The Earth is Shifting Beneath our Feet

Posted on March 12, 2011 by jbstubley

In trying to comprehend some of the recent natural and social upheavals taking place in the world, we can find ourselves entering into a realm of uncertainty. Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, cyclones, fire. Social revolutions unfolding in country after country.

On the one hand it is tempting to look at each event as an isolated occurrence and attempt to understand it as something that stands on its own. On the other hand it is tempting to somehow lump all these events together and pronounce the ‘end of days.’ Both of these viewpoints approach reality from a certain perspective. But we must have the courage to walk a path between these two extremes and see if we can discover there any kind of truth.

Observing the situation at hand solely with our intellects can leave us doubt-filled about our own understandings. Observing solely with our emotions can take us into a realm of illusion. The question is whether or not we can objectively perceive all that is taking place around us – and within us – with the faculties available to the whole human being.

We have been witnessing the ground shift beneath our feet. The recent earthquake near Japan is one of the largest in recorded history, and comes soon after earthquakes in New Zealand and elsewhere. Tsunamis have followed, and bring back memories of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. In the country of my birth – Australia – there have been, in recent months, wide-spread flooding, cyclones and fires. Australia, of course, has not been the only country to experience such activity.

All of these natural events have had very real impacts on the lives of human beings. Many people have died, and others suffered terrible loss. The question of the relationship of nature to the human being has been brought more and more to the forefront of our consciousness through these events. Yet, there are more questions awaiting us in this direction.

In social life, we have been witnessing revolutions taking place across the Arab world. We have also seen social unrest and protest in many states of America. Numerous other protests and expressions of social discontent have been unfolding around the globe. Very real instances of human un-freedom and social inequality have all been brought into question and directly challenged.

Speaking pictorially, we could say that a kind of social earthquake has been taking place across the world. The social structures which have existed beneath our feet are being brought into question. No longer are human beings content with the social common-ground that has existed, routine-like, for the last decades. The social earth is shifting. And we can ask, What is it that is seeking to arise?

Social life is brought about through the activity of human beings. The human being stands in the centre of all social activity. We can also ask, therefore, What is it that is seeking to emerge within the human being?

As we have already touched on, there are many commonly-used cultural expressions and phrases that employ pictures of natural events in order to describe social conditions. ‘It is like an earthquake.’ ‘The ground is shifting.’ ‘We are completely flooded.’ ‘We were completely blown away.’ ‘The world is on fire.’ And so on – there are many others.

It is important to observe that social pictures such as these are now taking place at the same time as physical events. Natural and social ‘earthquakes’ are unfolding together. Both the social imagination and the natural event are occurring simultaneously.

And so we may ask, How does this relate to the human being? How and where does the human being stand in relation to both natural and cultural events?

In reality, the ground beneath the feet of the human being has also been shifting. It cannot be otherwise. No social change would be necessary if this were not so. We find, in truth, everything that is taking place within the outer natural and social world also unfolding within the human being.

‘I have lost the ground beneath my feet.’ ‘I am completely inundated / flooded.’ ‘I feel completely blown over.’ ‘I am fired up.’ The natural and social ‘climate’ of the human being is changing. We are not immune or separate from all that is taking place around us in natural or social conditions. On the contrary, we find ourselves, truly speaking, right in the middle of it.

The question then becomes, What is seeking to unfold within the human being, as well as in the world around us, and how can we help this process unfold in healthy ways?

If we have lost the ground beneath our feet – if we have lost such firm support and foundation – we must seek such ground elsewhere. We cannot find such a foundation in the past, for the ground there has been torn up – has been completely thrown into chaos. Nor can we find such support solely in the present, for the ground there is continually shifting. In truth, we can only find solid ground – can only find new foundations for ourselves – in the future; in our own becoming. Only in our own becoming – the person we are ‘not yet’ – the person we are growing into – our own highest potential – only here can we find the sure ground that we need in order to withstand all that is taking place within the human being today, and all that is taking place around us.

It is the same, thereby, with social life. We cannot turn back. When the ground shifts, as it did during the recent financial crisis, we cannot – or should not – re-build the same structures on the ever-shifting ground of the past and expect that a different outcome will unfold. A different outcome will not unfold. We must build, instead, our foundations out of the future – out of the becoming social situation – out of the highest potential of the social organism. We must rebuild the social organism upon the foundations of its highest potential in the same way as we must build our own foundations upon the ground of our own becoming.

Only this will suffice. For, in reality, that which is causing the social and human earthquakes – that which is seeking to arise, volcano-like from the rubble – is nothing other than our own and society’s highest potentials – the ideal becoming of both the human organism and the social organism, which are seeking to be.

We ourselves – our own future possibilities – are causing the disturbances in our own inner lives, as much as the archetypal social organism is causing the disturbances in outer social life. This is happening because things are currently so desperately out-of-line with what they could potentially be. Only by building human and social foundations on that which is seeking to be in us and in the world will we be working in healthy ways with the highest potential of the human being and the world.

And yet this is no easy task, precisely because we must cross the ground that has fallen away – the abyss that lies between our past and our highest future possibilities. This takes great courage. This takes the whole human being. Our highest future selves (and all that is able to work through them) are the very bridges we are looking for in order to cross and become. The activity becomes, and becomes the goal. We can and must grow conscious of this process.

In this way will we move from violent and destructive experiences to activity that works in a conscious and healthy way with that which is seeking to emerge in the world through us. No longer will we falter under shifting social and human earthquakes – we will find and build new ground in the ideal future of both the human and social organisms, for in truth we find the one in the other. No longer will we be formed by destructive flooding in ourselves and in social life – we can work consciously with the creative forming forces of life in ourselves and in society. No longer will we or society be blown about randomly – we will breathe the air of highest possibilities. No longer will fire be a destructive force in ourselves and in social affairs – we will instead burn in the fire and light of our own and the world’s highest becoming.

In this way can a new light enter into the human being and the world. In this way can we find the courage, strength and enthusiasm to overcome the abyss that separates us from our true common ground and our true ‘common wealth.’ In this way can we work practically, creatively and in true freedom with that which is seeking to express itself in the world and in ourselves.

We shall enter then a field of certainty and sure ground out of which we can work in very real ways towards the further progress of social life so that it supports the full unfolding of the capacities of the human being. We shall find ourselves, thereby, as true human beings with a true relationship to natural and social conditions in order to bring about the ideal development of ourselves, of one another, of social conditions and of the world as a whole.

John Stubley

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The Sphinx Can Guide Us: After the Revolution

Posted on February 18, 2011 by jbstubley

Following the dramatic events we have seen unfold in Egypt’s ‘Freedom Square,’ and as we watch the rest of the Arab world (as well as Wisconsin, USA) stand up against dictators and centralized power structures, the question that now hovers in the atmosphere of the Earth is, ‘What now?’

Approaching us on the back of this question, as if it were a rider upon a horse, is, ‘What pictures do we have for the kind of world we are actually fighting for?’

With Egypt in the centre of many people’s consciousness at present, we can perhaps turn our gaze to that which stood as such a significant imagination during the height of ancient Egypt – that is, the sphinx.

The sphinx approaches our consciousness of today as something of a riddle. A significant later expression of the sphinx (and therefore closer to our own time) has the head and face of a human, wings of an eagle, torso and forelegs of a lion, and backside of a bull. What could this mean?

If we attempt to enter into the imagination of the sphinx – especially into the eagle, the lion and the bull – we can begin to ask, ‘What are the qualities of these particular animals?’

If we observe the eagle we can see that, in spreading its broad wings, it lives high in the overarching sky, looking down onto the earth. It moves and sweeps freely in large circles on the updraft of air, able to strike down upon its prey at any moment, if it so chooses.

The expression we associate with the lion is that it is ‘king of the jungle’ – it regulates the equality of the whole of jungle life. It does not fly like the eagle, however. Culturally, the lion has recently played a central role in the films The Jungle King and The Chronicles of Narnia.

The bull is firmly connected to the earth. It eats huge quantities of grass before digesting it in its four stomachs and producing one of the most fertile substances in the world – manure. The female – the cow – also produces milk. The cow/bull is the great provider. It is strong, however, even wild if provoked. It cannot fly freely, nor can it be said to regulate activity in the same manner as the lion. Likewise, the lion and eagle could not be said to provide in the same way as the cow/bull.

Many many more observations could be made, of course. If they are made, we can begin to see and experience that what approaches us in the riddle of the sphinx is nothing other than a true imagination of the human being – it is us.

We see in the eagle a kind of archetypal or poetic expression of the activity of thinking. We see in the lion an ideal expression of the activity of feeling. And in the bull, we find an ideal expression of what it is to actually do something – of willing.

That which holds it all together – all our thinking, feeling and willing – in a balanced, harmonious way (where each aspect is clearly autonomous yet interdependent) is that which only each one of us can say ‘I’ to. That is, our I – our Selves – the head and face of the human. Thus, this sphinx is nothing other than each one of us imaginatively expressed.

So how can such a picture – and such an understanding of it – help us in our present time, particularly in connection to all that we are watching unfold in the Arab world?

If we observe all that is unfolding, we can clearly see that what is taking place is an uprising against an out-of-time Pharaoh-ism. No longer do people wish to be held down by a dictator of any kind. The dictators of today are not, however, cultural-spiritual leaders, as the Pharaohs had been, but are those, generally speaking, who have inserted themselves into positions of political (and/or economic) power. From there, of course, they are also able to dictate much of cultural and spiritual life, as well as economic activity.

The great problem with this situation is the fundamental urge of human beings today towards two things: freedom and equality. The human being of today – consciously or unconsciously – seeks to be free in all that he/she does in cultural and spiritual life, while at the same time striving to be equal in all matters of law and politics.

Any kind of dictatorship – and we have as many forms of dictatorships in the world today as we have countries – suppresses these fundamental realities, and will ultimately find itself in conflict with them, as we have seen. The question that still remains is, ‘And so, what now?’

In the Arab world we currently see many cultural organizations – what we can call civil society – standing up against the overarching power of government. Economic organizations – businesses – are, or will be in the future, also involved in this liberation of their field of activity from governmental control (whatever form that may look like).

We are seeing, in a way, a new expression of that which was striven towards but remained unfulfilled during the French Revolution all those years ago. That is, freedom, equality and fraternity/solidarity. Freedom in all cultural and spiritual life; equality before the law – equality in all matters of the rights life; and brotherhood/sisterhood/solidarity or association – working together rather than endless competition – in all matters of economics.

But what is it we see here taking place in social life across Egypt and the rest of the Arab world? It is nothing other than the expression of that which have so far observed in the imagination of the sphinx.

What we are seeing happen unfold – consciously or otherwise – is a revolution towards the sphinx in social life. It is a sphinx in which each aspect – culture, rights and economics – like the animals of the sphinx – is striving to find an autonomous yet interdependent working relationship with one another in order to form a whole and healthy social organism.

In the same way that the sphinx is a picture of a balanced, harmonious and ideally healthy human organism, so the sphinx is also an imagination of a harmonious and interdependent working together of autonomous aspects within a healthy social organism.

What these revolutions are therefore striving towards – and none of us are excluded from this, for we are all engaged not only in our own inner revolution, but also a revolution in the society in which we stand (the ‘I’ of the social sphinx) – what all these revolutions are striving for is nothing other than to find and locate ourselves – the human being – within the social organism as a whole.

We seek to create society in our own ideal image. And in changing society we seek to create conditions suited to the further development of ourselves and of one another.

We must sit up and pay attention, therefore, to what is unfolding in the Arab world. For we find ourselves there. And we find the tasks – the revolutions, both within ourselves and within social life – that we have thus far left unfinished.

John Stubley

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The New Pharaohs of Egypt and the World

Posted on February 10, 2011 by jbstubley

We are witnessing unfold in Egypt an expression of the inner reality of the human being in our time. No longer does the human being of today wish to subjugate themselves to the rulership of another. No longer do we seek for Pharaohs, kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers etc. who stand in for our own highest potential. No – today, we ourselves are the kings and queens we are looking for – the new Pharaohs of Egypt and the world.

What we are watching every day unfold in Cairo’s Tahrir Square – Freedom / Liberation Square – is the human being of today battling for their own humanity. In striving for freedom, these individuals are striving to throw off all of the old chains of the past – all of that which in reality belongs to earlier times.

The Pharaoh of old was considered an incarnate divine being – a God in human form. From out of his mouth flowed the whole cultural and spiritual impulse for the greater society. The Pharaoh stood as the highest potential for the whole of the society – people looked to him in order to understand their own becoming, their own development.

In a way, this was appropriate for the civilization of Egypt and the world at that time. One felt one’s-self as part of a community. The sense of community ran through the veins and arteries of people of that time like blood. The community was one organism with a shared blood flowing through it. One could say that the Pharaoh was the ‘head’ of such an organism, such a community.

Since that time, the reality of the situation has changed, however. After the fall of the Egyptian civilization into decadence – as all civilizations eventually do – the individual human being began more and more to stand on their own two feet – and to think with their own ‘head.’ In time, the human being gradually began to grow more into an individuality – a community of one.

The social forms did not necessarily follow this reality, however. From the Caesars of Rome to the Pope of the Catholic Church; from the kings and queens of monarchies to the presidents and prime-ministers of nation states – in all of the social forms these rulers expressed we see something of an out-of-time Pharaoh-ism. The social structure does not take into account the reality that the human being no longer needs another ‘head’ to think for them – we are quite capable of doing it ourselves.

What we are seeing all around the world at present, and especially in Egypt in recent weeks, is the further articulation of the individual human being. Over the centuries, this individual human being has come more and more into their own, especially since the scientific revolution in which the world began to be studied and known as something truly separate from ourselves. During this revolution – the scientific revolution – our individual intellects truly began to blossom. We grew more fully our own ‘heads.’

From this period right up until our own time we have witnessed the human being gradually develop the capacities to do that which the Pharaoh had done for the community as a whole all those centuries ago. Each and every human being has gradually become the point at which cultural and intellectual/spiritual impulses can flow into society as a whole. Each human being, in reality, has become a free entry point for impulses which can transform the world. Each human being is, in reality, a modern Pharaoh, and is charged with tasks similar to these earlier God-kings.

The people of Egypt – the place in which such Pharaoh-ism originated – are showing us that now is the time for us to rise to the tasks of today. They are reminding us that no longer do we need to sacrifice our own freedom by elevating another into the position which we ourselves should rightly occupy. The thrones are ours.

The question arises, however, as to how we are each to exist in a world where each one of us is, in truth, a king, a queen, a Pharaoh. How do we in fact live in a healthy community when we have each become so individual? We can see that, for a large part, the western world has been so far unable to provide a satisfactory answer to this question.

If we observe more closely what is happening in Egypt, we can perhaps find part of a beginning-answer to this question. The Egyptian people have lived for three decades under a ruler who has amassed more wealth than the country as a whole. There has been no political equality, no cultural or spiritual freedom. In reality he has elevated himself, like so many other rulers since the time of the Pharaohs, at the expense of others. He has lifted himself up to the heights by keeping others firmly pressed to the ground.

What is being asked of us today, out of the reality of the situation at hand, is something quite different. We are being asked for a new kind of rulership. We are being asked for the kind of rulership whereby we do not elevate ourselves by forcing others down, but where we allow a space for others to become the kings and queens and Pharaohs that they are destined to become; that we make a space in ourselves for the Pharaoh – for the highest potential – in the other human being.

Interestingly, if we turn to Tahrir Square – to Freedom Square – at the moment, we do not see a revolution in which one major political or other organization is overthrowing another. We do not see a single opposition leader rallying others behind him or her. We do not see the military overthrowing a ruler. We do not see human beings handing their freedom over to another human being (or even an organization) who will simply replace the human being who previously ruled over them.

What we are seeing is a revolution of hundreds of thousands of human beings from all walks of life calling first and foremost for the removal of the self-installed Pharaoh who has ruled by keeping others down. We are seeing individuals and organizations – largely civil society organizations – working together by holding one another up – by raising one another into their rightful place as free human beings.

We are seeing Freedom Square organized in such a way that individual human beings are able to live together in community while striving to attain their own, and one another’s, freedom. If we are attentive, we can see that the revolution is actually practicing, in part, the kind of new society it is itself asking for.

In the medieval story of Parzival, it is only when the knight is able to recognise the suffering of another king and ask him the all-redeeming question ‘What ails thee?’ that he is able to take up his own position as king of the grail castle. What we are seeing unfold in Freedom Square is a Parzival kingship of individuals supporting one another to become what they are destined to become. They have made a space for one another’s suffering and seek to help one another to take up their thrones. They are a practicing example of individuals living together with one another in community. Their hard-won individuality is not lost in this process – rather, by helping one another, it is strengthened, as is the community.

Food and water are extremely well organized, as are medical supplies and security. Communications and media are grasped hold of in the best possible way considering the situation. There are songs and dancing. People have come from all around the country. Families are gathered. They seem to live as individuals within a common star: their own and one another’s freedom, together with the freedom of their country. They are thereby reminding the rest of us around the world of our own responsibilities and tasks.

The question must arise at this point, however, as to how to enable that which lives in the heart of so many Egyptians right now, and within the heart of Cairo – in Freedom Square – how can this same quality of individual freedom in community exist on the level of the country as a whole?

We see already the seed-answer for this in the activity taking place in Freedom Square. We see individuals from many different organizations and spheres of social life working together. We see civil society organizations representing cultural and spiritual life. We see political organizations representing political life. And we see businesses and business owners representing economic life. These three areas are all currently thrown together in the revolutionary melting pot at the centre of the Freedom Square of Egypt as a whole.

It is obvious enough to anyone with eyes to see that the situation is not asking for the same system to continue simply with a change of ‘heads.’ As much as many western and other ruling ‘heads’ may want this, that which is living in Freedom Square does not. If this does happen – if the Vice President, or any other individual is installed as a new ‘head’ for the social organism – we will see the same scenes repeated again and again in the years ahead. (And surely the situation in America is proof enough that no matter how ideal an individual ‘head’ may seem to be, the structure of existing national social forms does not allow for the full unfolding of the free human being of today.)

If, however, that which is taking place in this point of liberation is understood in the right way, then we can see that the human being of today is asking for social forms that are in line with the reality of who it has become. The human being of today demands freedom – it demands to be able to do as it likes with respect to all cultural and spiritual life. At the same time, it demands equality in all activities related to political and legal life – we seek equality before the law, and we each want our voice heard in the formation of such laws. And finally, the human being of today seeks to work together with other human beings – that is, to work in economic association. The reality of the human being today demands this, as do all human beings who currently sit in any Freedom Square around the world.

In the same way that each human being’s individuality must be upheld in a community in order that people can work together freely, so too on the national level must such autonomous interdependence hold sway. Each human being is autonomous, yet we rely on each other. It is the same with the systems of our physical body: our nerve-sense system, our heart-lung system, our metabolic-limb system – here too each system is in reality separate and yet depends on one another for healthy life.

So too is this autonomous interdependence currently being expressed in Freedom Square. A free cultural/spiritual realm, an equality-imbued political realm and a co-operative economic realm are all equally dependent on one another. On the other hand, they are, in reality, all separate from one another. Three realms of social life distinct from one another and yet working together. Here we see already a way in which we can move from government by government alone to a new governance based on the reality of the human being today.

Civil society representing a free cultural realm, government representing an equal political/legal realm, and business representing an associative economic life where each realm is autonomous yet interdependent. Three autonomous yet interdependent realms of social life coming together at the decision making tables of the world, fully respecting one another’s role and part in the health of society as a whole. From government by government alone to a new tri-polar societal governance.

This is obviously no abstract program, but that which is already clearly expressing itself out of the social and human needs of the world today, as we can see through all that is currently taking place in Egypt.

We are no longer the slaves of Pharaoh or of any other leader. We are each now Pharaohs, and we need social forms that allow this to be expressed. Anything else is a form of structural violence – violence against the developing human being. The people of Freedom Square in Egypt and in many other Freedom Squares around the world are expressing this need out of the reality of our times. May we have the strength to support one another in the fashioning of kingdoms worthy of each of us as human beings – as the Pharaohs we are and must continue to become.

John Stubley

Published February 11 on commondreams.org, informationclearinghouse.info, dprogram.net

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Every Day Must Become Australia Day

Posted on January 26, 2011 by jbstubley

I have read some of the recent debates about why some people were going to or were not going to celebrate Australia Day this year or any year – about why they feel it is important, and why they feel it is not. I have read the arguments about whether or not they like or love the country. I have seen the words nationalism and patriotism dissected and hurled across cyber space like spears. I have seen violence in words and thought, even as such words describe the horror of violence perpetrated outwardly against other Australians – against other human beings.

My friends – my fellow Australians and fellow human beings – we are above and beyond this. The pain that can come from reading such words is not so much to be found in the opinion of one side or another attacking someone or something else, but in the fact that we lose ourselves in such a process. For what we truly are hovers always above such violence and argument. The highest we can truly aspire to in our relationship with Australia is to stand together as individuals who have become Human as Australians. This is what must be celebrated every moment we consider Australia or seek to work with anything connected to her vast and uncontained widths.

We can experience this also in the celebration of our heroes. Our heroes have always been, first and foremost, human beings who have stood as such – and in so doing, have stood as truly Australian. We must all grow into the heroes that each of us are. Then we will have also an outwardly manifest country that is worthy of our highest celebrations. Those heroes we already hold up are none other than those who speak to us of ourselves. We see in them that part of us which is of our highest order. Our heroes are different than those of other countries – this too bears the stamp of a uniquely Australian expression of our own humanity. We have no Homers, no Shakespeares, no Goethes, Schillers, Novalises, Coleridges, Wordsworths, Thoreaus, Emersons, and so on. These too may be our heroes, but they bear something of an already European and American flavour. We search for similars in Australia and find as yet none – we do not have, as yet, those who have pushed through a kind of intellectualism to arrive at a full articulation of the heart of the world.

Yet we do have those who are, in a way, a direct expression of this heart itself. Australia will not suffer an intellectualism as dry as the land itself. We do not make heroes of our intellectuals and academics. For what we see in them has not yet worked itself through – has not yet come to a conscious speaking of the heart of the human being. And yet the seeds are there too in our scholars and academics, if only they can find the path through the intellect to the world once more. The true scholarship of today is a becoming more fully human. The true Australian Scholar of today is the one who has become Human as Australian. Our heroes are not yet ones who have pushed through this intellectual desert. They are ones who still speak the oasis of the far side.

Our heroic halls are filled with sportsmen and women – with those who have excelled on the international and sometimes national arenas. Cricketers, tennis players, swimmers, footballers, rugby players. Bradman, Lillee, Goolagong Cawley, Laver, Court, Whitten, Cazaly and so on. We celebrate artists – musicians, sometimes actors – those who have gone onto global spaces. ACDC, INXS, Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger. We criticise too such individuals, only to lift them up again should they finally, tragically, fall. We celebrate events that have thrust Australians and Australia into the world with equally tragic results. Gallipoli, the Battle of the Somme. Such events take on a mythological quality. We celebrate outwardly successful events too – events that say to the world more than merely ‘We are here,’ but ‘this is who we are’ – the America’s Cup victory, the Melbourne and Sydney Olympic Games. We celebrate even animals if they are capable of speaking something of what we feel of our own selves. Phar Lap is perhaps one of Australia’s greatest heroes – a horse. He too has taken on a mythological status. The abnormally huge size of his heart stands as a symbol for all Australians because it speaks of that which lives in each of us.

Even foodstuffs can achieve the same level of esteem – Vegemite, lamingtons, meat pies, Pavlova. ‘This is us,’ these things say, without apology or explanation, and the world responds. Our writers – the most celebrated by the Australian people (and not merely academics) thus far – speak a language of that which lived in Phar Lap also. The bush poets, and perhaps the modern bush-city poets. Lawson, Banjo Patterson, Tim Winton. They speak also of a wandering heart – the wandering swagman. The one who can carry one’s whole life with him wherever he will. The human being as Australian wanderer, as traveller. This of course extends all the way overseas – the great Australian pilgrimage back to London has now expanded to include almost every place on Earth. One is hard pressed to travel somewhere and not run into an Australian.

Much of these heroics have an earlier expression of course in the heroism of the Australian Aborigines. The songlines and dreaming of the Australian Aborigines has not disappeared. The stories and songs are the country – are the land itself. The Australian wanderer, the Australian swagman, are nothing other than those who walk out the land in the way the Australian Aborigine has already done for centuries as those who sing up the country, as those who sing up the land, as those who walkabout. The celebrated heroics of the big-hearted Australian is nothing other than another beating of the same heart that pulses through the whole dreamtime of the Aboriginal culture. The culture, the land and the stories are the same. All as one celebrate the heart of the people and the place. The heroes we raise up today are those who speak the same ‘language’ as that articulated already by the great creation songlines and dreamtime stories of this land. Such a speaking lives in each of us. But in order to utter it and to understand it, we must be able to push through to a new Australian-ness. Our becoming necessitates that we start from where we are – that we take the intellect that lives now in this country and push through it to a new heart-speaking. Only then will we as Australians truly be able to converse with the language of this land, this country, the Aboriginal Culture, one another and with ourselves in a truly living way. There are abysses everywhere. This new speaking can be the heart-language bridge we need in order to cross them. In such a way will we grow into the heroes we already are and celebrate Australia truly as Human Beings.

John Stubley

Australia Day, January 26, 2011. Basel, Switzerland.

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