a nutshell: borne of a decade-long collaboration between five Yolŋu women and three non-Aboriginal women, this profound, intimate, beautiful book is an invitation to learn about milkarri – songspirals cried and keened by women

a line: “It is grief. It is pain. It is joy, love, healing. | It is songspirals.”

an image: for this particular book it’s a near-impossible task to choose just a single image; beauty suffuses every page, particularly as the women share how they walk in kinship with the land, noticing the birds, the dew, the warming sun, the cycles . . .

a thought: with their thousands of generations of knowledge, the women emphasise the need to respect wisdom and of how a wondrous mind learns so much more than a mind that is sick & narrow – living our responsibilities means opening ourselves up to being surprised & transformed and trying to do things that make a positive difference

a fact: Gay’wu Group of Women continually opened my eyes and broadened my understanding of their culture, but crucially they reminded me how much I (we) don’t know – their words are for reflection with regard to our own experiences

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