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Indigenous Voices, Part 7: Tribute to Sand Talk

April 12, 2026 • Think ND

0:00 | 1:23:47

Episode Topic: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World

Stop examining the world from the outside and start reading its patterns. Join author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World Tyson Yunkaporta to navigate the complexity of the modern world through Indigenous logic. Shift from the fragmented lens of static text to the “Sacred Web of Life” that can restore balance to our systems. By shifting our perspective, we can reshape our collective future.

Featured Speakers:

Tyson Yunkaporta, Deakin University
Carolyn T. Brown, Fetzer Institute
Anantanand Rambachan, Saint Olaf College

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/cc5d0e.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Indigenous Voices.

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Welcome

Speaker 10 1:13

While taking a mouthful of food, chant the name of God, the food is easily offered as an offering to the divine when God's name is utter, the food gives life to us as it invites us to become one with the ultimate principle from one. The purpose of eating food is not just to fill the belly, but it is a means to create a sacrificial ritual of yna in your stomach, in your belly. Jj,

Speaker 2 2:22

we are all refugees severed from the land, disconnected from the genius that comes by being in symbiotic relationship with it. Yet rarely do we see the sustainability of our world analyzed by the indigenous peoples whose patterns still flow with the movement of the earth. Lift your left hand. This represents a page or a screen. Now raise your right. The gaps between your fingers are the cultures and knowledge of first peoples. These provide the lens through which to read a book written from stories drawn in the sand. It's not a report on indigenous knowledge from a global perspective, but rather an examination of global systems from an indigenous perspective. Sand talk is my contribution to a discussion we desperately need to have.

Criterion One, Two, and Three

Speaker 3 3:23

What did you think of that video? I loved it. Tyson doesn't like it so much, at least in hindsight. He resists the idea of being exoticized and commodified, but his publisher was persuasive enough. Life is riddled with such tensions. And so is Tyson's book, orality versus the written word, the sin of I am greater juxtaposed with scathing critique of the Western other. The observation that everything changes set against the notion of a permanent universal law, a First Peoples, maybe the book resonates because the ability to live with contradictions is partly, or should I say largely what makes us human. William Chittick and Sachiko Marada framed the entire Islamic scholarly tradition as an enduring, unresolved tension between God's transcendence and God's imminence. I remember a conversation with Dr. Sharif Nasser. He doesn't know what I'm going to say though. He's hesitating before he takes his next bite. It was a long time ago. I expressed my discovered di discomfort with a contradiction that was staring us in the face. And he said to me, and it was pretty much in this tone, at least how I remember it. Come on Mahan, I'm 42. I can live with contradictions. I don't know if you, he's nodding in New Haven, Connecticut. Yes. There were four criteria that guided the selection process for the Nasser book prize. Allow me to stage each of these criteria and then read a brief excerpt from the book that relates to it. Show you how it won. Somebody was asking earlier, how did we choose the book? So let me just add that we had over 30 submissions through an open process. Some of the books were formidable, like excellent winners in any other category, but we were looking for something that was unique and we had a steering committee and we narrowed it down first to a final five. Then we read all the Five and we unanimously selected this book, the First Criterion. The book must speak from a normative and authentic voice that aspires to be representative of a major religious or wisdom tradition, recognizing that all traditions are internally diverse and constantly evolving. That was the first criterion. So I'm gonna read from the book now, quote, I can't participate in this one-sided dialogue between the occupiers and the occupied for a start. I'm not month. Diane, someone who can speak for cultural knowledge. I'm a younger sibling, so that role is not available to me in our custom. I can speak from the knowledge, but not for it or about all the details, however. I can talk about the processes and patterns I know from my cultural practice developed within my affiliations with my home community and other aboriginal communities across the continent, including Nunga, Mai, Nunga, and Kuri. Peoples, our knowledge endures because everybody carries a part of it no matter how fragmentary. If you want to see the pattern of creation, you talk to everybody and listen carefully. Authentic knowledge processes are easy to verify if you are familiar with that pattern. Each part reflects the design of the whole system. If the pattern is present, the knowledge is true, whether the speaker is wearing a grass skirt or a business suit or a school uniform. So I turn the lens around. I'm not reporting on indigenous knowledge systems for a global audience's perspective. I'm examining global systems from an indigenous knowledge perspective. The symbols that follow help to express this core concept as a hand gesture. And then you see the the gesture. A reader might understand the physical gesture as a living text by mimicking this image with the left hand sideways, with closed fingers representing a page or a screen. Print-based knowledge in general, and the right hand with fingers spread out like a rock art stencil representing the oral cultures and knowledge of first peoples. You don't really get the effect until you do it. You see the differences seeing through the hand, whereas you can see nothing through except the text with this hand. So the perspective is much broader. The gesture involves placing, displayed hand in front of the eyes, providing the lens through which to view the closed hand. This is the basic perspective we will use in this book to avoid losing it in a void of print. I have built every chapter on oral cultural exchanges, a series of yarns with diverse peoples who all make me uncomfortable. I yarn with those people because they extend my thinking more than those who simply know what I know. Some of them I'll name, but many would rather not be captured in print and pinned down to a particular moment of thought. Preferring to dwell privately in the generative cultural practice of yarning. Yarns are like conversations, but take a traditional form. We have always used to create and transmit knowledge. For each chapter, I carve the logic sequences and ideas arising from these yarns into traditional objects. Before I translated them into prints, the practice of doing knowledge, the ideas were carved on traditional objects and the thoughts germinated. And that's what the book is, an attempt to translate that on text. I have done this to prevent my oral culture perspective from becoming fragmented and warped as I write end quote. So this was, he taught us and is deeply rooted. He's not writing about another culture, but he is embedded in a culture and he's living it and he's sharing from that perspective. So sand Talk is grounded in a tradition of wisdom that emanates from deep history. It is representative and normative criterion One, check the second criterion. The winning book must be conversant with current ways of knowing about the world. In other words, the book must be academically informed, or at least not academically naive. So I'm going to read again. There are many English words to describe our first peoples, and since none of them is entirely appropriate or accurate, I randomly cycle through most of them, each of which is somebody's preferred term and somebody else's offensive label. Before European occupation, we just called ourselves people in our own languages. But because I'm not speaking for any single language group, I used many of the inadequate English terms when I need to refer to us collectively, I use many other terms that I don't particularly like, such as dreaming, which is a mistranslation and misinterpretation. Because a lot of old of the old people I respect and who have passed knowledge onto me use these words. That's why he uses dreaming. But he doesn't particularly like it. It's not my place to disrespect them by rejecting their vocabulary choices. I know, and they know what they mean. So you might as well just use those labels. In any case, it is almost impossible to speak in English without them, unless you want to say supra rational interdimensional ontology, endogenous to custodial ritual complexes every five minutes. So dreaming it is, I'm gonna omi the rest of this quote, but I think you get the idea. So the book clearly met the second criterion. It is neither academically unsophisticated nor naive. Check. The third criterion is that the book must engage one or more contemporary issues in global affairs, providing new ways to understand existing problems, or identifying novel solutions to already well-defined problems. So I'll read. I have been to many conferences and talks about indigenous knowledge and sustainability and have read numerous papers on the topic. Most carry the same simplistic message. First, peoples have been here for x thousand years. They know how to live in balance with this place, and we should learn from them to find solutions to sustainability issues today. We should learn from them. And then in bracket, he adds. I often wonder whom we refers to in this statement. Then they offer some isolated examples of sustainable practices pre colonization, and that's it. The audience is left wondering, yes, but how? What insight does this offer today for the problems we are experiencing now? We rarely see global sustainability issues addressed using indigenous perspectives and thought processes. We don't see econometrics models being designed using indigenous pattern thinking. Instead, we are shown a do painting and implored to make sure we include indigenous employment in our plans to double a city's population sustainability within a couple of decades. Any discussion of indigenous knowledge systems is always a polite acknowledgement of connection to the land rather than true engagement. It is always about the what and never about the how. So that was criterion three attempt. Engage global issues. Check. And the last criterion, I don't have a quote for it because it was, the book should have been published ideally within the past five years and earlier works in our award series. We would accept, if they deserve recognition on an exceptional basis. And so the book was published in 2020 and that was that Sand Talk met all the criteria for the Naser book prize. Now, I'd like to invite Dr. Annan Han to say a few words about the selection from his perspective. Dr. Anand is a professor of religion at St. Olaf College. He is the co-president of Religions for Peace in the United States, and he is one of the world's foremost authorities in Hindu philosophy, ethics, liberation theology, and interreligious dialogue. Dr. Ramadan is also a member of the steering committee that selected the Winning, winning book. Please welcome Anan.

Speaker 4 15:36

Thank you very much my friend. Uh,

Speaker 5 15:38

Mahan greeting things brothers and sisters. I am most grateful for the opportunity as a member of the NASA Book Prize Selection Committee to offer just a few brief words on this very special occasion. I joined with each of you in offering my deepest, uh, congratulations to Dr. Tyson Yoka Porta, our first NASA book prize winner for his work San Talk. How indigenous thinking can save the world. I wish also to join in expressing gratitude to Dr. Sharif and Miranda, NASA for their generosity in making this award on our celebratory gathering possible. Over the past days, had enriching conversations, yawning dialogues with Tyson, responding and engaging his work from a variety of traditions and perspectives. These deep conversations will continue tomorrow, so I will not comment on the rich content of this, work. I want to make one point about this book this evening. For me, Tyson's work is a powerful response to the legacy. Ongoing project of colonialism, it's truly difficult to estimate the continuing impact of colonialism on all of us. It has entered deeply into our ways of thinking or ways of acting into the structures of the communities and nations in which we live. This legacy is most evident in the persistence of colonial anthropologies, cosmologies, epistemologies. Those that have sought to displace indigenous ones, indigenous cosmologies, and I'm most familiar with, the ones in my Hindu tradition are based on reverence, are based on reciprocity. And our human obligations to honor and to care for trees, for water, for earth, for rocks, for all living beings. The ideology of colonialism, on the other hand, is one that prioritized prophet maximization. Subjugation and reckless exploitation. Disregard for sustainability. Rivers, trees, mountains. Honored in indigenous cosmologies as life giving. Life giving gods and goddesses were desynchronized, instrumentalized, disconnected. Were at least thought of as disconnected from the web of life. Rapaciously, plundered and greed. This is the legacy of colonial. Ideology and sadly, many of our religious traditions were complicit in providing theological justifications for that kind of reckless exploitation. Colonial cosmologies are radically dualistic, advancing sharp dichotomies between human beings, human and the rest of the the world. Human beings who came from colonial nations were the ones who were rational, privileged, superior. Everyone and everything else categorized as natum served as instruments for colonial ends. This hierarchical dualism was reflected intellectually in sharp dichotomies between the worlds of mind and matter Descartes, the realms of spirit and body, the spiritual and the physical. NA became the realm of mortality and change while spirit is accorded a higher value, because it is regarded as immortal and unchanging in colonial religious cosmologies, the creator is transcendentally separate from creation, contributing to it's desacralization and the right of human control and exploitation. The sources of our contemporary predicament are many, and as tha himself, rights should not be simplified, but colonial cosmologies are, are fundamental sources of the structures that are so oppressive to this earth and especially to indigenous communities, and there's no escaping that fact. Decolonization, therefore is fundamental. The work of saving the world and indigenous ways of thinking and acting as articulated in Dr. Y Porter's work is crucial to this process of decolonization and offering the wisdom that we need for saving our world. Colonial worldviews have distorted what it means to be human, disconnecting us from each other, instrumentalizing our value to each other, and irrationally severing us from creation. Indigenous worldviews. Invite us to rediscover what it means to be human in the sacred web of life. So Dr. Tyson, for your contribution to decolonizing our minds, inviting us. Differently, radically differently to self, critically look at ourselves as we have, as we do not usually do, to stand apart and examine the structures that we have inherited and the structures that control our lives. We are grateful and we are honored to have you as the first recipient of the book prize. Congratulations.

Speaker 3 22:45

At this point, I'd like to welcome Dr. Carolyn T. Brown and Dr. Tyson y Ka porta to the stage. Dr. Brown is the board chair at the Fetzer Institute. She formally served as director of the John w Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. She was also a member of the steering committee that unanimously devoted in favor of sand talk instead of a keynote address. We have planned a keynote yarn between Tyson and Carolyn during our steering committee meeting to select the winning book. Carolyn, who holds a PhD in literature, an MA in Chinese literature, observed that she couldn't quite figure out what genre to fit the book in. I hope that this conversation will enlighten us. Carolyn and Tyson. The stage is yours.

Speaker 6 23:40

Hey, so I have to say, the, the, the other speakers in the series were invited to write papers, and. No one asked me to write a paper, but to do a yarn. And that meant when I arrived, neither Mahan nor Charles Powell knew what I was gonna say. Right. and having been an, manager and adminis administrator and a bureaucratic institution, and you, you always wanna know what the guest was gonna say. So what I had thought was gonna be a private conversation with Tyson to just talk about some of the questions and whatnot. We were invited to do a more kind of public up within the group. Um, but I evidently passed. I think I passed. Right. but I say that because, the way I almost feel like apologizing to Tyson and that I'll be saying, but not entirely some of the things we talked about before, because this is a, a different audience, but you also know that if it's a different audience. D time. We've been listening to the conversations. it's going to be different. And, and this is a special statement for the dean. The dean, I want you to know that Mahan is a magic maker.'cause last night as my husband and I were walking back with, with Tyson, we had this conversation which was, I think too generative. Um, and Tyson at some point said, well, maybe, you know, we could at some point find a chance to do something, you know, on the ground. And I said, oh, why don't we have sand? And next thing I knew Mahan had actually gone out and given us a sand table. And I will also note when we were talking Tyson

Speaker 7 25:36

Yeah. Two wishes left.

Speaker 6 25:37

So only two wishes left. Oh, I know that you always say, I wish that all my wishes would come true. And then you got the ground covers. but as we were talking in our sort of pre-conversation, Tyson was frequently going, you know, making motions on the table. So I don't know whether you'll wanna play in the sand, but, it's here and it's sand talk and we're talking and there's the sand. the other thing I wanted to say, by way of preliminaries is, um, you, one of the things that was, that struck me was it was hard for you to accept my comment when I said, I love this book. This is a book that, Yes, it helps us see another worldview. and it does have some zingers, and I'll go back and talk about the language a little bit. Um, but it's a book that comes outta love and compassion and hope. and that was a little uncomfortable for Tyson because you, as you know, if you've read the book, the, the attack on narcissism and, and self regard is really, really strong. So I just wanted to say this to you, that I recognize, and I think all of us here, uh, recognize, that whatever our gifts or contributions, there are legions who stand behind us. There are ancestors, there are, all the things in the land that nurture us. Spiky creatures you talked about, but all the, we are. And brought to this particular moment in time. and we will vanish and others will be the inheritor of that. So when, when we accept your gift, we know it's a gift of a long line of ancestors and others, and you're in this moment to bring that forth and who knows what will, who will make of it. So don't feel bad, mother. Me. Don't feel bad. Please. Just don't feel bad. Mahan uh, indicated that, you know, when we were, um, the selection committee was talking about the, the book, I, I think I didn't actually say I couldn't figure out where to put it in genre because it didn't fit in the genre. and I had the sense that, it was a, a different way of thinking requires a different kind of a fog. You know, that, that ideally in a, in a a book, you have the author, you have the, the, the, the reader, and you have the purpose of the book and the, and the, the form of the book needs to embody and express the intent of the book. and so that, that in order for, uh, one of the things I was thinking, Tyson, is that if it were an indigenous person communicating to another indigenous person, you wouldn't write a book. Probably you wouldn't write a book, you would do it some other way. But he's trying to, has attempted to write from within that worldview and bring it to us. But in our media. Academic. and there's another meeting we didn't even talk about, which this represent. so we have, and every medium has its strengths, but anyway, that, so the genre was really interesting to me because of the, the intent. And I do, we, we said this, you heard this before, but I want you to hear it in this context of the intent to write, from within a culture. I'm not reporting on indigenous knowledge systems for a global audience's perspective. I'm examining global systems from an indigenous knowledge perspective. and that requires a different, genre, a different format. Otherwise, the genre is not true to the intent. so, We've the hand justice. I don't think we need to do that again unless you want to. But that was fun.

Speaker 7 29:56

Well, you're probably starting to see a formula to ancient wisdom. It's just pretty much reversing something, you know? I don't know if anyone's ever seen that movie Mystery Men, but there's a, there's a Native American superhero in that, and, and his superpower is that he's very wise and so he's always saying things like, you know, if you don't learn to master your rage, then rage will become your master. And I don't know. It wasn't till after the book was published that I looked at some of the things that I'd been writing that sounded wise and thought, oh, that's because I'm doing that. I saw it on TV one night. I thought, oh my goodness, am I doing that?

Speaker 6 30:41

You're doing that, doing

Speaker 7 30:43

that. But it's amazing how many times it's wise, like. There's, if you flip it around the other way.

Speaker 6 30:50

Well, when I hit that phrase domesticated humans, I thought, yeah,

Speaker 7 30:57

yeah,

Speaker 6 30:57

yeah. Or the, the, you heard this, but maybe it was embedded in so much language. The, the country that is the continent that is currently called Australia.

Speaker 4 31:10

Oh yeah.

Speaker 6 31:11

and that the first, the first sentence which, I just love, I made you read it before, but I think you should read it again. You've heard it, but you need to hear it in this context. Just read the first second. I love it.

Speaker 7 31:25

only I can, I went blind on, on lockdown all the zoom meetings.

Speaker 6 31:30

Oh, okay.

Speaker 7 31:31

And I can't read it. Sorry.

Speaker 6 31:33

Oh, okay. Well, I'll it with your permission. Oh,

Speaker 7 31:38

like anyone's glasses will do. I've done that before. Just called out for glasses from my audience. Oh, there we go. Okay.

Speaker 6 31:49

But that's the spontaneity of your own,

Speaker 7 31:50

right? Sometimes I wonder if a kid has ever suffer from the same delusion that many humans do. Humans that their species is the intelligent center of the universe.

Speaker 6 32:03

Right. That's all.

Speaker 7 32:04

Oh,

Speaker 4 32:05

okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's

Speaker 7 32:08

everywhere.

Speaker 4 32:10

Okay.

Speaker 7 32:11

Well, you probably have to do that if you wanna become comfortable with insane contradictions. That is reality.

Speaker 6 32:23

Well, the, you have the contradictions,

Speaker 7 32:25

like Mahan was mentioning before.

Speaker 6 32:28

Right. And the, and the, the capacity to see you try to see yourself from the outside, but you don't. It's not easy to do it. Most of the time we don't really like what we might see, but it, but it, but it's necessary. but if we move to, I know we pointed to, the movement from oral to written. I know we didn't like those categories, but I think it's useful because you've created a hybrid genre to talk. say just a little bit, a little bit about that because I found out in preparing it for this, there's a lot of, I dunno literature about, about that process. but I think that the thing that's most important is that those media are different. The, the written and the oral, they have different powers, different strengths, and they're just pointers each to a whole complex. and I know you didn't like the terms. So I don't know if you wanna say something about the limitation.

Speaker 7 33:29

Yeah, I'm happy to look from any perspective. I think if I wasn't me and I was looking at that book, I would call it, hipster Pop Science, uh, an narco Communist Propaganda Self-Help Satire. I'm like, it's all those things, but, but it's not too, it was a lot bigger, by the way.

Speaker 4 33:51

It was

Speaker 7 33:52

like, when I first wrote it, it was just a lot that had to be cut. Just, it had to be very trimmed. Yeah. Uh, in order to be marketable.

Speaker 6 34:03

That's, that's publishers. And I have to say, because you're too nice to say this.

Speaker 7 34:06

Yeah.

Writing from Within Culture

Speaker 6 34:07

Um, but you said it the first night I met you. and we, all of us should have suspected this if we read the book, and I'm ashamed to say, I didn't, that phrase how indigenous thinking can save the world. Tyson didn't think that No. That was the publisher.

Speaker 4 34:23

Yeah.

Speaker 6 34:23

He's selling books. He's selling books.

Speaker 4 34:26

very clever, huh? Yeah.

Speaker 6 34:31

Yeah. Very clever. but I, but maybe we can say something about what the things you did, the, the, the things you invented and created in order to, try to move from within your culture into a sort of alien form so that the reader could get a sense of, of what that sort of oral culture was like.

Speaker 7 35:00

Mm. Well, that's the trick. How do you speak from within it to people outside of it who might be hostile to it? how do you do that? Without standing outside of it and talking about it, you know, because that's what most of us have to do as indigenous academics, writers. You, uh, in order, when you engage with the academy in that way, you, you have to step outside of your culture in order to explain it to people. And, um, ironically, a lot of the tools we have for that, the decolonizing methodologies and things like our standpoint theory, that's supposed to be about centering our voices, the post-structuralist stuff and deconstructivists, uh, stuff, the postmodern sort of thing. It's, it's all abstractions, you know, and, and it kind of forces us while we're claiming a standpoint and trying to move that standpoint into the center. And we all know where that is. That's not in our community, right? Um, we step outside of ourselves and we have to inhabit, I don't know, we just sort of have to hover around the edges of ourselves like a ghost, and then ex describe to people what we see or what we'd like them to think is there. and it's, uh, and it's not always accurate and it's, it's always difficult. It's, it, it fractures a person. But I was like, no. What if I just stood right in it and I didn't move and I wasn't interested in the center? What if I just stood there? And what if I just did all my things, which I have all my things, I've got all these yarns. What if I, how would I do that? Writing it.

Speaker 6 36:49

So I love, at one point you said, and this speaks to that tension that you found. You used the word word, Was it neo neocolonialism? no. It was a different

Speaker 7 37:00

neoliberalism.

Speaker 6 37:01

Neoliberalism More than you use the word turtle or something like that.

Speaker 7 37:04

Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Speaker 6 37:06

But I have a solution. I remember I warned you that we were gonna do some slides, but I just thought, we just look at one, which is your table of contents. Okay. And this table of contents occurs in maybe the second chapter, first chapter. and when it shows up, you don't understand what it means. And by the time you get to the end of the book, you understand why it's a table of content. So maybe you need to turn around and look so you see what's up there.

Speaker 4 37:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 37:41

So could you explain for us your table of content?

Speaker 7 37:52

Well, you see, there was a, there was a, um, a turtle pattern, you know, in this void there was a turtle entity and there was a, an kinner entity, and, and they were fighting and the kinner entity smashed the, the smooth, hard back of the total entity right in the center. And it sort of cracked out into this fractal, ah, it just went out like, from there and, and, and it went out in like, uh, the Fibonacci sequence, which is really cool. When you hear the old fellas like telling you the, not like the numerical sequence for how it works. It's like 1, 1, 2, you know, 3, 5, 8, 13, and you're like, oh my goodness. Anyway, and so that's. That just sort of formed the fabric, like the blueprint upon which creation could happen. It wasn't like all of creation. That was just a good

Speaker 4 38:54

mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 38:54

You know, because those hexagons just go out forever in the, that sort of fractal, you know, pattern and continues out and sort of things can start forming on that little matrix there. yeah, that's just kind of like that.

Speaker 6 39:10

So each little, each little hexa one, two. Yeah.

Speaker 7 39:15

Yeah.

Speaker 6 39:15

Hexagram 1, 2, 3. Yeah.

Speaker 7 39:17

So look, there's, well that's

Speaker 6 39:19

take one. Take one of them and explain how it works.

Speaker 7 39:22

Well, let's, that's the story I just said there.

Speaker 6 39:24

Okay.

Speaker 7 39:25

Yeah, that one, which is it's cheating really.'cause the whole chapter thing is built on that.

Speaker 6 39:30

Right. But here's another one. And, and show how it Yeah,

Speaker 7 39:34

well there's, there's a few of them that's old man Jamus symbols, and then there's a few of them that are like those five different ways of thinking. There. so this one here is that, that's the idea of patent patent line, uh, patent thinking. And that's, um, I mean, you can do that yourself. It's just you're doing them that way and then you're doing them that way, and then you are just allowing that to continue. And there's, there's all these amazing, you can start mapping the land mapping country like that. yeah. And you'll be amazed what you see when you're finished filling up the entire space.

Speaker 6 40:11

Can you make that more specific? You're talking about it in a very general way. Yeah.

Speaker 7 40:19

Can you

Speaker 6 40:20

give us a,

Speaker 7 40:20

oh, it's really difficult to zoom in from there, but, um, I can hear my son screaming too. That's another thing.

Speaker 6 40:29

Part of the context.

Speaker 7 40:30

Yeah. Well, it's a, it's a, uh, it's, it, it references like a, a way of thinking, which is, is, is. Recognizing that all things in creation are in relation. And being able to see the pattern of that, being able to step back and not just triangulate, but angulate from many, many data sets, incomplete data sets, but to do that in collaboration with, with the other people around you, so you're not just one little brain thinking about it, but all your minds together, uh, moving through the landscape, noticing these things, uh, rejecting that sign, accepting this sign, and starting to form an aggregate of what's going on. so, you know, you can locate where the groundwater is, for example, or Yeah. find where kangaroos are, sort of nesting in, in the middle of the day. Yeah. it's being able to do predictive modeling really in real time, uh, just by being able. Feel, think through an entire system. that doesn't mean we're not reductive too, because then once you find the kangaroos, you get real reductive, like really quick because you've gotta hit them there with this tiny little thing. You get very reductive then. But I guess it's what people call holistic thinking. Um,

Speaker 4 41:54

holistic,

Speaker 7 41:55

yeah. But it's pattern thinking and it's not just pattern recognition like, you know, it's a difference between pattern thinking and patternicity. Patternicity is that thing that a lot of evolutionary biologists are talking about now. patternicity where people sort of see patterns that aren't there. They'll see correlations that aren't really there and then imagine that they're causations and then go, oh my god, Hillary Clinton has children on that ship. We've gotta stop her. Um, yeah, and that's that patternicity, but that's not what we're doing with pattern Think. Patent thinking is very rigorous. And, and we do it together and there are a lot of checks and balances and, yeah, lots of peer review as you go.

Speaker 6 42:40

We had to actually to think of peer review.

Speaker 7 42:42

Yeah.

Speaker 6 42:43

A wonderful, it's just a little short, a couple of lines, about, and I probably won't get this right, but you'll remember it more Exactly. Um, the, the, I'll just call Why, why Zelda? But I don't know if he was actually an elder who, was out and predicted that with a group of children, I think, and that in 12 minutes it was going to rain. and in 12 minutes it's rained. Now that's peer review from

Speaker 7 43:13

Yeah.

Speaker 6 43:13

The, the uni universe or nature, or whatever

Speaker 7 43:16

you wanna call it. He's got non-human peers.

Speaker 6 43:18

Non-human peers

Speaker 7 43:19

talking to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. Including the flying ants and the. Yeah.

Speaker 6 43:25

Right.

Speaker 7 43:26

The trees, the wind, the a thousand signals. But that's what an elder does. Uh, that's why they have authority. That's one of the things we talked about was that difference between power and authority. So your elders aren't your boss, but they have that authority. And if they tell you, you know, we see the bugs crawling up the riverbank, uh, we should move to high ground. Um, you listen to them because, I mean, you don't have to do what they say. You can stay there and drown when the flood waters come up, but you probably wanna follow up on the ridge. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 44:00

I'm actually remembering, you may remember this, uh, the major flood in Indonesia, what is it, 15 years ago?

Speaker 7 44:06

Mm.

Speaker 6 44:07

from a, underground earthquake.

Speaker 4 44:09

Oh yeah.

Speaker 6 44:09

And the animals headed to hide round.

Speaker 4 44:12

Yeah.

Speaker 6 44:12

And the people were, well, I think probably the, the local people headed up hills, but the tourists. You know, you don't notice. And one of the things that sort of struck me with your book is that, if I had to live in the way you're able to live, you know, in any wilderness you could gimme one with a lot of, you know, green and vegetables, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I'm that disconnected, from the land and, you know, just, just to note that. Mm. Um, and I love when you said this, this earlier, this afternoon, um, that tension of having to live in the city when you really wanna be, out in the, in the, in the bush.

Speaker 7 44:58

Mm.

Speaker 6 44:59

and the remarkable thing you could do that,

Speaker 7 45:02

you could, you could do that too because your role, you know, you, that would mean that you'd be looked after.

Speaker 6 45:09

Oh, right. But I couldn't do it on my own.

Speaker 7 45:11

You'd have, you'd have a status where you had other work, which you could quite easily and do like very, very well and you'd be looked after. Yeah.

Speaker 6 45:21

You better watch out'cause I might come visit

Speaker 7 45:23

you. Yeah,

Speaker 6 45:23

because look,

Speaker 7 45:25

you know, it's, it's not being out in the bush is not bare grills survival stuff. You know, anyone can do that on their own. But then what can you do that 40 years, 50 years, and then die on your own? Sounds awful.

Speaker 4 45:39

Sounds

Speaker 7 45:39

awful. You know? No, it has to be a community. But then you can't have an isolated community living in the land as well. Because they will die. They'll die out. You know?

Speaker 6 45:48

Yeah, we

Speaker 7 45:48

talked about that. Yeah. It has to be connected. You have to be a network or community. So, and you do well in that. Everybody would,

Speaker 6 45:57

so one of the things about other things about the genre that, that sort, struck me about this, this, as I looked at, you know. We looked, talked about a little bit about the chapters, but, one of our, respondents, um, at the end of a very, sensitive paper I thought did talk about the, the longing we in the west have been trained to have for logical argument. and it set me thinking about what is the nature of the argument quote in these, in these chapters. And literary people sometimes talk about an argument, but it struck me, and I did say this to you before that each chapter is structured, like a poem and there are multiple pieces that respond in interconnection. and I wondered what you thought about and what you thought about the pieces and how, how did they arise for you? We know about the boomerang. and not all the objects that, were boomerangs. There were other things I think that you carved as you were

Speaker 4 47:05

Yeah.

Speaker 6 47:05

Sort of working through. But each chapter has a kind of, well, why don't you describe it? Why should I describe it? I'm doing all work here. You

Speaker 7 47:17

know, the, the chapters are carved, the chapters aren't written. They, they're carved for, well, initially of course, they yawned and walked and sung on country, and I told you a little bit more about that Albino Boy chapter. And there were other things carved for that as well, and ceremony that happened on country. Um, and I did sing that song, for you as well. so there were, there were a lot of things there that just aren't in there because that's, that's cultural content and it's not what we were doing. But it's, um, I don't know. It, it's just, it's finding a thread. Through trying to intuit a as soon as you say us too, you, I'm imagining a relation, and then I'm trying to meet the obligations of that relationship and I'm sharing things with that person, you know, with the kind of playfulness

Speaker 6 48:09

place. Okay.

Genres Voices and Coherence

Speaker 7 48:12

So I'm imagining part of that line, that song line or that place where I'm walking with that person and I'm imagining walking with you there, you know, and I'm thinking the best of you here as a reader. You know, like I'm imagining you to be a very switched on, compassionate, deadly person. which I, with the next book, I'm imagining all kinds of people because I met some of these ones now, you know, since, since the book happened. And, uh, there's, there's, I dunno, there's one woman who claims we're secretly married or something. There's. There's like weird people. There's stalkers and the book. Did, you know, yeah. The book did fairly well, but not well enough to have a secure enough house from some of the weirdos that are out there and get stalking you. So on the next book I've imagined very different. When I was writing this, I just imagined the best kind of person reading it, that I could think of and, and what I would show you if I was walking, what I would've permission to show you, what I'd steer you away from. And I just kind of navigate a path through there. And I'm sitting there with the object and just downloading from that, all of the yarns and the places and the ceremonies and yeah. And then just translating that into things. And that might be a joke or, um, a poem or, um, a bit of exposition or a rant. a rant.

Speaker 6 49:40

Oh, rant.

Speaker 7 49:40

I think I do a few rants there. or a story or a, like a, I don't know. yeah, I like, I just play around with different genres, I guess, and with different voices. Sometimes it's an academic voice. Sometimes I'm talking to you like you're my cousin. you know, it's just kind of just switches around, you know, depending,

Speaker 6 50:00

but there's a,

Speaker 7 50:01

I'm, I'm not sure on what,

Speaker 6 50:04

because I think you have, a pattern in your soul that is somehow shaping the things that you, are pulling in so that there's, you may be experience it experiencing it in the moment as sort of random. Um, but the selection. As a, the receiver is not random. It's very, it's very coherent. and that's, maybe I shouldn't say your soul, your belly. You like to use that.

Speaker 7 50:46

Yeah. I can't take all the credit for how that might work as a coherent text. That's, that's old people. That's, uh, everyone else. I think, uh, yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm a, I'm as a being, I'm just an expression of a web of relations and that web of relations, you know, it sort of steers you where you're supposed to go and you might ignore it willfully. And then, but when you, when you listen, all right, there's things have coherence.

Speaker 6 51:15

My experience is when you ignore it willfully, you get into big trouble.

Speaker 7 51:19

Yeah. Well I do that and I get into big trouble all the time. Yeah.

Speaker 6 51:24

But it's a great teacher. Big trouble is a great teacher. Mahan said, we have five minutes and there's, there's, I wanna talk about my, what was my favorite part of the book, or not my, maybe favorite is the wrong word. the part that touched me most deeply, because, you know, I've done a lot of analysis and that's part, but the part that really reached inside of me and took me someplace else. you called it the, the, dream walk. It's towards the end of the book. It's, it's, it's different. A a lot of, a lot of what, a lot of what you've done is you say something and you undercut it, and there's irony and layers and whatnot. and I see it as the moment when you gave permission for whatever is deepest in you to just, yeah. Come forward, and then of course his next chapter. But, but that, that part, and, and I just wanna say maybe I, I didn't do it the right way because Tyson says you're supposed to this, this part, it's about, I didn't count five or six pages very different. you should read it out loud, read to a group. I didn't read it out loud and I didn't have anyone read it aloud to me. But as I read it, I tried to follow the meditation, you know, through my body and through the images. and even though I wasn't doing it the way that would be, the fullest impact, it really had a deep impact on me. and I didn't plan how we should do this. whether you wanna read part of it, talk about it, whether I should read part of it, I love the. The only, the only thing I would want you to read for sure is the last paragraph.

Speaker 7 53:21

Alright. I was gonna say, whatever we do, it has to be the end. We have to have the end at the end because we can't just cut it off at some point and just leave them there. They might get stuck,

Speaker 6 53:32

right?

Speaker 7 53:33

Yeah. It's journey. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 6 53:36

So it's, it's the last yellow sticky.

Speaker 7 53:38

All right. The last yellow

Speaker 6 53:39

sticky. It's the last yellow sticky. My goodness. I just say it somehow in some ways it's a, a synthesis of all the themes.

Speaker 7 53:47

Mm.

Speaker 6 53:47

But in a, in a way that just, well, we'll see,

Speaker 7 53:52

I did, um, I, I did this for young people that I was Yeah. Who needed, some spiritual protection that I couldn't quite cover for them. 24 7. Uh, we were out bush and staying in a bad place. And so I put this together for them to give them their own way. Like give them their own way of doing protection, basically to get their belly belly power up and uh, yeah. So that they would be protected. So, yeah. So there was no messing around in here. There's no jokes.

Speaker 6 54:27

No jokes.

Speaker 7 54:27

Yeah. just the last bit. Yeah,

Speaker 6 54:30

no. Whatever you wanna read from, I just don't want you to not read the lesson.

Speaker 7 54:34

Yeah, yeah. Alright.

Speaker 6 54:36

The rest is your choice.

Speaker 7 54:37

Okay.

Speaker 6 54:37

It's all your choice. But anyway, it's my preference.

Speaker 7 54:41

well, the seven sisters are here burning bright. all the hero ancestors are up here, sky Camp, watching you blazing that same fire again. Your rhythm is pulsing out to them, they're pulsing back. Light washing through you in waves, stoking up that fire inside you again, blazing those coals washing you clean and clear. Can your mind even extend up here to the patterns in the endless night sky? Can your mind possibly perceive all of these stars, shapes, gaps, forms made by those gaps? The stories and morality and rich knowledge here, thousands of parts all at once? Can it know every part at once? what it does hold for sure are the patterns created by all those parts. It sees objects pulled towards a space and knows what must lie there out of sight. It's able to see this world and stories and patterns and angles and times, and seasons all at once to read the big patterns. These show together. And therefore make predictions and judgements about land-based events, phenomena, weather, ritual, the naming of all things in your life, throughout each cycle of seasons, the longer cycles of generations, and even longer cycles of deep time and story. What would it take to free your mind, your mind to allow it to see these big patterns again, all the ancestors are up here and they left their traces in the earth and waters below as well, and you carry those traces within those memories, knowledges and deep, deep love. Those things wait for you below. They tug at you or begin to draw you down. You're no longer light, but not heavy either you're imbalance and you return to your place of love below. You're a point of connection between the earth and sky camp. So go be that. You drop plummet through stars and darkness and blue, black and deep blue and light blue and maybe clouds and water drops, treetops ceilings, and then softly, softly, softly settled back down, down to earth into the feeling of your place and your body. The rhythm that Neva stops, the fire in your belly, your power and the infinite potential of your mind within and without. That's right. I remembered what that was for now. Yeah. That was to show people their mind is not just brain bound. Yeah. And so you'd be able to use that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 57:42

Yeah. It's,

Speaker 7 57:44

it was also what made Megan fall in love with me. She heard me doing that, for some kids. Yeah. Anyway, that's when Megan fell in love with me.

Speaker 6 57:54

Oh.

Speaker 7 57:55

And

Speaker 6 57:56

I can believe it.

Speaker 7 57:59

And yeah. Then she just grabbed me.

Speaker 6 58:03

Smart woman shook me

Speaker 7 58:05

like Grace Jones in of the Barbarian too.

Speaker 6 58:09

Well, you seem to think that women are smarter than men and I, this might be it.

Speaker 7 58:13

Yeah,

Speaker 6 58:15

that's it. Yeah.

Speaker 7 58:19

That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 6 58:22

Anyway, I, I think, um, it's a, it's a wonderful book. That's a beautiful part. Is there anything, more you would, you would like to say here now in this special moment of love for you?

Speaker 7 58:38

So many millions of things. I think we're out time.

Speaker 6 58:42

We're not outta time. You're the guest you could say

Speaker 7 58:44

would've been good to show you something. Sure. Yeah. Can

Speaker 6 58:47

we do

Speaker 7 58:47

that? But I don't know if it's,

Speaker 6 58:48

see, you're the guest. You can

Speaker 7 58:51

do what you want as a thing.

Speaker 4 58:54

Sean, Sam?

Speaker 7 58:55

Yeah. If you like, can you put, can you project that on the thing or will it take too long to work out the tech?

Speaker 6 59:05

I want you to know there's this wonderful photo that Mahan sent me of, of, of Mahan. This was this morning with a bag of sand over his shoulder. Sweet. From Home Depot.

Speaker 4 59:19

Can you see it? Oh, oh crap. Can you project it's up there? That looks like a Okay. Well. Ah. so I guess we

Kinship Law and Governance

Speaker 7 59:47

start with the, with a constellation we got in both of our hemispheres, eh, so it's that. Um, so the eighties, seven sisters, old man Juma, he shows it like this. with this sort of traveling in, uh, there's that idea of seven spirit families, seven sisters, and one sister lost, and that she comes in born to the center and that that's a big point of impact in creation. That point of impact, incidentally, is got absolutely no problem with saying, yeah, it was that, and it was an aer hitting a turtle. And, you know, going out fractally, you know, Fibonacci sequence out into everything. There's more really cool mass that happens around the outside of the, the turtle shell as well. So yeah, so it's that creation event. You might see that that ends up making a hexagon there. but that one, that one is also mother and child, which is the first kinship pair. It's always the first kinship pair. It's the first kinship pair in every religion, in every creation story. You know, if there's often a mother and child, there's also man, woman, but we'll get to that, but mother and child is, it's that one that you learn from. It's the first thing you learn everything from in your life. Uh, so everything, your, your society is not sustainable unless it, it's all built around that kinship pair that needs to be the center of all things. so for a woman, there's a lot of responsibility there, and she has that. That conflict, you know, of needing to be herself and also needing to be mother. Yeah. she has that conflict of relation obligation, but then also the other side of the dyad, which is to be fabulous just for herself as well, you know, which she often is. yeah. But then once that, once that splits, that forms this, so that seven keeps coming through. So this is, uh, sunrise and sunset dreaming. There's that point of impact, that same one again. And at each of the points of nexus here, all those together, that makes up those seven spirit families. and this sunrise and sunset dreaming, which is the protocol of embassy and the pat for embassy. That's the governance, that's the law for embassy for all around, wherever you go on the planet, you follow that sunrise, sunset dreaming, um, out from your center. but, but yeah, there is that man, woman, uh, business going on. And so there's also Orion because nothing's perfect. And with that Orion, you know, there's that other, another one, something coming in a point of impact at the center. but this is a, um, this is a triangle and this is men's business and it's that man divided against himself in the same way, you know? and so that, that becomes this, this business here, and it's the seven spirit families again. And things can go well and things can not, so that things can go the other way. Depending on whether or not a man reconciles that individual, need to rob be special against his relational obligations. And everything hinges on this. And so you get first man, first woman, story. And there is that point of impact at the center of creation. and you know, out of that, into that sort of matrix of turtle business, yeah, turtle pattern, things are formed. you might see that sunrise and sunset dreaming happening again. But there is a man, a first man and a first woman, and they're coming out from this rock, point of impact. And every country has a special place. Every place, every small region will have a rock at the center. Or a special place at the center, which is that point of impact. So it's fractal because that's that place's creation story and also a continent. So in Australia, this is Uluru and the idea is that those seven spirit families came out from Uluru and that's all the people in the world. And the idea is that it's like the universe breathes out and in and from that point of impact, those seven different tribes of people went all around the world. and that they'll come back home again and they, they'll come back to Australia and they'll all be there at Uluru again. And the whole thing will start all over. So, um, oh my God. Someone asked me if we had prophecies and I said, no. That sounds like a prophecy. Oh, crap. So you don't listen to me? I dunno. No, we don't have prophecies. That, that's definitely a prophecy. That's definitely a prophe. Okay, now I'm starting to think I might end up in a cult. Alright, anyway. yeah, so that's, this is the shape of the man's canoe. He's the first man. He's the first woman. And they travel, you know, around these lines. They travel out and they come together and they go apart to do their separate men's and women's business from this point of impact. And that's the beginning of things there. That's his canoe. And this is, um, and that's the lines of travel, the alliance of travel form, other lines. So you end up with north and south, east and west, and he turns this canoe along those lines like a paddle, you know, like when you turn, your canoe turns like that. and the seasons turn that way. And so the sun, the sun runs in that way. and so in this dreaming, there's no fixed north, it's different. Nor the directions are different every day of the year slightly, uh, because it depends on that. So anyway, and from this you end up with that's place, but place and time are the same thing. And so there is a model, there's a model of time that comes out from those three, three generations of women, uh, around every child. And then that comes out again. These are also big ages that keep coming out. big eras of history of going from right back to the dreaming times I was talking about there. But then, uh, continuing and I, oh man, Jimma makes you lie down and look at it to do an ant view of that.

Speaker 4 1:06:55

Ah,

Speaker 7 1:06:56

because that shows country, yeah. And all the ridges and, and valleys. Um, but this is, um, this is how time works. I did see that, I did see this, uh, about 10 years before I met. Oh man. Like I saw it. Um, when I, I, I tried some of that San Pedro cactus, trippy stuff.

Speaker 4 1:07:19

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 1:07:19

Uh, by a river. And it's the only time I've ever done anything like that and I'm never doing it again. Um, but I did get a lifetime worth of work, uh, coming outta that one evening. And this was one of the things I saw. I didn't just see it, it was like six hours of this just going in and out, like a big sort of fresh and then decay, meat, flour, you know, it was, it was really disturbing to look at and I had like 10 hours of labor pains to go with it. So I'm not ever gonna forget that. So when old man like drew that in the sand for me, I went, oh, that's that thing. Now I have to do stuff. yeah. So, I don't know, I, so I could really go on for a long time with all the star story, but that's, that's basically where the idea of time and place coming out of coming outta Sky Camp, coming out of that dreaming, there. And I just kind of wanted to show you and, uncle Leah like a, uh, a bit of a flow between the symbols

Speaker 4 1:08:19

Yeah.

Speaker 7 1:08:19

For, you know, that's connected with that star with the astrophysics side of things. I just wanted to show you like a flow of story that where connects almost together.

Speaker 6 1:08:29

Yeah.

Speaker 7 1:08:29

Because there is a continuity between all these things.

Speaker 6 1:08:33

Well, we, we, I think we experience it, but can't say it.

Speaker 7 1:08:39

Yeah.

Speaker 6 1:08:39

and you can show it and we can feel it.

Speaker 7 1:08:43

yeah.

Speaker 6 1:08:43

And maybe if we had enough time we could analyze it, but I don't, I don't think so. Oh, I don't. Maybe the poem, we have to write our own poem.

Speaker 7 1:08:57

Sorry, I'm just playing.

Speaker 6 1:09:00

That's part of stuff.

Speaker 7 1:09:01

Yeah.

Speaker 6 1:09:02

You said this afternoon you were talking about yearning. You talked about fun being part of it. and here's the

Speaker 7 1:09:08

Yeah.

Speaker 6 1:09:10

Fun. We forget the fun.

Speaker 7 1:09:11

What's fun is that I, I, I mean if I go to Central Desert, I can't do this because it's only women who can do sand talk and the central desert and like you

Speaker 4 1:09:20

tell

Speaker 7 1:09:21

Yeah. And apparently there was an old lady who like saw my book and went talk. She do, does he have a vagina?

Speaker 4 1:09:33

Speaker 7 1:09:33

can't do that because in their, their place it's like that. yeah, in some places it is like that. so if I go to the desert, I can't do that. But I have sat down with an old lady and she's, she's shown me her things. There from there, but she wouldn't lemme touch that sand because it's like, no, no, no. This is just for us girls. Yeah.

Speaker 4 1:09:56

Yeah.

Speaker 7 1:09:57

So that was that, uh, I dunno, I answered that question here of the pattern thinking. You asked me before that. I didn't say it very well with my, with my, um, mouth.

Speaker 6 1:10:06

Yeah, I think you did. And I think, I think we have a, a glimpse.

Speaker 7 1:10:12

Yeah.

Speaker 6 1:10:13

Just, just a glimpse, which is more than we had before. And we're deeply grateful. I am deeply grateful. I'm sure all of you are deeply grateful. and you Yeah. Good.

Speaker 9 1:10:28

Even more like a pie

Speaker 6 1:10:29

now you can play later. It looks

Speaker 9 1:10:32

even more like a fire now.

Speaker 6 1:10:34

It's what?

Speaker 9 1:10:35

It looks even more like

Speaker 6 1:10:35

a, like a pie.

Speaker 9 1:10:36

Yeah.

Speaker 6 1:10:37

Well, now we have to be serious, but maybe we'll leave the sand and after we finish the serious part, we can play some more. How's

Speaker 3 1:10:44

that? Please stay. Please stay. Our evening is going to a close and that was just remarkable, especially if, if it shows how much we've learned from the book, because I know that if I were listening to this talk not having read the book, I would be completely lost. And so if you haven't read the book, it really is, oh, the mic was off. Are you What I was saying was that, you know, if I hadn't read the book and I had listened to this conversation, I would be completely lost. Or, you know, looking for what does this all mean? But if you've read the book, then it teaches you, it really introduces you to a whole, culture and, and a universe that is worth knowing. but now that we know that the publisher has, uh, duped us, we can confer the award. So, Tyson, I can't express how grateful we are to you and to Megan and to Ed and to Ani and she's here. She step out and diver for coming all the way from Australia to accept this award. On behalf of the Anxiety Institute, it is my honor to present you with the Naser book Prize in Religion and the World, a cash prize in the amount of$20,000.

Speaker 4 1:12:07

Oh, he's, uh, Hey. Oh, Ramon, sorry. Oh, turtle Allen. You got a hug with your heart there and then, oops, sorry. So we also have bait weight. Just a small gift.

Speaker 8 1:12:24

Me too.

Speaker 4 1:12:30

I'm gonna say everyone in here, you can take a look inside.

Speaker 3 1:12:35

Oh, so it's a blanket, but it's woven with fabric for the relations.

Speaker 8 1:12:44

Oh, nice.

Speaker 3 1:12:45

And yes, you can open it and show it and it's got places from around Notre Dame, but they're non, non-linearly, you know, just placed on the fabric. So it's a bit like the table of contents for Notre Dame.

Speaker 4 1:13:02

Nice.

Speaker 3 1:13:05

And in there we have embroidered your names. So we have who we, who made this? So we have Tyson,

Speaker 4 1:13:13

we all down,

Speaker 3 1:13:14

and Megan and Onyx and diver.

Speaker 4 1:13:17

My goodness

Speaker 3 1:13:18

and Eden. You're now part of the Notre Dame story.

Speaker 10 1:13:36

Yeah. Feel silly now with my little,

Speaker 4 1:13:42

no, no, no. What do you mean?

Speaker 7 1:13:45

Oh my goodness.

Speaker 4 1:13:46

Okay. Because that's huge. Alright.

Speaker 7 1:13:50

Uh, this is, this is for you mine. Um, yeah, just everything you've done for us, uh, from the start. This was, um, uh, I just thought you'd appreciate the editing process. This is part of the editing process for Sand Talk. It was, um, originally about that high. It was a big shield and a proper shield with the handle. That was where the handles were originally. Yeah. And I just kept editing it down and every time, so there's, there's like all this part was a chapter on Libya that I had to take out because it was all Russian propaganda. It was some, there was heaps of Russian propaganda. I didn't even know it was just my YouTube algorithm. Anyway, I had a really good publisher who was very publisher, very insistent that I removed the Gaddafi nostalgia and, and all the other no good bits. But that was the core business that I wanted to keep. the big stuff from Oman Juma. And, and then, um, a lot of, you know, the stuff that was more what I had formulated from that is sort of at the center. And that's, uh, you know, it's a shield within a shield within a shield. And anyway, that's, I just thought you'd like the editing process. Thank you. Yeah. Um. That was a long explanation because it, it looks weird. It's a weird looking thing, but you'll appreciate it if you're a

Speaker 3 1:15:23

I love it.

Speaker 7 1:15:23

Nitpicky editor.

Speaker 3 1:15:24

I think it's one of the best gifts, the best gift I've ever received. Oh, we, the one thing very quickly, I know we're running over time, but when the steering committee selected Tyson's book, the one thing everyone said was, will he come? And so it was a dream for us. that's beyond coming true. And this is so precious. Thank you.

Speaker 7 1:15:46

Alright.

Speaker 3 1:15:51

and this

Speaker 7 1:15:51

one's for Charles, the first, I know if he's still here. Ah, yes.

Speaker 4 1:15:54

There he's,

Speaker 7 1:15:54

yeah, there's Charles, the first, uh, Charles the second as well, because he was the second one we met. So you, Charles the first? Yeah. Okay. so I've been madly trying to rub this, I, it's gonna be even sticky. Because I put, I, like, I, I, I dunked it in wax before I went, just to make sure any creepy crawlies in there got choked out. Yeah. yeah. And that, that's from my, that's from my home, that's from my own country. That's one of the boomerangs from the, there was two boomerangs from the apostrophes displaced apostrophes chapter. Yeah. And while I've been sitting there madly polishing it, I've been trying to bring that story up about, uh, being comfortable with contradictions. Because the, the biggest contradiction there is just how scathing I am about English all the way through the book. And like, eh, English doesn't, Hey, you haven't got enough words for things. You don't have enough pronouns. Nah. But then at the same time as somebody leaves an apostrophe out, I'll get wild. all my students hate me. It's all red ink through their, yeah. I'm a stickler for grammar and punctuation.

Speaker 11 1:17:08

Thank you.

Speaker 7 1:17:09

Alright.

Speaker 11 1:17:10

Oh, hearing my side up.

Closing Thanks and Farewell

Speaker 7 1:17:14

Alright. And it goes straight. It does go straight. You could hit, you know those geese you got? yeah. It doesn't come back. No, no turn other way. No other way. Geez. No, that's, so, that's, that's the bit. Geez. Alright. And you do, you can just throw that straight at a goose, one of those fat gears and it'll just, uh, it won't turn, it'll lock it, you'll hit it straight. And, and

Speaker 3 1:17:41

we are having too much fun. Thank you. You've got

Speaker 7 1:17:43

Goose all thank,

Speaker 3 1:17:45

but my dean needs his beauty sleep, so please welcome the dean of the kiosk. Alright, Scott, apple. Thank you.

Speaker 12 1:17:57

Thank you, Mahan. I am in the unenviable position of keeping you here for just a few minutes longer. Because I'm happy to conclude this evening with some, uh, words of thanks. First, let's thank those who prepared our meal and who will be helping clean and, clean after we leave. Please thank those folks to all who prepared, hosted, and participated in the retreat and in all, and for all of you participating in this two day symposium. Thank you. A special word of thanks to our friends and supporters on the Ansari Institute Advisory Board who are present with us here tonight, including Chuck and Andrea Katter. Wanna stand up, number, wave, and Za Caram, who we've already met. I don't know where ZA is, but thank you Za. And to an Annan, Raman and Carolyn Brown, who are who are our interlocutors in devising and implementing the Ansari Institute's strategic plan at the crossroads of Religion. Thanks to you two. As you might have inferred, the awarding of the Rhonda and Sharif Nassar book, prize on Religion and the World would Not Have been Possible without the generosity of Rhonda and Sharif Nassar. I refer certainly to their generosity in funding this multi-day event at a level that made it possible to host the retreat and this symposium thereby enabling us to achieve our goal of beginning new friendships. And renewing old ones, and thereby building a community of common purpose and shared experience and knowledge. But I also mean their intellectual generosity, their curiosity, their willingness to join us all and learning new things and opening our minds and hearts to experiences far from our own, even from our few occasions thus far to chat, I can tell that Sharif loves challenges solving puzzles and finding a better way, whatever or wherever its sources. Sand Talk has given all of us the opportunity to practice this virtue of intellectual and moral openness. Please join me in acknowledging and thanking Sharif and Rhonda. And now I come Finally, but not least, to the remarkable Raffa and Rene Ansari. Raffa is still here, I hope. Where is he? Has he left? Good. We can talk about him while he is not here. What to say in praise of these lovely people that has not already been said here in mic. The name Google will, uh, the name Google will tell you for a region of northern Indiana in southwest Michigan, centered on the city of South Bend in Indiana here in Michiana, Rafat and Zareen are well legendary for their civic leadership and service. If you think I'm exaggerating, I refer you to a local PBS documentary film, which aired last week and is still available for viewing entitled Legends of Michiana Rafat and Zareen Ansari Gifted Hands. I am not trying to embarrass for Fought and Zareen, but the film makes it quite clear that this couple, both physicians, he a prominent and deeply respected oncologist, and she mother of a child diagnosed with autism who left her practice to devote her time and expertise to establishing the Sonya Ona Center for Al Autism here in South Bend are more than worthy subjects for an hour long account of their extraordinary contribution to the health, wellbeing, and education of our local community and indeed of the world. May I confess that while the entire documentary is fascinating and inspiring, some of us in this room especially enjoyed and host repeated screenings of the significant part of the film devoted to the origins and mission of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with religion. It makes clear that rafat and re understand the simple but profound truth that the wisdom necessary to repair and heal the world is found not in any one religious or secular way of knowing alone, but in many, and that responsible and responsive citizens of the planet do well to explore and become spiritually enriched by all of the sources of truth and imitation. Who am I to say this? But we are very proud and honored to be friends of the Ansari family and to have their support for this ongoing adventure and exploring dimensions of religion and spirituality. Thanks to all of you for being here. Have a good evening.