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I started this project when I was about 10 years old. I mean really looking, fundamentally knowing in my heart, intuitively, that there was something totally different about an Aboriginal world view. As I grew and explored, I realized that there was a depth and scope to the world view that needed to be articulated.
I began to realize in particular the depth of this world view to our belief systems. One is foundational, the platform from which the culture grows. Added to that platform is your reality, your own personal experiences. My understanding is that it is called phenomenology. Your experience in life, how your culture and your foundational world view has created you, has shaped you, has influenced you. At this particular university we have about 70 different Aboriginal cultures and societies. How do we deal with everyone in a format that is welcoming and embracing?
I have discovered that there are commonalities among the 200 million or 300 million Indigenous peoples left in this world. And Indigenous has to be understood: first of all, what does it mean? In Latin it means "born of the land" or "springs from the land," which is a context. We can take that to mean "born of its context," born of that environment. When you create something from an Indigenous perspective, therefore, you create it from that environment, from that land in which it sits. Indigenous peoples with their traditions and customs are shaped by the environment, by the land. They have a spiritual, emotional, and physical relationship to that land. It speaks to them; it gives them their responsibility for stewardship; and it sets out a relationship.
This foundational world view has not been talked about or analyzed at any length. We have generally been looking at each other as fundamentally different people. But if you look at muthology, which is an interesting route to take, you will see that there is a strong common thread that pulls humanity along: and that is through our mythologies. So many symbols, circular Indigenous symbols...