Rock Star
Originally published in Medical Observer
Excerpt
THE purplish hues of Uluru blackened into shadow and the majestic mound was swallowed by night.
Not far away, we dined on white tablecloths, a bush tucker buffet under a coldly crisp and cloudless central desert sky.
Diamonds flickered above on inky velvet.
The sound of silence was interrupted by an astronomer recounting an ancestral Aboriginal story about a magical canoe that transports departed souls into the spirit world.
“It takes several days to travel along the big river in the sky to reach the spirit world which is beyond the horizon,” Associate Professor Emma Ryan-Weber explained. “When the spirit passes into the netherworld, the canoe must be returned to the earth. It’s returned by being transformed into a shooting star and, when the tribe see that, they know that their loved one has been taken into the spirit world.”
…