Song Lines

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Song Lines

Out looking for whales

this morning

I thought about

Song Lines

Song Lines

are an ancient

cultural concept and motif

of the Australian Aboriginals

 

which are perpetuated through

oral lore

singing

and story telling modalities

such as dance and painting

 

The song lines are an intricate series

of song cycles

that identify landmarks -

a subtle tracking mechanism

for navigation

 

 Our eye followed

the arc of white wash

across the bay

 

to where it ended

at the yacht

in the distance

 

and as we looked

an enormous tail fluke

rose out of the water

hallelujah

 

To the Aboriginals

all land is sacred and alive

the ancestors gave them singing

gave them life through song

and dwell in the land still

 

the song must be continually sung

to keep the land alive

 

the singing preserves the land

the story

the dreaming of their ancestors

and recreates it

in their oneness

of past

present

and future

 

song lines were used

to navigate vast distances

through the deserts

of the Australian interior,

over hundreds of kilometres

of varied terrain

and lands of many different

tribal groups

with different languages

and cultural traditions

 

song lines often followed ridge lines

and that is where

much of the sacred Aboriginal art is located

Sometimes they followed valleys

where water is more easily found

 

We leave the bay

to sit in the coffee shop

overlooking this beautiful tree

 

which may be a crepe myrtle

 

then fortified

we make our way back

and low and behold

Look...

 

a group

 

a family of travellers

resting in the calm waters

of the bay

 

before

making their way southwards

down the coast

of Queensland

to New South Wales

and beyond...

 

 look how close

the family group is

to the boat

 

 In 1987 Bruce Chatwin

wrote a book

entitled Song Lines

which tells very beautifully

of these ancient sung

highways and byways

of the Australian continent

 

 Satisfied

with whale sightings

we walk up the road

to my friend's home

 

Bruce Chatwin says:

The labyrinth of individual pathways

which meander all over Australia

are known to Europeans

as dreaming tracks or Song Lines

-to the Aboriginals

as the Footprints of the Ancestors

or the Way of the Law...

The Whales,

I have learned,

seem to have their own

heritage of song lines

that are sung

from one pole to another

and heard over great distances

connecting

the whale communities

and maintaining group identities...

Wonders

of time

of place

of the land

of peoples

and

of the oceans

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