Today marks one month since I once again spread my wings wide and flew far away from the frigid frost of the Pacific Northwest, bound for warmer winds down under. The map above shows the "continent" of Australia, divided into its Aboriginal "countries", with over 250 distinct languages and cultures (some say up to 700) that developed over a period of at least 40,000 years before Colonizers arrived just 400 years ago. Following the trend of those times, European settlers claimed the land as their own, drew arbitrary borders irrespective of existing indigenous nations, and began the process of forcibly tearing apart aboriginal communities while imposing their western culture, language and world-view (not unlike the atrocities committed on North American soil in the name of "Manifest Destiny" during that same period.) Tragically, of the at least 250 unique Aboriginal languages in existence at the time of Colonization, 150 have gone completely extinct, with 100 more struggling to survive in the most remote regions of the continent. One of those languages is that of the Miriwoong people whose country is in the Northwestern Kimberley territory on the map, and is the reason why I am here in their beautiful land. But I'll get to that later. First of all, how did I get here...
I didn't quite realize how far Australia is from my city of origin, Seattle, USA, until about the 26th hour on the airplane... The journey was split between two flights, the first being 15 hours from Vancouver, Canada, to Guangzhou, China, where my layover was just long enough to make me wish I spoke Cantonese in order to make friends with the troops of middle-aged cleaning ladies who marched around the airport at all hours of the day. Maybe naively, I had expected to feel like an ant in China, assuming even the airport would be overcrowded with a portion of the country's billion + inhabitants, but it didn't feel that way at all. I had not expected China to remind me so much of the ex-soviet countries in which I've lived and traveled, but I supposed it just has that same "communist glow" about it. I was intrigued, to say the least, and vowed to return someday, but that will be another adventure of its own. For now, it was finally time for another 11+ hour flight all the way to Perth, Western Australia, where I stepped off the plane into a sticky, sweltering sauna. I soon noticed I was the only schmuck sweating away in long pants & sleeves. Everyone else was dressed for the sunny subtropic summer. I had officially arrived in Hotstralia.
To my surprise, the immigration process did not require me to interact with an actual human being, instead a machine scanned my passport, asked me to smile for a photo, and then sent me on my way to the ever approaching outback. This "machine only" line was exclusively for people with passports from countries such as Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand... you get the idea. Being from an "affluent country" got me an automatic fast pass, with no questions asked, whereas those holding passports from the not-so-affluent-so-I-might-actually-NEED-to-be-here-to-support-my-family-back-home countries were ushered to a long, slow-moving line in order to speak to a real live migration officer who I'm sure wasn't lacking in questions. I don't point this out to criticize Australia's immigration system, and I've actually been very impressed with the cultural & ethnic diversity in this country due to their seemingly positive approach to immigration (I mean, let's be honest, with a landmass larger than the continental US, but a population of only 22 million, they definitely have room for a few more... or 400 million more if they want to catch up with the US!). I point it out because I find it important to recognize when I am being afforded a privilege (even if it's simply a faster/separate line at the airport) not based on my individual merits or efforts as a person, but based on a characteristic into which we are born (i.e. sex, ethnicity, country of origin), over which we have no control. Those who are aren't afforded said privilege certainly notice, so the least I can do is to be aware of it (even if it makes me uncomfortable and I'd prefer for us all to be given the same treatment, it's still a reality that I feel is important to acknowledge). Similarly, I appreciate it when men are conscious of the instances in which they're given advantages that I am not, simply because of being a woman (which is one of the few occasions when I'm not on the privileged side of a situation due to my fortunate background, though it certainly occurs quite often as there's no shortage of sexism all over the world).
Oh yea, where was I? Oh yes, in Australia. Where to go first? Why, to a meditation course, of course! I took the wise advice of a lovely friend back home to hit the ground running (or sitting, rather) by spending my first week in my new "home" at a Vipassana course, which is the type of meditation I've been practicing for 6 years now (www.dhamma.org) and is the same practice that led me to India and Nepal back in 2009. The meditation center was in the beautiful country side, a few hours down a windy road outside of Perth. Upon arrival I was happy to see that meditators can be quite resourceful, as you can see from the mailbox in the photo. Now I know what to do if I ever need a mailbox (or a microwave!) in the future :)
Down under it's the heart of summer, so the sun sets at around 7:30pm each evening, spoiling me with sensational sunsets every night before bed.
There was plenty of wildlife at the center, including these little dinosaurs who roamed around. Others saw Kangaroos during the course, but I always missed them by just a moment, and even to this day, the only Kangaroo I've seen in Australia was, sadly, a large roadkill I spotted within half an hour of arriving in the country. I know that will soon change since the bush around Kununurra is chock full of Kangaroos and Wallabies, I just have yet to run into them...
I was serving in the kitchen for the meditation course, which means that I still meditated for at least 4 hours a day, but was cooking for the students throughout the rest of the day.
The course was very powerful for me and a necessary way to enter this new chapter of my life, to deal with transitions, while attempting to let go of unhealthy habits of my past.
I found deep new friendships in the other servers on the course who helped me in this process. We all supported each other in our efforts to heal, while cooking delicious food at the same time.
The course was very powerful for me and a necessary way to enter this new chapter of my life, to deal with transitions, while attempting to let go of unhealthy habits of my past.
I found deep new friendships in the other servers on the course who helped me in this process. We all supported each other in our efforts to heal, while cooking delicious food at the same time.
After the course finished I was honored to spend a day and night with my new Vipassana buddies exploring Perth, the only city in the entire western half of Australia with over a million people. My co-meditators immediately took me to the ocean for a swim, a familiar & relieving sensation I had missed so very much (it had been almost 6 months since I returned from the beaches of Mexico). After drying off we hopped over to "Freo" the charming, old district of Perth with awe-inspiring architectural structures and an up & coming artsy vibe (ála Berlin & Brooklyn but with fewer hipsters). Upon telling a waitress from Berlin at the hippy health food café that it was my first real day in an Australian city, she looked shocked and informed me that I must have some great karmas of the past if I ended up in Freo on my "first try" in Australia. "Most people have to spend months searching before they end up in this heaven" she said, and I can really see why. Before closing the night with a group meditation at our dear friend's waterfront flat, we danced at a roof top party to a blue-grass band after dining at the delectable Raw-kitchen while enjoying live jazz music. I will undoubtedly revisit this delightful, funky city & my friends who call it home, but first I had to head to the airport to take a little jet plane up to the "deep north" of the country... which is where this story is finally going, I promise...
I arrived in the beautiful, bewildering town of Kununurra (from the Miriwoong word "Goonoonoorra", meaning "River") on Monday, January 20th, 3 weeks ago today. Since then each day of my time here in Miriwoong Country has been nothing short of fascinating, and I look forward to sharing my reflections with you in hopes that I too may better understand the many layers of this complex onion and other residuals from a long history of cultures colliding. I will get into all of that in my next post, in order to leave some space between my thoughts, but I will leave you with this photo of my new home. I adore my lovely little house, which I share with two fantastic housemates (Matt, an Australian architect, and Shan, a Taiwanese jane-of-all-trades who is already teaching me some Mandarin). It entertains me to think that I am simultaneously learning Miriwoong, a critically endangered language with only 11 fluent speakers remaining, along with Mandarin, the language with the most speakers in the whole world (over 1 billion). I sure do like to go to the extremes of the spectrum...
And of course, I can't sign off without posting the very first picture I took in Kununurra. The view from across my street: the live cane toad disposal point at the vet (where I may end up volunteering in the evenings for a few months as collecting cane toads can be an option for extending one's work visa to beyond a year!). Alright folks, in the next post I'll describe the actual work I'm doing here along with some of the complexities of the Miriwoong language and the relationships I've observed between the indigenous and non-indigenous circles in town. Thanks for reading. There's more where that came from... but for now, be well, be happy, be peaceful and be liberated! Much Love. Mucho amor.