Dreamtime

Dreamtime is the time before time for Aboriginal Australians. Indigenous Australian culture has had an uninterrupted and continuous history some estimate to be 65 000 years old. Dreamtime is Aboriginal Religion and Culture. It contains many parts: it is the story of things that have happened, how the universe came to be, how human beings were created and how the Creator intended for humans to function within the cosmos. Aboriginal Dreamtime is the part of aboriginal culture that explains the origins and culture of the land and its people.

An Indigenous Australian might say that he/she has Kangaroo Dreaming, or Shark Dreaming, or even Honey Ant Dreaming. What is certain to them is that Ancestor Spirits came to Earth in human and other forms and the land, the plants and animals were then given their form, as we know them today. These spirits also established relationships between groups and individuals, whether people or animals and where they travelled across the land, or came to a halt, they created their own particular landscape. Once their work was done, the ancestor spirits changed back into animals, stars, hills or other objects. For Indigenous Australians, the past is still alive and vital today and will remain so into the future. The Ancestor Spirits and their powers have not gone; they are present in the forms into which they changed at the end of the Dreamtime.

To me our ancient and collective human history contains many hints as to how we live our lives today, how we are influenced by past cultures and during our voyage on earth how we have adapted and developed. Dreamtime to me is an illuminated picture of how, from time to time, we can go beyond the every day conscious and enable ourselves to reach into the unconscious, perhaps even the collective unconscious. In these moments free of practical and rational limitations, we can create new dimensions to our life as well as determining our territory and destiny on earth. Visiting the realms of our Dreamtime we can get a sense of the unity and holistic interconnection of the world, with all who live, the creation of the past and of the future all of being as oneness. To realise for a moment that the power of Dreamtime has not ceased to exist but is present in the forms we meet in our everyday environment and in our everyday tasks can certainly be empowering.

Taking this broad perspective of continuity and unity might eventually also have an impact on our approach to self-actualisation in everyday life. To realise that beyond the necessary struggle for success, growth and expansion there is a Dreamtime available for each of us, a place where dream-like creation is possible. If we let ourselves travel between the pragmatic everyday world and the Dreamtime we would allow ourselves to grow as human beings but at the same time allow our respective worldly manifestations to become more successful and eventually more joyful, to become a realisation of our Selves.

Av Lasse Larsson 01 sep 2003 10:42