Part of my summer reading is an autobiography that weaves the theme of attachment to land by settler and Aborigine alike. The death of the author’s father prompts a personal pilgrimage to the remote station lands of her childhood. Her connection to the land is marked by ambiguity – it is a wrestling with identity that does not find satisfaction without including Aboriginal perspectives and connection. Through writing and painting, Kim Mahood shapes her journey.
This excites me for it gels with the continuing “listening journeys” some of my church are currently engaged in, particularly as we seek to discern how our own identity is affected by connection to the land we now share and the nuances of mapping and naming the land which now has the layer of European settlement imposed upon it.
An excellent review of Mahood’s work is here:
Eco-humanities Corner :Kim Mahood’s Evolving Geographies by Saskia Beudel.
Wondering Pilgrim 