This stunning companion to the National Museum of Australia's blockbuster Indigenous-led exhibition, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, explores the history and meaning of songlines, the Dreaming or creation tracks that crisscross the Australian continent, of which the Seven Sisters songline is one of the most extensive. Through stunning artworks (many created especially for the exhibition), story, and in-depth analysis, the book will provide the definitive resource for those interested in finding out more about these complex pathways of spiritual, ecological, economic, cultural, and ontological knowledge - the stories `written in the land'.

The title for this book comes from the ancient Aboriginal concept of “song lines” —pathways to another world reached through dreamtime and visionary insight, and encounters with the unknown realm of experience. Veronica Goodchild addresses how dreams, synchronicities, UFO/ET encounters, Crop Circle mysteries, and NDEs all point to the new unfolding vision of reality. She draws on ancient mystery traditions to explore how this metamorphosis is already reflected cross-culturally in Hopi, Aztec, Mayan, Hindu, Tibetan, Maori, Zulu, Dogon, and Egyptian cultures. Songlines of the Soul proposes a new paradigm of reality, a new worldview. The signatures of this new reality are arising both in our own experiences and all around us if only we can stretch wide our stubbornly held perceptions of what is “reality.” As we stand at a crucial turning point in our human history, this book offers hope, a call to awaken and expand our perceptions of the fundamental principles that orchestrate reality. In an age when the answers offered by governments and traditional religion are no longer sufficient, the quest for meaning must—as it always has in the past—arise first through visions, dreams, and journeys to other dimensions of consciousness.

John Bradley's compelling account of three decades living with the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of how the elders revealed to him the ancient songlines of their Dreaming.

A book that tells about the magical world of Aboriginal Dreamtime and sharing the world's oldest living culture.

A paradigm-shifting book in the vein of Sapiens that brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to historical and cultural issues of history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living. As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? In this thoughtful, culturally rich, mind-expanding book, he provides answers. Yunkaporta’s writing process begins with images. Honoring indigenous traditions, he makes carvings of what he wants to say, channeling his thoughts through symbols and diagrams rather than words. He yarns with people, looking for ways to connect images and stories with place and relationship to create a coherent world view, and he uses sand talk, the Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge. In Sand Talk, he provides a new model for our everyday lives. Rich in ideas and inspiration, it explains how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everyone and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it’s about a very special way of thinking, of learning to see from a native perspective, one that is spiritually and physically tied to the earth around us, and how it can save our world. Sand Talk include 22 black-and-white illustrations that add depth to the text.

Let this series begin the discussion.' - Bruce Pascoe 'An act of intellectual reconciliation.' - Lynette Russell Songlines are an archive for powerful knowledges that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years. Much more than a navigational path in the cartographic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing. Weaving deeply personal storytelling with extensive research on mnemonics, Songlines: The Power and Promise offers unique insights into Indigenous traditional knowledges, how they apply today and how they could help all peoples thrive into the future. This book invites readers to understand a remarkable way for storing knowledge in memory by adapting song, art, and most importantly, Country, into their lives. About the series: The First Knowledges books are co-authored by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia. Forthcoming titles include: Design by Alison Page & Paul Memmott (2021); Country by Bill Gammage & Bruce Pascoe (2021); Healing, Medicine & Plants (2022); Astronomy (2022); Innovation (2023).

The art of the Australian Aborigines is widely recognised as being the oldest art form in the world, preceding that of the Americas and Europe by many centuries. For thousands of years, however, the only art forms practised by the Aborigines were rock painting and carving, bark painting, sand painting and body painting using natural ochres, wild desert cotton, charcoal and birds' down, often carried out as part of ceremonial activities. It was not until 1971 that the Aborigines of the Papunya Tula settlement in the deserts of the Northern Territory were introduced to methods of painting on canvas and board using modern materials. This book commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Papunya Tula painting movement - the birthplace of contemporary Aboriginal painting. The work of eighty Papunya Tula artists, including some of the best known Aboriginal painters - Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Michael Nelson Tjakamarra and Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri - is illustrated in this book in two hundred full-colour reproductions which demonstrates the vibrancy and sophistication of the art. Patrick Corbally Stourton's introductory text examines the events which led to the birth of this extraordinary painting movement, and illuminates the mythology of Dreamings which lies behind every Aboriginal painting.