Ancestress (AKA Teila Watson) shares her thoughts on democracy in Australia.
When we think about science and what gives us life, we don’t often think of up in the sky or out in space, where there’s no trees to give us air, no water to drink, no earth to belong to. And yet within the western colonial culture the most prominent ideas of faith, god and heaven are so removed from the earth that it’s placed above us, above and unconnected to the literal giver of life, planet earth.
As a BirriGubba and Kungalu / Gungalu Murri, my creator is Mundagatta, the rainbow serpent, who is often said to be resting in waterways. This means that our creator resides within the scientific giver of life, earth. When I asked my Aunty, Dr Lilla Watson, about faith she said “faith may have a place, I don’t know, but we have a knowing.’
I believe the reason for this knowing, is intrinsically tied to the connections between science, natural law and our ontology. Having a creator that is within the scientific giver of life means that ‘Trust’ or indeed ‘a leap of Faith’ isn’t really necessary, because it doesn’t matter if the serpent is there or not, we know that life comes from this planet and so Mundagatta can be seen as a representation of the life giver that we are physically, scientifically and spiritually, without question, connected to, which only enhances the meaning of earth, Mundagatta, life and living.