Grand Hotel Malahide - Dream Time - A Journey Into the Outback of Aboriginal Australia story Time,

Who came down to Earth long before humans appeared in what is called the Dreamtime, the people themselves trace their ancestry to the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. Whose stories go back thousands and thousands of years, some of the oldest storytellers on the planet are Aboriginal Australians.

Unmarked distances of the land, they are stories written throughout the natural terrain that enable the people to travel with absolute surety the vast. Not what they appear and more than they appear, for Aboriginal Australians, even majestic Uluru are, kangaroos, perente lizards, waterholes, landforms and animals of the Outback that we see simply as rocks.

It's in a painting that covers every surface of a small rock grotto. The earliest Aboriginal Australian story I've personally seen "written down" is one that was told me by an elder of the Pitjatnjatjara tribe.

This responsibility has been passed down from one generation to the next for at least 650 generations. Every family that lives in the area is responsible for repainting the portion of the story that belongs to them whenever it becomes too faded or worn, 000 years old; the story painting is at least 13.

This is the Pitjatnjatjara version of the Pleiadean creation story that is told in numerous variations throughout the Outback. It's written into the land itself, though; the story the elder tells me is not just in the painting.

Who chases them still, nirunja followed and became the constellation Orion. Where they became the constellation we call the Pleiades, the sisters eventually escaped back to the sky. Who chased after the Kungkarangkalpa--the seven sisters who came down to Earth, nirunja, i learn about the hunter, walking behind the elder whose tribe is the caretaker of the grotto.

Time is both eternal and constantly repeating. The elder shows me their footprints. The sisters even now hearing him just in time to run from the cave where they've been resting, he is even now sliding through the crack in the grotto. He is the crouched figure my Western mind can only perceive as a rock. Nirunja is always in hot pursuit and the sisters are always fleeing. The story my guide tells me as we walk happens simultaneously in the past and the present.

I can only see stunted bushes; the elder can see them fleeing. They are always just ahead of us because they are always running from Nirunja. The sisters are just ahead of us. The elder and I climb a small hill.

Like a Mobius strip the story continually loops back on itself. So he runs right past them and slides back into the cave where the sisters are still resting, the sisters are hiding from Nirunja. We reach the top of the hill just above the grotto.

The elder can easily point out the constellation of the Pleiades at night because he sees the sisters racing home every day. What I think are just small rocks on the hill are the sisters preparing to leap back into their sky home.

And slowly I begin to hear the pulse of the Dreamtime itself. I begin to know what it's like to experience story through all the senses. I look carefully to see if I can spot Nirunja waiting to pounce. The rock carapace glistens to life. I sit at the feet of the elder like a little child.

--Stories from the Heart