This is fascinating! Thanks for your comprehensive posts and losts of pictures too. I totally get that getting 'called' to country - here in Australia 'country' has a spiritual feel, going to 'country' as different from going 'to' the countryside. Aboriginal Australia, as you must know, has a deep spiritual connection to land and place, and whilst I am not of this descent, I'm still 'called' to country in a similiar way. Visiting the Flinders Rangers, where we've just been, allowed me to connect to two cultures - the European settlers who worked the land (and largely ruined it) and who have a stake here too - sixth generation pastoralists feel a deep connection to place too. This makes 'ownership' of place quite fraught - reconcilation involves recognising on both sides emotional, spiritual and ancestral connection to place.

I love the way the kiva was a meeting place. This was something I've been reading a lot about lately as Australia was divided into many many tribal Aboriginal groups yet they'd had big meeting 'corroborees' and gatherings for trade and sharing of information and knowledge (can't help but think of all our tribes here on steemit like that!!) which were so important for culture and how sad that the coming of the Europeans ruined that (in fact the meetings were one of the ways smallpox were spread and caused the death of many people). When you're born and raised in a place you have a tie to it too, which is why land rights is so fraught here as I'm sure they are there. WE could do well to recognise that we all feel similiarly - deep connections to land and place are part of who we essentially are and to share that experience together would make for a better world. Hm. Feel like I"m not making sense here, been a long drive home from spirit lands!

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