I’ve just read ‘Sand talk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta, an indigenous fella with a complex and troubled background who has found his voice. He articulately relates the pattern thinking – a difficult task. How do we understand the overall shape of the connections between things? How do we look beyond the things and focus on the connections between the? Then go further to see the patterns they make? There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus.
And … People today focus on the points of connection the nodes of interest like stars in the sky but the real understanding comes in the spaces in between, in the relational forces that connect and move the points.
It all starts with being attentive, listening, waiting, noticing what is happening and doing this over and over again. Connectedness balances the excesses of individualism.
Whilst talking he makes things as he goes and that is something I’ve been fascinated with of late. The power of creative actions AND dialog. He also relates conversations with many elders from across the land, for example he spent time with Noongar elder Noel Nannup and describes his influence on young men to see beyond.
In between this talk he talks about artificial intelligence, greek philosophy, and a broad array of social topics demonstrating his deep thinking.
A word he uses to explain to assert boundaries and connections is ‘lookout’ – all the reasonable obligations and activities within networks. What is my ‘lookout’? This ties in with the totemic system and holistic reasoning grown from a lived cultural framework embedded in the landscape. I liked how he broadened the totem framework from having an association with just one or two animals/plants but also to elements like lightning, whirlwinds, waterlilies etc. I’ve been reflecting on my connection to the wind and what that might actually mean for my life.
In his own language there is no word for culture but the closed phrase translates to something like ‘Be like your place’ which embeds the notion within the landscape.
A framework he discusses in depth are the different ways of thinking: story-mind, kinship -mind, dreaming-mind, ancestor- mind and pattern-mind. He uses fingers to elaborate further: imagine your little finger as a child, the centre of family and the ones who make relationships happen hence representing kinship mind. The ring finger is a mother, so the two, mother and child, are the pivotal relationship of any stable society, the mother telling stories to her child – hence story-mind, the narrative is the device to transmit knowledge and memory. The middle finger is a man, belonging to the woman beside him, representing dreaming-mind, the use of metaphors = images, songs, dances, words and objects. The pointer finger is the man’s brother’s child, the man teaching the child using the dreaming-mind by drawing images in the sand, all the while the woman is telling stories. The nephew/niece is working with ancestor mind, tapping into the intuitive knowledge achieved through cultural activities, carving, weaving, painting, dancing.
Now the thumb can wiggle across the landscape of the hand connecting spirituality to the man, woman and children. This represents pattern-mind which is the skill of seeing the whole system and not just the parts. If you can see the whole system, you can see the relationships. The thumb can teach each finger, or combinations of fingers and forming a fist the thumb and connect to all fingers.
Some other great lines:
Making yourself an expert in another culture is not always appreciated by the members of that culture.
If you don’t move with the land the land will move you
I can extend this approach into my professional life as meteorology is all about patterns in the atmosphere and the challenge to observe the whole system to understand how a tropical cyclone evolves to be able to forecast what it will do next.
I also find photography and painting are great methods to be able to observe the natural world and below are two examples of this.
So in Active Hope terms, I’m using this in the seeing with new eyes framework. To sit within the natural landscape and observe and to see the patterns of connectedness in all things. Not such an easy thing to do.
Links to Tyson talking about Sand Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsMMisFiABM
RN ABC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8dmqDd756w
Photo: after the rain in Robertson Park.
My most recent painting of a banksia in Bold Park.
