Dreamtime

Mystical type experiences or a sense of wonderment have always held a sense of fascination. As a child what comes to mind are memories of a kind of a dreamy state of wonder which came over me at bedtime. My room with its long row of glass louvres over one side, adjacent to the giant hypnotic eucalypts behind our family home, was the perfect setting for imagined other worlds.

The rattle of glass window louvers shimmered in the pale light to the sounds of wind or rain and the incessant buzz of cicadas or the more strident cry of - “mowpoke!, mowpoke!" of the mowpoke owl before drifting off into sleep where strange creatures good and bad inhabited my dream world.  

But such memories are from a western language perspective.

For the Amondawa tribe they don’t incorporate the abstract idea of time-  https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13452711

The circular cycle of existence for the Australian Aboriginal peoples also doesn’t equate between past present and future. Rather their experiences are integral to the Dream-time.

Dream-time however is not about dreaming. I will attempt to explain what is meant in the following brief narrative.   

The creative spirits are believed enter the womb of the mother from the creative landscape spirits of that place where conception arose. The creation spirits, bestow specific preordained totems, representing animals and landmarks of that country’s region which in turn determine the responsibility of the child as the clans are co-dependence in one inseparable Land. That in turn depends on what side of the Moiety that are born as either a child of preservation or hunter or gatherer as per the totems that determine those responsibilities. Those animals outside of the totems must not be hunted. There is a further allocated totem according to the discernment of the elders on reaching maturity of a person exhibiting a particular charisma. No known form of discipline was ever exercised by the clans towards their children who were regarded as free spirits until such time they entered adulthood. Then began intense training to understand the law, their responsibility and initiation ceremonies were performed. The idea of time as a historical reference was not present. Nor was there a distinction between secular and spiritual which would have been nonsensical to them.