TAPPING INTO THE SACRED
PLACE, PLANT, AND ENERGY
Kim Lisson in conversation with Nyoongar elders
Richard Walley and Carol Pettersen
What makes a place sacred? And how is the sacred defined? For Aboriginal Australians, sacred spaces are both tangible and intangible—some visible, some intuited; sometimes physical, often metaphysical. Sacredness is intimately bound up with the natural world and people’s relationship to it—in this life and beyond. Sacred sites are places of respect, stewardship, kinship, communion, ritual, healing, and they are far from homogenous. The Aboriginal population of Australia is made up of many tribes and nations, each with their own sacred places, animal totems and other landmarks in geographic areas known as their “country.” Sacred places are as much a matter of identity and belonging as they are about transcendence.
Nyoongar country stretches across the south-west corner of the state of Western Australia from Geraldton to Esperance, including the state capital, Perth. To understand more about Nyoongar spirituality, and their notion of “sacred space,” writer, consultant and coach Kim Lisson spoke to two Nyoongar elders: artist Richard Walley and social advocate Carol Pettersen.
Richard, I assume there isn’t necessarily a single Aboriginal viewpoint on the subject of “sacred space,” although there may be similarities. Could you just give a little background on the diversity of Australian Aboriginal society and culture? As a culture and as a people we’re very diverse, like most communities in other countries. We have a united Aboriginal Australia but there’s also regions within the country, and within those regions there’s designated zones and areas. We’re in the south-west of West Australia which is a large proportion of Nyoongar country, but the Nyoongar country and its one language group is divided into fourteen sections and those fourteen sections are made up of different groups as well. Within those fourteen sections you’d have quite a number of different families. So, whilst you’ve got one set of rules and regulations and laws that may apply to a Nyoongar community, then you’ll have your different rules and regulations that apply for each of the sections and that breaks down to the family structures, and some of the families have sections as well. Once you know how that system works, it’s quite simple, but looking from the outside it’s very complex.
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And within those fourteen groups, where do you belong? My connections are Whadjuk, which is the Perth area, Ballardong which goes across east towards Quairading area, north into Yued, that’s Moora, south into Pinjarra area, further south between Margaret River and Busselton in the Wardandi. So, my grandparents and great-grandparents are in that area… and also Yamatji from Yalgoo to Meekatharra. My grandmother was Yamatji, so I’ve got Nyoongar as well as well as Yamatji connections.
And that explains your universal appeal across Aboriginal West Australia from what I gather. [laughs] Yeah. I’ve got a lot of connections. I’ve been very blessed, really. I traveled quite a bit and [was] really blessed being brought up by my Elders, the old people. It gave me that natural draw towards the Elders of other communities. As a young man I traveled around, and the first thing I did was go and speak to the Elders and spend some time with the old people. That was something that was instilled in me from my Elders, my people.
What that actually did, then, was show the young people —the children and the grandchildren of those people who were held in high regard—that they were respected, so when I returned to these places many years later, the Elders who had passed on, their children now were in these positions of decision making, so they remember that. And so yeah, that intergenerational connection, that’s a very strong, cultural characteristic we have as well.
So, when it comes to sacred space, would you be reasonably confident there are some significant similarities between different Aboriginal communities, or would you say it’s more characterized by its differences? Well, on this subject there’s a lot of similarities. Similarities because nature itself is a part of the system, it’s not based purely on the unknown and supernatural. It’s a combination of spirituality and the physical form, both in the forms of people, but more importantly place and plant.
And that forms a common connection point for the Nyoongar people, the environment of the south-west of Western Australia as common “country”? Exactly. We didn’t have borderlines that divided us, we had borderlines that actually joined us, and we shared common responsibilities. I think that was a fantastic system that operated by sharing responsibilities, caring for country, caring for animals and plants that are in your zone, but also out of your zone, becomes it’s something that links us together as a people.
I really like that metaphor—instead of fences and boundaries that divide, you’ve got what these days would be the equivalent of “easements,” where there’s a mutual responsibility for where things join and connect. That’s exactly right. Take the hills, for example. The hills divide us as a people, but the hills also join us, so one side of the hill is one community, the other side is another community and the hill is everyone’s community where we both can walk over the side… and back again. The same with a river. In the Western world the river divides countries, towns, communities, but in our world it actually joins. The river itself joins two different communities; you can go from one side of the river to the other and there’s no boundary line because the river connects, not divides.
In my experience, English as a language seeks finer and finer distinctions between one thing and another—I’m constantly reminded that the Aboriginal experience is much more about things being connected than distinct. Exactly. Nothing is isolated, nothing is alone, even as a cell—even cells connect to other cells to make something.
So, it’s very much an ecological viewpoint, or world view. Very much ecological, yeah.
Do the terms “sacred” and “spiritual” have a particular meaning for your culture? They sure do, and they all interconnect, because we have spirituality that’s connected to place—some of it is because of use of place, some because of events of place, some birth place. There are places for ceremony, places for initiations. We have what are called “energy” places. These energy places—for the western mind—are the areas where there’s magnetic fields, there’s thermal heat that comes from the ground, there’s all these natural phenomena that come from the earth itself. Our people tapped into that many, many years ago, and still tap into it today, and respect that as the reason our planet lives, breathes and exists.
Is sacredness and spirituality separate from place or is it always “in place”? It’s always in place. It’s always connected. But you have spirituality where you can travel away from place but your connection still goes back… It’s like a modern-day sporting team—you go into a town, or a location, and you’re from a particular sporting team, but you go to a different swimming pool or to an arena. Those who are like-minded know where you’re coming from and they’ll embrace you into that fraternity.
How do you personally define spirituality? It’s a matter of your feelings, interests and intuition. It’s all combined into a belief system and that belief system gives you your sense of being, sense of belonging. You know who you belong to, you know where you’ve been. That is something that’s been a mystery for mankind for many years, to find out why we’re here. And many different religions around the world have spawned from one source at different times. Most of it is back to place, energies, events. So, it’s no different today looking at sacred country, that spirituality is connected when people go close to it. It’s an energy you actually feel.
So, you mentioned earlier places have different uses. Are all those different uses ultimately spiritual, or are there some more spiritual than others? Some are spiritual, others are recreational. So, you’ve got spiritual, recreational and some are just regeneration places where there’s sitting by a river where you feel very, very calm and you recollect yourself. Water is always fantastic for calming. People go—whether it’s a river, or ocean or a lake, you automatically slow down. That’s sort of nature’s way, you tap into that. That’s the essence of the spirit of place.
So, what defines spiritual places as distinct from the others? It’s mostly rituals, it’s energies, it’s places where there’s a collection of rocks, trees, anything that creates an energy, and there’s a dynamic about it when you get there you can actually feel this energy and say “Ah! That’s a special place.” That collection of nature guides you into your own inner essence.
What I’m also hearing, that reflects my own relationship with nature, is that nature chooses the people, not the people choosing the place. That’s exactly right. And you’ll feel it when you go. I must say, it’s amazing how people can travel around the world and all of a sudden, they find somewhere that’s significant for them. And that feeling of longing—they might go away, but when they actually return, they can start to feel the energy as they come closer to it. You’d feel the same thing, the same way when you’ve traveled away and you’re driving back home, the closer you get the more you’re feeling the energy of belonging. You get this nice anticipation the closer you get to the location you live in. You feel that energy.
Is it worth mentioning “songlines,” do they have a special place in this conversation at all? Songlines are very significant. In our culture our stories are handed down by song. That song connects people, place and purpose. One song also connects on to another one. Songlines are stories, guidelines, a road map linking place to place.
And people to people? People to people, events to events, people, place, and animal.
I know that the cultural elements of singing and dancing and painting and storytelling—and with you, comedy—are all part of the Aboriginal cultural experience. Are they similar or different as spiritual experience, and does one enable the other? Well, you’ve got craft people, and they tap into this energy and have the ability to articulate it in such a way that it’s an art piece. Whereas others know it, they can feel it, they can talk about it, they can envisage it in their minds, but they don’t have the ability to tap into the creative side and put that creative energy in the mind in the form of a practical outcome.
So, do storytelling, painting, dance, open up spiritual experience or do they describe spiritual experience? It’s both. It’s tapping into it as well as displaying beauty. A lot of creative people that tap into that essence first—that gives them that creative output and creative energies. But you find that people who tap into those creative energies are never short of subject matter when they go to paint or create, there’s always something coming in, whereas some are actually just taught as a craft—they’re looking for subject matter, they can have what they call creative blocks.
So, when you’re talking about the creative energies I’m hearing that the artistic and spiritual capacities are not really distinct. Yes.
Do you have any story that you can relate in terms of spiritual experience from your culture that is either personal or cultural that you’re authorized and able to share? Well, we could have lots of examples. Our culture… and most of the world’s religions are actually belief systems. A belief system is a belief and not concrete evidence; the scenarios of that go from the miracle of life itself to the evolution of the planet. Those things are all around us continually, so what I say is do not take the earth for granted, do not take trees for granted! They’re the wonderful stories.
I’ve been around the world and there’s been times I’ve been in places where they’re on the brink of revolution, like in Venezuela. I was in New York when it was a very, very tough time back in the eighties. It wasn’t a very safe place. And I stayed in places like in Inglewood in Los Angeles during the time when gang warfare was very high. But at each of these times I’ve always felt very safe because I believe in the energies. So, I’ve actually walked to the places and I’ve got feelings that I shouldn’t be around there, so I turn around, for no logical reason, and go somewhere else or just not go at all. On three or four occasions I’ve walked down to get on an airplane, and turned around and went home, and said I’m not going. I tap into that energy continually and that’s in our culture, that follows you around the world.
In our culture we say Ngarngk. Ngarngk in our language is “mother.” Ngarngk is also the name of the sun, the giver of life. If it wasn’t for that, our mother, the one sun that gives us life, we would not be on this planet as a people, nor would plants or animals. That, in our culture, gives us a security of being a part of an energy that’s looking after you, and if you follow that energy line you’re usually pretty safe. So up to where I am now, I have never ever been threatened in any of those areas, and I’ve heard about people being shot, robbed around me in the vicinity where I was around that approximate time. I tend to believe that examples are small reminders.
So, it sounds like culturally and personally, Aboriginal spirituality does have a mystical element. Very much so. There’s no logic behind it. Again, it’s a belief and a feeling and maybe nothing would have happened to me whether I went there or not, but I feel that following that energy, or people call it intuition, I’m in a safer place.
What about the “dreaming” or the “dreamtime”—what is it and what is its connection to your notion of the Divine? It is related to the “mother” and the sun? Very much so. We believe in the creator, we believe in the greater spirit. We believe in our culture that you can tap into the “dreaming” in your dreams and in your meditations. So, you don’t have to die to go to it, you can actually tap into that, into that energy, into that energy field. We believe our ancestors are communicating with us all the time, so that gives us that belief of a greater power than us. We firmly believe that.
And I gather you don’t necessarily call it God though? Well, God’s a word that’s got many different meanings. We’d say that there’s a creator. We’d use the word “mother.” I think that’s something that is universal with a lot of cultures in believing of an energy line, in another dimension. That’s something that links a lot of religions. They may have a cosmetic difference but fundamentally they [believe] the same, about a greater power. And I think the basics of that greater power is humanity. How do you respect and treat your fellow man? Each religion has those aspects about it that links you as a person to other people, but [also] a greater responsibility to a greater power.
In the course of Australia’s history, many Aboriginal people have been displaced from their traditional country. Is there an impact on spirituality if Aboriginal people are not connected to country, or have limited or no access to country? One of our significant places in Perth is called Mooro Katta, also known as Kaarta Gar-up, and commonly known as King’s Park. People feel the energy of it. Even to this day you got a person who comes from another country and they go up there and they feel this energy. We know it’s a special place, it’s a spiritual place, and so that goes beyond our beliefs and our customs, it goes into the international connections and universally connected people who feel a sense of place when they’re here as well. There’s a number of those [places] and people like us who travel to other parts of the world, we go to significant places and you feel the energy of them, even before sometimes you know what they are or even know that they are significant.
So, I find that place gives you your link for your purpose, your ceremony and passing your link and your stories on. I was able to stand up in a place and tell people that down on that island, that’s where my grandmother’s great, great grandmother was born. That’s the birthing place and it becomes significant for us because that’s the story that links us there. Then, you know her grandfather lived two or three miles away. You connect all those story lines, that brings you to your ancestors in your past, you feel a sense of connection while you’re there and that’s universal for you as a family. Yet, when people from other countries come along and they feel a connection too, and they say this is significant. That goes into the creation and the spirituality and the universal connection.
And so, despite the dispossession, at the end of the day there’s also a sense in which Aboriginal people are not proprietorial about country in one sense, because spiritual places are spiritual places. That’s exactly right. We’re custodians of them, but we don’t own them.
I think that sounds like a wonderful place to end. Thank you very much, Richard. I really appreciate your time. Okay, mate. It was lovely talking to you.
Carol Pettersen is a Justice of the Peace, cultural advisor and Elder belonging to the Minung-Gnudju people of the Nyoongar Nation in the southwest of Western Australia. She has lived and worked in Albany for most of her life and is well-known throughout the Nyoongar nation as a tireless worker for her people. As a Justice of the Peace, Carol is still actively working in the courts as an advocate for social justice for Nyoongar people, which she has done for over 40 years. She is also very active in helping to bring about social and economic changes for Nyoongar people through land claims and access to mining income. She was a principal adviser to the Premier of Western Australia on women´s issues, a counselor with the Council of Albany, and has served on state and Commonwealth committees on issues such as Indigenous health, welfare, education and training. She retired from the public service in 1998 but continues to work as a volunteer for the Nyoongar community.
Carol, what’s your cultural background? I identify myself as a Minang-Gnudju woman of the Nyoongar nation. We have this dual dialect culture as well as a dual culture background, meaning that although my mother was a tribal woman my father was a white man, and so we’ve grown up with those two cultures. And there was a big family… Mum and Dad had eighteen children.
We know our totem, which is a little bird from our neck of the woods, which is the coastal strip—we were coastal people. An anthropologist described our family as the ‘shell people of the South Coast’. We come from a matriarchal line, we identify with that, and our little totem is a little bird, and it’s the spirit of our grandmother. Women were given little birds (and trees and flowers) as a spiritual totem and the men, the patriarchal line, were given big birds.
Do you know what little bird it was? Yeah, it’s like a honeyeater. When we were growing up we were never allowed to look at it. We were to listen to it, and this bird was just so incredible in communicating with us. For instance, when it was time to go and hunt for kangaroos, this little bird would suddenly appear in front of us and it would chirp cheerfully, jumping from bush to bush to bush, and mum would follow—mum was the main hunter because she had the skills of her Aboriginal people. And this little bird would just hop from bush to bush and then when it got close to a kangaroo, it would literally fly up and have a different shrilling sound… it would fly up about three times and then mother would say to us, now sit quietly kids, while she was able to sneak up on them [the kangaroos].
So that’s one spiritual space, that little bird. It would tell us when somebody was coming. When somebody had died it was the most mournful thing. It would go way up in the sky, literally drop, and you wouldn’t see it hit the ground, but it would literally drop. I can remember when my little brother died, I was about ten. We only had a horse and carts in those days, and dad had to walk to a farm about thirty kilometers away to get a truck to take the baby to hospital. But in the meantime, the boy died. He was about three… and mum woke me and my brother up to sit with the body and I can remember… I can still see it now. I could draw it for you—on his chest was this vase almost like a flame, just flaming, and this little bird was singing in there, on his chest.
You saw a vision. Yeah, it was incredible.
And that was your totem bird. Yeah. Probably blessing him or taking him on his journey. I’ve had many spiritual experiences like that.
Well, it’s a very different way of looking at place or space. The space is almost a relationship between you and the bird. Yeah. And that spiritual space, or thing, it’s many things and many different layers… we see every plant, every living thing has a spirit of its own. We also know that there are spiritual beings out there… some of them can be naughty and some of them are good. But we really, really feel the spirits connected to trees, flora. And we also feel places, like rivers, waterholes, hills… we can feel those spiritual places. Rock formations – we can feel them. I remember, I was working with a minister, and they took me to this place in the Burrup Peninsula with a rock carving and we got to a certain distance and I said, “I can’t go any further,” and he said “Yeah, you can, it’s an easy pathway.” He thought I was talking about my capability, but there was actually an invisible line, and it stopped me, and when that hit me it’s almost like an electric fence and I said I couldn’t go any more. I had to respect. I could have broken through it, but… our belief is that… if you ignore those protocols, and those systems that are based on our spiritual space and beliefs, you will be punished. And I wasn’t going to take that risk…
It was like a special sacred place for the people of that country? Oh, yeah. Maybe I was a foreigner, I was an alien. I hadn’t gotten permission. I was with a white man and I hadn’t gotten permission from anyone.
I’m interested in what you’re talking about… because when non-Aboriginal people speak about spirituality it’s usually only connected to humans. But you’ve talked about what I know to be true for Aboriginal people —it’s a whole ecology. We’re the last being, I suppose, in the realm of spiritual beings. We are never superior to any spirit, plant, animal, places or anything—we’re the last, and our actual behavior whether it’s camping, or walkabouts, or fire, or cooking or hunting, is based on, first, the weather. So, the weather, the plants, animals, birds and then we humans respond to all of that. We watch their behavior. For instance, plants will tell us. I can remember where there’s a little ground plant that’s got a pink flower and when it grows to about so high, that’s when we can collect malleefowl eggs. And the paperbark tree, when the blossom comes out on that, the bream are fat. So, we know then it’s the ideal time to go fishing. And you always only take what you need and leave the rest. And then we bless the river for providing that, we bless the river for guiding us all the time. We’re actually inferior to every other living being.
What’s the relationship, then, between what you’re saying about humans being inferior and having what I understand is a custodian or stewardship role in protecting other beings? We have the totem system. So, that little bird is my totem. When we have a totem, you must care for it and respect it, and pay reverence to it. Ours is only a little bird, some people have got the emu. So not everybody eats the emu. Not everybody eats the kangaroo, not everybody collects malleefowl eggs because everybody’s got a totem and they have to look after that. It’s a religion.
So, what comes up for you when you hear the term “sacred space?” Is it about specific places or is it a broader concept? Look, it’s all around us all the time. When we go walking anywhere, you’re absolutely mindful of nature, if I can use the wadjala (white fella) term. For example, if we see a willy-willy (a whirlwind), it could be a cheeky little spirit, that’s not a wind, that’s a spirit. Wherever we walk, that is a sacred space. And if we haven’t been given permission to go there, like for instance, if we go out of our region into another area, we always ask somebody to tell the old people we’re coming. Now the old people could be physical or spiritual. As long as you’ve said that to somebody that lives in that town, you’ve done the right thing.
I was asked to go in a classroom in North Albany and there were two girls from up North, Aboriginal girls and about six Albany girls. The teacher shut the door, and you wouldn’t believe it, in that room a willy-willy started… and she said, “Oh, I’ve closed the windows. Where is that coming from?” and I just looked at these girls and I said, “You’ve got somebody looking after you.” And I said [the spirits] “Is it okay for me to talk?” They had their spiritual guardian with them!
[quiet bird song] And so we’re mindful of it all the time. No matter where we are, we’re listening, especially the birds. If the birds get quiet [speaking quietly] we need to listen. If the birds are really, really making a noise, [Carol speaking normally now] again we listen. And all the time if there’s a bird calling out you listen to see if one answered. If he hasn’t answered, you listen to this one. What is it, who is it? [loud bird call] See? [she laughs]. So, all that time we’re listening and observing.
Everything is sacred space. Everything! Everything is sacred. The whole nature, the clouds. We’re reading the clouds. Birds will tell you where the water is—at sunset you see where the birds are flying, there’s water over there. That knowledge was passed down. I take school kids around and I tell them it’s about perception and looking for the spiritual space… looking for the signs to ensure that we respect it by acknowledging it.
So that’s the motivation, isn’t it? Respect. Yeah. But I’m also looking for tracks. Snake tracks, or food, all the time. Just looking for that, where somebody, a photographer will look for colors and shapes, kids will look for something they can play with, or what they can climb. They’re sort of single-focused where ours is broad, all the time, we’re alert.
I see. So, one thing that I’m curious about is places that are not so much more significant, but that are differently significant? Yeah. Okay, so we’ve got all of this space here but then on the creek bed down there, there could be a sacred space that could have been a corroboree [an event where Aborigines interact with the Dreamtime] site or could have been an ochre [clay used for ceremonial ritual and art] site. Yeah, so there are those different…
And are they connected? Socially… are they places that are sacred or special because they are connected to culture and society, or to nature? Well, nature provided it, naturally, the ochre, the bend in the river, the waterhole, nature provided, through the spiritual creation of the Wagyl rainbow serpent [part of the Dreaming and Nyoongar creation myth]. Nature provides for us to carry out our cultural practices.
And so, it almost becomes a natural sequence, there’s a certain specialness or beauty or attraction or calling, perhaps, then it gets used and then it becomes spiritual. Yeah, yeah. It’s purposeful. Even, for example, granite rocks are usually in the shape of something and the land formation became creation stories and—from my perspective and my story line —they became the directional or reference point in that you’d sing the song. Songlines are road maps, so you’d sing the song and once you get to that spot you’d sing the next stage, and you could actually see it.
In my language, in English, we talk about “social”and “cultural” and “spiritual” as if they’re all different, but I’m constantly reminded when I talk to Aboriginal people that they’re actually not different at all. It’s a very holistic view, that you can’t separate them, nor should you separate them. Right. And that’s what’s been damaging us in trying to serve as Aboriginal people from a welfare service perspective. It’s like you’ve got the body, you cut the head off and give that to mental health, you cut the leg off and you give that to… I don’t know what area, and you take the heart, cut the heart out and you give it to the cardiologist, take the kidney… you know? The eyes out and you give it to the optometrist. And that’s how they deal with…
It’s all separated. Yeah. Yeah. You give it to an Aboriginal doctor and he takes the whole body, and then he works with the spirit.
Hmm… and often the spirit is disconnected from the natural spiritual space. I was in a position to support a young man whose parents died in an accident. As he grew, he suffered from depression. One day I woke him up early, said “Get in this car, we’re going.” “Where are we going?” he asked. I said, “I’ll tell you when we get there.” Now, what I really wanted was a spiritual space for him to allow whatever spirits out there to enter him, because they can feel wounded people and they will enter that body and heal it. Anyway, that was my belief, and so I headed for Wave Rock because I’ve done a lot of traveling and I think that’s the most magical environment… those open paddocks and you can just feel…
Even though that’s not your country? It’s not my country and I had to ask permission to get up there. When we got there I said to him “I want you to walk and walk and walk, but you be back here at sundown.” Anyway, when he got back he said, “Oh! My goodness, that was wonderful.” They did, one found him. He was sitting on a rock and an old man came to him and from then he never looked back. And it’s funny enough, I was telling this one woman my story, a non-Aboriginal, and she said, “Carol, that happened to me and my son. I took him to Wave Rock and he got cured.”
Words fail to express what I’m feeling about what you’ve had to say. My initial response is just full of awe. You know, there’s that sense in which even when you do your best to explain the experience, there’s always a level of mystery involved, which you can’t fully know. Oh, absolutely. I just have to trust the teachings and the belief that I had… because I grew up in the bush you know, and just sit on a log and just let the voices, whatever it is, that comes to me. I mean, in a healthy perspective. All the drugs and everything now tend to have interfered with that, but I think mental health for Aboriginal people is all wrong. It doesn’t belong in a clinic. It belongs in Wave Rock.
How do you nurture your own spirit? The bush. The bush all the time. Talking to the birds. Acknowledging the presence of a tree, and blessing it for the strength that it’s got, you know? I just love an old dry tree. A living tree has got many uses, but a dry tree has still got many, many uses still, and I’ll always think this is the ancestral guidance of the new trees because they’re providing holes for birds to nest in. In the end it’s even firewood that keeps somebody warm, you know? So, I can see that old dry tree like my grandmother’s spirit, almost, because it’s still guiding, it’s still providing guidance and nurturing. I’ve just got to go to the bush all the time, just got to go bush and just smell. They talk about aromatherapy—that’s out there in the bush. That’s one of the reasons we feel good going out there, we go back to our bushes that we grew up [with] as our totem. Smell it, talk to it… and the sky’s not alien. The sky’s part of our spiritual space. All those stories and stars, and I just remember times when we were kids and how happy things were and how clear life was, you know? This was your role, now life has just become so complicated and I think too self-centered.
And disconnected? …and disconnected, yeah. I listen to my grandchildren talking now, about when Nan used to take them camping… my inheritance is memories. It’s not money or brick and mortar or shares—even though I haven’t got that—it’s memories. And I keep saying to my children, give your kids memories.
And those stories are the connecting up? Yeah. What’s the purpose of that. Why is that? Look for the tracks.
It’s not in formal ceremony and ritual but it’s a nice small family sharing so that it gets passed on. Yeah, we’ll see all these different tracks, like there’s a fox, and there’s a little bird, maybe there’s a horse and then I’ll get the kids to try and connect those tracks and those stories and the impact on the environment, and all that sort of thing, so we can tell a story out of the tracks. So, there’s a fox chasing the bird and maybe the horse has come along and doesn’t belong here, and look, it’s left some dung behind and then weeds are growing up and that could be okay because it’s will make seeds for the birds, that sort of thing. Stories. And then, of course, the old stories.
Beats TV, huh? [laughing] Yeah. So, tell us a story, Nan!
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