Dreamtime Sisters

  • Alex Cashin and Graham Woodward, teachers at Stuartholme, with the center at Alice Springs in the background
  • Stuartholme School in Queensland, Australia

Last year two of our teachers at Stuartholme School in Queensland (Australia), Alex Cashin and Graham Woodward, were able to travel to Alice Springs to attend a conference on Indigenous Spirituality.

In his talk “Deep Listening to the Spirit of Place” David Tacey said:

We talk about our environmental crisis, but what we are experiencing is the crisis of human consciousness. We may need to re-enchant the world and rediscover its sacredness. Once we experience its sacredness, we might act differently toward it. If nothing is sacred, nothing matters. Matter doesn’t matter unless we recognise the spiritual life of creation and restore what Michael Leunig calls ‘the ecology of the soul’. ... 

We can draw on indigenous visions for wisdom and inspiration, but the content of our cosmologies will have to be found in our own cultures, whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu or others. It is important that our new interest in Aboriginal spirituality does not become parasitic; we can be inspired by the indigenous example, but we cannot steal or appropriate it. 

Our Principal, Kristin Sharpe, had asked Alex and Graham to take the opportunity to purchase a painting while they were in Alice Springs. They chose Dreamtime Sisters by Colleen Wallace Nungarrayi.

While the painting has its own story, Alex and Graham were encouraged to add our own story to the painting. The following paragraph was written by Alex for Sarah Daff, our Director of Mission, who introduced the painting to the students: 

Rita Carroll rscj
Republished with permission from ANZ Musings, May 2017, Issue No. 15