Report: South Australian Spirit Event. Monday 24th-May 1999
Join with indigenous and non-indigenous women Australia wide. A journey of healing, celebrating young vision and older wisdom. Thus read the invitation that came to me and to my friend Helen Martin from the Sophia centre. It looked like our cup of tea, so we decided to go. The result is that we want to express our gratitude for all who organised the day and to those who ensured that the invitation came to us. It poured with rain as we drove to Sophia, we didn’t know where to park and it took us a while to find the actual venue. It was a beautiful room, almost round it seemed, chairs all around the edge, a table of food at the back, the urn steaming and welcoming, smiling faces everywhere. We were delighted to see our mutual friend, Yvonne Myers already there. One end of the room was all glass, wide doors led out into a garden and the watery sunshine invited us to wander out and explore. However, it was past mid-day, and we were urged to eat our lunch, to get our tea or coffee and to be ready to participate in the candle lighting ceremony at 12:30 sharp. (1pm EST) There was no printed agenda, so we ate our sandwiches chatting quietly, meditating on the arranged candle and bowls in the centre of the room and gaining a sense that there was something significant about to happen. At 12:25 p.m. we were officially welcomed, and it was explained that the candle lighting ceremony was to be the common symbol of all such gatherings across the nation on this day. An elderly Aboriginal woman was brought forward, she lit the candle and made a short speech, detailing some of her life story, and voicing some bitterness about her loss of family and identity. Another Aboriginal woman spoke with authority and wisdom about the situation many Aboriginal people face today, about her friendship with migrant women as they struggle with similar injustices and about her role in talking through with political and law people concerning better ways to deal with young aboriginal offenders. She left us then to go on to such a meeting at Port Adelaide. These two women are Elders of the Kaurna tribe, original inhabitants of the Adelaide Plains.
The next speaker was a young aboriginal woman, Heather Lovegrove. I was surprised when she gave her age as 35 years. She was lively, slim, very attractive and a good speaker, though a little awed by the occasion. (weren’t we all!!) She told how she was fostered out as a tiny baby and then adopted by a white family when she was 18 months old. Although she was 12 before she knew who her real parents were, her adopted family continued to reside in her own town of Murray Bridge. This is where my ears really pricked up, for Murray Bridge is not far from where I grew up as a farmer’s daughter, proud of “our land” and the way we made it productive. Heather spoke of her confusion as a pre-schooler when she started to learn about colour and wondered why her mother’s hand was white and hers was brown. However, her white parents were good to her, they coached the aboriginal net ball teams and encouraged her to achieve at school and socially. She spoke of her rebellious teen years. She left home and travelled for several years. At age 25 she phoned her adopted parents and apologised for leaving them and for being an ungrateful daughter. They willingly received her apology and in turn apologised to her for not understanding her need to be brought up in her own culture and traditions. Surely these people ahead of their time in understanding the worth of aboriginal culture. Heather gave thanks for all those people, black and white, who have nurtured her as she travelled around various cities in Australia. She now holds a responsible position in Adelaide.
As Heather finished her talk, the leader for the day invited us to bring forward any token or story of reconciliation and leave it near the candle or in an open bowl, that the spirit of love may rise.
Many women went forward. Some told a story, some silently placed a tribute, some expressed gratitude for friends who have opened their eyes to the meaning and need for reconciliation. One woman stood and said, “this is for my Grandmother.” There is a woman Rabbi in Adelaide. She was present and she took forward her symbolic head covering and placed it near the candle. She said that when she wears that little cap whenever she feels she is in the presence of God and she offered it because she felt God’s presence there.
She also offered her son’s cap, she had found it in the pocket of her coat, as a symbol of hope that there will be greater understanding among all Australians.
What did I do? I shed so many tears as these brave women expressed their feelings. Finally, I felt compelled to go forward, take a piece of rosemary from the basket and offer it up with my sorrow for the ignorance of my generation who grew up on the land, never once thinking of the people we had displaced. Heather was younger than my own daughters!!! How could have I grown up in such ignorance? Actually, the moment I stepped forward my composure left me and probably my stumbly words were not heard by all present, but I had to do it.
At this time of sharing came to a natural close, the aboriginal woman who had spoken first asked to speak again. She confessed that the words Heather had spoken and the tributes of some of the other women had opened her heart in a new way to the concept of reconciliation. She could sense the genuine need of both black and white women to speak and to be heard and she thanked all who had shared their stories.
This was a truly moving moment as she and Heather, the Elder and the young woman embraced and shed tears together.
The afternoon finished with the Trade Union Choir, about 10 women, singing some moving songs, one on Kaurna language.
It indeed was a Spirit Event. About 70 women were present and each one of us were blessed and I would dare to say, cleansed, by being able to listen to each other.
My prayer is that many more people may have this experience.
Margaret Oakley