When the World Was Soft
Remembering the Stars Through Aboriginal Eyes
Our Australian Aboriginal peoples hold one of the most ancient and intricate relationships with the night sky on Earth. Their astronomy is not merely about mapping stars but about reading the spaces between — the dark shapes formed by absence, the silence that speaks, remembering that we are that space. Where Western stargazers often look to constellations formed by bright points of light, many Aboriginal cultures attune instead to the darkness itself — like the majestic Emu in the Sky, formed not by stars but by the dark dust lanes of the Milky Way.
This is not science divorced from spirit. It is a sacred, relational way of knowing. These celestial stories are woven into land, songlines, and ceremony. They guide seasonal shifts, migrations, hunting patterns, and spiritual rites. The stars are not remote. They are our ancestors, our guides, our kin. Remembering them adds a lustre to our life that shines through the darkness.
Dreamtime Remembering
One of the most beautiful teachings I have ever encountered is the phrase: “When the world was soft.” This refers to the Dreamtime, the sacred era when ancestral beings sang the world into existence. It was a time of fluidity and creation — before the white man came, before violence, colonisation, and displacement hardened the living Earth and its people.
“When the world was soft” speaks to a time of sacred harmony, when Sky and soil, animal and human, dream and waking all flowed together. Tune in deeply as remembering these times lifts us and connects us with all that is sacred. It reminds us that this softness still lives beneath the surface of things. It can be remembered, reawakened. Through dream, through ritual, through walking barefoot on the land and gazing up at the stars with reverence, we soften once more.
I have a deep longing to sit in circle with Aboriginal Elders, to listen not with questions but with my breath, to learn not only through language but also through the quiet transmission of presence. I believe this ancient way of seeing the Sky is a key to restoring balance — for it teaches us that the cosmos is not something to conquer or name but something to enter into a relationship with.
As we navigate these changing times, may we return to this softness. May we return to remembering why we incarnated at this time. May we gaze into the darkness between the stars and hear the stories that still sing there. May we dream not only for ourselves but for our ancestors and those yet to come. May we remember that we are part of the sky story.
In gratitude and dreaming, Sharon
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