We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Seeds is a spoken word poem by storyteller Neil Morris which forms part of Common Ground's truth-telling series – Weaving Truths.
Neil Morris explores the power of sovereignty through Muluna (spirit), Yenbena (ancestors), Kaiela and Dungala (waterways), soil and skies. Grounded in Country, the project affirms that sovereignty was never ceded and can never be erased. It unpacks how colonial systems have sought to sever these deeply seeded connections, and why they continue to fail.
Seeds is soundtracked by a composition that draws on the sound design of Neil’s project MINYERRA, fusing the sounds of Woka (Country) with a strong emphasis on a meeting place between traditional instruments and contemporary electronic influences.
Sovereignty never ceded
Is an interesting frame of words
See the thing is that
Sovereignty
Is much like a seed
Falling into the soil
Encoded with millions of years of memory
Where it grows to give without request to receive
But rather it gives unconditionally
See for Sovereignty is a waterway,
Like Kaiela, Dungala
In flood
Giving, greeting and nourishing
Sovereignty is
The Yenbena, Ancestors voices
That come
The more room there is for them..
When we take away the clutter
When we mean Sovereignty never ceded
Not so much in words
But in actions
The mulana of Sovereignty
Will see us
It will feel us
It will reveal to us
Although it may give freely
Unconditionally
For us to receive
It takes being able to receive
To feel
As we breathe
Breathe
Breathe deep
Filling our lungs
Like the soil
With water upon seeds
And it is there that sovereignty is never ceded
An ongoing cycle
An ongoing loop
Of love
Where openness
To receiving
What it is that is taught to us everyday
Shall be.
Written in the stars
The land
The water
Which Biami has never left
Mulana – spirit
Of original source
Never left
Never ceded
Guiding the path
To ongoing survivance
For that is its
Gift in the silence
In the
Vibrance
That it is
For its destiny is always every now
Cycling through
Dearly
As we be but recipients
Of its Yinya
Its light
Forever revealing
Sovereignty never ceded
Before colonial upheaval
Before intergenerational turmoil
Before white australia assimilation policies
Before
Before manipulation of our liberation and token inclusion
Before anything fabricated
To try and take us
Away from our true paths
As seeds
Of Sovereignty
Never ceded
Kaiela: Goulburn River
Dungula: Murray River
Yenbena: Ancestors
Mulana: Spirit
Yinya: Light
Biami: Creator
Woka: Country
We are a First Nations not-for-profit that exists to centre First Nations people, Country and truth-telling. We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
