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[Music] [Music] respected indigenous elders came from all over the world everyone there to share their own spiritual traditions and to bear witness to the morning and their fragile culture of whale dreaming your pelican your problems your interests your concerns and if we can be any help in that way we will support you to share different ceremonies and ideas with the morning represented the spirituality and aloha of the islands a desecration of a tradition that we in our heart knew was great as hawaiians from the bashi people in the congo kikoza a wisdom poet a scholar and a carrier of african wisdom called in the ancestral spirits with the medicine of the drum to bring unity and blessings to the gathering we say thanks to the mother of creation and the drum hopefully will help them to find their way here they will hear our sound native american grandmother patricia diazis shared her vision of the times we were living in the elders has said this is a time of as we say in my language it's a time of coming together so we save this earth the planet and the people [Music] roy little son an indonesian who lived with hopi elder titus koimai tompewa for over seven years shared ceremonies and rituals with us around the fire what is eternal is our spirit and that's what we have in common and when we meet let's recognize each other by our spirit over the seven days he guided us in the building of a medicine wheel a 5 000 year old global indigenous healing system teaching the virtues of its unifying principles [Music] all is within us so actually we are also the medicine wheel but we need sometimes something outside of us to remind each other that we all are one alberta thompson a native american elder from the american northwest represented a lone voice in her tribe the maca i truly really love the whale she spoke out against the reintroduction of the killing of the friendly grey whales by her people pray for my village and lay down that harpoon alberta had become a staunch defender of the whales turning against that aspect of her traditional background the spirit i received from them was a spirit of trust that they trusted us and i said to me alone i just felt like they were saying thank you to me from the last remaining high cloud forests of colombia came a representative of the ua people syracuse we're living right now in a time that's very difficult it's very dangerous for us being indigenous people in colombia they came to show solidarity with the morning through their own struggle against the occidental oil company taking the petroleum from under the earth is like taking the blood of mother earth in that the blood is sacred and you can't exploit that the ur were engaged in a desperate confrontation with the oil companies in an effort to preserve the last of their sacred traditional lands new that was zealand only thing the european union this united tribal people and you kill off our people completely longtime activist for disarmament peace indigenous and women's rights through her maori culture and connection to the legends of the whale riders pauline shared with us this deep spiritual bond the whales have uplifted us to realize hey we're here we're not going to go away unless you want to destroy us you destroy us you will destroy humanity on the first night of the gathering a group of young people from elko island performed a traditional smoking ceremony chanting to welcome everyone into the circle they were from the far north and represented indigenous australia as a language group who still had full traditional ceremony and ritual as totemic people of the world elder baramulla led the ceremony the smoking ceremony bound us together in common purpose as in many different cultures the smoke was used to cleanse us [Music] i've been waiting for this gathering for a long time [Applause] [Music] welcome goes to you it's coming from all the whale-dreaming people from this compassion world for earth nature and especially whales and dolphins is a unique opportunity to mix with other people from other cultures and everybody wants to get back to something truthful futures are joined together collectively bringing humanity now to a point of transformation ask my heart to speak not my head we've been through many worlds many lifetimes to know this the system we live under at the moment um if it remains in place forever and the day will destroy the planet [Music] [Applause] in the following days many stories were shared many different issues were discussed that everyone will be part of the position we find without many of our tribes being landers is due to the christians who came with their bibles they came with the bible in one hand and took the land for the other the main focus quickly became the loss of the morning's own traditional land and their fight to be recognized as a people historically all over the world governments have created divisions between tribal groups most often to gain access to the natural wealth of the land kim experienced it for himself when filming in arizona the u.s government backed of the sovereign dna nation this coal mine back here it does not respect the rights of my family and the people around it where our aboriginal home ground is being under siege by the us government and the mineral corporations these man-made conflicts inspired by greed are the cause of untold human suffering the world over began to overshadow the expectations of most of our international guests they had come to witness the morning calling the whales from their traditional place mirangu the place where i had experienced so much magic with the whales and bunny in my previous physics this most sacred place to the mourning is now called the head of the bite and is managed by the an angle who had been moved by the government onto the traditional murning country [Music] i had waited anxiously for our international guests because right up to the very day of their arrival i didn't even know whether the morning would be allowed to take them to mourinho this is a really really really special moment for all of us and for the morning after much negotiation finally the morning were given permission by the current leaseholders to take their guests there we had to agree to certain conditions which again are painful for the money to have to have to agree to which was that when we went down there it would appear that we weren't involved so after an anxious 20-minute drive across the nullarbor we arrived at the whale dreaming place now known as the head of the bite and the traditional owners proudly led the way to their mirronagoon suddenly we all saw it a platform for paying tourists where banner and i had stood together in the years before drilled into miranagoo the most sacred whale-dreaming sight to the morning i had almost all myself back from because i was you know i felt like i was going to cry it was unknown to us as marines knew nothing about it so why did they go ahead and do that tell you what i think we all started you know it felt like crying when we saw that but all they want is a bit of respect for that sacred place along the bite that belongs to the moaning people [Music] and i know the morning people were feeling very sad [Music] i had the feeling there were whales out there so i sent out to karanga [Music] [Applause] and then suddenly up came the whales [Applause] [Music] suddenly we were told we were to stop i was very perplexed that i would have thought that the the people there who were in charge would have been so thrilled to be a part of that i felt devastated not being allowed to do any ceremony at our sacred place we're not sort of not part of the land anymore and it's just like where our people have died out [Music] you know we lost our our dream and it's just like um losing your friendship and your connection with the whale thank you farewell to our sacred place [Music] hello back at the camp we all felt the disappointment at the ban on the whale ceremony at the bite and the helplessness of the murning in their ongoing struggle for recognition it was distressing to hear the same stories repeated over and over again over there right now that has a piece of ground that they put two different tribes on and they're fighting so you know they haven't resolved that we don't know why and very encouraging to hear all the offers of how my heart is this is why i have come it's just a common ground we have to at least stand on one space even with one inch and we say this is common ground let's begin from there the yolnu people from elko island quietly watched all of this unfold it was how they chose to express their concern and solidarity for the morning holding a secret ceremony with us 30 kilometers from miranagu that transported everyone at the gathering into a whole different world elder baramulla explained the significance of the ceremony [Music] foreign foreign it was amazing to see my family watching the whale tale being painted on my chest when my mother saw this she was very proud to it reminded her of her father who was the morning song and dance man of the whale totem that is a very precious time to actually be a part of that male achievement it was a great honor to be a part of this symbolic initiation and as baramulla and his people painted us up i felt it really brought everyone together and he gave me an insight into how it feels to prepare for traditional ceremony with the whales wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the all-new people led banner and clem in their whale calling ceremony [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] started pulling away from the edge of the cliff they said they had to because we were not greeted by a whale at that moment my heart sank because once again i could feel the disappointment of our guests for me was a feeling of well but i came here to greet the whales and be greeted by the whales and then someone let out a jubilant cry i could feel the whale in the sea i could feel them it was like magic and it was like magic it's been so lovely you know [Music] i knew the well was there but when i saw it it was a magical feeling i could feel the kindness and the friendship from the whale [Music] [Applause] is all right [Music] the white spirits came to me [Applause] [Music] the return of these whale dreams was witnessed by us all the reconnections with their totem the whales secure [Applause] the morning we're back [Applause] [Music] but what did this ceremony of reconnection with the wales moaning dreaming and the gathering itself mean to the international guests who will ever forget these days and nights it was the human family of elders that came in and took our morning friends and brothers and sisters by the hand [Applause] and that's what we did we had a culture camp on the land again with so many different traditions and cultures represented at the gathering to begin with it was really difficult to find the common threads that bound us together i have some difficulty here standing here at the moment and then magic happened at that moment i felt a strong spirit come between us saying we are brothers and sisters and the understanding that was gained from people from very different cultures has been phenomenal for me one of the most important aspects of the gathering was that my personal connection with the morning was deepened by the whole experience you are my brother thank you cool you married you that means brother a week ago we were total strangers when i saw everyone put the stone down around the piece wheel tears came to my eyes to see all different cultures all the hearts but first we had to separate [Music] as we celebrated the completion of the wheel together two eagles took flight and circled above us two pathways appeared in the sky emanating from miringu the head of the bite what i saw happening is that the spirit of the land came that spirit of the people the eagles for us are the most powerful bird there are places around the world where we're allowed to see and and to know that we're blessed and i really felt that was a blessing in the morning people and the work you were doing we are everything and we come here to remind each other that we are one this universal theme of oneness came up again and again at the gathering of course we all have different beliefs cultures traditions rituals and ceremonies but ultimately
2020-12-28 01:38
