Introduction

Waking Up The Spirit is a long term cultural exchange project between the Indigenous people of the Murray and Lower Darling Rivers, Indigenous central desert people and city folk around the country.

Connection to Spirit & River Country Culture is a four day cultural exchange workshop celebrating connections to country to be held from 14th – 17th December 2012.. In continuing the aims and objectives of the Waking Up The Spirit Festival held in 2011, Barry & Betty Pearce & their family would like to again welcome folk to connect to Spirit in this great river country.

This event is hosted by Culpra Milli Aboriginal Corporation and the Millewa (Murray River) and Barkindji (Darling River) peoples. Come and learn from and with traditional custodians of the land how to connect back to the land and the Great Spirit within it. By engaging in traditional ways of living on the land, you will be encouraged to reflect upon your own connection to the land, and through sharing stories both traditional and contemporary to strengthen this connection to country. Included will be a trip to Lake Mungo, one of the birthplaces of humanity.

This workshop is limited to 35 people in total (including the facilitators) to ensure an intimate and meaningful 4 days.

Background

In October 2011 women from the Pitjantjatjara lands visited Mildura and Culpra Station for the Waking Up the Spirit Festival. Song, story and ceremony were shared over the four days with desert, river and city folk coming together to connect to country.

Connections to country and with people were established, and since then women have continued to dance up the spirit in  Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula and will be visiting Mildura and Melbourne again on subsequent weekends in October. You can find out more info about these events at the Deserts Meets The Cities blog here.

This workshop has been designed to further the the long-term aims and objectives established for the Waking Up The Spirit festival, with the Pearce family and Culpra Milli AC looking forward to continuing cross-cultural exchanges with other desert, river and city mobs into the future.