Overhead the kalbun sings the song of the rainforest. Borrowing birdsong and melodies. Singing a song not its own, a mimic, an ever-changing soundtrack to the scenery below.
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The mountain has three names. Dumburrin. Jambreen. Wongelpong. All are Tamborine. The mountain is viewed by some from the north, by some from the south and by others from the west. Wonglepong stands for ‘hearing wrong way’, echo in English. Jambreen is Finger Lime. Dumburrin yam in hill. Dumburrin is now known as Tamborine.
Your name for it, your name for anything, depends on your perspective. Your name for the mountain depends on your nation. Your name for our nation depends on your history.
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A journey to Tamborine Mountain brings views of distant beaches and open heavens. There are few things more beautiful than a beach viewed from a mountaintop. Blue on blue. Cerulean sky meets indigo ocean. Air meets crystal. Every hue, every nuance. Tamborine is pristine and elevated above the polluted and commercial city below. It is sanctified and set apart.
A rainforest in the sky.
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When entering a rainforest, a calming energy envelopes you. It is an exercise in mindfulness; it takes you out of place and out of time.
A cocoon of old growth green trees emits a frequency of tranquillity that speaks deeply into the human soul. It is an experience that transcends the minutia of human existence.
Amongst its growth, it is difficult not to recognise the brevity of human life and its frailty amongst the established root structures of the strangler fig.
Ten seconds feel like a minute, a minute feels like ten, an hour feels like a weekend away.
Perspectives are different here. We are here on earth for but a moment. In a rainforest, we travel not by distance but by time. The rainforest remains the same. It is both the past and the present. Rainforests are primordial; they take us back to how time began. If we permit it to remain, the rainforest will be here long after we are gone. Perhaps it will play an eternal love song.
How does a rainforest measure time? Rainforest time is measured in millennia. A 1000-year-old strangler fig sits quietly and patiently, roots finding its path long ago into the deep red earth, waiting patiently for a shooting star or an aurora.
The aesthetics are those for which the human eye was designed. An Eden of sorts. A fig tree without fig leaves. Dreamtime or genesis. A place to visit, but not to stay. No inhabitants, only visitors. Here since time began.
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There is a shade of green that can only be seen in a rainforest. Every other hue of green is a poor relation to the jewel tones of green seen in old growth trees. A palette of emerald shrubs and trees are arranged as if planted to a design that is most pleasing to the eye.
Like a composer would arrange a symphony, the rainforest is major and minor notes, violins and harps. The musical manuscript subtle shades of green. The shimmer of tambourine, from a lyre bird high in the trees, a high note in the deep undergrowth. A piano concerto of minor notes cascades over rocks. Less blessed mossy rocks, untouched by the melodic rushing water, line the stream underneath the canopy of trees. A goanna rests languidly near the edge of a crystalline pool. Ancient figs and wheels of fire create a thick and untouched canopy.
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The sublime beauty offers a rarely seen gift to each one of the senses. Damp and dewy, the air is heavy with moisture and easy to breathe. Freshness and new growth. Lush trees and old growth. Waterfalls and exotic birds. Dappled sunlight sits high in the trees, not able to reach the lush undergrowth below.
When nature inspires awe, it makes us mindful that there is a world far greater than ourselves. It puts life in perspective.
Its atmosphere begins to dissolve a superficial exterior and the things that we bring with us from the world outside the rainforest. The lens we wear from human interaction lifts.
It is here that we connect to the ancient part of our spirit. It can provide solace and awaken those fortunate enough to enter its space.
Untouched by opinion, by objection and by the things that drive us. We are the self we were intended to be. Are we the complete version of ourselves in beneath the canopy of earthly energy?
Deep breaths and contemplation. We inhale its life force and exhale the vagaries and complexities of life outside its cocoon. In the rainforest, we see the earth as a living entity. We feel her embrace. We share in her meditation.
The rainforest has a pulse. A vibrancy and energy that is immersive, akin to the stillness of being in the inky depths of the sea. Oxygen dense air lights up the senses.
There is a hushed calm. It induces a kind of subtle sensory overload that cannot leave the human spirit unaffected. Perhaps it is this state of mind that is our truest state of being.
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Tamborine dreaming. Abigail Chaloupka stands on a cylindrical artwork she has painted on the ground of Dumburrin and its companion mountains.
She speaks in poetry:
This is medicine country. Where the fresh water meets the salt water. Land of plenty plenty. The mountain itself is a sacred site. The nation passed through but did not live here. Rainforest is a place of medicine#.
Even though I don’t ask, she says won’t share the secret stories. The sacred stories. They are not her story to tell, nor ours to receive. It is an ancient pharmacy of medicine and spiritual gatherings. It remains a virgin rainforest, untouched. A place to visit but not to stay.
This is not her nation; she is from another nation far away. Northern Australia. This is Wangerriburra nation. Yugambeh language is spoken here. Abigail shares the stories that can be shared. Precious mysteries of the land will stay with their people.
Dumburrin is sacred. It is owned, yet there is no native title.
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What was the song of the Dreamtime? Did the ancient ancestors sing the rainforest into existence?
The earth gave birth to the sun. Terrestrial, aquatic and aerial. Aurora is bushfire in the spirit world. Ancestors birthed from the land itself. And their spirits became sacred places.
Enmity and conflict. Goannas and snakes warring with birds and flying foxes. And the dry red earth became a swamp.
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The soundtrack of a rainforest is a score of movement, interludes with accents of birdsong. Birds frolic high in the treetops, a whimsical reminder that rainforests are a living ecosystem. We can feel its rhythms and its harmonies – perhaps it is a kind of chrysalis, transformative and renewing.
On each visit, it plays us a different song. The accompanying instruments may vary hour to hour, day to day and in the nocturnal hours. The song of the rainforest has not altered much in millions of years. If a note has been lost, if there is a forgotten melody, it is now only remembered by inhabitants of long ago. The soundtrack to the midnight hours is a secret that the rainforest harbours, a secret song she plays for her delight.
A solitary walk in the rainforest. Thoughts. Solitude. Free of human conversation. Human intervention. Human interpretation. Some emotions are nameless. Some emotions can’t be communicated. Sometimes there is no word for how a place can make you feel.
‘We don’t own the land; the land owns us’.
Gumera Wahlu
Love you, thank you for respecting the country.
END
- English Translation: Galbun: Lyre Bird Yugambeh language
- # Credit: Tambourine Dreaming Abigail Chaloupka Notes
- English Translation: Gumera Wahlu: I love you Yugambeh language.
- Ms Chaloupka owns an Indigenous Art Gallery on Mount Tamborine.
