Bunjil was known as a good spirit who created things as they are today and gave the tribes their law and culture.

Here at Wartook, sheltered by day and as I sleep, protected by the guardian, the spirit of the escarpment, I am reminded that the people who walked this land, long before European settlers arrived knew that all is connected – land, spirit, people.

“Gariwerd (the Grampians) was a cultural mecca because of the significance it holds. The five main (Aboriginal) mobs around the Grampians would meet up at Gariwerd whenever there was any traditional business. It was a place for celebrations and a place to resolve disputes. It was like Parliament House for the Aborigines, which is why it is the most culturally important place in the region.” (Hazel McDonald)

The people who came here had a very special relationship with the Creator Spirit, with the land and indeed with all of creation. To them, everything was sacred – the animals, plants, hills, mountains, trees, leaves, rocks, stones, river, lakes, oceans, everything. They believed that all have as much right to exist as humans do. If we dishonour their right, we dishonour our own right to be.

As I spend quiet, meditative days here, watching as the escarpment changes colour and mood I know that this is a place where I will be able to make tracks in the land… it is the place where my new story is unfolding.

This place, scattered with granite boulders, remains of old gardens, decorated with bright wattle is a place that speaks to me, a place where I know that I am, like every living organism, the centre of the universe. I know that this is a place where I can safely go deep into sacred wells of knowledge that is deep within us, and come up with a new vision. It is a place that tells me ‘you are mine and I am yours.’ It is a place where I feel called by the land to enter the land, where there is a spiritual wilderness that awaits my tentative steps to go further into the vastness of the cosmos. It is a place where the Creator Spirit, Bunji, tenderly stirs a sense of inner tranquility, without taking away my peace.