referring to his words the night before, the Elder said.
“I won’t make the fire because smoke could damage the paintings. Let’s keep warm by breathing deeply and rubbing our hands together briskly. Take full conscious breaths. Visualise oxygen reaching every cell in your arms, hands, legs, feet, toes and fingers. That will help you feel warmer.”
Questions about the paintings began to rise again, also distracting their thoughts from the cold. The Elder was leader and mentor, but he too was hearing the obvious questions. The biggest being ‘why?’ Why were portraits of spiritual masters and symbols of religions painted in a hidden gorge in the Outback? Neither Rob or the Elder had speculated aloud. Shared silence was a direct response to the shock of seeing figures far beyond their cultural and geographical origins. But the images were in the cave and the Elder was first to speak.
“I’m feeling at One, and the paintings are about Oneness. Major faiths of the world share the walls of a cave in Aboriginal country and no-one else knows they’re here! It’s totally amazing. I thought they were my Ancestors! The elders must have thought they were important when they showed me. But did they change over the years? I don’t remember the exact figures and symbols, but what’s here is here. They’re spiritual beacons for all of us.”
Rob inhaled audibly, fully realising what they were seeing.
“This is real spirituality, the unity of all people, faiths and religions. I feel it deeply and feel so blessed to see them.”
“Yes, me too Rob,” the Elder responded, before standing up and stepping closer to the paintings. He stretched his arms wide to confirm one figure’s width, then held his right hand close to its hands to compare size. The spiritual masters had been shown great respect. Their painted hands on the sacred cave wall were twice as large as his!
Rob got up, equally impressed by their size and height. He was over six feet tall, but they towered above him. Painted in deep red and orange-red ochre, white pipe clay and charcoal black, the artwork was pristine, life-like, compelling. The artists had known their subjects well! Rob stared even harder as he went closer, seeing details he had not noticed the day before.
Questions flooded his mind. Were the paintings connected to the original people of the area? Were they painted by man’s hand? Why had they been re-discovered now? Rob knew intuition was needed to find the answers, but his busy brain was overworking.
* * *
As Rob refocused his thoughts the Elder indicated with hand gestures, similar to traditional Aranda sign language, to sit and face the paintings again. Each man was experiencing a deeper spiritual reality in his own personal way, but the Elder wanted to change the energy.
“These ulperrenye hunting boomerangs embody spirit that came in the Dreamtime according to the old storytellers. Spirit lives on in the boomerang, and to keep both strong I’ll perform a ceremony to honour them.”
He made a similar introduction in old Aranda, one of the earth’s first languages. Rob could not understand the fast moving sentences, but he felt totally comfortable with their sounds and rhythms.
The Elder tuned into his intuition, finding the words and melody of the chant he had not heard for sixty years. Holding the boomerangs vertically he began tapping a steady background rhythm, their clacking sound echoing around the cave. By changing angles different sounds leapt from the boomerang clapsticks, captivating Rob with variations in tempo and volume. Now flowing, the Elder started chanting the sacred words of his elders, singing the boomerang and enlivening the spirits. Drawn in by the repeated chanting and clacking Rob’s whole being resonated with the vibrations. Clapping the boomerangs faster and faster, the Elder increased the intensity, the side of his right foot tapping in time on the rock floor, the huge painted figures looking down as if they could hear.
Suddenly, tapping sounds beyond the Elder’s tapping beats echoed in the cave. He stopped abruptly, yet the echo continued! But was it echo? Rob heard it too, and they looked straight at each other.
“Hear that?” Rob asked, looking confused.
“Definitely,” the surprised Elder confirmed.
Speculation flooded Rob’s mind as the rhythmical tapping flowed on and on. But after a long two minutes the Elder was smiling.
“Ceremony re-empowers places and people so they reconnect with the Source. The cave’s pure spiritual energy accelerated the process, and I performed enough of the boomerang ceremony to honour them! The Universe and Ancestors enabled us to hear the boomerang percussion continue and sound exactly the same, on a level of spirit!” The Elder explained.
“Like another dimension?” Rob queried.
“Exactly,” the Elder confirmed.
Both men were profoundly moved. The Elder’s eyes filled with delight, Rob’s face flushed with awe. Still seated, Rob adjusted his cross-legged posture and the Elder placed the now silent boomerangs on the sandstone floor. On personal inner levels they absorbed the unexpected experience. They were being re-empowered by Universal Love Energy.
After a while they got up and walked back to the steps and out of the cave. The sun was directly overhead and they were surprised in one way, but not in another, because the life of spirit is timeless. Back at their camp the Elder lit twigs and broken branches, waited for them to burn well, then placed a billy of water on to boil. Rob reflected on the morning’s events and half-asked, half-stated to the Elder.
“It’s going to be interesting telling people that traditional hunting boomerangs are alive!” He suggested, raising his eyebrows. Then with a quick look into the future he reinforced his words. “Imagine the reactions, back in the urban never, never!”
Rob seemed to have some doubt, so as the Elder threw loose black tea leaves into the billy, he offered insightful words.
“You know I regard all things as One, and believe all things are interconnected. Most of our mobs say all objects and beings embody the same spirit, and that’s common knowledge in other cultures and spiritual groups world-wide. But what does it mean? Who understands what’s really being said?”
“I’m on that sort of wavelength,” Rob responded.
“You are, but many aren’t,” the Elder said.
Rob sensed there was more to come and waited attentively as the Elder stirred the boiling tea in the billy with a long, thin eucalyptus stick. There was an art to making this traditional whitefella brew and the Elder was good at it.
“More will get it when they know our beliefs. See those mulga trees across the gorge? If we go closer we’ll see which part of the slender trunk would make a good boomerang. In terms of spirit the boomerang’s already there, and has been since the tree was a sacred seed. After we cut a section and make the boomerang it becomes another entity, physically separate from the tree. But it’s still part of the whole, in spirit. Some may call the tree inanimate, but to us it’s a living being. Same applies to the boomerang. He runs, he walks, he flies: why wouldn’t he be alive!”
There was a twinkle in the Elder’s eye as he described the living boomerang. His voice was animated as his mind filled with images of boomerangs in flight, spinning fast through the air. He was reliving youthful, more energetic days. The Elder had performed the ceremony and given clear explanations so Rob could speak about the spirit of the boomerang.
* * *
The
