Howdy hey! It’s Grant!! It’s been a long month since the last blog post, but we are here to say that we are still moving ahead with class. Sadly, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have had to journey back home to our home states. We were scheduled to leave March 20th from the Melbourne Airport, but had to reroute our flight because we were unable to fly through New Zealand, the country that we had only just left. We left Australia on March 21st, flying to Los Angeles, California, then back to our own homes. Since then, we have all been in quarantine at home, some of us staying together or alone, most of us going home to our own families. Back home, we have had time to reflect on our experience, pondering on how we want to make changes in our own environments.
Reflecting on the talks we had with John Bradley of Monash University, Richard Collopy, and several others throughout the trip, I have been working to learn more about my own local flora and fauna and local indigenous people. While I grew up appreciating nature and the places around me, I was almost never aware or thinking about the people who had first walked where I was walking. Similarly, I was almost never aware of both the spiritual and medicinal properties that existed in the plants and animals around me. Our teachers in New Zealand and Australia made me aware that these beliefs and practices have existed for millennia, and still exist today. With my time home, I have been lucky enough to read and listen to people who are able to share this knowledge in an effort to gain a better understanding of who and what has come before me, making up for knowledge that I should have learned long ago. As a non-indigenous person, it has been difficult for me to read about what my own ancestors committed only years ago and still do today, but I believe we have the ability to renourish our relationship both with the land and local indigenous peoples if we put mindful and caring energy into our actions.
-Grant
