GAIA MANDALA

Earth Treasure Vase for Gabarnmang, Australia

Introduction

“It is as if the Great Spirit and all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Ancestors, Elders and Lineage Masters who have ever watched over this project and practice, guiding and assisting in its realization, are saying, “Here. Add this place into all the ingredients that make up the whole. Allow the energy from this location, from beyond the folds of time, to enhance and support the prayers that will carry all life into the next age – throughout space and time on behalf of this beautiful blue-green planet we call home. Of all the pilgrimages and places we have been with this practice, we know with Gabarnmang that our work will carry on.” – Cynthia Jurs

After the burial of the first Earth Treasure Vase for Australia in Jawyon Country (Northern Territory), Cynthia gifted the Australian ‘’Earth Treasure Vase Mob’’ four of the second generation Earth Treasure Vases to be planted in each of the four directions of the Australian continent. The first of these was taken to Gabarnmang, a 50,000 year-old rock shelter covered with paintings, only accessible by helicopter. Aunty Margaret Katherine is the Custodial Elder of this ancient hidden land, and invited us to bring this first of the second generation of Earth Treasure Vases there with her – thus ending the first chapter of this great Earth walk, and initiating the second.

Few people beyond the archeologists studying the site have ever visited this remote place and we are deeply grateful to Auntie Margaret Katherine for insisting a vase be brought here, bringing the ancient Gabarnmang – sure to become a world heritage site – into the global Earth Treasure Vase mandala.

On Gabarnmang, excerpts from Smithsonian Magazine: Is This the Oldest Cave Art on the Planet?

Gabarnmang, or Nawarla Gabarnmung, meaning “hole in the rock”, “passageway”, or “valley open from the centre” is an Aboriginal archaeological rock art site in southwestern Arnhem Land at the top end of Australia’s Northern Territory. This remote location lies on the traditional lands of the Jawoyn people, east of Kakadu National Park……

Cynthia Jurs reflects:
The most important thing about the Gabarnmung cave paintings may not be their age or their splendor. It is that the Jawoyn people, the descendents of the ancient civilization that created the works, are still alive – and Auntie Margaret is the living treasure who is informing archeologists about what they have found. We feel so blessed to have been invited by her to this most sacred site and to have learned from her ourselves.

The specific intention I had set for the network of Earth Treasure Vases to be placed throughout Australia is to unite indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, to support the return of indigenous Australia’s ancient wisdom, and to be a cause for the songlines to sing their sweet symphony once more. – Cynthia Jurs

The group of 27 flew into this remote sacred site in a shuttle of helicopters over the vast now-uninhabited land, to Gabarnmung, where they would sleep the night and place this Earth Treasure Vase in the Earth for eternity. Upon arrival, Margaret led them to the place where the vase would rest; she had obviously thought deeply about its placement in the most sacred spot imaginable, the equivalent to placement in the inner shrine.

That night after our final ceremony and sealing of the Earth Treasure Vase in a circle around the fire, we snuggled in a group lying directly on the Earth with her soft sand as our mattress, our toes twirling sand through them that would have been trodden by thousands of ancestors millennia before. After Ben Manbulloo’s bedtime stories, the men retreated to their small fire with the women huddled together around their blazing hearth. – Cynthia

It happened, it really happened. Back at my desk amongst a busy home life, it seems surreal to think back to what occurred just 5 weeks ago – like a fable or a distant dream – but I have evidence to prove that it did happen, memories that spark awe in my flesh.

I was first up as faint rays of light cracked over the horizon, and checked the path to the placement site, disturbing kangaroos as I walked, who went hopping off through the long grass. Julian gently droned his crystal didgeridoo into the Earth as a wake-up call to the women and ceremonial opening of the day. Slowly our mob’s dream-bodies reunited with their flesh; followed by tidying of bedrolls and brewing cups of tea, in ceremonial silence. In the middle of the huddle was Mumma who did not rise but lay there snuggled and warm, saying, “I’ve shown you where to place it, now you can do it, Bungardi (my skin name as her son).” “Wo, Garang (“Yes, Mother”), I replied.

Carrying the Earth Treasure Vase, I led the group in single file, Cynthia and Manbulloo close behind, and Julian playing the dij to consecrate the ground as we walked. We clambered into the place selected by Margaret that I had dug out the day before, and with the group gathered all around, chanting mantras led by Julian, I felt Cynthia’s presence close by channeling a column of light, and Mumma palpably holding space for the ancestors back in camp.

With the support of this sacred entourage, I placed the Earth Treasure Vase neatly in the rock, in a place made to measure, eroded to perfection over millions of years. As I did so, I felt as if the Earth Treasure Vase was sucked deep into the Earth, followed by a great heat and heaviness, as if an emissary of Mother Earth had accepted the offering.

When I left for Australia to complete the mission of burying the last of the original Earth Treasure Vases there, I had no idea what I would find. It struck me shortly before I departed that this would be an important journey. Indeed, that Earth Treasure Vase, the one Aunty Margaret called my “Teacher,” found its rightful home on her Ancestral land.

She liked to sit around the fire with a cuppa tea. One night she gave us all “skin names” – the traditional way of making a proper connection between us mob so we clearly knew what our relationship was to her, and to each other. I became her daughter and she, my Mumma. I was estranged from my three sisters after our parents died, but Margaret gave me back a family. I got three brothers (had always wanted brothers!) and many other sisters, aunties, uncles, in-laws, children and grandchildren. Our global Earth Treasure Vase community became a family through our beloved Mumma, Aunty Margaret. The family healing I received through her was the gift of a lifetime. And the vast view of unconditioned awareness (the dreamtime) that she embodied, so profoundly and completely connected to Country (the Land, Earth, Songlines) brought everything together for me.

Margaret was waiting for us at the Mary River Roadhouse, sitting on the grass playing cards with her mob. After some meeting and greeting she hopped barefoot into one of our vehicles with her fancy purse and off we went. We were bound for Kakadu to bury the last of the original Earth Treasure Vases and she would be our guide. After several days, she sat me down and said, “Honey, I support you and ‘your Teacher’ and will do whatever you want, but this isn’t really a very good place for him.”

The group had begun to sense this too but we did not know what to do or where to go. She explained that it floods there every year and the vase would not be safe. Then she said, “I have a very good place. You could bring him there.” I looked at Jeremy, who looked at Ben, who got out the maps. Ben reckoned if we got up early and drove all day we would be there by nightfall. Sure enough we arrived on Aunty Margaret’s land late that afternoon.

Aunty Margaret Katherine welcomed us to Country by calling out in a lovely voice to all the Spirits and Ancestors: “Nagaga…Niwala…wan wokani…maam…kawanango niwala leear ingolo! Nagaga…Niwala…Nigaganai ningolo leear…Awan wokani maam…Kawonango leear ingolo!” (To all our elders, I bring these white fellas to see this place, this country. I introduce all the family to you and to this Country. To all the old people (Ancestors) here…I bring these white fellas to see your Country. I’m introducing this mob to you. I am introducing them to the land and the Spirit people in the Language.)

She told us this blessing would go out, on and on forever, and that we were now invited to bring the Earth Treasure Vase to rest there for all time. And while the group made camp, Jeremy and I went with Mumma in her “troup carrier” with Daddy (David, her husband) driving, to find the perfect location for ‘My Teacher’ to be placed in the deep rock wall that lined that sacred valley.

Thank you Mumma for the blessing of walking with you for a little while. I send my love to you across the songlines of this beautiful Earth, throughout space and time.

Under her embrace and eldership we were welcomed and given entrance into ‘Country’. She called to the ancestors of the land, introducing us, teaching us the Law, and leading us into sacred relationship. For Aboriginal people ‘Country’ includes all living things. It incorporates the land, people, plants and animals. It embraces the seasons, stories, and creation spirits. ‘Country’ is both a place of belonging and a way of believing.

Mumma was a bridge between black and white peoples, community and government and an advocate for many indigenous mobs other than her own. She was the matriarch within the unbroken lineage of the Jawoyn people. She took us all in as family, gave us skin names, which expressed our relationship to her. We were her daughter, son, sister, brother, mother, granddaughter. And she was Mumma to us all.

Mumma was and is the Ancient Law, the Dreamtime, the songs and stories. She loved a good story both to tell and to listen too. What a privilege we have all shared to be with her and to have received her profound teachings and blessings.

While we will miss those bare feet walking upon the land, her jewel of a heart, her bubbling laughter, her calls to the Ancestors…we now have a formidable Ancestor in the Spirit world, inspiring, guiding and accompanying us. Thank you dearest Mumma for so much you have given and for the profound richness of life and love that has flowed on from our coming together as one Mob. You have been an Earth Treasure beyond words.