Rosemary Wanganeen: Healing the Soul of Australia
For me, this is the most important episode I’ve ever published.
In today’s episode, Rosemary Wanganeen shares her personal story of being part of the Stolen Generation, reconnecting with her ancestry, going through a deep grieving process - and ultimately forgiving the atrocities committed on her people.
Rosemary Wanganeen is a proud South Australian Aboriginal woman, Kaurna Elder, and founder of the Healing Centre for Griefology.
Rosemary believes that grieving and wellbeing are intimately related - and that the health of Australia’s future rests in our ability to integrate the losses we have in our nation's history. In this episode, Rosemary explores:
Why indigenous Australians maintained regular grieving ceremonies
The importance of not having the body accumulate “grief energy”
The impact of Plato calling grief "illogical" and a "weakness"
The invitation grief offers for forgiveness and re-kindling spirituality
Whether Australia will ever have a dedicated “Day of Grieving”
I believe that nothing will heal the soul of Australia more than allowing the pain of our history to enter into our hearts. By finding ways to integrate this grief, we will free up the energy and creativity for a more compassionate future.
I urge you to listen to Rosemary and the messages she has received from her ancestors.
It means so much to have you here today.
Love, Jono
P.S. If you're enjoying these episodes, I would be so grateful if you could rate the show and leave me a review on Apple podcasts. These reviews help more people discover the show. You could mention what you like about the show - the episode that made you a regular listener - or your favorite guest or episode. Here’s some easy instructions on how to leave a review. Thank you so much!
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Rosemary [Excerpt] : Grief forgiveness enabled me to go there where I could forgive all of my perpetrators from stolen generation will fear what happened to my ancestors because I'd gone through a deep grieving process to come out the other end with compassion empathy for the humans, the perpetrators that had done harm to me, my family, my community, and my people.
Jono [Intro]: Thanks for joining me today - and welcome to this third episode in The Medicine of Grief Season - a time when we are exploring how grief can be really a gateway to transforming our lives, our leadership and our culture.And to be honest, this conversation today is one of the most important conversations I’ve ever recorded - and I believe it holds the seeds of profound healing, particularly for those of us living in Australia, indigenous and non-indigenous.
Today's conversation is with Rosemary Wanganeen - and Rosemary has a powerful gift for all Australians.
This gift is called “Griefology”.
And as you will soon discover, the phases of Griefology are an invitation, an invitation for all of us to enter back into union with each other, with our ancestors and the land we call Australia. It also allows us to deal with our shared and complex histories as indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
Rosemary is a proud South Australian Aboriginal woman, Ghana Elder, and the founder of the Healing Centre for Griefology.
And in today’s conversation, Rosemary shares her personal story, her personal story of being one of the stolen generation, but then the process she went through to reconnect with her ancestry, to go through a deep grieving process - and ultimately forgiving the atrocities committed on her people.
Rosemary believes that grieving and wellbeing are intimately related - and together today we explore how “Griefology” is a gateway to:
Healing the many mental health issues, the suicides, the addiction and the violence and really returning and rekindling a spirituality, a spirituality that’s connected to the land and to our ancestors. And ultimately it points to a forgiveness, to a compassion that’s possible, to a union between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Really catalyzing a new and more prosperous future.
You see personally, I don’t believe Australia or we as Australians will ever reach our full potential without wholeheartedly facing and embracing grief as a practice, a practice for healing and transformation - there’s been too much blood has been spilt - there’s been too much loss of culture and land - there’s been too many deaths in prison and forced removal of children from their families - for us to pretend that we can move forward without allowing the pain of our history to enter our hearts.
Rosemary today points to an integration, a way of integrating this grief that will potentially transform us more than anything else, more than any policy, more than any gesture. A process that can really free up energy, the compassion within us as human beings and bring us closer to each other, closer to the land, closer to our shared humanity and our ancestors.
I urge you to listen closely to Rosemary and the messages she has received from her ancestors. It truly is a great gift to have her with us today.
Thank you for listening. It means so much to have you here today.
I just like to acknowledge the land were on, Ghana country, Ghana land. Also want to acknowledge those who have tended
Jono [Interview Commences] : I just want to acknowledge the land we're on, we're on Ghana country, Ghana land and also want to acknowledge those who have tended to and taken care of this land. And, and all those that are living, you know, intended to, all that is living on this land, and also the spirit and the spirituality of the people of this land. I also want to invite, invite them to be here with us as we converse today.
Rosemary: Thank you so much. I, I wish the same thing too, and, and I, I know that they're, they're always with me, with my work, so rest assured they're, they are here with us.
Jono: Well, as I mentioned, earlier, Rosemary, this series is all about really the Medicine of Grief. And I've spoken to a number of people in different sectors and people coming at from, from different perspectives. You know, whether that's in leadership or collective grief or the mythology of grief. And what has come really clear to me is that I live in Australia and, there is so much, I guess unspoken and unfelt around grief in this country. And when I think about, indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians, I think what comes to my mind is so much, politicization of things.
A very mental exercise, denial going on, blame, shame and I, in coming across your work, I see that your work kind of goes underneath all that into the human, into the personal and has a great focus on healing. And I just really want to thank you for that work and let you know that's why I wanted to talk to you because I see you offering something here that isn't as widely known as it could be known, and I would love more people to be aware of it, for the sake of all Australians and for the wellbeing of our country. So welcome to this conversation, and yeah, thank you for everything you're doing.
Rosemary: I'm really looking forward to telling not just my story, but my family, my community, we as a nation, our people, as an Aboriginal First Nations people, but also the story of all Australians. So I'm really looking forward to sharing with you my journey back to be able to come forward.
Jono: Yeah. And I look forward to hearing that in this conversation.I'd love your reflections just initially on the impact that you see around, loss and unresolved grief in aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities in Australia. What do you see as the impact that this is having that we're not having this opportunity to resolve or process our grief?
Rosemary: Mmm..So, that's where I found myself, between 1987 and the end of 1992, having to intuitively go through my own healing and journey where it took me all the way back to ancient history and particularly finding the Greek philosopher Plato, who coined the idea that grief is not only illogical, but it's actually a weakness in 388 BC. And when I discovered him, I thought, what the, what, why the heck have I found you? And so that became, that became the catalyst for me to continue unpacking his time in that era and what damage I think that that's caused those young boys who became young men who became old men out of fear of being labeled weak, they shut it down. Which is, you know, the body is, well, humanity is designed to have loss.
Living things on, on Mother Earth cannot just live forever. So we're a part of the natural system where we have to die to make room for the next generations. And so those young boys, you know, shut down their fear of grieving, so they're not labeled weak. And then that fear of grieving became intergenerational. So we are talking 388 BC and so, you know how many generations from 388 BC all the way through to our time here. Now, we're not just young boys, but women and children. I go so far as to say we actually don't know how to grieve.
You know, I've heard many times the Australian, you know, through the media, they talk about grief, but they actually truly don't understand it. They don't know how to use it. They don't know how to talk to it. And that creates and continues to create huge confusion on what it is and how to do it. And the cause of it, the symptoms of intergenerational suppressed unsolved grief. I think it's become the symptoms that have become, you know, all that we are living with today, particularly, ill health, mental illness, suicide, violence against humanity, men's violence against women and against children. Sort of what we are, these social determinants, if you like, they are symptoms of suppressed, intergenerational, suppressed, unresolved grief.
Jono: What did you in your research, you know, you, you talked about Plato and then we talk, we think about indigenous history and your ancestors. What did they know about grief and how to process that? How to work with that, that we've also lost and, indigenous people have had to, that have lost through the process of colonization. Yeah. Could you talk a little about that?
Rosemary: Yeah, absolutely. So what sort of culture did I come from? Because I have memories of being in part of the stolen generation. And in class about 12 years old, we were doing Australian studies and the teachers said,and it was, it was quite, sort of almost vicious in his voice, he said, “and aboriginal people, they were savages”. And I'm sitting there, already, my aboriginal identity is incredibly weak now. And I froze and I said to myself, oh no, how could my ancestors do that to those poor white people? So that had me sympathizing with the white people, which is all a part of, assimilating and as part of the stolen generation, of denying one's aboriginality. So it sort of worked out that I was ashamed of my aboriginality and shamed and angry at my ancestors. So that's, as I'm going through my research, you know, I never sort of lost sight of that memory, that experience with that teacher.
So here I am asking myself, so what sort of culture did I come from? And that's where I found, amongst a whole range of other things. You know, we had multiple systems, you know, trade, science and technology, engineering, cosmology, law and order as in l-a-w, as well as, spiritual lore, l-o-r-e. So I'm learning the culture that I'd come from and then started to learn about their grieving, their, their very sacred structured grieving processes. And, I'm thinking, whoa, hang on. My ancestors had this and then realizing, you know, being so isolated here, they must have been living in those systems as a complete civilization and had been grieving for 60,000 years plus. And I'm thinking, but why would they develop that? Why would they design very sacred structured grieving ceremonies? What's the purpose? And then I realized, ah, so I had to do all this like sort of reading between the lines and interpreting not just Western civilization, but now my aboriginal culture and civilization. And it had me realizing that my ancestors knew how to value and maintain these grieving ceremonies so that the body didn't accumulate what I call grief energy.
So western culture had suppressed their grieving ceremonies. Our ancestors, my ancestors' culture, maintained the grieving ceremonies so that the body didn't build up and become like a pressure cooker that had the spout cutoff, welded up, put the lid back on it, and then put that pressure on the heat. So imagine the purpose for grieving is to release all that grief energy out. So imagine that same pressure cooker with a spout intact, put on the stove, and the steam is coming out of the spout, which is what it's designed to do. So my ancestor's culture is that pressure cooker releasing grief energy out of their physical body. I have an image that I use in my training where, so they can, they design grieving ceremonies, to do the body movement, the dance, the wailing and men wailed and wailed and wailed just as much as women wailed.
And then they did it as a group. But then I have an image where, this traditional man is laying on the ground by himself, but he's got kin around him. But I've just shrunk the image down. He's laying down there on the ground and he's got a cut on his thigh. The cut has been bound, either side by traditional string. So I'm thinking, so why would they cut his thigh? And then I realized, ah, that's just another way. Once they'd done the cut, all that grief energy is being released and looking at that image, you could almost hear him sighing with relief.
And so, okay, I'm thinking, so that's the purpose of grieving. It's not just a ceremony, it's a physical practice to maintain the expression of the grief energy out of the body so it doesn't get trapped creating that pressure cooker that's had the spout cutoff welded up and put on the, on the stove. And so I'm thinking, what's the purpose of not letting the buildup of grief energy occur in the body if they had allowed the body to build up in grief energy. Then there's this amazing, powerful disconnection from seeing, feeling and hearing ancestors.
Once I'd completed my grieving ceremonies, what I think happened for me is it switched on. It switched back on my pineal gland, which I think is the spiritual connection to seeing, feeling and hearing, not just ancestors communicate to me but I was able to communicate to my dreaming totem and reclaim back my dreaming totem, which is grandfather crow and not just any grandfather crow. It was my mother's father who died when she was a little girl. So I had the visitation and the communication from grandfather and my mother who came back to me in the form of a crow. So this is me, their descendant, being able to reconnect back to them reconnect back to mother earth to nature, which contributed to me developing my work, developing my model.
So going back to a traditional setting, if that happened for me, unbeknownst to me that it was gonna be happening, my ancestors were doing that for 60 plus thousand years. So that's why they were able to stay connected to, and communicate and see, feel, and hear them. The ancestors for all those centuries, millennia, because the body was emptied out of all that grief, energy, communicate to Mother Earth. What did Mother Earth need? Mother Earth could talk, communicate to them, and they heard that they was able to, implement, if you like, what, mother Earth needed.
So, here we are on this side of the world, just knowing how to grieve. Why is critical for the human body to grieve and on their side of the world, they shut down. So, here we have two civilizations, one shut down from their spirituality and the other, my ancestors, living in their spirituality. And so with me fighting my way back to my grieving processes intuitively tells me when I came out of the process, hmm, if, if, if I could do this and I was shown how to do it intuitively through my ancestors, cuz my ancestors, all they had to live in is their intuitive intelligence. So when I was talking about the pineal gland, you know, that also I think can be, can be classed as the third eye.
Our ancestors just knew that stuff. So here I am being shown how to go back into that and I'm figuring, okay, so if I could do that, if they've shown me how to do that through a grieving process as a very modern, contemporary aboriginal descendant, why can't that be available to my people. And then I thought, well, hang on, loss and grief is a human experience, isn't it? And my ancestors told me, yes, of course. They're human Aboriginal non-aboriginal people as human, just as much as aboriginal people are human. So it's like, okay. So then I had to, I had to reframe my work, reframe my model, and open it for anybody who is ready to learn about, but get in touch with them, this thing called grief.
Jono: Well, I'm really struck by how much it was at the heart of that civilization and at the heart of ensuring that life kept on going. Yeah. Nothing became stagnant. You know, I think about, you know, a creek or a river that gets, if it gets damned it becomes unhealthy and it becomes set, you know, stationary and builds up. It's just not healthy. And I just had that image of maintaining the health, maintaining the wellbeing, maintaining the connection through this practice that you're talking about. And, you know, it strikes me that your, a lot of your intuitive work, which I want to also go into how you discovered this is a process of remembering in a way.
Rosemary: It actually started when I was in a woman's shelter, badly assaulted. And I was raised in a very western way, but in this woman's shelter, it was about three o'clock in the morning. You know, body really aching. But I woke up out of a dream and, and in tears, intuitively got outta my bed, went to the mirror in my room, and looked at myself and said, how the hell did you end up busted up yet again? So, you know, that that could be deemed as, as one of many research questions. So when I asked myself that question, this old ancient grandmother's face came over mine and she said, “daughter, you gotta find out where you lost faith and trust in yourself.” Had no idea that I didn't have faith and trust in myself. I just assumed that I did.
Went back to bed, got up the next morning, and, you know, did that really happen? What the hell was all of that about? So I believe that it did happen. And then that became, the journey to find out where did I lose my faith and trust? And so, that was the first, you know, on reflection, my first port of call around my instincts showing up. And I, and then I just never stopped. But Jono, it sort of begs the question why, why me? I'm nobody special, but I'm human? And that's why it, it's, it's like a pebble in a pond for me. I was shown by my ancestors how to do this. Why, you know, the what, where, when, how, and why it has to be done. And, you know, that's saying somebody has to do it, so why the hell not me?
So there was a real intense process of doing this, even though I was still a mother, becoming an ex-wife, I was a daughter, a sister, and I, so I had all of those human identities that I still have to grapple with every day, but at the same time continue with going through this process. So, you know, the instincts is something I know I need to believe that we as humans have, have got it. But when the grief is suppressed and unresolved intergenerationally or by one person in their lifetime, it dulls and switches off their intuitive intelligence. And so they're going through life in darkness, which was my experience. I know that place. But as soon as I started to heal and grieve slowly, slowly, it got brighter and brighter.
So then one day it, like, it just switched on. And then it just got brighter and brighter and, and more and more intuitively continued on with developing and designing this model that I didn't know that I was designing until I came out the other end of it. And put pen to paper to have these seven phases to integrating. That's what's really important to understand is seven phases to integrating griefology, and in bracket, sort of define it as loss and grief, because griefology, is studying and having the understanding of you know, how dangerous and damaging intergenerational, suppressed, unresolved grief has had on their contemporary descendants.
So it's understanding, suppressing grief by our ancestors has dangerous and damaging symptoms for us, their contemporaries. And the integration came to me because I'd, I'd been sort of growing up with this concept of, through the media, you know, looking for closure that is so dangerous and so damaging and it's nobody's fault. Not even Plato who coined what he'd coined. And then that got past the fear of being labeled weak got passed across and down the generations through learned behavior. And they'd learnt to, my fathers, were saying to their sons, you know, don't cry, don't get emotional. What are you weak? That goes all the way back to Plato. As far as my research has shown. And that's still in our community today, in our culture today as in Australian culture. You know, so look, so boys and men, you know, they don't do grieving very well cause they don't understand it. It's been denied them. But we've gotta find ways of whatever's happened in our lives. It's not so horrendous that it can't be integrated in our lives. Doesn't matter what's happened.
You know, we're human and we have to have loss. And suppressing the grief has caused untold damage to us down the generations. Such violations we inflict because the grief has been suppressed and we've gotta find our way out of the suppression. You know, almost like, thank you Plato, but no thank you. That's not valuable anymore. We've gotta find our way back to it.
Jono: I think what I notice when you talk about that, integration, that we can, we can do that no matter what we've faced. I can't help but reflect on the history of this country and the, untold and, unfathomable losses that have taken place and that you, a descendant and someone who has firsthand experienced the generational impact of that. There's something about you saying that, that has a whole lot more weight to it than some random grief researcher, you know, and I, yeah. I think I'm just still really taking that in the, is that really possible? Is that really possible with the immensity of what has taken place?
Rosemary: I'd have to also say that, a part of my healing and grieving process is to be able to integrate all that's happened to, not just me, my family, my community, my people, came from what I term grief forgiveness. So I found that there were two forms of forgiveness, grief forgiveness, and religious forgiveness. Now, religious forgiveness is about, forgive, forget, and just move on. I had to sort of assess that, bring that out and, and read between the lines, what does that mean? How, how dangerous and how damaging. I think that that's probably been, and you know, when you look at organized religion, you know that's come out of Plato's time, you know, organized religion came into being, at that time. And so there was a deep misunderstanding of the power of grief. And so they didn't know how to grieve. And so, you know, that became a part of their mantra, if I could put it that way. Forgive, forget, and just move on. No grieving processes in there. Why is that? Because they didn't know how to value and how to process grief. So that caused massive amounts of mental and emotional, physical and spiritual harm to their parishioners.
My ancestors knowing how to grieve and still having elders, particularly my grandmother, my mother's mother, she was able to still share stories with me. She gave me the strongest impression that our civilization was incredibly living in harmony, connected to mother earth dreaming totems also enabled them to be incredibly forgiving. And I'm thinking, so why is that? What's that about? And, and again, reading between the lines, because my ancestors maintain intergenerationally, the grieving process no hostile violence or slaughter or was a part of their, their culture because they knew the grieving process enabled them to not build up their, their anger and their rage, which escalated to violence, escalated to inhuman atrocities. It didn't escalate to psychopathic behaviors that does when you suppress it.
And so my ancestors knew it had become very forgiving, compassionate, empathetic human beings. And so here I am sort of weighing up religious forgiveness with grief forgiveness. Grief forgiveness enabled me to go there where I could forgive all of my perpetrators from stolen generation will fear what happened to my ancestors because I'd gone through a deep grieving process to come out the other end with compassion empathy for the humans, the perpetrators that had done harm to me, my family, my community, and my people. Because I realized, ah, when 1788 arrived here, they were already deeply, deeply grieved. Hence why they could commit such psychopathic behaviors on my ancestors. But I can't shame, blame, vilify, demonize them because I'd grieved through what they'd gone through. And I was able to forgive them through the grieving process though.
What I started to also realize that if you know, you look at the Roman Empire, which is a part of my research, how inhumane,you know, they were invading, raping, and pillaging their way all across this part of the world and found the what I sort of call the indigenous people of Roman Britannia that the Roman Empire had named, went in and found them and did what they were already doing around the rest of the world. Raped and pillaged, and invaded and massacred and then victimized them. It was just a matter of time before the Roman Empire left Roman Brittania. It was just a matter of time before they built up the same sort of triangular pyramid systems and started to replicate the Roman Empire.
And I'm thinking, why is that? Why is their system, why are their structures replicating the Roman Empire? Then it dawned on me that they were so brutalized, so victimized, they then had no place to heal and grieve. So in their own right, they too become perpetrators and went out, took their perpetrating behaviors, grief behaviors out that part of the world and so it was really just a matter of time before 1788 arrived here with all of its psychopathic behaviors in human atrocities because they were victims and now they turned perpetrators. And, and I can't shame blame, humiliate, demonize, vilify because they didn't know that they turned perpetrators like that because they'd stopped grieving and they didn't know about Plato and he being the source of what was taking place nearly 400 years like the spread in the grief, 388 BC said nearly 400 years before that fellow called Jesus was born.
So you look at his story. I had to understand all of that as well, you know, so it's not by accident that he's, he's talking about love and compassion and harmony, if you like. So the story goes, for nearly 400 years enabled those young boys who became young men who became old men to perpetrate, unhealthy anger, escalates to rage, escalates to violence, escalates to inhuman atrocities, escalate the psychopathic behaviors for nearly 400 years before that fellow called Jesus was born.
So it's no accident that he's trying to say, come on, you guys. Look, you know, we gotta talk about love and, and how do we get, because he was living in, he was born into so much psychopathic behaviors when they were decapitating human beings, hanging them on a cross just to leave them to die and they, those humans around that time, they didn't, they were doing all of this psychopathic behaviors. The question for me was, why couldn't they see, like, literally, why couldn't they see, feel, and hear the cries of their own people as humans to be able to say, what the hell we could have? We need to stop this. They didn't know how to stop because they were deeply, deeply grieved.
And when a human stops grieving because they dunno how to grieve, at one point in their lives, their spirit splits from their physical body cause their body's now consumed with grief energy. It's almost like the body rejects the spirit. The spirit rejects a physical body. It doesn't go far from the physical body. It always hovers close by, but that means that the spirit leaving the physical body leaves a physical body open to commit psychopathic behaviors because it's like the spirit holds compassion, empathy, love, but the spirit is not home. So a human that can go out and commit psychopathic behaviors in the extreme and they can't see, feel or hear that human being's pain to be able to stop it.
Jono: What's really striking me is you talk and what you even said earlier about, I'm just an ordinary person. I dunno why this kind of came through me. It seems as though you had, when you talk about this intuitive research, this willingness to feel, this willingness to listen and, and then in that process you were instructed and taught this deeply empathic view on life that I feel like is so missing from the conversations today, conversations that kind of purely taking place in the head. Head to head, you know, all above the neck. And yet you are pointing to something that's so in the body, so in the heart. And with this possibility, this possibility of humans seeing each other again.
And I feel very touched by it because I very rarely feel that invitation. You know, I often hear some kind of rationale or some kind of reason why we should move forward a certain way, or why we should say sorry. But there's something much deeper that you are pointing to here, that is like a legitimate connection to ancestry, a legitimate connection to each other, a legitimate connection to earth and life. And yeah. And maybe in that spirit, cuz I know you refer to yourself as the, as an intuitive researcher, which I can also imagine could be easily dismissed. But is there anything more you wanna say about that process and how you uncovered this? Because it sounds, in hearing what you have to say, you've uncovered just a very profound view and approach to how we could move forward, particularly as a country, you know, this willingness to hear and feel and go through a process.
Rosemary: Yeah. So griefology has a right, a role and a responsibility to say to descendants of 1788 that they have a right a role and a responsibility to forgive their ancestors and their ancestry.
Jono: You're talking about non-indigenous people?
Rosemary: Absolutely.
Jono: Right. So, how they forgive their own ancestry in a way. Could you talk more about that? I've often wondered, you know, I've often wondered how to, how to hold and process in a bodily sense what's gone on. Cuz I feel it intensely in my body and yet there's often been a, I don’t know what to do with, I don't know what to do with this because I'm from the tradition where we suppress it, you know?
Rosemary: Yeah. You know, griefology really wants to encourage the descendants of 1788 to forgive their ancestors for doing what they did to my ancestors, because they have a right. Non non-aboriginal descendents have a right to be at peace with that, just as much as we as aboriginal people have a right to be at peace with 1788. Because it's like, who do we blame? I don't even go, I don't even blame Plato. Plato coined what he coined he couldn't hold the grief any longer for him. And he's just a human. So who do we blame for 1788 arriving so inhumanely.
That I think has been, could be a big ask, cause when I put it to non-aboriginal peoples, particularly the descendants of, which I don't know until they share it with me it's shocking. It's like what?I'm allowed to? I can forgive my ancestors for doing what they did to you. Yes. Because if you, if you don't forgive them as I have forgiven them, that's the void between us for aboriginal people who, who haven't worked through their own grief and, arrived at grief forgiveness for 1788, arriving here. It's a grieving process to shame, blame, demonize, vilify. That's grief talking. So the more we don't work on our grief for arrival of 1788, the more we'll be detached from each other's humanity.
So non-aboriginal people, you know, who are listening, griefology says you have a right, a role and responsibility to grieve through what happened, and to forgive your ancestors for arriving here and doing what they did. But then you've gotta go back to your ancestors,pre 1788. Forgive them, but then you've gotta find ways to forgive the Roman Empire. So, you know, it's a bit of a journey, but I did it and I'm just human. Because I, it was, it was so compelling. That'll free you up from living in, cuz I hear from a lot of non-aboriginal descendants. You know, they tell me their story cuz there's a safety, I guess, around sharing some things with me.
They talk to me about the grief guilt that they carry for what their ancestors did. And I understand that as a part of the grief, but then that's really harmful to live in grief guilt. I just found five ways of grieving, very modern until maybe the last one. So when I did my training with the bereavement educational services, they talked about, you know, using the physical body to grieve as all of our ancestors used to do dance and wail and cry. And so that's using the physical body to express the grief energy out of the physical body I walked.
When I come back from Sydney for about 18 years, literally probably for the first 10 years, every Monday to Friday, I walked off all of my grief, anger, and the rage that I had. So that's how we expressed grief energy out of the physical body as modern day Australians all honing in on 1788. So there could be a poem to Captain Cook, to their ancestor. And they don't even have to know whether they had ancestors, the names of their ancestors, if they just have a sense that their ancestors were a part of still grief for what they did. Writing grief that there could be a song, writing a letter to the ancestors who came over. One of the things that I was found was really compelling for me was to write Captain Cook a letter, and I got really angry with him finding my mob, you know, how, what the hell were you thinking? Sort of thing, you know, but writing him that letter, shifted all the grief, anger, and the rage to the side dissolved it.
Then this red door showed itself to me in meditation and it had forgiveness written on the door. And I remember, you know, rejecting that. No way am I gonna forgive him for what he did to my ancestors’ fight. But then see, cuz I'd worked through the grief, then it was, no, hang on, just, just maybe as I sat in that maybe I could, and I did because the grief dissolved around what he instigated, I guess. So writing is really, really important, talking grief through. So, finding people that you can trust to talk to those harbored intergenerational feelings of grief guilt from 1788.
So I did a lot of my talking and only my talking was to my ancestors. I couldn't go to family, couldn't go to friends, couldn't go to medical professionals, outta fear for all of those three rejecting me and shaming me. And so all I ended up resorting to intuitively was, talking to my ancestors and getting guidance from them, information and knowledge from them. And then, reading books. And then the last one was cuz my body's now emptied out of, I was able to now really connect to them and sustain the connection to ancestors for over 30 years now. And they'll never leave me as I will never leave them.
That's what human beings are designed to do as well as to connect to their ancestors and their ancestry. Sort of leads me to that saying, you know, the purpose for humanity is to evolve spiritually in this physical world. And that's how we become one as humans. So it is very doable. It's very possible to forgive your ancestors who arrived here in 1788.
Jono: Would I be correct in saying then that the griefology and grief work really is, so much of it is about a form of ancestral healing and ancestral connection? Would that be?
Rosemary: Absolutely.
Jono: And when I think about that, I think about how recent it is that we don't have a relationship with our ancestors. You know, I think even in the western or in the white culture, we can think that's something that happened a long time ago and so distant from us. And yet so many cultures, many active today. And as a human race, we've always turned backwards and recognized that those before us were ones to stay in relationship with and to receive guidance from and to feel support from.
Yeah. I've never really, really made the connection between grief work and how essential it is to maintaining and developing that relationship with our ancestry and also healing that ancestry. It's nearly, would it be, would I be correct in saying that because we're here on the earth as representatives in a way of our ancestry that is, it is kind of our responsibility to act on behalf of them because we're the only ones informed right now from the ancestry.
Rosemary: Absolutely. And look, you know, no, absolutely no disrespect to religion, but again, you look at the timeline from Plato, organized religion came into being, they became a part of disconnecting the people in this part of the world from their ancestry and their ancestors. And what came into being was, you know, these three religions, that all honed in on a God. And so as we were told when 1788 arrived here, connection to ancestors, that's the devil's stuff. That's the devil's work. And of course, for 60,000 years, that's all we had, was our ancestors and our ancestry. And so you look at the timeline that part of the organized religion shut down and disconnected human beings from their ancestors, cuz it's the work of the devil.
And griefology says, no, we have a right to find our way back to our ancestry and our ancestors. They're, constant. If we do our inner work. I remember a moment back in the day where I asked the question, you know, why did I do all of this stuff? What's the purpose for me going through this grieving process, sort of something along those lines. And ancestors came back to me and said, that's your initiation into the ancestry and ancestors and spirituality that will sustain you. So it's like, okay. So, that's what's been given to me and at the end of the day, I'm just a human being that's gotta be available for any human being. And the aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry and ancestors, I think together they were guiding me all the way back to finding Plato.
Because once I'd found Plato, I never had, there was no need to go back any further. Now I had to come forward. So it was like what I was being shown, I had to go back to my past, to bring it into the present so I can take it into the future. You know, hands up humans who has not got an ancestor. But hands up, who hasn't got a God? My hand goes up. I don't want, I don't want that God. And that was sort of with the utmost respect, forced upon me when I was in stolen generation and organized religion,Jono, has done so much harm to human beings. I'm sorry to have to, you know, bring that into, into being, but it's the truth. But how many ancestors has harmed us?
Jono: I love the possibility that you are presenting, the invitation that you're offering. And cuz I've often had my own form of grief about, Australian culture, white Australian culture, the absence of a spirituality and a connection to land and place. And yet what I also hear and what you're saying is that this is available to everyone. This is not owned by anyone. And we do live on this. What I, what I have always, not always more in recent years have grown to appreciate the power of this land that we're on and the potential we have to deepen the connection with the land. And not just in a cliche kind of way, I feel connected to the land, but you know, you talk about the which gland?
Rosemary: Pineal gland.
Jono: The pineal gland you know, and we're here. I've heard, you know, how your ancestors were able to hear and listen and track what was going on in their environments because they're amongst family and kin everywhere. Nothing was not kin and family. And we can either kind of mythologize that or romanticize that, or we could also consider the possibility that that was a living reality for people for many, many, many, many thousands of years. And. I think that's why I hear your work and the invitation is immense for this country, for how close we actually are to reconnecting, remembering, what's possible here, particularly around the soul of this land, the soul of this country, and our apparent isolation in a way too as a continent.
Like there's, so we could become this place, you know, we could become this place again, you know, not in trying to recreate what was, but to re-engage and reconnect with what is here. Yeah, I just feel like I wanna say that. And, yeah, no small thing, what the invitation is they're offering, even though it begins, like, I can kind of hear that whole big invitation, but then it comes back to me and my body and what I'm feeling and how I work through that. And maybe in that spirit we can just talk a little bit about the seven steps, because I think it, I think I'd love to be able to bring it back to some practicalities for people. And I think this framework you've offered, could be very helpful. For people, if you feel like that's the next step in the conversation.
Rosemary: Yeah, absolutely. And can I just touch on what you said? Remember, see if we, if we heal and grieve, the memories come back cuz it switched off. See the grief, the suppressed, unresolved grief switches that off. But we go through that grieving process as an individual. We start to remember our stories, start to remember our ancestors and start to remember, you know, even what our purpose is, and how we become the masses.
We've gotta start with the macro and it's gotta be, unfortunately, you know, one human being finding their grieving journey at a time. It can't be done en masse because it's the initiation process into a deeply sustainable spiritual connection to ancestors' ancestry. And even fighting our true purpose in our lifetimes. So remembering is all a part of going through this healing and the grieving process. So I refer to them as the phases, so the seven phases to integrating loss and grief.
So phase one for me was, I call it having a contemporary reality. And that was me in that woman's shelter. Having an epiphany, you know, that old grandmother coming to me, that was my, that was who I was in 1987. Family violence, stolen generation, living and becoming aware of aboriginal disadvantage. And that was me in my thirties having going through phase one in my contemporary reality.
So then to answer the question of where did I lose my faith and trust, I had to go find my way back into, or find my way into phase two, which is unpacking childhood and adolescent experiences slash violations. So who victimized me? And that was, that's even,saying to my mom and dad, you know, your your alcohol, fuel, family, violence, dad contributed to me not just being a victim of childhood, family violence, but it contributed to me becoming a part of my adult family violence and a perpetrator in my own right. So all of what happened to me as a child and an adolescent, I had to confront and it was so scary, so painful. But that's all a part of the initiation. So push through all of that fear and went back into my childhood. Then the question that came outta phase two, well, who had the right to take me away from my family? So then that fueled me to go back even further. Phase three.
Phase three was unpacking post 1788. What happened to my ancestors, all the way down to, pretty much what I had been enduring? So, so phase three, post 1788. But then that research question, the really powerful one was what's the story of these English fellows who came over here and brought all of these convicts out here that were English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish children, 10 years old, as young as 10 years old, were, were brought out here as convicts. I mean, you know, man, cut off from his heart. That in itself is just another way of seeing how disconnected they were from their spirit. So it was looking at 1788, pre 1788, was looking at the English history and their story, how they were violating their men, women, and little children. And so from that question. So what's their story? What happened to them? So we're still in phase three, and that's where I had got shown, had to go back even further. It feels like now I'm sort of working with and being guided by non-Aboriginal ancestors. Mind you, I do have an English heritage as well. My five great-grandfathers was English, so now looking at the English story, how and why were they so violated by the Roman Empire? So now I'm going back and researching the Roman Empire story. So what's their story? What happened to them to be so inhumane? Had to go back until I found Plato. So all of that timeline was in phase three.
From there, the question was, so what sort of culture did I come from? Which is then becomes phase four and five. And looking at my ancestors' culture, their civilization is in two parts. What were all the practicalities of their civilization. So they had all those you know, trading, science and technology, law, lore - L O R E, engineering, cosmology. That's all the, like, the practicalities of the grieving ceremonies. That's all the practicalities of the civilization.
Phase five is the grieving processes enable them to stay deeply connected to their spirituality, connected to ancestors ancestry, their dreaming totems, living in harmony, living in relationship too, because they had these sacred structured grieving ceremonies, which enabled them to stay connected to on a deeply spiritual way. And so, four and five, that's the past. Now, back to like bringing all of that past into my present and being able to realize when I left the woman's shelter and was started to go back into my past, I was still like a victim, but on this research quest and then coming back to phase one enabled me to put pen to paper and write up the seven phases model, and six becomes, designing programs for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. And seven is to really look at this from a humanitarian perspective.
I have a responsibility to really grow griefology beyond me and my aboriginal community to non-aboriginal people because humans live all across this planet. And, if I could take this opportunity, Jono to say that phase seven, you know, taking it beyond, on July 7th, I'm holding the inaugural National Symposium on Griefology at the Adelaide Convention Center. Cause I want to, I need to talk to and present griefology and invite the Australian community, aboriginal, non-aboriginal to sponsor The Healing Center to really grow the business if you like, so that I can become a registered training organization, franchising, more programs. I have an aspiration to develop a Masters in Griefology certificates so that other people can be trained in griefology as I've been developing it and much more because, as I just said, humans live all across this planet.
So it's also not just about Australia and this continent, griefology has a right or role and a responsibility to have not just a national reach, but international reach that I think it'll be, I'll be gone from this, from Mother Earth. But if we could all find our way back to griefology that also lends itself to not just becoming whole again as a human, but we then take our deeply spiritual ways of being out to Mother Earth.
Jono: The symposium, how do people, is this something that people attend in person online?
Rosemary: Both.
Jono: Both, yeah. Okay.
Rosemary: So,we are still just in the final stages of going live so people can access my website and sort of have a little bit of a nosy around there, more about what I do, and just I guess be conscious that all the needs to register all of that sort of thing, is still on its way.
Jono: Yeah. And I, I really get that. I hear that funding is really important and I would hope that if there's anyone listening who is in a position at any scale, whether that be small or big, would it be okay if they reached out to you for a conversation about that? Because what I also hear in what you are requesting, this isn't about building Rosemary's business and empire. This is about offering, making your hearts offering to humanity, to people. And ensuring that it can continue well beyond you being here as well. So I, yeah, I would really encourage anyone who is listening to reach out to you and it's griefandloss.com.au.
Rosemary: And so it's lossandgrief.com.au
Jono: Okay.
Rosemary: Yeah.
Jono: I'm curious about your thoughts in relation to Australia for creating a more communal opportunity for us to grieve as a country. You know, I'm familiar with, as many as we all are, you know, with the likes of an Anzac Day or a marking in a calendar on whatever day, and I know there's discussions around that. But what are, what's your feeling about a country and particularly Australia, and what could be possible if we also just put aside a day to feel our grief and feel our sorrows and potentially even have a ceremony or ritual around that. Just curious to know what your thoughts are about that.
Rosemary: I think we need a day to acknowledge the human side to when 1788 arrived, and remove the politics around that. I think I can say millions of South Australian, millions of Australians that still haven't heard about - know about griefology and the power of it. You know, maybe once griefology, becomes a pebble in the pond, then Australians as human beings will get behind. Maybe I can imagine a new date and a new name. You know, we need a name that embraces our history, our present, and where we can head through our history and what, where we've come from to be who we are today.
You know, the more we talk about griefology, the next generation maybe, or the younger generations coming up, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, even migrant groups. You know, that's the, because there's three of us who are deeply grieved in this country, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders, descendants of 1788, Anglo Saxon, and migrant groups all deeply grieved, all of us. So maybe that, that next generation coming up, will have the utmost respect for griefology and as human implications that they'll get together and say, we are ready for a new date, a new name but it could happen sooner. Like we've just gotta wait for the timing. Cuz for me, all my work has sort of been organically and in time .
Jono: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Goes back to the listening and the feeling and,
Rosemary: and seeing.
Jono: Yeah. And as I was coming in today, I drove up from Wollongong and I thought about this poem,the Dadirri poem, and I just had the impulse to ask whether you would mind reading it in our conclusion together, because I think so much of what you have shared today and what the invitation is about is this kind of listening at the heart of your, of the, of your work. And I was wondering if you'd be willing to read this for us.
Rosemary: And if I could add to that, you know, for every individual, particularly maybe, adults, young adults are all the way through deep listening in hearing their ancestor's voice. Now, if those who are listening to us have this conversation, I would love to say, now that you've heard the conversation and how critical it is for you as a human to reconnect to ancestry and ancestors. Be ready for the deep listening for them to communicate to you. Cuz that's all I did.
Jono: Beautiful.
Rosemary: Dadirri. A special quality, a unique gift of the Aboriginal people is inner deep listening and quiet still awareness. Dadirri recognizes the deep spring that is inside us. It is something like what you call contemplation, the contemplative way of Dadirri spreads over our whole life. It renews us and brings us peace. It makes us feel whole again. In our Aboriginal way, we learned to listen from our earliest times.
We could not live good and useful lives unless we listened. We are not threatened by silence. We are completely at home in it. Our Aboriginal way has taught us to be still and wait. We do not try to hurry things up. We let them follow their natural course. Like the seasons, we watch the moon. In each of his phases. We wait for the rain to fill our rivers and water our thirsty earth. When twilight comes, we prepare for the night. At dawn, we rise with the sun. We watch our bush foods and wait for them to open before we gather them. We wait for our young as they grow stage by stage through their initiation ceremonies. When a relation dies, we wait for a long time with the sorrow. We own our grief and allow it to heal slowly. We wait for the right time for our ceremonies and meetings.
The right people must be present. Careful preparations must be made. We don't mind waiting because we want things to be done with care. Sometimes, many hours will be spent on painting the body before an important ceremony. We don't worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of Dadirri, that deep listening and quiet stillness, the way will be made clear. We are like the trees standing in the middle of a bushfire sweeping the timber. The leaves are scorched and the tough bark is scarred and burnt. But inside the tree, the sap is still flowing and under the ground, the roots are still strong. Like that tree. We have endured the flames and we still have the power to be reborn.
Our people are used to the struggle and the long waiting. We still wait for the white people to understand us better. We sometimes have spent many years learning about the white man's ways. We have learned to speak the white man's language. We have listened to what he had to say. This learning and listening should go both ways. We are hoping people will come closer. We keep on longing for the things that we have always hoped for, respect and understanding. We know that our white brothers and sisters carry their own particular burdens. We believe that if we let us come to them, if they open up their minds and hearts to us, we may lighten their burdens. There is a struggle for us, but we have not lost our spirit of Dadirri. There are deep springs within each of us within the deep spring, which is a very, spirit, is a sound. The sound of deep calling to deep. The time for rebirth is now. If our culture is alive and strong and respected, it will grow. It will not die, and our spirit will not die. I believe that the spirit of Dadirri that we have to offer will blossom and grow, not just within ourselves, but in our whole nation.
Oh dear and I think to really not just visualize and imagine, but it becomes a reality of these words on a piece of paper. I think what they're talking about here is to go through a deep, deep grieving process so that we can all be initiated back into the fold of spirituality and that connection, because Aboriginal people have to go through this initiation as well, not just for white people.
Jono: Well, I feel very nourished by our conversation, and I'm just curious, Rosemary, as we conclude today, is there anything else that you'd like to say in closing our time together?
Rosemary: Yes. I think when Grandfather Crow came to me when I was up on the APY lands. When I went back up there to sit down on that country. That's when grandfather Crow came to me and visited me, began making the connection. The day that I needed to go to this out bush was to grab a carload of wood cuz we needed wood for cooking, showers heating. So we were getting short on wood. So I said to my son, wait here, I'm gonna go out and get some wood. Got outta the car, just started to walk around, started to collect the wood, and the car was full of wood.
And again, intuitively, instead of jumping in the car, driving back to the camp, I sat down on Mother Earth and I just burst into tears. And I said to ancestors like, where are you? Why aren't you giving me what I think you're supposed to be giving me, hence why I've packed up from Adelaide and I've come all the way up here. What's happening? What are you doing? And that's when two of them came. And as I'm in tears, I heard the squawk of a crow. It did an impact on me. I was still crying, it squawked again. And I thought, is this crow trying to communicate to me? No shame Jono, as we would say. I've got no traditional cultural background. I don't know how to do this thing. Went back to crying, and then it squawked really loud and I thought, no, something's happening here. And when I was in denial, it's almost like you put, if I put my arms out, I was in denial. But when I said, no, hang on, something's happening here.
That's when I intuitively sucked in like that energy field brought her to the front of me as in between my heart and my mind. Brought them together like around my mouth area and like a laser beam. I shot to one of the crows and it opened up this conversation where I said to the, to this crow, what? Are you trying to tell me something? The message that came back on that laser beam was patience, daughter, what you are meant to be doing will happen, but you have to find and master and develop your human trait of patience. So I didn't know that I didn't have it. So it was like, okay. And then they were gone.
I jumped back in the car, went back home, offloaded the wood. And so now I've been living in, sometimes I'll lose track of it, but predominantly this is in 1992, that grandfather crow told me that I have to find patience cause whatever wherever you are going, what you are meant to be doing will happen, but you have to master patience. So I've been doing that all these years. The more I mastered patience. The more I could see, feel and hear ancestors and grandfather crow give me the nourishment and the messages that I'm supposed to know about, to go to that next level and the next level and the next level. So for nearly 20, nearly 30 years I've been living in, in patience.
So let me leave that with your listeners. Wherever we are meant to go, as Australians, we are, or I think already on the path, but we have to become more consciously aware of being patient so we don't miss our ancestors communicating to us to take the next steps for individual healing and grieving. You are the macro. And to become en masse, we have to start with the individual. So sort of stay conscious of your patience and when you become impatient.
Jono: Well, I want to thank you for your patience and for listening to that instruction that came many, many years ago and may patience abound in all of our lives and in our culture, and may this possibility of good human relations and good relationship with the Earth and all living beings, become more of a possibility through this work of griefology. And I want to really honor the work that you've done, the stewardship that you've held, and the possibility that you are opening up for us as individuals and us as a country. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
Rosemary: Thank you very much, Jono. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Jono [Episode Wrap up]: Thanks so much for listening. It means the world to have your support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on Apple or Spotify. That way, you will be notified when a new episode is ready. It would also mean a lot if you would take the time to write a review about this podcast. This way, more people can discover and participate in this work. And if you feel like this episode could benefit someone else - please share it with them, whether that’s a friend or family member or even on your social channels. Finally, if you're interested in participating in grief rituals or any other of my programs, feel free to head on over to jonofishernow.com where you can sign up to my newsletter and you’ll recieve seasonal invitations and episodes as they are released. And please always remember - that although the hour is late - we can always make beauty. We can always make beauty. Sending love to you and your loved ones.
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