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Welcome to Yarning Up, a podcast that showcases stories of First Nations excellence to help us learn and unlearn Australia's history to work tillwards a better future. I'm your host, Proud Barbara woman and founder of Black Wattle Coaching and Consulting, Caroline col This podcast was taped on the sacred, stolen and unseeded Aboriginal lands of the Runjuri people of the
Coolan Nation. I pay my deepest respects to them, my elders, your elders, and all owners of country, of this beautiful place that we call home.
Well, I am.
So appreciative and I guess humbled to speak to my next guests. I think, out of all the people that I've spoken with, my uncle Jerry is someone who is a huge mentor of mine because he's just doing so many deadly things for mob community and our family back home. So I'm so grateful to sit down with you unk and yeah, really excited to connect in this way. So thank you for being with me today, Uncle Jerry.
Well, thanks for the invitation.
Yeah, I know that this week and have the last few weeks, you've been really busy out on country and it's so beautiful. We're down south, but we get to follow along all the work that you're doing, and it really fills me with Yeah, so much pride and so much power to see all the knowledge and the love and the care that's going back to country there, and I know that you and many others there are doing so much work. So yeah, thank you, thanks for well.
I guess what we usually do on this show is we ask people you know, who are ya, where's your mob, and where you're from. But yeah, for the people who you know aren't related to you, like me, I wonder if, yeah, you could tell us a little bit about you and your story.
Okay, my name is Jerry Turban from the athen Tablelands. I was born in Athens and grew up there and spent first part of my life, you know, growing up being stage school they're tolda then we shifted down to Victoria when I was about eight and finished off my schooling in the town of Shepton. And then we come back home. And so when I say home, back to the Athon table Lands in Barbarum in them Barbean tribe,
and that's west of the Athenon table land. That's my grandma's tribe clan group area, so I mostly work in that area because my mum was involved as well. Also connected to waden EDINGI on my father's side that's tables around and Tolga also imagine on there which is what's up to watt Dingy and also cook a type and where another granddad comes from. It near the Moorhead River.
Wow, I didn't know that you spent some time down here in shepperd And for school and yeah.
That's that's deadly to hear because I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong, But I think the way that we're connected is my nan Irene Reenie Wallace nee Walker, is your mum's sister.
Yeah, that's older sister, older sister. Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm lucky enough to know. And yeah, so we've always known and she's given down and then she's been in contact with us. So yeah, that's a family.
Yeah, that's it, I think, because yeah, mum was you know, obviously taken, she was actually taken from I'm told she was born in INNISFL. But you know, it's been always this process of us making sure that we know who we are and where we come from. And yeah, always learning and connecting all of the dots. Say, well, you know, I'm really excited to chat with you because this week is NATOC Week and the theme is for our Elders. And you know, as I've said, I'm just in awe
of what you're doing. But I wanted to ask you ONNK you know, what does NATOC week mean to you? And I guess you know, particularly thinking about yeah, this year's theme for our elders. Yeah, I wonder if you could share what NADOC you know, means for you.
Yeah, okay, so you know it's for me, it's remembering the elders and what they've done for us in the past. Particularly you know, first of you know, would be my parents and the closest elders that I had. We'll have and either one you know, go I just real life and teacher all sorts of stuff, you know, so they don't get into trouble and things like that. And then you know aunties and uncles. We've always been around and closely connected to them, and they've all got different things
to share with you. And teacher. So you know, my dad, he had seventeen in the family, so you can imagine how big that family and mama sides, what's about thirteen forty something like that. So you've got all these aunties and uncles you know that yeah, connect with and then you know, you go out with them, bullshit with different ones and they teach you different things. But we grew up at a time where that come out of a like a mission or reserve, and they weren't allowed to
talk about the cultural past. So they were forbidden to speak the language or you know, even talk about culture and things like that. So we kind of missed out on that part of life. Growing up. We were always taken out into the bush camping and fishing and just visiting places. And then later on when the elders started to open up, well, then we realized that these places they're actually cultural sites and sacred places. So while they went allowed to talk about it, they kept us connected
to those places. And then you know, it sort of made sense then as where we got old and we sort of understood how things were. So yeah, and then that's when the cultural side of things start to happen for us. Sot of talking about that even language and taught us a better language and other things about our culture and country. And we're still in that process of learning about a language, culture and country.
Yeah, I wonder you know when you say when you were going out bush, I mean, do you have any like sort of moments when you went out bush that really stand out for you when you were a young fellow and like how old you were and where you went and yeah, what that sort of felt like it looked like for you.
Yeah, Well, you know, it was always camping in different places and fishing and then wished to use spear guns and spears to spear their fish, you know, with a gold to go in the water and what we're trying to just copy our elders. You know, my dad and all these cousins they did the same thing, so you know, we wanted to do the same thing just using spears and began to catch your fish work in the bush and especially bush tucker as well. So you know we
were impossible in Gangaroo as well. But on our side, we have Malay heritage. We grew up with eating a bush tracker with Asian spices. It was very good. And traditional foods were the freshwater turbine freshwater and what we call it jewfish or you'll tell catfish and they are not only food but their medicines as well for us.
Well, yeah, it's interesting.
When I was up on Country, I think it was maybe last year now, I was actually young with Arnie Cherry Turpin, and she said that she was trying to organize or she had organized a Turpen reunion and there was like five hundred plus people that were going to be invited and just talking about like the biggest mob there. But yeah, that's really cool to hear that you were able to go out and learn about bush medicine and
to fish. And I guess it's probably maybe no surprise about what led you onto your path then in becoming an etho bottom As I understand, ethnobotanists or ethnobotanists is the study between people and plants. And yeah, I'm wondering, Yeah, if you could share a little bit about what led to you on that path to become you know, a scientist and to learn about that.
So it's so fascinating to me.
Yeah, well, I had no idea myself what I was going to do after skill, because I wasn't the brightest bar out there and I left skill, you know, my first year was picking potatoes and the local paddicts and farms, and that's all I ever thought to do was picking fruit and working on farms and laboring jobs. There's never any sort of ambition to go any further than that.
But it was I used to travel around, travel around Australia doing farm work and fruit picking, and it was on one of those level that I stopped in at Brisbane and just wanted to settle down a bit and I just stopped for a while and I got a job through the Employment Agency. It's a traineeship for a scientific assistant. I had no idea what that meant. I said, I'll give it a shot, and it turned out that it was for the Queensland and Barrion and it was
under the Department of Primary Industries at the time. So it's changed names several times in the past, mainly due to elections. And then that's where it's all started, just as signific assistant and my job was to mount specimens, meaning you put press plans onto a piece of cardboard and you gleuw that down and put in folders and then it goes into the herb bearing so it's like
a plant. Low Brarier offered a scholarship through the department, So I just gave it a shot and a bit of a shock to the system to go back to learning in a in a learning institution, but you know, I got through it and they gave it a go, and surprisingly, you know, at the end of it was I was doing pretty good. And it was there that I was pushed towards ethno botany through a lecture of my doctor, Susan Ane Smith. So yeah, that sort of
started me on this journey. And then when I finished my degree, so I majored in botany, I was back at the herbarium and employed as a botanist, did some vegetation surveys and originally ecosystem mapping all over Queensland until I transferred up to Keynes to the Australian Tropical Ibarium
where we started the Tropical Indigenous Ethnobotany Center. And and then that started through connecting the locals, just asking them what they would like terms of an ethnobotany center, and they were very supportive of it, and you know, they just wanted a place where they could come and store their knowledge or learn about plants. And since then we've had many range of hips this comes through and have a. Look,
you mentioned the word ethnobotany. I still have to explain that. Yeah, it's still not a widely known feel but and I'll explained it this way. Is that ethlete ethno people in culture and botany the study of plants. So it's how we you know, as Abridgin people use the plants for our medicines, for food, tools, any structure or housing calendars,
you know, like the calendar plants. So and so I go around promoting what ethno botany is to different people and to promote indigenous by our cultural knowledge and that there's a hidden resource in that ibuk and that it can work with Western science to provide solutions for the problems that we have today.
Yeah.
Wow, what a journey from research assistem all the way up to your career now. And I guess hearing that it was sort of rooted in botany, which is just the plants. But then maybe what as you went through the process of learning, you realize, well, what, maybe it's more than just this. It's the relationship with the people, the culture and how they've used these plants for food and medicine. What an incredible journey, how amazing?
Yeah, you know, and I find. You know, it's not just about the plants. Yeah, the indigen's knowledge is holistic, so everything is connected to something else. So, you know, plans, it's not just about the food plants. You know, it could be taboo or some plants of family, all these sacreds, you know, all these different connections that are involved with their plants on country.
Yeah, so it feels like Western science is really only kind of catching up in a way with some of this knowledge. I know that you did a Deadly Ted talk. You were on the Ted X stage talking about the work that you're doing, and yeah, it's just really cool to see this blending of knowledges coming together because you're right, it is. It's that interconnectedness and that knowing of yeah,
what was before. And I think because the world is in this like global crisis with climate change, and I think that first nation's knowledge is really critical to help offset some of these bigger social ills that we're seeing. So so cool that you're yeah leading the chart, especially for our family.
Yeah, it's just.
Deadly I just get yeah, really I feel really yeah, a sense of pride because yeah, it's just incredible.
I guess, speaking of which, you know.
I know that you know, your family and our families have been really instrumental in getting land back back home. You know, I understand that it was like a fifteen year long process or something, you know, where many, many of you want.
Mob fought really hard to.
Be recognized and to have land provided back. And when I was up there last year, it was nice to see like family returning home and you know, Grandma Jean was there and was her surprise party, and Annie Sandra's there, and Annie Cherry's there, and I understand you're there and Pj's there, and.
It's really really cool.
I'm wondering if you could talk little bit about, yeah, what you mob have done, you know, in getting that land back, and what you follows have been doing since having that land back. I know that your mob have been doing so much work to preserve and give it back to the young ones too. So yeah, I'm wondering if you can share a bit about the whole process, if you can.
The first lot of native title came in two thousand and one and I wasn't around at the time. I was still in Brisbane, but it was my mother, you know, Rita Turbin and Annie Jean Roses uncle Tom and John Mayson and a few of the other ot of state sort of work together to get that native title happening. You know, Mum and ai Jan from our clan group area the watching the area. They attended every meeting and we're heavily involved even before I came in Anti Gene.
You know, she just recently had a birthday again.
Yeah, sure, she's eighty seven maybe, yeah, I think she's eighty seven now, and.
She still attends meetings and she still travels, say, you know, and I always point to her, you know, as an example for the younger people that you know, sometimes it's not always about money, but it's about pride in country and things like that. So yeah, since then, we've sort of moved move forward, and then we got the second lot of native title, which I was involved in. Then prior to that, you know, when I came back where we held events on countries, mainly young trush Landers on country.
So it was a mix of culture and science and just getting young people out on country to learn more of their culture, but also to learn about the science aspects of country as well. To see a lot of the eldest told me that while they have their knowledge and stories about how things were created and happened on the country. Things are happening so fast now that you know, environmental changes and things like that, that they said, oh, you've got to you know, you've got to work with
Western science as well together. So that's how we've come about having this known tois NaNs on country and we've had several events on country and the kids just love it out, Their love learning both knowledges, and it's usually a big family event as well, and our visitors like to come along. A couple of years ago, we had our first cultural fire camp and we called it bringing back the Good Fire because through there, you know, we had these wild forest fires that just burnt everything to cinder.
But ours was about bringing cultural fire back in a gentle way and teaching the young people that how to do that as well. So yeah, that was very good. We've got some other projects happening on country, the Bushtucker project and looking at novel root vegetables. We also got their medicinal plants projects as well, So yeah, communities involved and pretty excited about all that and learning more as we go along.
So yeah, yeah, wow, what a journey.
Yeah I was, I was yearning with a cousin, Tash tush Roses, and she was talking about having done that fire burning course and what it meant for her to just go back and learn all of that stuff.
And I think that's the thing.
It's like, when we get these opportunities to have access to country, it provides so much for families and the wider community to come back and learn and you know, have have have that shared sense of pride.
I wonder when you were.
Talking about the bush tuckers and the medicines, I mean, I wonder if you could share a little bit of what type of bush tucker and medicines we would find up on country there for people who haven't been up to What's and Ville and haven't you know, stood foot on that beautiful place.
Yeah, what sort of stuff are you seeing?
And are you seeing since you mob have had it back and all the cool burning and the fire burning, that things have been regenerated and restored.
Yeah, we've only had that one burn on country, but even with that, you know, we saw wallabies and another different animals, the turner, and so you know it made a difference. Already bushfoods, you know, you get your g bone. There's a small shrub tree, keep the fruits of that, and then they're made of arrow root and made of marshmallows so that they all come back after fire and raine different dams that come as well, So we're all trying those. The thing we have to think about is
wild harvesting. So there's something that you can do wild harvesting and be sustainable. But then there's others that you know, you have to think about. Well, you know, if I continue to keep taking these out of the books, they might disappear. So we'll look at ways how it can grow them, hold a cultural setting and still maintain the nutrients, the same nutrients and the benefits from that particular plant.
So those are things that we think about also with our medicinal plants, just getting back to using them in like the blood would resin high in any bacterial property, so we use those on saws and even I use
it at a mouthws. Sometimes with these projects, you know, you're uncovering that hidden knowledge and bringing it back into the community, and the community has taking that on the board and using it, so you know, in fact, reinstall restoring culture, and that's what means of getting back land, even through Native title it's not perfect, but at least you have access to some country in land with culture.
Language is very important, intertwined separation of even just one sort of you know things, there's something missn't so getting back on country and then we're relearning the language in culture as well and just moving forward with that.
Wow, I didn't, I didn't.
That's so cool to hear that there's a process of trying to uncover language, because as I understand through mum and stuff, that all of our language is basically lost. But when I was up on country last year, Grandma Jean kind of welcomed us in language and I was like, I didn't know that we had any of it left. But so there's a process of being happening now to sort of uncover more about it.
Yeah, so there were three hundred we've only got about three hundred words, but we were that's where things are. Yeah, yeah, we're due to have another language workshop. So the elders used to say, you know, when you go on country, the country teaches you. So just being on country you start to learn things. And just for an example, I know now that the flowering of a certain model is the time to go fishing for Blackburn. The first full moon is that's when the fish have eggs, so you
don't go fishing. So you know, there's little thing that you learn by just being on country. When you add language, there's hidden knowledge in that language. Once you learn the language, you sort of open up that knowledge and that sort of comes out and combined with the knowledge of country and then your culture as well, so knowledge and all those things and then combined together it starts to build up your culture again. On country.
Yeah, you're so right, Like country really is our single greatest teacher. And it's interesting to hear say that, Like when you see a particular wattle, you'd know that that's a time for fishing or hunting. But it's like because our mob had that ability to sort of be present and observe and watch, and it's like the older science, isn't it, Because you could watch something and predict a future event based off just what you can see, which
is just yeah, so so cool. I know when I started my business, I was, you know, really wanting to honor mum and Nan and language and couldn't find any any language. But I know that there was a particular wattle. I think it's the sca perpotilia. It's the cupid's wattle that you sent me, and it blossoms around Herban when Nan was born, and it blossoms around Mother's Day, and so I thought that that would be a really nice way to honor Mum without having the words to describe it.
And so that's why I named the company Black Wattle after that particular waddle, because I wanted to talk a little bit about country and Mum, but couldn't find the language, as you say, And also too, you know, with language, we're using words today that none of our old ones used to use, and so how can you describe feelings and thoughts and processes if we're not using our native tongue. So it's so cool to hear that you followers are
doing more work to revive that language. And yeah, it feels like you followers have been very busy, very busy in a most beautiful way.
So yeah, thank you for all of that. I wonder, in all of your.
Years of working with plants and working with people, is there any plant that really stands out as being the.
Most useful and versatile for our people?
Like, is there any plant that just surprised you when you uncovered what it meant like in the traditional way.
The peanut tree, which is always my favorite, and I did a little project on that while I was at Uni. So the peanut tree. And sometimes people say, oh, I didn't know peanuts grew on trees.
I had no idea, but.
This is a native peanut and yeah, and it does grow on trees. And in a pod. It's the same fame as a carriage on. So you know what para gong is and you know how the pod looks looks like it's similar to that. But inside those pods is an edible nut and some people say it tastes exactly like peanuts or similar say very nutritious as well. So you got the edible pods or the nuts in the pods. Then you got the leaves in the bark, which is medicinal, so you need news as eye wash another anti bacterial
things that are happening. Then the inner bar you can make into strips, and up on the cape they made into ceremonial dresses or skirts which both women and men wear when they're doing the ceremonial dancers. And you know, if you go to the Laura Dance Festival, that's where you'll see a lot of those ceremonial dresses and things and people dancing. If anybody hasn't been, you know, that's the place to go. I may be buyers, but I
consider that. You know, you will see the best dancers in Australia there, and that includes the Islanders as well if they're pretty spectacular event. But yeah, so that's my favorite tree and it's always been. We in fact just clicked some last week. It's in fruit.
Wow, so it's both a food and a menace and wow, how fascinating.
That's similar to a lot of plants. They have multiple uses, food and medicine. And I say that, well, yeah, your food is your medicine, except when it comes to KFC.
With how mold do you love?
Well, my family does laugh down here in good ways, but you're right, like the things we put into our body is what fuels are, so it's so important they.
So yeah, I try to encourage people just having some some of that in their backyard. You know, some are really simple plans to grow and doesn't need to be managed much. Lemon myrtle and aniseed myrtle, native mulberries. Some people even have got the even though it grows into a large tree native peanut peanut?
Is it the bunyard? Is that the bun Yeah?
No, no, the bunya very different to the peanut tree. Yeah, bre these big mess of husks and very tall is like poetry. But yeah, you know, even a bunya if you know where to access it grabs. And we just had a camp out on country where we and we're done when previous as well, where we went foraging and collected bushtucker and I had this time, I had two chefs.
So we're mixing bushtucker and modern culinary and technique. And we did that and we invited the community around honey gencome and you think like water seed damper at rosello source over kangaroo meat and very tasty in it. And that so like a teaching experience for people as well, where how they can use their bushtucker products in a modern way.
Yeah, wow, how deadly.
That is amazing. And I know that you're a bit of a hulinary extraordinary you you know, pretty good with your cooking and your curries and making up things. Do you do you integrate bushtucka into your foods as well?
Or yeah? Yeah, so I use those spices lemon, maniseed myrtle, and we have native pepper as well, native mince. So I use all those. But this last week we dug up our year just cooked better. So in two different ways. So kind of copied off the Islander torrest Rate Islander method of sopsalt, coconut milk and cassava and sweet preta
or tara how they do it. So I just used with coconut milk and put in the aniseed myrtle as a flavor, and then also cut up one two chip sized use lemon, mertal salt and native pepper and fried it up like chips suple easy ways that you know, you can deal with things, that's the thing.
I guess you can't get it wrong. If you just want to experiment with some things. Hey, just getting your hands on it. I know. I down here, I make up some lemon myrtle damper and some Johnny cakes and just try to get my hands on whatever we can down south.
I guess.
Even in March, I got diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called loopus and it kind of sort of attacks my hands and my feet. I get really bad arthritic pains and some days I have like a flare up and I can't do many things. And I was working with an indigenous healer from Woka Woka Country. She's a counselor as well, but she introduces neutropathy and stuff into her practice because there's not many I guess there's not many people like you that I can who have traditional knowledge
and Western knowledge combined. It's such a small industry. But she's got me onto gumby gumby teas and I take like I take a tea, but I take a drop in my mouth three times a day and I just leave it on my tongue just to sort of sort of like if you were to chew her plan back in the day, you try to mimic the same thing. And I've been on that for about I don't know, maybe about a month and a bit. Now, two months now,
I notice that my pain has subsided. I know they're doing some test around it because apparently it's like an anti inflammatory.
But yeah, it just goes to show that, yeah, we had ways to stay well and to look after ourselves long before taking panadoles and all of those sort of other you.
Know, opioids or benzos or whatever, and so it's just Yeah, when she gave me this stuff to put on my tongue, I was just like, Oh, it's just nice to know that there is some sort of medicine that I can take that feels like it's in my cultural shape, even though it's not from my country.
But yeah, do you think with that ank that.
Western science is taking Indigenous knowledge and medicine and food seriously? Like, is there a shift in how people understand the knowledge and and that you know, you're seeing a blending of knowledges coming together now.
Yeah, more so I think there's I think they understand that the Aboriginal people have knowledge now that because the pharmaceutical companies are after new medicines because a lot of the elements are becoming resistance to build anybodys becoming resistant to those bacterias and things like that, so they're looking to indigenous medicine. They cut to the chase because if Indigenous people are using these plants or obviously it's working for them. So that's one of the reasons that the
pharmaceutical companies are coming after indigenous plans. And they've been doing that since colonial time, so you know, they don't know if you heard of the pitchery plant from southwest Queensland and South Australia ran that central area. So that was like a drug which old men used for their ceremonies and long distance trap. But also they worked out two different classes, the strong one for the men and then the one that was so strong for the women and kids for their men that say, you know, I
call them the first scientists. And so they studied that and out of that become a medicine for well I So when you have igery, they diload the pupils, so that medicine will diloat the pupils and that kind of thing. Also during the war, when the soldiers went in those open boats sailed the seas over to another country, they were all sea sick. So they used in indigenous medicines for that, you know, a pharmaceutical type. But one of our bush tomatoes yields a drug for sea sickness and
women pregnancy when they get sick. So they've been using and then obviously the most more common ones are the eucalypt oils and malanouke oils. That's all abraginal medicine that they've been using. It's medicine that they've taken with the permission from Aboriginal people. The old people know our answers, we're sharing people, so they shared that knowing, but they didn't know that it was going to be used in a different way to make money for the benefit of
pharmaceutical company. So Aberiginal people are well away now, so especially in Queensland where we have the Biodiscovery Act that's about research on biological material with its plants or animals. That was Queensland. Queensland were the first one to have
that act in two thousand and four. The Queensland government got a group of Indigenous people like myself and others have involved in this area and we've reviewed and updoded the Queensland by Discovery Act to make it a better protection for Averisal people and that to make sure that
every people are included in that research. And now any research on that any research and biological material has to have the permission of the traditional owners and they also have to be included and share the benefits as they should have been you know, see knowledge, so they should benefit.
Yeah, yeah, you're right, Like I think a lot of our mob is so generous. Even in the earlier contact with frontier walls. As I understand, it was about yeah, sharing and giving and even today in modern modern times, I think we talk a lot about intergenerational trauma and stuff, but I think MOB are the most intergenerational, generous.
And loving and kind and funny and all of those things.
So it's kind of it's interesting to hear that, yeah, MOB would have provided that knowledge, but not fully understanding how it was going to be used and reproduced for financial gain. But that, yeah, that you MOB have done some work in the Biodiscovery Act to sort of protect that because it's a huge industry. Hey, like it, it's going to it could totally it could totally revolutionalize how MOB get access to things. So it's really does need to be protected and not being exploited.
Hey yeah, and one other thing you know to say that that the Aboriginal people know that their medicine works. Obviously, that's why they use it. And you've experienced that Western society they they need scientific validation, that's what it is, that that going through the lab process of toxicity and finding out what's in it. So it's more for Western society to that they feel more comfortable in taking that medicine Yeah, it's.
One of those things whether two like ideologies just clash, isn't it Like Western science is all about proving and discovery and you know, getting the stamp of approval and then reproving it and testing it again, whereas you know, Indigenous knowledge is just about like annoing because they've observed, they understand the landscape. They observed it for so long that they were able to predict a future the algorithm.
It's like these two ideologies combining. But it sounds like there's a lot of work being done to sort of bridge this, and yeah, I think maybe modern science is just kind of catching up in a way.
You know, Yeah, yeah, hopefully you know that the work continues together. Society is like the Ecological Society of Australia. They've embraced what this term few a knowledge and that's a term from over the West. So it's about, you know, the two knowledges working together. They've embraced Abriiginal people and the knowledge forever more than ten years now so as a Director of Indigenous Engagement on the board of the ESA, and they've made some good progress in including average people.
They've got their own lots imposing where Aboriginal people just come and talk about, you know, not in a scientific presentation a way, but just yearning basic in on country, what they're doing to protect certain species, in partnerships with research researchers and research institutions, and they just talk, you know, you get the ladies from the Central Desert just come and talk about what they're doing in country, and it's
really great and it's always packed out. So the gradual society is leading the way, but others are taking a suit now and even Queensland government is looking at ways how to improve relationships and working with Aboriginal people, and I guess that's probably happening in other states as well, So you know, slowly but sure, things are happening in that relationship building arena.
Oh that's deadly to hear that.
God, I'd love to be a fly on the world to listen to some of you mob just yarning up about what you all know.
And yeah, that's amazing. Wow, I'm learning so much.
I knew that I would come into this conversation walking away with even more knowledge and yeah, and even more understanding. There's a question that we pose to all of our listeners on this show, which I want to ask you because I know that you Yeah, I'm keen to understand.
But we like to ask people what person or practice do they do to stay well?
We know that like with all our work and family and community, you know, many of us are juggling a lot of things and not everyone like you and others have access to country. I guess to heal, but yeah, what do you do when you're not out on country or yeah, what do you do to stay well and to yeah, look after yourself.
I do try to get out on the country. That's one of the main things that I try to do. But if I can't, you know, there's there's always a bit of forest around that we can access or go for a walk in and and I find that very relaxing. And it's even scientifically proven that just you know, just half an hour walking in the forest sort of refreshes your mentality and spirit and things things like that. So
that's what I mainly try to do. I also like playing the guitar, just a bedroom guitars too, ironically playing the blues, which kind of makes me happy.
It's funny, the blues and country tend to make us a lot happier. They like the saddest genres.
And then the other thing is just drawing out new recipes, cooking for something you know. Hm, But it's great if you can do all those three things to get on country with family and friends. Yeah, yeah, that's the best.
Oh, that's so beautiful, combining music and singing and laughing and cooking and just yeah, sitting around with family on countries.
Yeah.
Truly something special, isn't it. Oh that's a beautiful self care list. And you're right, you don't always have to be on country per se to access the benefits of it. You can go for a walk in any forest, in any park and just take a moment for yourself at
any time. Well, all right, I've got one final question for your unc and I guess it's you know, in thinking about this year's theme for our elders, I think you know, so many of us young ones, we owe great thanks to you, mob and the people of the NaNs and Grandma Jeans and you know, Bessie Walk and all of the you know, the people that have come before us. And I know that a lot of us young ones are you know, struggling to find our place
in this world at the moment. So I want to know if you could give any of our young listeners any advice right now? Yeah, what would you say to sort of ge them up as we navigate this well we find ourselves in.
Yeah, one of the things I learned from the elders was resilience. Now, sometimes I talk about the bad stories, but you know, they carry on and they're still very welcoming and very hospitable in my country and accept into their family. So you know, I guess resilience and being able to carry on through all that, you know, the pars, things like that, and you know they can still have these relationships with all different people. So yeah, I think that's the main thing that I've learned.
Yeah, just to keep going, I think, Yeah, just to keep keep going and keep holding your head high and yeah, never forgetting where we've come from, but also being grateful for the future and what we've got in store.
Yeah. They are a resilient bunch, aren't they.
I'm just from my own experience and mentioned it first job as a Plato picker. If any opportunities cannot take it, education is important, so it gives you more options, but you just have a go.
Yeah, that's right, just say yes. And you never know what could happen where it could lead to you. By the sounds of it. Oh well, thank you so much for connecting with me in this way. It feels, you know, interesting to connect with family on podcasts. But yeah, I'm just so grateful for you and your time and and
everything you're doing. And yeah, I can't wait to get back up there and see what's happening on country when I'm When i'm there next, I'm sure there'll be so much that's happened in that time.
So yeah, thank you so much.
Thank you again for the invitation. Happy to you.
Yeah, thank you, Thank you so much for listening you mob. If you are vibing this season of Yarning up, then please head over to Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts from to show us some love, rate and review. Alternatively, you can get in contact and give us some feedback by visiting www. Dot Caroline Coow dot com dot au