Information for the discussion

We hope that the participants of the forum can build on their relationships with the land.

By focussing on why listening to the land is important to them participants are invited to reflect on their personal values in relating with their environment.

This is part of BMERT's mission in contributing to a wider discussion of the values that inspire and nurture the human spirit.

Please see the bio and synopsis from each of the 4 speakers on the panel at the forum:

• Rowe Morrow, permaculture teacher, writer and profoundly concerned for the health of all ecosystems and redesigning them. Years of practice and experience to draw on from many cultures and environments.    Perspective on Listening to the Land:  To Listen to the Land, we have to engage with it in all its dimensions, flood, fire, drought and abundance. We need to know what was there before we were, and before that. We need to know the degree of damage, and repair. We need to move to always taking the ‘temperature’ of our lands and ecosystems from frogs to old trees and their health.  We then need to know how we can be agents of land healing.  

• Briony Mowbray is a practising Catholic at St Finbars Parish in Glenbrook. She has lived in the Blue Mountains for 21 years and been married to Jesse for 18 years. Briony taught as a high school Mathematics, Science and Religion teacher until 2022 and this year commenced working as an Environmental Consultant in the area of contaminated lands and remediation. 

  Summary of my perspective on listening to the land:

  Creation lifts my heart and mind to God: I experience it as an overwhelming gift, as revelatory of the divine and as a place of encounter with God. For me, listening to the land is about being attentive to these things; it is about realising that we are inescapably somewhere at every moment in time, and that our Creator meets us in that place and at that time in a particular way. 

• Wayne Brennan: I am a Senior Archaeologist specialising in Aboriginal Rock art. I am with the Department of Archaeology at The University of Sydney.
  Listening to the land is about being present and being  in the moment.
  Its the space between the bird calls. Its about connecting with self and
  everything else in the universe at the same time.

• Dr Peter Smith is a medical oncologist who lives in the Blue Mountains. He has had a meditation practice for many years and teaches meditation to medical students.

  In Listening to the Land, he will discuss importance of ‘place’ and what we can learn from the great spiritual wisdom traditions including the Aboriginal practice of dadirri – quiet listening and waiting.