From the artist:
1. Welcome to Country — the “land down-under” — GONDWANALAND — Australia — my country …
2. I respectfully acknowledge that I live on Aboriginal land and recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people in this land.
3. As an Aboriginal-Australian, I strongly identify with my Wangkathaa ancestry and cultural heritage.
Aboriginal (spiritually-centred) culture is dying, slowly but surely withering within most who claim such heritage — contaminated, corrupted, polluted — disappearing before my living eyes. My heart, my spirit ‘sings’ when ever I have the opportunity to get a glimpse of its remnants, its power, its potency within those few who still struggle to embody the essence of this most ancient ways of relating and living amongst these modern daze.
The younger ones mostly want to be “rappers”, get down, “shake da booty” — in acculturated and soul-numbing manner. It is the ways of these times, no fault nor blame, it just is for most.
For years I have pined the loss of the spiritual-centre of the Aborigines and their cultural Laws and principles. A loss not only to those of the Aboriginal nations of this country, but also a loss to all of us, of meaning and perspective regarding our inter-connectedness to all that is.
I am privileged to know this young man. I know his mother, and I knew his Grandfather. I know his story, his struggles and challenges. And I have witnessed his smile, when he dances in the way of the ancients — I see “them” light-up his being, whenever “they” are sung-up, to dance within him. My heart sings for that time, that moment, that glimpse.
And then all returns to normal… I trust he can continue to weather the “storms” that gather around him too often in the people of his kind. I can only hope he grows stronger from each battle he overcomes, calling on the essence of his Spirit from within his body, beneath his skin.
I have done this image as a gift to that young man, and to his ill and ailing mother. I wish to share this further, to others whom may hear the humming of the Storm Dreamer — I feel its time to dance, to “dream”, to clear the toxins and the toxic once again, anew…
