24 July 2011

July 24, 2011 Nate and I celebrated by driving 10 minutes to Simpson's Gap. We would have gone somewhere further away, but we didn't have enough petrol and we didn't want to break the sabbath.
taking photos with us together is difficult. After about a million failed attempts this is what we ended up with.

An acquaintance compared the land in and around Alice Springs to a temple in it’s sacredness for the Arrente people, the traditional owners of the land. This friend, who is part aboriginal, talked about how the colonization of the land has been spiritually damaging to the people… my point… the reason I bring this up… Nate and I visit landmarks and I read plaques… I respect the area, but usually to me it is only a rock or a mountain or a spring… I don’t honor the area… It doesn’t register as sacred to me… to me it is just a place… but I feel differently about Simpson’s Gap. So far I haven’t read a plaque explaining the healing or sacred nature of the place… but I feel that it is a place of peace. Even though it is a very popular tourist stop, it still feels peaceful and undisturbed. I could sit in the sand and watch the ripples in the water all day.