The Dreaming Path
Indigenous Ideas to Help Us Change the World
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Drawing on ancient Aboriginal wisdom, a leading Indigenous Australian healer and an Elder show you how to find contentment, purpose, and healing by learning to reconnect with your story—and ultimately the universe.
Dr. Paul Callaghan belongs to the land of the Worimi people who live north of Sydney along the east coast of Australia. Raised to live the western way, Paul found himself mired in deep depression—struggling to find meaning while raising a family and working as a senior education executive. Desperate to break free of his restlessness, he made a drastic change: He “went bush” and connected with his elders to “walk Country” and learn Aboriginal traditions. Twenty years later, Paul is an expert healer and spiritual guide eager to share the wisdom of his ancestors and the insights he discovered on his life journey.
In this affirming, empowering, and transformative book, he teaches you about the Dreaming Path—a connection to the earth and the universe, past, present, and future that has always been there, but can be difficult to find amid the chaos of the modern world.
The Dreaming Path offers tips, practices, inspiration, and motivation that can enable you to achieve a profound state of mind, body, and spirit wellness, while encouraging you to think deeply about essential life topics, including:
Caring for our place and the importance of storyRelationships, sharing, and unityLove, gratitude, and humilityLearning and living your truthInspiration and resilienceBeing present and healing from the pastContentmentLeading
The Dreaming Path reminds us that we are our stories; by learning to recognize that we are all an indelible part of something much larger, we can begin to heal ourselves and our communities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aboriginal Australian storyteller Callaghan (Iridescence) and mentor and elder Gordon share wide-ranging Aboriginal wisdom for individuals and communities in this introspective offering. Mixing history, commentary, and spiritual parables, the authors explore gratitude (according to Aboriginal values, mundane tasks should be reframed as opportunities to exercise "goodwill and love"); resilience (which entails "taking care of ourselves physically, spiritually, and mentally" during times of hardship); and caring for the planet as both a "spiritual directive" and matter of "practical significance." Earth "gives us everything we need to live a good life," the authors write, but only if it's treated as an object of collective care rather than "an asset/resource to be bought, sold, drilled, cut, mined... controlled, and conquered." Gordon's meditative voice meshes well with Callaghan's explanatory prose, gracefully bridging the gap between Aboriginal tradition and Western social realities—as when Callaghan touches on an attempted job move that fell through for the better (Aboriginal wisdom holds that "traveling down dead-end roads and taking detours on our journey" can be necessary for "achiev our life's purpose") and his struggles with depression, which spurred him to connect to his culture. Readers will treasure this.
