First Day's Voices: Aboriginal Dreamtime Awakening

Australian aboriginal people have lived in harmony with the earth for as long as 100,000 years, referred to as the First Day. In this captivating piece of work, Lawlor delves into the essence of their culture and explores how it can transform our own worldview. Rather than romanticizing the past or suggesting a return to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, Voices of the First Day allows us to understand the mindset of the oldest continuous culture on earth, providing insight into our relationship with the earth and each other.

This book presents an opportunity to temporarily set aside our values, biases, and Eurocentrism and immerse ourselves in the Dreaming. Through this, we can learn about a people who rejected conventional practices such as agriculture, architecture, writing, clothing, and the subjugation of animals. Instead, they relied on a hunting and gathering lifestyle that provided abundant and highly nutritious food. They also embraced initiatic and ritual practices that served as the origins of esoteric, yogic, magical, and shamanistic traditions.

In addition, the aboriginal people had a dynamic sexual and emotional life, characterized by diversity, fluidity, marital stability, and social stability. They highly valued kinship, community, and the law of the Dreamtime, considering these as their greatest "possessions." Their language, with its intricate structure and rich vocabulary, offers a deeper understanding of perception and comprehension, unveiling new worlds of thought.

The aboriginal people were able to strike a balance between the Dreaming and the tangible world, living in harmony with all species and approaching each day as if it were the First Day. Throughout the book, more than 100 remarkable photographs, bark paintings, line drawings, and engravings vividly illustrate their culture. These images include some of the earliest ever taken of the Aboriginal people, making their appearance here a significant event.

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