The Indigenous Worldview and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Interfaces: Australian Aboriginal Lessons
This is dedicated to Indigenous Cultures and the Indigenous Worldview that provide us the strongest and fastest pathways home to ourselves through Traditional Ecological Knowledge, which brings us to Truth and Holism with our Essential Selves, Life and Existence.
The Indigenous Worldview (I-WV) has universal features and qualities worldwide. (Jacobs & Narvaez 2022) Indigenous people perceive themselves as a part of Country and the ecosystem, having responsibilities in kinship to everything within it. The significance of the I-WV is that it is the pathway for ultimate mental health, relational goodness, and complex intelligence. Although Indigenous people have suffered multiple traumas from colonizing forces, their cultures maintain the features and qualities of the I-WV and provide Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) needed for collective well-being, which includes all life and Country. Despite the Western, or more specifically, British Colonial worldview (BC-WV) being associated with writing and the material externalization of the mind, it inferior in its intelligence due to its fragmentation, rigidity, separation from the essential features of the I-WV. Furthermore, social and personal psychology without heartfulness; truth and knowledge seeking; honesty; respect and honor of all beings; kinship; interconnectedness with life and Earth; responsibility; understanding ceremony; and reciprocity, is disordered; sick; heartless; destructive; evil; self-implosive; mindless; and devoid of intelligence. If a person without the I-WV interacts with human and Earthly ecology, these symptoms infect, bringing trauma and dis-ease to other beings. Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders are the oldest and longest standing Indigenous cultures on this planet, at least 60,000 year old or possibly up to 120,000 years old. (Callaghan & Gorden 2023) The problems of the BC-WV has only damaged Country for 230 years, so the Aboriginals are actively collaborating with the colonists to teach their TEK and I-WV. It is through their I-VW that Indigenous people have the means restore health to Country, facilitate healing for Country’s colonial inhabitants, and to rehabilitate themselves from the affects of colonization. After exploring the I-WV in general, I would like to demonstrate how Australian Aboriginals use their cultural I-WV to lead them to their personal TEK in generating and regenerating mental health, goodness, and intelligence.
Defining Worldview and the Indigenous Worldview
A worldview is a big picture. It is a way of understanding oneself and the world. It informs one’s sense of being, doing, values and relational attitudes. Every individual has their own worldview, however groups and cultures have worldviews as well. A cultural worldview gives rise to cultural customs, systems, expressions and material culture. Dr. Terri Janke explains in her book True Tracks (2021):
For Indigenous people, culture equals life. Culture means Indigenous ways of seeing and being connected to the world, to the plants, animals and all things on the land, in the sky and in the sea. It is about people, their relationships to each other, and the way they interact with their world. (p.6)
Culture holds, transmits, and builds upon itself through knowledge. It is constantly evolving, and individuals are constantly contributing to it. Although the BC-WV was originally adamant on destroying Indigenous Culture because it was unable to see, comprehend, or care about what it was looking at, Indigenous Cultures did not assimilate to the BC-WV. Indigenous Cultures have remained preserved, and are actively being revived worldwide, evolving with the times. (Younging 2018) The Indigenous Cultures maintain the I-WV and continue to be incubator of health and well-being for humans, communities, and ecological systems, which includes humanity. As Dr. Grenz, a land healer, explains in her lecture through the Ontario Invasive Plant Counsil (2022, Feb.18) humans are “in” the system of ecology and have a responsibility to be the balancers of these systems.
Worldviews of an individual can be seen as a person’s chosen method of operation. As a person growing up in the USA, I was also subjected to the BC-WV, yet I vowed to not hurt anyone no matter how hurtful they were to me. This profoundly changed my mode of operation, shaped my choices, and resulted in the development of what I call a Mind-Heart trait. Later in life I learned that this is healthy neurobiology. Although I knew this trait gave me my ability to become extremely close kin with people of other cultures; I also realize it made me similar to Indigenous people in that they could return the reciprocity, respect, honor and reverence to my inner self and my heart in the way I do for them. The Heart wisdom, and the emphasis on listening and being guided by one’s heart is the most important method of practice in the I-WV, which brings forth the science of multi-dimensional data collection, cultivating knowledge, and seeking truth. (Grenz, 2024; Jacobs & Narvaez, 2022) An Unangan (Aleut) Elder Larry Merculieff explains the heart brings a person to a “deeper source of wisdom…’Heart’ refers to a deeper portal of profound interconnectedness and awareness that exists between humans and all living things.” ( p.251) The heart not only results in ways of being, doing, values, and attitudes but extends the awareness to be inclusive of all relationships and creates the basis for multi-dynamic perception in both a big picture and detailed nuances. (Yunkaporta, 2020)
Dr. Celidwen, specializing in contemplative studies and psychology, brings clarity between the difference of science, using 3rd person observations, and mainstream contemplative studies which uses 1st and 3rd person observations. Psychology attempts to observe 2nd person studies, yet rarely includes 1st or 3rd person observations. In contrast to all of this, Indigenous perception uses 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person observations as well as plurality or relatedness between everything. Celidwen (2024) writes:
If we fail to see the plurality of relationships in our natural environments, we miss the subtleties of emergent properties and synergies. This approach is a key solution toward equity for the two knowledge systems…Indigenous worldviews consider the locus of interrelated phenomena as a collective environmental body composed of a connected multiplicity. In this model, phenomena are observed interdependently as a continuous flow. (p.79)
As Yunkaporta (2020) explains the I-WV as having high context and inter-field dependance, whereas print-based cultures have low context and segregated field comprehension.
In my own cultural terminology, I understand the I-WV as having features of self-monitoring; cognitive empathy/mentalization or attunement to others; social psychology which is seeing broad influences and systemic effects of collective minds and collective matters; and nuanced relativity observations of each person in a web of relations to all things, past and future, observing on-going patterns of pluralities in regard to a subject. This combination of perceptions, navigated through the heart, translates to people immersed in the I-WV as having healthy right-brain perception and left-brain dynamical operations. It is a science involving the self. As Dr. Grenz (2024) talks about “objectivity” in science is a “lie” if it is not including the intersubjectivity and the subjective state which involves motivations, modes of operation, expectations, feelings and beliefs. (p.154)
Dr. Cajate from the Tewa culture in New Mexico writes: “Natives worldwide have a fundamental way of relating to nature that is remarkably similar…Native Science, Indigenous community, and the kincentric universe must be allowed to rise in our collective consciousness again.” (Cajete 2018, p19;26) Indigenous cultures, embodying the integrity of the I-WV promotes healthy individual and social psychology as they honor the uniqueness of each person, foster individual personal development, and enable each person to flourish in their specialized knowledge. (Jacobs & Narvaez 2022) Indigenous cultures are not collectivist, they are heart-based, interconnected, web-based individuals encouraged to develop their unique gifts of knowledge. As Dr. Celidwin writes, “every voice has a home and a purpose.” (p.5) Steffenson writes (2020): “Indigenous Knowledge System is wholistic in connecting to the wellbeing of everything. Every living thing has a story and a purpose of equal importance.” (p.226)
Native Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge is the fabric of Indigenous cultures and comes from the intangible I-WV. Each Individual is tended to through responsibilities of the community, and everyone is supported to find their truth, their power, and their knowledge to keep from their unique position and the relationality of that position. This Native Science is a science of health, goodness, and cultivates intelligence through knowledge-keeping and knowledge intergenerational transference.
From generations of knowledge development there is common patterns of Lore and Law of Nature universally worldwide. The most prominent of these lore and laws is that we must respect and listen to our heart, the land, and our Mother Earth as we are all interdependent. The knowledge we gain is specific to us, and our responsibility. “The land is Boss-it tells you what to do; To feel for Country is to feel for your own identity, to know your role on this planet,” as Steffenson says (p.293;507). The lore of ancient stories tell of relation dynamics and provide life lessons throughout the landscapes. (Callaghan & Gorden 2023) As humans were the latest to emerge, the animals, trees, forces of nature, and landscapes hold the knowledge of everything that is a part of us. (Kimmerer, 2018) Time is cyclical, seasons are periodic, time renews itself. New stories are found by people through their perceptive studies, or data collection which Dr. Grenz (2024) refers to as a method of ceremony. And then there is traditional ceremony, intergenerationally refined mechanistic practices to gain and share in knowledge and resources. (Gay’wu group 2019) Australian Aboriginals have been able to maintain some of their cultural knowledge and ceremony despite colonial obstructions, however because they have their I-WV, this allows them the ability to regenerate knowledge. Through the I-WV, they remain connected to the ecological health of this world, tending to traumas of the past and present in this world, and to people of the BC-WV who are need of finding their own identity, relations, and knowledge in connection to the ecology of Mother Earth.
Now we will explore the I-WV and TEK of through famous authors such as: the Gay’wu Group of Women of the Yolngu people of NE Arnhem Land; Victor Steffenson, Tagalaka Clan from North Queensland, who carries the fire knowledge legacy from Elders Tommy George and Dr. George Musgrave of the Kuku Thaypan Clan; Dr. Paul Callaghan of the Worimi clan who regained his ancestral roots under the guidance of Elder Uncle Paul Gorden of the Ngemba in New South Wales; and Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta, Apalech Clan of North Queensland, scholar of yarns, international culture, physics, and psychology. These authors bring the richness of the I-WV and talk about their culture, practices, and reflect on the responsibilities that lie ahead of us. Laws, lores, ceremonies, and TEK of Australian Aboriginals are shared in reciprocity to bring the fulfillment of the I-VW to your hearts.
Ecology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge
We all have the same Mother, as Yunkaporta (2023) talks about “us-two”, the Indigenous and non-Indigenous in our kinship relations to each other and all things. He explains in Sand Talk (2020) “Authentic knowledge processes are easy to verify if you are familiar with that pattern. It reflects a design of the whole system.” (p 26) Everything is reflected in nature, and we have a common connection to everything, as well as a responsibility in relationship to everything. The Yolngu (Burarrwanga et al, 2013) write:
…everything is linked together. People are not set apart from Nature; the earth is not separated from the sky; songs and stories are not separate from people and objects. All these things exist as part of one another. It is a form of relativity…we don’t see empty space…There is a dynamism there in the sky, between the sky and people…Everything has a presence and everything has an impact on us. It is not just flowing one way, as if people are the only ones who can act…Animals, the land, the sky, the stars, the wind, everything is related to us, everything has an intelligence and can do things that affect us. (p.62)
Everything is first related to two aspects of being, Yirritja and Dhuawa, similar to yin and yang, and they go together, however they are woven as opposites in these two complementary moieties. The Yolngu explain, from these two aspects, kinship patterns and connections are formed:
It is an interlocking system that includes everyone and everything in relationship to each other…We can name our relationship to thousands of people throughout Arnhem Land, and to plants, rocks and animals, spirits and celestial bodies, languages and land. It is a complicated system. To Yolngu it is fundamental…taught to us from birth. (Burarrwanga et al. 2013, p121)
Each person receives a deep name, connected to a totem, and from there, relations and life experiences unfold. In their book Songspirals (2019), each section of the book follows a person, a totem, and set of relational totems, connected to that person’s specific knowledge systems within life. Each person has their own associations with the world, which is embodied in Songspirals and cared for by the keening of Songspirals. Certain sets of knowledge and Songspirals are similar across clans, however each group has people that take the roles and responsibilities of their specific totem system. For example, on section covered clouds, thunder, sharks, stingrays, rain. These have to do with people coming together and moving apart, as communities do. The thunder gives feeling to the shark and stingray. The shark is protection over territory, power over danger, and being heard in one’s point of view. The stingray is the reciprocal of the shark associated with the early rains in the muddy waters. The person who keeps the knowledge embodies the qualities and represents the relationships of the totems.
The ceremonial act of keening the Songspirals enlivens their relations with Country and also brings new information through seeing and being with the movements and experiences of everything in relations and activities, with all parts of the Songspiral. The ceremonies are all cyclical and have their own laws of start times based on the relations. They encourage healing and co-creation in sharing life. They communicate through Songspirals, “giving and receiving messages…about people’s and Country’s safety and wellbeing.” (p 41) The Gay’wu women and Steffenson both talk about how everything moves in a spiral, hence the re-creation of the word for songline as Songspiral.
Steffenson (2020), the keeper of fire knowledge, explains the same concepts of the Songspiral, yet in a much more practical and physical way. He talks about the relationships between trees, plants, soils, animals, and even people in relations to Country. The trees are like the Elders, and they provide the information of what is in their area. If you are looking for a resources, you look to the trees. If you are looking for a medicine you look to the animals as they use the same medicines as us. He reads the signs of the grass, and looks for the need of a fire. Again, there are seasons and cycles of burning, and orders of places where it starts with one area, and then after another to keep the fires contained and burning cool. Steffenson talks about how the land has its own wisdom, its own intelligence. Humans can only listen, facilitate and respect the intelligence of the land in its own healing and resilience. As Yunkaporta quotes Steffenson in Right Story, Wrong Story, he writes: “Victor says don’t waste time planting trees-burn country (under the guidance of Indigenous fire knowledge), and country will put the trees where it needs to put them. You don’t know what trees to put where; only the land knows that.” (p.45) So therefore, everything has its own knowledge, and everything must be seen as a source of knowledge.
Australian Aboriginals store knowledge in lore, in stories, and in songs. (Callaghan & Gordon 2023) Songspirals also store information, from the beginning of time, and throughout time as information continues to be created. In The Dreaming Path (2023) the authors write, “everything-every different species, type of rock, animal, reptile and person-has a story. A story of how it came to be…Story is critical in traditional Aboriginal people’s lives as a vehicle of communication and as a means of sharing knowledge.” (p25) As the Yolngu Gay’wu group of women (2019) write, “Songspirals are a university for us. They are a map of understanding. We have to learn how to walk on the land.” (p33) Through generations of studying various knowledge systems, updating these systems through ceremonies and relationships, the TEK remains updated, activated, lived through each person’s life experiences, and reinforces the laws of Country. Callaghan and Gordon (2032) explain how among Indigenous people, Law is strong because Lore is lived.
Human Health and Responsibilities
From lore and Law, the heart- truth, knowing oneself, boundaries and connection, ceremony of thought with heart, responsibilities in kinship and reciprocity are some of essential universal concepts of the I-WV. The Australian Aboriginals are working hard in their own self-determination to overcome the traumas and prejudice of the past, using their cultural knowledge, and sharing their I-WV to introduce “Right Story” and turn world right side up. (Yunkaporta 2020, 2023; Janke 2021; Steffenson 2020)
Finding truth, seeing truth, and sharing truth is all a part of the Law of human life in the I-WV. In the Dreaming Path the authors write, “The need for truth is embedded in our Lore and is a cornerstone of traditional life.” (p107) They also discuss the importance of discerning truth, being open to truth, yet with the awareness that it is not regularly practiced by others. Furthermore they write, “To achieve a life of contentment, we need to live our truth.” (p.108)
Diversity, uniqueness, many truths, and letting people have their stories, are all things that many Aboriginal authors notice lacks within the BC-WV, enforcing conformity and continual colonizing. (Callaghan & Gordon 2023) Both the Gay’wu group of women (2019) and Yunkaporta (2020) talk about women’s business versus men’s business as being significant in honoring the talents of the sexes. Women’s business is highly emotional, empathic in merger with other’s felt sense, bringing about emotional release for others. They are also in charge of the children and the nutrition. Men’s business uses a lot of physical fiction in their ceremonies. Mixed genders and transgenders are also acknowledged in their own special business with their own special abilities, knowing one’s power in life and using that to serve a role. Boundaries and connection is a theme of the Rainbow Serpent in creating Country, sectioning off unique and different spaces that allow for a specialization of internal ecology. (Gay’wu group of women 2019; Yunkaporta 2020; Callaghan & Gordon 2023) However those boundaries were meant to be places of communication and exchange between ecological systems.
Perceptual lenses of the I-WV are expanded upon through Yunkaporta’s personal knowledge system through descriptions of various types of mind processes. He talks of kinship-mind, looking at relations which includes the self in the equation. There is story-mind, the production of knowledge through yarning with others in a healthy, collaborative and respectful manner, creating memorization and transmission. There is dreaming-mind, using metaphors of knowledge and working with abstract knowledge through feedback loops for practical action. Ancestor-mind he describes as a deep engagement in connecting with a timeless state in bringing things present. In the most advanced state, there is pattern-mind, seeing the systems at work, trends and patterns, which links back to kinship-mind on a larger contextual level, and so on. Steffenson talks about how through epigenetics or transgenerational inheritance, as he teaches both non-Indigenous and Indigenous who are at the same level of training in fire management, somehow the contextual right-brain big pictures are instantly grasped by Indigenous people, whereas non-Indigenous struggle to make sense of the pattern-mind and get caught in small details.
Relational forces are considered the most important place of focus and study for generating knowledge from the I-WV. Yunkaporta (2020) writes, “People today will mostly focus on the points…nodes of interest…but the real understanding comes in the spaces in between, in the relational forces that connect and move the points.” (p129) In Songspirals the women write: “And our love is not an individual thing. It is about connection, the way our gurrutu (kinship) and our djalkiri, (our foundations), overlap, how we work together and how we all overlap with the land. (p.99) Yunkaporta (2020) goes on:
…each person is bound within complex patterns of relatedness and communal obligation. Indigenous models of governance are based on respect for social, ecological and knowledge systems and all their components or members. Complex kinship structures reflect the dynamic design of natural systems through totemic relationships with plants and animals. Totems can also include other elements of these systems like wind, lightening, body parts and substances. The whole is intelligent, and each part carries the inherent intelligence of the entire system. Knowledge is therefore a living thing that is patterned within every person and creation…Each part, each person, is dignified as an embodiment of knowledge. (p134-135)
In Yunkaporta’s complexity of totems, he feels most connected to presenting as piss or urine at the moment, speaking of the mess we are in collectively. (I find this point significant as section on human health and responsibility). It is a demonstration of honesty. Knowledge comes from integrity, seeking truth and operates holistically. It must be inclusive, knowing the self, knowing the relations, knowing the other, and watching the complex relations over time. In the same way, Songspirals enliven life, teach people maps and knowledge, and are a part of the on-going co-creation process. The ceremony of contemplation can do this as well. By observing and communicating with the self, the extended self in Country, relationships, contexts, and patterns of movement and change, we can find truth and health, which strengthens our hearts in goodness and minds in intelligence. Our worldview has to involve our hearts for honesty, and for seeking knowledge.
In my own knowledge of heartfulness, this includes three basic things. One is emotional regulation, and co-regulation with others, where we look to our emotions to find the information from positive and negative charges and come back to neutral. A second is equanimity, being ok with anything that arises. The third is gratitude. The three translate to a continual return to peace. Wright’s biographical account of political activist Tracker Tilmouth (2017) from Eastern Arrernte, who was, “one of the most influential and selfless Aboriginal visionaries of his time.” He speaks about the most important advice he has to offer humanity. He says, “you have got to put everything into perspective. Why rush?…So just relax. This is what we forget…Peace…Peace of mind. You have got to have peace inside…that means you are happy who you are and what you are, and what you are doing.” (p744-745) He learn this from many Elders, the most powerful men he had ever seen.
Country, Law, and Knowledge of the Crisis Today
County is full of interconnected ecology, having its own spirit (consciously organized governing system) beyond the complexity of spirits and matters within it. The systemic Laws interact with all the parts within it. In the Yolngu book Welcome to My Country, (2013) they describe:
‘Country’ has many layers of meaning. It incorporates people, animals, plants, water and land. But Country is more than just people and things, it is also what connects them to each other and to multiple spiritual and symbolic realms. It relates to laws, customs, movement, song, knowledge, relationships, histories, presents, futures and spirits. Country can be talked to, it can be known, it can itself communicate, feel and take action. Country is alive with story, Law, power and kinship relations that join not only people to each other but link people, ancestors, place, animals, rocks, plants, stories and songs within land and sea. So you see, knowledge about Country is important because its about how and where you fit in the world and how you connect to others and to place. (p108-109)
Country is powerful for everyone and holds the laws. Yunkaporta (2020) speaks of the powers of Country’s Law. He says:
It is immutable and will outlast anything…it cannot be extinguished by weak curse…it is the authority that shapes and regulates dialogue to keep it within the sustainable patterns of creation. It is neither irresistible force nor the immovable object. It is neither the action nor the reaction. It is the thing in between. (p334-335)
In the evolutionary crisis we face today between mass extinction, pollution, and climate chaos, Law is making itself known, yet there is no response. The focus of values are placed on fictitious money accumulation and the perpetuation of false identities rather than Country and one’s place within it. Many colonial institutions are unable to serve their purpose due to this lack of values.
Steffenson (2020), holding Traditional Fire Knowledge, reflects on his attendance at a fire conference that was based in “fighting fire, safety, and selling fear,” making a lot of money off of bunkers and inflammable houses, meanwhile having no priorities of working with fire healing methods, prevention and protection, or working with the land. (p184) He goes on:
I was observing a culture that had become completely oblivious to the land…processes and laws being completely out of sync with natural lore. Many government-funded programs are so off the mark simply because the financial reporting dates steer the ship more than nature. (p.184)
Country has its own timing when things need to happen, and it the responsibility of humanity to work with Country’s cycles and needs. The lens, the focus, the priorities, and the systems of the BC-WV are inherently against natural Law. People need to not only listen and sit with the land to be healthy, but they need to relate and take responsibility with the land, providing reciprocity. As people get out and work in nature, they awaken and come into their personality, and revitalize their health. (Steffenson 2020; Callaghan and Gordon 2023)
Prejudice and judgement towards Indigenous people is a large part of the problem. Many people of the BC-WV project negative assumptions onto Indigenous people. I remember hearing a classmate talk about “Indigenous people believe anything without thinking.” This could not be further from the truth. Their lore is filled with metaphors that demonstrate true patterns of relations and Law. I have never found “belief” to be a part of Indigenous culture or the I-WV, only truth and knowledge. The BC-WV in contrast is constructed on blind beliefs told to people, and not questioned. The mass belief systems of the BC-WV blocks people from seeing and living truth, and creates toxic social psychology where the lens of perception is distorted. As Yunkaporta states, beliefs like capitalism and opportunism are “wrong story” because it goes against Law. Steffenson talks about how you can see prejudice in the eyes of people, yet he still tries to teach them and shake them from it. The Yolngu talk about how a narrow-minded person is sick. After understanding the knowledge systems of perception in the I-WV, there are many ways colonial people are not exercising their minds properly for health, goodness, and intelligence.
Sexism is also not a part of the I-WV, yet because of it being such a problem in the BC-WV, everything is misinterpreted by non-Indigenous. The Gay’wu women (2019) contemplate how this misunderstanding occurs:
Somehow, maybe because there is sexism in napaki (non-Indigenous) culture, there has been more attention to the men’s side. There are more recordings of men, and books about and by men. We need to bring back the balance. Women’s part of songspirals is vital. Without women’s milkarri the songspirals, life itself, won’t be whole. (p197)
Behrendt, an Eualeyai author writes about how stereotypes and attitudes towards Australian Aboriginals needs to change. Due to the BC-WV, the colonizers took children from their mothers causing extreme effect of maternal deprivation. They only acknowledged sacred men’s sites, destroying and ignoring the sacred sites of women. Patriarchy and other negative stereotypes are wrong. Australian Aboriginals suffered some of the most extreme trauma anyone could imagine, however the I-WV in honor of women, with extremely complex and contextualized perceptual intelligence lives on within their nervous systems. Their cultural ways are designed to heal and bring renewal.
The I-WV has everything healthy, good, and intelligent to offer this planet, the people in it, and all their relations. Many books compare the I-WV and the Western worldview, or the BC-WV, as I like to specify in the case of Australia. Kimmerer (2018) sees two pathways, one spiritually honoring life as a sacred gift, and the other in greed and selfishness exploiting people and the planet as objects to be used. In my exploration of the I-WV and how it generates and regenerates health, inner peace, and knowledge, in connection with the planet and the truth of ourselves in kinship all life, I hope the lessons of the Australian Aboriginals bring gifts to your heart and mind. We all have the responsibilities to our selves and each other to Indigenize and be a part of Earth, meanwhile decolonizing from a self-implosive culture that serves nothing but lies and dis-ease causing one’s own self-destruction in response to destroying others and our home. The wrath of Law is spoken about by many Indigenous people. Yunkaporta (2020) says, “All Law-breaking comes from that first evil though, that original sin of placing yourself above the land or above other people.” (p50) When people go too far in breaking the law, they are broken, they do not develop or evolve, they do not find knowledge and work with knowledge or purpose. In The Dreaming Path (2023), the authors write, “Many of us are not living the best story possible. We are not living our truth. This undermines our wellbeing and the wellbeing of our communities, nations and the world itself…Global renewal starts with personal renewal. It is up to each of us to understand how special we are…” (p.199)
References:
Behrendt, L. (2019) Eualeyai Story Tracks. In Greymorning, N. (editor). Being Indigenous: Perspectives on Activism, Culture, Language, and Identity. p.146-182.
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Cajete, G. (2018) Native Science and Sustaining Indigenous Communities. In Nelson, M.K., Shilling, D. (Editors) Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Chapter 2. p. 15-26. Cambridge University Press.
Callaghan, P., Gordon, U.P. (2023) The Dreaming Path: Indigenous Ideas to Help Us Change the World. HarperOne
Celidwen, Y. (2024) Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Wisdom for Collective Well-Being. Sounds True.
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Grenz, J. (2024) Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing. First University of Minnesota Press.
Jacobs, D. T., & Narváez, D. (2022). Restoring the kinship worldview : indigenous voices introduce 28 precepts for rebalancing life on planet Earth. North Atlantic Books.
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Kimmerer, R.W. (2018) Lessons of Grass: Restoring Reciproity with the Good Green Earth. In Nelson, M.K., Shilling, D. (editors) Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. Chapter 3, p.27-56; Cambridge University Press.
Ontario Invasive Plant Counsil (2022, Feb.18) What an Indigenous worldview offers complicated issues in Invasive Species Management. Youtube. What an Indigenous worldview offers complicated issues in Invasive Species Management
Steffensen, V. (2020) Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia. Hardie Grant Travel.
Wright, A. (2017) Travelling with the Ancients. In Tracker: Stories of Tracker Tilmouth. p.744-750. New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Younging, G. (2018) Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples. Brush.
Yunkaporta, T. (2023) Right Story, Wrong Story. Text Publishing.
Yunkaporta, T (2020) Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. HarperOne.