I was in a state of knowing recently: that I was not hearing. I stopped
moving and I did not hear anything, not even the first Australians
singing. I wondered if all the first people had begun to die. I struggled
to hear them singing and then I could not hear the didgeridoo or any
sound.
I was deep in my dream of no sound in the middle of the Southland.
The sand was hot on this summer day. I could not hear anything,
not even a rustle of wind nor the movement of the earth. Not even
the sound of a bird’s feathers in flight.
There was no sound of the movement of feet traveling this land, or
people eating and laughing. I saw these long-lost people and they
appeared as birds as they were flying away from me without sound. I
saw them looking at me with their painted faces and saw them as my
own noiseless painted face. Oh, how I wished I could hear them.
I felt a deep sadness as if I was in a crowded city and I could not hear
anyone else. I was dead to the sound of people, in these noisy cities.
I wanted to see the earth with noise.
I found myself in a deep river canyon and I felt the cold of the water.
I found myself on a high mountaintop with a strange mist drifting
down on me until the river disappeared in front of me.
I awoke bushwalking on a track with no one else to be seen. If I
listened carefully. I could just begin to hear a whisper of our
ancestors beginning to play on the walls of cliffs.
I could hear these quiet first people come alive and bring life to this
Great Southern Land. They are still near us; their songs are safe, and
we need them to sing to us.
-Doshin Kusan