Dadirri: Listening to One Another

"Grow antennae, not horns."
–James B. Angell

DADIRRI: LISTENING TO ONE ANOTHER

A beautiful, moving book, published by the Australian Early Childhood Association, Building Bridges: Literacy Development in Young Indigenous Children (Commonwealth of Australia, 2001; ISBN: 1 87589 049 1) contains this message from Miriam Rose Ungenmerr, which would apply around the world today as well as in Australia:

"Dadirri.  A special quality, a unique gift of the Aboriginal people, is an inner deep listening and quiet still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. It is like what you call meditation. 

"Dadirri spreads over our whole life. It renews us and brings us peace. It makes us feel who again. In our Aboriginal way we learnt to listen from our earliest times. We could not live good and useful lives unless we listened.

"We are not worried by silence. We are at home in it. Our Aboriginal way has taught us to be still and wait. We do not try to hurry things up. We let them follow their natural course--like the seasons. We don't mind waiting because we want things to be done with care.

"Our people are used to the struggles and the long waiting. We still wait for other Australians to understand us better. We have spent many years learning the European people's ways; and we have learned to speak their language; we have listened to what they have to say. This listening and learning should go both ways. We would like people in Australia to take time and listen to us. We are hoping all Australians will come closer. We keep longing for the things that we have always hoped for, respect and understanding."

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