A whole lot of aligning

30th May 2022

A whole lot of aligning

In the last line of The Uluru Statement from the Heart the authors invite non-Indigenous Australians to “walk with them in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.”

Last Saturday, four years and three days after the invitation was issued, it seemed like it might get an RSVP as Penny Wong, then Anthony Albanese committed to fulfilling the Statement’s promise.

The week before the election I was in our park looking for the moon through my friends astronomy app – we found it but were more than a little excited to see Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn clustered in a conspicuous blob.

I don’t know if the alignment of politics and planets are related but all of a sudden things that were once impossibly far apart are appearing to be coming together.

What does all this aligning mean for food and farming you ask?

In their new book, Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe talk about how Australian colonists ignored First Peoples’ land management systems and simply replicated how they’d farmed half a world away.

Two-hundred and fifty years later in the midst of fires, floods and a zoonotic pandemic, Gammage and Pascoe reveal the enormity of this missed opportunity but at the same time remind us that it’s never too late to learn.

All of a sudden it seems Indigenous-owned food and farming businesses are entering the market. I look forward to tasting my first high-top loaf baked from indigenous seeds grown on Bruce Pascoe’s farm.

A week after Penny and Albo embraced the Statement from the Heart, the aligning continues with Reconciliation Week; this year’s theme is ‘be brave, make change’.

The peeps at Reconciliation Week are putting on the National Acknowledgement of Country – a small brave change to make right away is acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we stand, grow, make, share and feed.

In the same spirit CERES Brunswick East is hosting upcoming Indigenous lead workshops connecting to land through writing, fabric making and landscape restoration.

CERES Fair Food acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation and pays our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

Have a great Reconciliation Week

Chris