Lauren Crocker - Practice of the Wild

Snyder speaks of the aboriginal Pintubi tribe’s reverence for the wild in his essay, Good, Wild, Sacred, while noting the walking tales shared by an elder, Mr. Tjungurray (82). The stories passed down to younger tribesmen associate place with legend, which aids in tribal reverence for, as well as connection to the land. The stories highlighted sacred locations which were fantastic in shape or feeling; therefore they were anointed as ‘“dreaming spots” for certain totem ancestors’. I became especially interested in Totemism upon reading about the aboriginal means by which ancestors remain connected to the living. The “dreamtime” described by Snyder refers to the animism associated with a location and fluidity of time which allows for connection with a “mythical past”, or in Dögen’s words, “Time/Being” (Snyder, 84-85).
Dreamtime is the curtain call in theater. Everyone is there; dead, alive, future... unity through symbolic presence.
It is interesting to invision time as having no bearing on the subconscious because reflection is the act of revisiting a nonmaterial subject which may have once been experienced. On the same note, i also wander what dreaming is. How is it that we as humans imagine events which have never directly been a part of? Can dreamtime still be considered a connection if we are consciously building a scenario using what we know in order to create?
Another topic which caught my attention in Synders essay was the use of stories to engrain a map in young Pintubi tribesmen. In a way i relate this to my life in that i recall looking out of the car window as a young child on the way to and from my home and making mental notes of the landscape so that i could know the way back. Now, as an adult, and even as a teenager, I am able to fall asleep in the car and wake up knowing exactly where i am by the feeling of the car and the sound of the tires on the road, or the curves and turns. I link this to the idea of indentifying a cosmos, just as Cabeza de Vaca defined his surroundings when captured by the shaman, or Adam when instructed by God to name the creatures of the earth.