Sydney, Day 2

A gorgeous morning called for a ferry ride across the harbor to Milson's Point, where you can find a memorial to the first HMAS Sydney, including its original bow. The Sydney I was active in WWI and famous for defeating the SMS Emden in 1914. It marked the Australian Royal Navy's first victory.

After trekking uphill and grabbing some much needed coffee, I walked back across the Harbour Bridge, which gives you some more stunning views of the opera house and circular quay.

Now it was time for the highlight of the day, learning about he original custodians of the land that is now called The Rocks, the Gadigal people. The tour guide Amanda told us about the Dreamtime creation story and walked us through different aspects of how the Aboriginal people lived understood their relation to the Earth Mother. Central to this relation is that nature gives you all the clues you need to live in harmony with it, like finding the perfect branch for your boomerang, how to weave, and that you never take more than you need, for example. Everything in nature is actually understood as your ancestry (with each person having different dreaming identities). Amanda shared that her ancestry identity is duck and that when she tried eating duck one time she became physically ill.

The tour was so enlightening but also left me sad. Everything I learned about the Gadigal was basically antithetical to the individualist, imperialist ideology that colonies like Australia or the United States are built on or that (world) wars are fought over. You claim your stake and take what you can instead of acknowledging that none of it belongs to you. It takes me back to the image of the giant metal shipwrecks that are now overgrown with corals.

Amanda ended the tour by telling us that she lives a hybrid identity, traversing the aboriginal, the spiritual, and the white world. She asked white people to strive to live in a similar way, to leave our insular perspective and not just learn about her experience but to take steps to weave that knowledge into our daily actions. Merely acknowledging that the land you walk on was originally taken care of by tribe xyz is paying lip service but it doesn't change anything. How do you actually live those ideals of sustainability and community?