Ngarra. Listen.

I’m learning to weave baskets, my fingers trace the now familiar pattern until they are red raw. I push my needle under, then over, and pull through the tail, over and over again, spiraling around until I hold a basket in my hands – wonky and misshapen.

My Darug ancestors listened to Country and shared its stories. They kept alive knowledge that was thousands of years old. They remember how Country changes, and how it adapts. They remembered experiences of those before them and passed that knowledge on to the next generation. Some people think that these stories are lost, or fragmented. But they are there. They are archived in language, are present on Country, and they are told at the kitchen table. We tell them to each other; we share our knowledge generously. Country holds knowledge – it waits for us.


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On smoko we drink tea from a thermos and eat homemade cakes. Balanced on fallen trees, we let the sounds of the bush fill the silence. We have been looking for traces of the old ones. Searching for signs that they were once here. We found some small stones nearby. I hold one in my hands and trace its ridges. It shows me how it was struck off from the core.

Someone stood here before me – creating. I imagine their hands carefully assessing the angles and edges, calculating the right place to strike. How careful they must have been, how deliberate their actions. When smokos over we get back to searching and recording. We must be careful, we must be deliberate. We practice the science of understanding our material past. We check boxes and do math, and we have terms for everything. So many terms, and yet I can’t find meaning. The stories that fueled my imagination as a child can’t be found here, there is no checkbox for creation stories. No formula for the contextualising of history and place.

An ant finds its way into my pant leg and bites my ankle. The white hot pain makes me scream. I’m handed some bracken. I rub the gooey insides all over the bite. The pain starts to fade.

Bracken (Pteridium Esculentum)
A swift medicine, but toxic to livestock. A perennial that quickly reclaims colonised land, it turns golden in its old age.

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The Barka is flowing.

A pelican watches us, swimming laps, waiting to see if we have fish. Uncle Badger is telling stories of Country. He tells us how the river cannot be separated from Barkandji people. He explains the Barka using his arm, tracing its path from his hands to his shoulder. The veins of his body are the veins of this Country. The Darling-Barka sustains all. Knowledge lies between the relationship of people and Country. It is encompassed by lore. It is shared over tea and almond croissants.

I remember seeing a video of Uncle Badger in 2018. He stands on the banks of the Barka, it’s barely flowing. He bends down to drink the water, but almost immediately spits it out. He addresses the nation and asks us – would you drink this water? He was raised on the Barka, its water has always passed through the lips of Barkandji people, and now it is undrinkable. The images of fish dead on the banks and of the cracked river bed seem distant in 2021, as we watch the cumbungi dance in the wind.

Here by the river trees grow tall and twisted. They creak in the wind and their leaves whisper secrets collected over hundreds of years. Uncle Badger introduces us to plants for eating, for weaving and for making tools. He gestures to the tiny pink and yellow and orange and ruby red berries on the saltbush. He tells us we can eat them. Eagerly I pop one in my mouth, but I taste only a faint sweetness. A small moment and then it’s gone. I pick a few this time, and make sure to savour them. I silently curse my sugar soaked pallet.

Ruby Saltbush (Enchylaena Tomentosa)
They lay like a blue-grey blanket on the red red desert. Up close their leaves are covered in fine white hairs. Rub the colorful berries against your lips for a ruby stain.

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On my lunch breaks I explore campus, looking for things to eat. The carefully curated grounds of Melbourne University contain plants from all over the world. Ivy scales the walls outside my office, the very picture of academic life. The plane trees are losing their leaves. There are plants that I recognise from the supermarket – lime, olives and rosemary. The olives fall from their branches and are scattered on the brick courtyard, crushed underfoot as people make their way into the food court.

It’s starting to get cold this time of year. I bask in the sun like a lizard, knowing that soon we are about to enter the long cold season. I’m no stranger to the Kulin winter. I know when the gums next door start flowering and the rainbow lorikeets move in that there isn’t much warm weather left. Soon the mornings will be dark, and my breath will become misty clouds in the crisp cold air.

Knowledge is the business of this place, it is bought and sold. It is wrapped up in inaccessible language. It is a reward for excelling in educational structures. This knowledge has guardians, and it has enemies. It is splintered and siloed and sequestered behind closed doors. I wonder at my place here, my new life as an academic. Finding your feet means finding connections, and I look for friends in the plants around me.

There is a tree in the system garden, its branches are heavy with fruit. The ground around it is purple with the slowly rotting food. The tree seems tired, its generous offerings being ignored. The fruit looks strange. I worry that maybe I can’t eat it – maybe it just looks like I can eat it but secretly it’s full of poison waiting for a victim. I spend fifteen minutes googling, with thoughts of mushroom harvests gone awry. Will I get in trouble if I pick these? It seems a waste if I don’t.

Illawarra Plum (Podocarpus Elatus)
Like me they enjoy the salty winds from sea Country, and don’t do well alone. Their blue black fruit is slimy and tasty. I collect handfuls and eat them at my desk.

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