Category: Our Collective

Reimagining Conservation in Australia

Recognising First Nations Knowledge Systems Thanks to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute's recent newsletter, calling for us all to become Blue Mountains Guardians of this precious area of Australia, I found out about this important forum for reimagining conservation in Australia by bringing together First Nations scholars and knowledge holders with non-Indigenous scholars and [...]

HEARTS ALL A’TATTOO

Ruminations at the Car Boot Sale The too early Sunday morn dashing its chill upon us’s two wrapt in warm knee length coats with words of mist coming from our chatter, she and I at an open-air Car Boot Sale Market beside a pristine, glistening river way, way too early. Slowly lookers arriving, strolling up […]

Notes from ‘Hospicing Modernity’

Hospicing Modernity Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism (North Atlantic Books, 2021) There is a growing realisation that we may now be facing the cultural dying of the modern era as a set of beliefs, knowledges, and institutional practices and structures that have shaped global societies since the 20th century with growing [...]

Two-Way Learning and The Voice

The 2023 Referendum on The Voice The purpose of the call for a constitutionally enshrined Voice in the forthcoming Referendum is to create a structure that will enable the diverse local Indigenous language and cultural groups across Australia to advise the Australian Parliament on how best to devise laws and policies that affect their lives [...]

iF Only and NOW

The Compassionate Mind To think that the compassionate mind, the fully compassionate mind can effect healing to all sentient beings in ceaseless space is an idea beyond intellect. To realise that by practising the fully compassionate nature of mind, that natural nature of mind we come into this world with (yet it is hidden within [...]

Humans as Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Nuclear Atomic Age Born in 1946, I am a child of the Atomic Age whose birth was so vividly displayed in the film, Oppenheimer. Here we see the tragic consequences of the interplay between human ingenuity—the scientific quest; human greed and fear—war and conflict over territory and resources; and human pride—the triumphalism of scientific [...]

Catchy Reflections in the Dappled Light

Argentina Mon Amour She had come in innocent curiosity, a description which suited her nature too. In Buenos Aires. I also captured by that land had discovered this one surprisingly in the sultry, old back waters of La Boca, in amongst the taverns and brothels of the port.  I, a mere seeker, looking back now [...]

Relationism & the Circular NFP Economy

DeGrowth Week Webinars Yesterday 10 July, I tuned into the DeGrowth Week of webinars being offered by NENA (National Economy Network Australia) and caught up with Donnie Maclourcan, an Australian with links to UTS who is now based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and who is the Executive Director of the international Post Growth Institute. I’m [...]

Questions of Identity—Australian Indigeneity

Of the 250 recognised language groups in Australia, many do not live on their ancestral Country, with 37 percent living in our urban areas, especially our capital cities where they speak only the English language. The greatest number (34 per cent) of Indigenous Australians live in NSW, but where they comprise only 3.4 percent of [...]

The Search for Identity in a Hybrid World – My Story

Hybridisation In this age of globalisation and multiculturalism, the question of one’s cultural identity has become problematic. Many of us are untethered from the place of our ancestors, either by personal design or by displacement due to wars and societal collapses. Many of us are the children of transplants from other cultures, both recent and [...]