yell! I'd asked her what the name of the sport is, she'd told me the Japanese name (King Do?). Anyhow point being, this is how we met. Although she is quite a few years younger than me, she is very inspiring to me. She is like my spiritual sister.
We set off on our adventure at half 11 in the morning. That morning I had been listening to Chinese music, and had got one song in particular stuck in my head - 单身歌 (Single's Song). I like the tune and the lyrics are kind of amusing, but also quite sad at the same time. Seeing as we had a long way to go until reaching our destination, it became a kind of theme song for the day, reciting the lyrics as we went along.
About 2 months ago I joined a club at uni called Bhakti Yoga. I won't go into too much detail about it just now - I think it requires its own blog. Monica is interested in exploring life's bigger questions, so I introduced her to it. It's taken me a little bit of time to get used to this club, but Monica has taken to it with full devotion from day 1 - am so inspired by her! She now takes her chanting beads with her most places, and we'd both brought them that day with us. We chanted one round of the Hare Krishna mantra while on part of the walk. Actually, it was a memorable experience - although there were many people out that day, we hardly noticed them and just focused together on our mantra.
The Sculpture by the Sea exhibition was on at the same time. It's basically a heap of sculptures and installments by different artists, using the coastline as it's art gallery - really interesting to see.
Finally we reached our final destination - the Bondi Golf Course. We neared the old brick-works tower where the engravings were apparently supposed to be close by to. Apart from the very few golfers who were in the distance, we were the only two people in that area. It was a nice quiet feeling.
And.. Success! Almost 4 hours later we found them...
Monica was surprised to see these Aboriginal sites, exclaiming she "didn't know there were Aboriginal People that lived by the seaside". She and many other foreign people, had the perception that Aboriginal People only occupied the central regions of Australia, as she put it. I think her comments were quite interesting, seeing as that is what this whole course is about - the fact that many people are unaware that there has been and still is a connection of the Aboriginal People to this part of Australia.
I think it was an interesting time for us to go looking at these sites while the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition was running alongside. Out of all the Aboriginal sites we looked at, there was only one other person who intentionally came to look at the whale engraving - out of all the thousands passing by, and only aware of the contemporary artwork nearby.
The sculptures were beautiful, but the experience of taking in these sites of historic beauty was really something special. And although the final destination was amazing, the journey there was just as magical.
Simple pleasures, such as sharing a can of drink with a good friend are the best!