by Peter Murphy.

I began writing this in Alice Springs in the heart of Australia having just returned from Uluru (Ayers Rock), one of the wonders of the natural world and a site sacred to the indigenous people there. Aboriginal society is possibly the most ancient on earth having been part of this land for possibly around 60,000 years. Prior to the coming of the Europeans their way of life was largely unchanged in that period. Colonisation was most destructive with massacres, forced assimilation, alcohol and drug addiction, and other abuses well documented. Despite well intentioned attempts to remedy the effects of the past, the gulf between the contrasting cultures remains. A recently elected conservative government in the State with a distinct law and order agenda has announced further promises to “remedy” the situation, even to incarcerating ten-year-old children.

Dotted around Uluru there are numerous sacred sites where visitors are requested not to photograph. At a few sites seats are provided for visitors to ‘listen to country’. This is simply an invitation to sit quietly in silence. The immediate reaction of Europeans to this invitation is to link it with Country and Western music, such is the disconnect between the cultures. Growing up ‘in country’ is learning the old ways of living off the land, knowing where to find water, where to look for food such as goanna, and how to capture kangaroo.

Listening to country or Dadirri is described by Aboriginal elder Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann [Compass 22 (1988) 9].

…Deep listening is the gift we can give to non-indigenous Australians…listening to God within, to the God in country, in others…It is perhaps the greatest gift we can give to our fellow Australians. In our language this quality is called dadirri. It is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. It is the gift that Australia is thirsting for. It is something like what you call & ‘contemplation’.

When I experience dadirri, I am made whole again. I can sit on the riverbank or walk through the trees; even if someone close to me has passed away, I can find my peace in this silent awareness. There is no need of words. A big part of dadirri is listening …

The other part of dadirri… is the quiet stillness and waiting. Our Aboriginal culture has taught us to be still and to wait. We do not try to hurry things up. We let them follow their natural course.

We wait on God, too. His time is the right time. We wait for him to make his Word clear to us. We don’t worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of dadirri (that deep listening and quiet stillness) his way will be clear.

To be still brings peace – and it brings understanding. When we are really still in the bush, we concentrate. Our culture is different. We are asking our fellow Australians to take time to know us; to be still and to listen to us.

The contemplative way of dadirri spreads over our whole life. It renews us and brings us peace. It makes us feel whole again…

The Aborigines are now in recovery of a lost past. As one elder described their way of life, his grandfather’s generation could sense danger because of their closeness to the land, alerted by a sixth sense. Now he locks his door at night just in case.

What has happened over time is that the landscape is gradually reforming the Australian psyche. As David Tacey describes in his book, Edge of the Sacred: Transformation in Australia  (HarperCollins, Sydney, 1995):

Our spiritual way here cannot be…a work against nature. There is too much nature in Australia…The entire heroic fantasy about subduing nature…is a European fantasy, which can never work in Australia…The very notion that spirit is opposed to matter cannot take root here. Our spiritual mode will have to be ecological (p. 23).

The story behind the recognition of the sacredness of Uluru is a good demonstration of this. Uluru was “discovered” by European explorer William Gosse in 1873 and named Ayers Rock after the chief secretary of South Australia at the time, Sr Henry Ayers (Wikipedia). Its tourist potential was first recognised in the 1930s but this did not develop until the 1950s whereupon Uluru was seen as a rock to climb. In 1985 ownership of the site was handed back to the local Aboriginal people with the agreement that it be leased back to the National Parks and Wildlife Agency under a joint management arrangement. People continued to climb “the rock” but gradually the recognition of its sacredness became a deterrence. When the number of visitors making the climb reached below 20% the decision was made to fence it off and this was finally imposed in 2019. The Aboriginal people know how to wait. As an alternative there are walks around the base of the site; the best times to do this are around sunrise and sunset as the angle of the sun brings out the colours in the rock… read the full article here.

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Peter Murphy was a meditator-in-residence at Campfire in September 2024. He is now at Bonnevaux, the WCCM centre for peace near Poitiers in central France, where he will be part of the residential community in 2025. Peter’s upcoming book on the the sacramentality of creation includes this paper ‘Listening to Country’, inspired by his time at Campfire. He says “The more I reflect upon my stay at Campfire, I think what a remarkable time it was”.

Interested in being a meditator-in-residence? View the evolving role description here.