If you haven’t read Bruce Chatwin’s “The Songlines,”
I encourage you to (not a purchase request, just a recommendation). There, he
wrote about the indigenous cultures of Australia and their relationship with
their land. It’s truly profound.
Decades ago, when I read the book, it stunned me
and led me to read more about pre-European Australia. Just this week I brought
up the book in a conversation because it’s timeless. I will give none of it
away to allow you to enjoy the story and the culture he writes about. His book
is not science or history, and criticism from those points of view falls flat
against what he is expressing. You need to read it with your heart, not your
head, and read with a childish sense of wonder. If you want to know what ‘walk
about’ really means, read Chatwin.
Regarding the excerpt . . .
The environment of Haven in “Home: Interstellar” is
like Central Australia: the Outback, where civilized Westerners would have difficulty
lasting even a few days.
The passage below focuses on Meriel Hope, the
heroine of the book who is recovering from severe injuries. She is staying with
her love interest, John, and his two pre-teen girls, Sandy and Becky, who lost
their mother a decade earlier. John calls their home a farm, but it’s actually a
desert irrigated by groundwater. During a trip to ‘walk the fence,’ Merial and
Sandy talk before bed, and Meriel recognizes her relationship with the stars.
“Songlines” From Home:
Interstellar, Chapter 13
Meriel sat with her back against the chuckwagon
with Sandy snuggled under her arm and Becky asleep in her lap. Together they
watched Thor set on the Western horizon and the stars that followed. Like John
and the rest of the work crew, they were tired from the long three-day trek.
Without it, the groundwater supply would remain uncertain and larger critters
could sneak onto the farm through the gaps in the electric fence.
Much of the trek Meriel spent in the wagon, so her
injuries would not slow them down. Tomorrow morning, they would be home for the
start of the Harvest Fair. And at the day’s end, she would make her decision to
leave or to stay, a decision she did not want to make.
“Do you know about the stars, hon?” Meriel said.
Sandy smiled. “Only to wish on.”
“How?”
“Mommy said that everything that’s made is made in
stars, so wishing on ’em makes the wish stronger. Here, close your eyes and say
after me.
“Star light, star bright,
All the stars within my sight.
Wish I may. Wish I might.
Grant the wish I wish tonight.”
“That’s it?” Meriel asked.
“Yup. But then you have to cross your heart, so the
stars know you mean it.”
Meriel did as instructed. “What did you wish for?”
“Oh, you can’t tell your wish or the stars will
forget.”
“What star did you wish on?”
“Me? I wish on that big one there,” Sandy said and
pointed to a bright star in the south.
“That’s Aldebaran,” Meriel said. “And the fuzzy
patch there are the Pleiades. It’s also called the Seven Sisters.”
Sandy kept her eyes on Meriel. “Do you miss them?”
“Who?”
“I’ve watched you look at the stars, Merry. Are you
going back to space?”
Perceptive girl. “I’m not sure, hon. I’m a spacer.”
Sandy bit her lip and turned away.
“I talked to your father. It might not be safe for
you to be around me.”
“You’re just saying that ’cause you want to leave.”
“I don’t think I would be a good mom.”
“I don’t need a mom. She’s been gone a long time
now, and no one could replace her, anyway. I know Becky does, but that’s only
because she doesn’t remember her much.”
Maybe she does, and I won’t match up. “I won’t go away forever,
hon. My family is coming here, and you are part of that. I’ll always return.”
“For them?”
“For you.” She took Sandy’s little hand. “You’re
like me when I was a kid. Strong. Full of ideas. And you love your little
sister.”
Sandy gazed at her with a smile. “Yeah.”
They were silent for a while as a meteor arced
across the sky.
“Merry, is space your home? Your song?”
“What do you mean, hon?”
“Like your home isn’t a place, but a path.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Our teacher told us about a place on Earth called
Australia that’s kinda like Haven—real dry with animals and people that don’t
live anywhere else. She said the native people don’t have any place to settle
down ’cause the land is poor and can’t sustain them. But they have trails they
walk over the course of a year or more.” Sandy scooted over and between them
drew an irregular shape in the dirt that returned to its starting point. “That
was their route. And many tribes would walk the same land but have different
routes.” She drew other closed shapes that meandered back and forth and crossed
each other. “And as they walked, they sang of the places they passed, the hills
and the plants, their ancestors and the spirits. They called them songlines.”
Meriel imagined tribes of people following Sandy’s
little fingers as she traced their trails in the dirt.
“You know them all, don’t you?” Sandy asked. “All
the stars.”
She nodded. “Pretty much. One of the first things
that spacers do when they arrive somewhere is to orient themselves to the stars
and constellations.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, my first spacewalk was near Wolf 359. That’s
over there.” A star hovered above the horizon, and she pointed to it. “That was
the happiest day of my life, well, before I met you and your sister.” She
squeezed Sandy’s hand. “My mom and pop died near Procyon. The Princess
is docked there at Enterprise Station. Over there is Lalande 21185, close to
where I met your father. That’s behind Thor now, and you can’t see it.” Meriel
took the fringe of Sandy’s shirt between her fingers. “The Crab nebula glows a
teal color like your sleeves.”
“You make the stars real for me, Merry. That’s your
song. You just don’t have a melody for it yet.”
“My route could be my home?”
Sandy nodded and snuggled into her arms. “Just make
part of it here with us.”
Meriel hugged her and nudged Becky under her other
arm so the three of them could stretch out. There they watched the last slice
of Thor set with stories of the stars until Sandy fell asleep.
As Meriel drifted off, the memory returned of her
and her sister sleeping in her father’s arms after their adventure on the
dino-sims. For the first time, she realized what her father felt that day. “Oh,
Papa,” she murmured and tightened her embrace of the girls, though the tears
tickled her cheeks.
. . .
Using the visor she had dug out from the rubble, Meriel
found a reference in Galactipedia and listened.
The native peoples of
Australia still walk their songlines, paths unique to each tribe or language
group. While they walk, they sing of how the gods sang the world into being: the
mountains, the streams, the plants and animals, and all the features of their
world. Those songs brought forth all the distinctions of rock and food and
poison that made their home possible to live in. And when the gods finished
their songs of creation, they taught their people the songs and lay down and
became the land. For many thousands of years, every time the people walk their
songlines, they sing their world and their gods back into being.
(end excerpt)
Happy reading.
Ray
Oh, and if you’re interested in some interesting
titles, check these out:
Free Adventures here
April Fantasy and Science fiction here,
here,
and here
Free Fantasy here,
here,
here,
here, and here
