Wise Women of the Dreamtime Aboriginal Tales of Ancestral Powers Collected by K.L.Parker (1856 - xxxx) - Johanna Lambert (1993)
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Summer of 1996

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EDITORIAL COMMENTARY by PRF Brown
BCSLS {Freshwater}, Mountain Man Graphics, Australia

Wise Women of the Dreamtime

Aboriginal Tales of Ancestral Powers

Collected during the life of K.L.Parker (1856 - xxxx)
Edited with commentary by Johanna Lambert (1993)

The following article represents a collection of quotations and notes sourced from the above book which was published in Australia in 1993. In the introductory sections of the editorial writings of Johanna Lambert , there is much researched information concerning the account of the Dreamtime and how this is viewed by the Native Australian peoples.

Introduction

Johanna Lambert (1993)

Traditional aboriginal society is founded on the pre-eminence of the characteristics of the Universal Female, epitomised by its unwavering respect for the earth, which aborigines refer to as "the mother". Their social order encourages, from infancy, empathetic concern and compassion toward all creatures in nature, as well as deep loyalties and responsibilities to their kin and the group as a whole. While these feminine characteristics are paramount, they do not translate into power-based hierarchical social structures as have the excessive masculine qualities within our patriarchal society. Within the Universal Feminine qualities such as receptivity, mtability, inter-relatedness, and diffusion, that are predominant in aboriginal society, the creative Universal Masculine characteristics such as limitation, order, structure and definition also find expression.

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Page 3

The Elders and Male Initiation

Note (1): Aboriginal antiquity is estimated to be sourced from between 40,000 to 150,000 years .... and therefore this great span would indicate that the Native Australian peoples share the oldest continuous culture on earth.

Note (2): The Dreamtime stories are the Predecessors of myth ... and are not expressed in writing or verbal, but were chanted, enacted, painted, costumed, danced, sung and imagined.

THE DREAMTIME

Johanna Lambert ...

The exploits and mode of being of the great ancestors resonate, to a lesser degree, with our experience of dreaming. That is, during our dreams, space and time are unbounded. One's dreaming self floats in a world far beyind the rational, where subject and object, meaning and form merge and separate kaleidoscopically. We find ourselves metamorphosing into other beings and them into us. In our dreams the qualities and characteristics of inner consciousness symbolise themselves, as did those of the great Ancestors, in human, animal or plant form.

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Page 8

CONCLUSION OF DREAMTIME:

At that time, human and animal became distinct species. However the emotional, psychological, and psychic characteristics of humans remained symbolised in the physical characteristics and behaviour of the animals. Therefore - the aboriginal world-view can be seen as founded upon a distinct twoness, or fundamental duality, as the basis for creation: the Dreamtime epoch that occurred and has concluded, and the earthly creations, or physical reality that emerged after the Dreaming.

To avoid pschological and social repression, the dark, excessive, utterly centric, or expansive and extreme, or destructive characteristics depicted in the stories were outlawed in society, yet were freely expressed in colourful ceremonial enactment and dance. The Dreaming Laws are derived from a sustained balance and harmony between the opposing forces, which are a priori and inherent in the natural world. These forces - such as attraction and repulsion, interdependence and autonomy, contraction and expansion - are found within the dynamics of the human psyche and human relationships.

Aboriginal culture is socio-centric, nested in the delicately balanced ecology of the physical world. Each individual is foremost an intrinsic part of a group.

Note (4): The human organism possesses centers of perception through which we can become aware of an intelligence and consciousness within all forms of existence.... The aboriginals listened through all their senses to the various languages that permeated the natural world - trees, celestial bodies, rocks, winds, fire, shadows and seeds.In closely observing, imitating or questioning a tangible phenomenon, one is able to listen to a message from the nature of reality as a whole.

Final Editorial Comment

Clearly, the commentary asks us to re-examine the nature of the foundations of both our individual and sociological awareness, for the teaching of ecological nature concerns more than what can be constrained into the purely intellectual expression that has become to be accepted as the universal faculty. Universality of understanding must expand into the exercise of the faculty of the heart of man, and not just his mind in isolation.

The knowledge, understanding and wisdom concerning the nature of the human heart has ever been seeking its expression in the lives of both women and men since before time began. In coming to ultimate terms with the nature of life one must consider the nature of the masculine and feminine spirit, and in researching the recorded words of both the ancients and the contemporary "elders of wisdom" - native peoples of the global earth - the commentrary provided above is certainly not out of place.

For example, one need only review the first of the 81 articles which comprise the writings attributed to Lao Tzu (500 bc) to see the similarity of this mystical - but entirely natural and ecological - way of life ...

{01} There are ways but the Way is uncharted ...

There are ways but the Way is uncharted;
There are names but not nature in words:
Nameless indeed is the source of creation
But things have a mother and she has a name.

The secret waits for the insight
Of eyes unclouded by longing;
Those who are bound by desire
See only the outward container.

These two come paired but distinct
By there names.
Of all things profound,
Say that their pairing is deepest,
The gate to the root of the world.

---- "The Way of Life" --- Lao Tzu {500BC}

I do not presently have either an E-Mail address or any further web references in respect of the writings of Johanna Lambert, but if - in time - these become known to anyone reading this work, I would ask that you send me this further information. The book itself should be able to be obtained from major Australian literary distributors, and is recommended for its exposition and documentation concerning some of the earlier gathered stories of the DreamTime, and the nature of the enlightened commentary from Johanna Lambert.

PRF Brown, BCSLS {Freshwater}
Mountain Man Graphics, Australia
Last days of the Southern Summer of 1996

Global Nativity - Global Terrestrial Nativity and the Cosmic Solidarity of the Human Soul.

"Every living human being is indigenous to the global terrestrial environment,
itself being eternally interfaced to the environment of the cosmos."

- An undated observation of the Mountain Man

Yothuyindi - Great resources on the ancient ways of the People from the Band.

"The tribal stories and songs have a direct lineage 40,000 years in the past. Todays Aboriginal cultures represent an unbroken chain linking back into human prehistory, and are amoung the last remaining people on Earth with a natural way of life essentially unchanged by the rise of Western civilisation".

WWWVL - Aboriginal Studies - The WWW Virtual Library at the Australian National University & CoombsWeb.

Aboriginal Legal Archive - the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation held at the Austlii Site.

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has online reference to the Reconciliation and Social Justice Library which contains, amoung other references, the following ....Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), Australian Institute of Health (AIH), Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, and the Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. These references are also fully text-searchable - as is the entire Austlii Site.

Koorie Home Page - Linked to the ANU, hosts a series of short essays on aboriginal history & culture.

Eddie Mabo - Papers of Edward Koiki Mabo (1936-1992).

Tandanya - Aboriginal Art from Adelaide - the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute.

Maningrida - A home page from Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia.

AURA - Home Page of the Australian Rock Art Research Association

Aboriginal Rock Art - Rock Art photos from the Kimberleys, WA courtesy of Michael Stone.

Truganini

Wise Women of the Dreamtime Aboriginal Tales of Ancestral Powers Collected by K.L.Parker (1856 - xxxx) - Johanna Lambert (1993)
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Summer of 1996