The Dreaming

The Indigenous People of Australia speak of a 'seed power'; knowledge deposited in the Earth by the Ancestral Spirits. From the beginning of time, every event and every creative process that happened on Mother Earth effectively left behind a seed. This seed could be seen as a memory that permeated the Earth after the event, just as a flower leaves behind a cloned copy of itself in the form of a discarded seed. All things formed during the Dreamtime carried with them a vibrational memory that held the events that birthed that place. Just as everything of Nature carries the memory of the events that helped bring about its Creation, so they carry the blueprint of the Ancestral Spirits whose actions helped shape the land. The memory stored within the land is what the Indigenous People refer to as 'The Dreaming', representing the primordial sacredness of the Earth.

According to legend, all life found on Mother Earth is interlinked by relationship and all life can be traced back to the Ancestor Spirits of Australia's Dreamtime. The Dreamtime was the time before time - when the world was new and the Ancestor Spirits were wandering the Earth, helping to bring form to the land, the plants and the animals. While 'Dreamtime' describes the time when the world was new, the term 'Dreaming' describes the continuation of the Dreamtime in today's world and remembering that sacred time as it still exists within the spiritual lives of Australia's Indigenous People to this day.

As is the belief in other ancient cultures, the Indigenous People of Australia believe that everything was created from the same source; that a universal thread, which enables all things of nature to commune and interact, links everything. An unspoiled purity was radiated by the Dreamtime energies with the animals engaging themselves in the ways of The People, and The People behaving very much like the animals. In the Dreamtime stories, it is often unclear whether the characters portrayed are human or animal in form, with the two often overlapping. During the Dreamtime one being could become another; and could assume the shape of a different being. A plant could change into the form of an animal for example, or an animal could transform itself into a landform and a landform could become a man or a woman.

Dreamtime stories were told with the purpose of illustrating how the Ancestral Spirits brought about the animals and birds. These stories helped explain the origins of the family and tribal totems which formed the foundations of life for The People.