Sacred Mountains - Australia

[Geof Nanto]

Sacred mountains celebrate decade back under Aboriginal management

 

PHOTO: Gulaga mountain, previously known as Mount Dromedary, near Narooma.

 

In 2006 the NSW Government formally handed back Gulaga and Biamanga National Parks on the far south coast to the Yuin people, because of the significant cultural sites they contain and the living links to local Indigenous groups.

 

Gulaga, which was previously formally known as Mount Dromedary, is an imposing 823-metre mountain rising near the coastal town of Narooma. Biamanga National Park includes Mumbulla Mountain, further south in the Bega valley.

 

To the Yuin people, Gulaga is known as the Mother Mountain, and has always been a woman's place. It includes sacred sites where Aboriginal women would retreat for storytelling, ceremony and childbirth. Meanwhile Mumbulla was a traditional men's mountain, and contains initiation sites where boys would become men of the Yuin tribe.

 

Gulaga board of management chair Iris White said the park was a "beautiful" and "spiritual" place. "A lot of people enjoy [Gulaga] for its natural beauty," Ms White said. "From a cultural perspective, there's a sense of connectedness with this place ... it's a spiritual place." Ms White said generations of Yuin people had come to the sacred women's site high on the slopes of Gulaga, to share stories and conduct ceremonies.

 

PHOTO: Aboriginal discovery ranger Cath Thomas said the cathedral of granite boulders has healing powers.

 

Aboriginal discovery ranger Cath Thomas said when approaching the natural cathedral of huge granite tors, people were encouraged to remain open-minded. "We've got to use our 'third eye'," Ms Thomas said, tapping her forehead. "If you don't use your 'third eye', you don't get the story - the dreamtime story, and the dreamtime stories in the rocks." Ms Thomas identified a huge granite boulder next to the track as the "healing rock". "It actually brings out all their bad energy that [people] carry, and puts a lot of the good energy back in," she said. "I feel like it gives me the energy that I need to take on the world."

 

PHOTO: The view of Gulaga mountain in Gulaga National Park from the town of Central Tilba.

 

( http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-02/mountains-celebrate-decade-back-under-aboriginal-management/7294216 )

[Nungali]

Good for them !  

 

 

The power boulders remind me  of granite boulders at  Cathedral Rock , not too far from my place  . 

 

 

 

 

 

way up in the sky they are 

 

 

 

 

The path up is amazing, corridors through rock shot with seams of pure white and black crystals , at at the beginning of the path in are three large head shaped boulders - high bulging  foreheads , no mouths, slit eyes ....     

 

very powerful place !    One day limit for me or I get a bad headache . 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Nungali

[Aeran]

It's really good to hear that the Aboriginal people are hanging onto and reclaiming their spiritual traditions and connection to the land. It would be nice if one day these aspects of their culture could bleed into more mainstream Australian culture, since I feel that it's something that we're really missing as a society, even moreso than most of the Western world, but sadly the Aboriginal community has much larger issues to deal with themselves :/

 

All the same, I would love to check it out sometime - there's so much beautiful scenery like this in NSW once you get outside Sydney, I can't speak for further inland but Northern NSW, especially up about Byron Bay, has an amazing energy to it. Maybe it's because you've got the Pacific Ocean brushing right up against the mountain chains, all covered in vibrant rainforest, but there's a reason all the hippies moved up there back in the 60's and 70's I've never found anywhere where I've felt more relaxed and in touch with the natural world.

[silent thunder]

That's awesome.  Thanks for sharing.

[Geof Nanto]

In my travels the most significant places of power I found were all located remotely, especially around central Australia and in the Kimberley region. When travelling from place to place slowness is important. I noticed it took me at least three days to feel some real connection with the spirit of a new place. I'd stay for weeks at a time in places I found favourable.

 

All natural environment has special power, but some places are particularly potent. I suspect the most significant had a favourable natural aspect but their power was further enhanced by generations of Aboriginal cultivation. 

 

For me, places like Byron Bay are too dominated by Western human consciousness to work in this way. Anywhere with a large human population has its energy aspected accordingly. Machines, such as cars etc, are particularly destructive of more subtle energies. There is a special 'silence' that's only found away from all this.

[Nungali]

I saw that story and that  happy smiling ranger on the news last night.

 

Seems a great programme !  This is something I dreamed about years back , (and it has started to manifest over recent years ) :

 

why cant they use Aboriginal people as park rangers, guides and protectors of our special environments ... thats their expertise ! 

 

I see also it will be available for hunting and collecting - traditional methods only and for those people only .   

 

 

 

Maybe one day they will even implement our 'Great Escarpment Corridor' plan ? ? ?  

[Nungali]

It's really good to hear that the Aboriginal people are hanging onto and reclaiming their spiritual traditions and connection to the land. It would be nice if one day these aspects of their culture could bleed into more mainstream Australian culture, since I feel that it's something that we're really missing as a society, even moreso than most of the Western world, but sadly the Aboriginal community has much larger issues to deal with themselves :/

 

All the same, I would love to check it out sometime - there's so much beautiful scenery like this in NSW once you get outside Sydney, I can't speak for further inland but Northern NSW, especially up about Byron Bay, has an amazing energy to it. Maybe it's because you've got the Pacific Ocean brushing right up against the mountain chains, all covered in vibrant rainforest, but there's a reason all the hippies moved up there back in the 60's and 70's I've never found anywhere where I've felt more relaxed and in touch with the natural world.

 

 

Drop in and visit here next time you on the way up the coast 

 

 

up the valley 

 

 

 

down the valley

 

[Nungali]

In my travels the most significant places of power I found were all located remotely, especially around central Australia and in the Kimberley region. When travelling from place to place slowness is important. I noticed it took me at least three days to feel some real connection with the spirit of a new place. I'd stay for weeks at a time in places I found favourable.

 

 

Certainly !   One needs a day and a night to 'wind down',  a  day to relax and a day to tune in  IMO  .   One time I did a slow trip across Oz on an old bomb motorbike ( it made it ! ) , at one stage we ( other motorcyclists with me )  stocked up with food and water and turned north off the Highway and just kept going through the scrub as far as fuel rations would allow us to get back and make the next fuel stop, and set up camp ..... W O W  !    ... especially the night sky !   And the primeval  'timelessness' ! 

 

 

 

All natural environment has special power, but some places are particularly potent. I suspect the most significant had a favourable natural aspect but their power was further enhanced by generations of Aboriginal cultivation. 

 

All sorts of dynamics are going on in these places, in some places its the rocks and fluctuations in the EMF,  in others, its to do with certain species (increase sites  - environmental scientists are starting to realise the significance of these places for certain species long term survival strategies , they dont understand it, but have seen the results when these areas are protected or disturbed, and ask the local indigenous about their knowledge and collate it and preserve these areas in a new and special way  - this is mostly happening  in NW South America ... the doco on it has been on TV twice now here.  )

 

 

 

 

For me, places like Byron Bay are too dominated by Western human consciousness to work in this way. Anywhere with a large human population has its energy aspected accordingly. Machines, such as cars etc, are particularly destructive of more subtle energies. There is a special 'silence' that's only found away from all this.

 

 

The outskirts are not too bad .... but I havent wanted to go near Byron Bay for years !    Its good for tourists though  ( keep 'em up there    )   I prefer my beach  unfootprinted before 10 am 

 

 

'Hungry Head' 

 

 

ummmmm ..... okay, it does have the occasional disadvantage where, at times, even rushing to the shallows may be 'dodgy';