About me and this blog
Hi, I'm Don Butcher and Reflections on Country is my blog, early days on this. I hope to put my photos and stories out to the world. I've too many stories in me. I'd love to share them.
I have had the great privilege of working in most Australian states as an outdoor educator, bushwalking guide, and national park interpretation ranger, I have become entranced with several of these landscapes.
I have had the great privilege of working in most Australian states as an outdoor educator, bushwalking guide, and national park interpretation ranger, I have become entranced with several of these landscapes.
Why the name - Reflections on Country?
I love how Aboriginal people use the word 'country'. "Where your country?" Well for me –the amazing bushland that surrounds Sydney, that was my childhood, all that magic sandstone country, the estuaries of Broken Bay and weekends, holidays at a beach with dangerous dumping waves when the swell was up, the beach backed onto sandstone bushland with giant red flowers, waratahs and secluded waterfalls, and shapely old Sydney Redgums (Angophora costata) leaning out over little creeks. My country.
That Sydney sandstone country I explored on cool rainy days when no one was about, I gazed in wonder at engravings - fish, seals, penguins, emus, spirit beings and people. And people! I fell in love with that country, and it dawned upon me that artists, fishing people lived and loved there upon the sandstone wonderland.
One site documents a whale feast showing great joy and ceremony, engraved by artists across a tapestry of sandstone. A whale beached on the coast presented an opportunity for a gathering of peoples across the region and a giant feast. Governor Phillip very nearly lost his life when he approached three men at a beached whale near Manly in Sydney Harbour – that’s a story.
The word country* is more than a flag or a nation state, to Aboriginal people it's so much more - kind of like our word home but more. With an occupation at least 65,000 years long, ‘home’ takes on unfathomable depth. A genetic study from 2017 confirmed Australia's first people had settled regions across Australia and made patches of country home at least 50,000 years ago. Even with next year’s 2020 vision that is only 232 years of settler Australia history. We as settler Australians have hardly arrived and yet we have so profoundly altered the health and resilience of Australian landscapes. Take a look at the AIATSIS map of Australian languages – an insight to connections profound. So many groups of people and unique approaches to living in each unique patch, such diversity!
The anthropologist Debra Bird Rose's brilliant book Nourishing Terrains from 1996 goes some way to communicate the profoundly close connection Aboriginal people have with their country. A wonderful title for her book btw, 'country' is a nourishing terrain. Where is your country?
This blog - I love rivers and wetlands I take photos of them, I love the insight they provide, the stories they can tell - healthy waters come from healthy land. Not so healthy waters … well, there’s a story. A fair few of my photos have reflections gracing pools of water – often pretty but not always. Water reflects the country but also I want to reflect on the health of the country and how this influences water.
* click on the word country for a Radio National link to Aboriginal arts & culture program AWAYE! for deeper insight to the word's use. A 5 min listen from the 2 min mark on, but really the whole program - brilliant!
#RespectforCountry
That Sydney sandstone country I explored on cool rainy days when no one was about, I gazed in wonder at engravings - fish, seals, penguins, emus, spirit beings and people. And people! I fell in love with that country, and it dawned upon me that artists, fishing people lived and loved there upon the sandstone wonderland.
One site documents a whale feast showing great joy and ceremony, engraved by artists across a tapestry of sandstone. A whale beached on the coast presented an opportunity for a gathering of peoples across the region and a giant feast. Governor Phillip very nearly lost his life when he approached three men at a beached whale near Manly in Sydney Harbour – that’s a story.
The word country* is more than a flag or a nation state, to Aboriginal people it's so much more - kind of like our word home but more. With an occupation at least 65,000 years long, ‘home’ takes on unfathomable depth. A genetic study from 2017 confirmed Australia's first people had settled regions across Australia and made patches of country home at least 50,000 years ago. Even with next year’s 2020 vision that is only 232 years of settler Australia history. We as settler Australians have hardly arrived and yet we have so profoundly altered the health and resilience of Australian landscapes. Take a look at the AIATSIS map of Australian languages – an insight to connections profound. So many groups of people and unique approaches to living in each unique patch, such diversity!
The anthropologist Debra Bird Rose's brilliant book Nourishing Terrains from 1996 goes some way to communicate the profoundly close connection Aboriginal people have with their country. A wonderful title for her book btw, 'country' is a nourishing terrain. Where is your country?
This blog - I love rivers and wetlands I take photos of them, I love the insight they provide, the stories they can tell - healthy waters come from healthy land. Not so healthy waters … well, there’s a story. A fair few of my photos have reflections gracing pools of water – often pretty but not always. Water reflects the country but also I want to reflect on the health of the country and how this influences water.
* click on the word country for a Radio National link to Aboriginal arts & culture program AWAYE! for deeper insight to the word's use. A 5 min listen from the 2 min mark on, but really the whole program - brilliant!
#RespectforCountry
