PLANET CULTURE

 
        As orange seeped through the cloud bank on the Eastern horizon,  International Women's Day arrived at the edge of the Tanami Desert.  The morning light hit the roof of the Tjilimi (Women's centre) as I finished my sun salute and returned inside to the women in my care. They are from the last generation of people born in the Western Desert. They are Law women,  elderly now but they are Elders with great power in their hearts.
       I am here with another Malpa (carer and companion) and together we take care of all their basic needs.   As my friend and partner Malpa told the Elders about the significance of the day,  it occurred to me how special it was for us to be spending International Women's Day at one of Australia's only Women's Law and Culture Centres.
       The significance of this day resonated easily with the women even though their understanding is limited by language and cultural barriers,  reduced senses,  short term memory loss and some dementia.  One woman sat up with her eyes a shining smile and announced,  "Planet Culture ".
        Her vision took me with a flash of quickening, to deep understanding of the weaved net of culture that women held all over time and all over the world.  In this country they call it 'Yawulyu'. Intricate, delicate and yet strong.  It is silk, spun from the hearts of women everywhere; the womb of the stars,  the matrix of culture.  Deeply imbedded in our genetic fibres it links us all in an exquisite tapestry.  Spun with wisdom,  held with love.
        Women held culture strong throughout time so that there was no time.  There was nothing to measure when all was intact and the sacred cycles of life were unbroken.
         The tragic ripping apart of this net, this knowledge, began in our history and became our matrilineal heritage.   While women cosseted embers of this knowledge away, their ways and knowledge were captured and destroyed.   Imperialism grew and spread around the world,  enslaving the intricacies of culture everywhere; reducing the calaedescope of patterns to linear time constrainted flat lines.
         Now is the time of the great remembering.  The patterns women weaved throughout time are awakening in our minds and hearts. They  are being rethreaded through our lives as if we ourselves are being weaved.   This is the time of the New Dreaming.  This is a creation time and we are Goddesses alive to this power.
        When we open ourselves up to this Divine Intelligence, we create channels for power to work through us.  In our surrendering we release fibres of intention and that adds to the holding pattern of the womb space of this new Dreaming.
         It may seem hard to escape the clutches of our modern minds because our entire world view has been constructed with this linear pattern of duality and separation  However Planet Culture lies within the matrix of our human bodies.  It is our birthright and each of us is individually important as vital strands in these Intricate patterns. While our Earth people and ecosystems are being consumed by the linear construct of a disconnected intelligence, we women can gather power through our intention and feed it to the collective, thereby helping to form Planet Culture.
      We can bestow our children with an inheritance of faith and hope and intricately woven love for all. From threads of compassion and forbearance, with surrender as wings, we can soar above and weave our magic.  Connecting with one another and the great Goddess Gaia that gives us life, we will spin the New Dreaming of Planet Culture.

  If you're interested in volunteering as a Malpa, contact Zohl de Ishtar at kapululangu.women.centre@gmail.com.
 Or visit www.kapululangu.org