Review - Fire Bucket

YIRRAMBOI FIRST NATIONS ARTS FESTIVAL across Melbourne 5 - 14 May

http://yirramboi.net.au/category/program/#bullarto-wonthaggi

Fire Bucket

Indigenous storytelling by Uncle Wes Marne

Weelam Ngalut – Meat Market – Garden

May 10 at 7pm

There is so much awesome Indigenous Art being presented, in the YIRRAMBOI FRIST NATIONS ARTS FESTIVAL, across Melbourne till late this Saturday evening.  In amongst it I was lucky enough to catch this marvelous mystical Storytelling event.

After being enthusiastically greeted the audience was warmly welcomed and walked to the garden to experience a smoking ceremony before getting comfortable around a fire bucket to enjoy most remarkable evening of story from 95-year-old Uncle Wes Marne.

Some precedents were set – no talking between the smoking and the sitting and its rude to ask questions.  So it was unproblematic for Uncle Wes to ‘take the floor’ in relative silence and without being interrupted.

Ultimately I was glad not to be able to ask the questions that came bubbling to mind because this event was about listening with the heart, the mind, the body and the spirit.

Uncle Wes a community elder from Mt Druitt wove creation stories with personal story, anecdotes and animal wisdom stories moving the listener ‘back and forwards across time.’  When listening to such a consummate Storyteller colour and sensation can be seen and experienced with vivid and memorable clarity.  Amidst the light of the full moon, although it was a cloudless night, the city lights obscured the star mantle.  However with a few key descriptive words from Uncle Wes, in the twinkling of an eye, the milky-way was there in all its glory.

Wes was born in 1922 and his life experience is long and cultural understandings are extremely broad and deep and his compassionate perception profound and stabilizing.  The humour and intrinsic wisdom of these ancient and contemporary stories was imparted with sparkling crystal clarity.  A joyous sense of belonging and unity with all creation was imparted.

So many stories of animal with human foibles are enlightening and heartening.  The cross-over between animal and human - imbuing animals with the best and worst qualities of human nature allows one to listen through the protective and enlightening gauze of metaphor.

Who could ask for more than stories that teach and touch the soul being told around a fire under a full moon? 

What a privilege!

(For Stage Whispers)