A Mother's Self-Awareness & Daily-Life-Practice
- Didileia
- May 21
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 16
Walking in the Footsteps of My Ancestors; Honouring their Power and Love
A few years ago, I was very fortunate to stumble upon a 464-page thesis by my Papua New Guinean cousin, Salmah Eva-Lina Lawrence. She had submitted this thesis 'for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University' in 2017. It was serendipitous for me to have this document appear in my online research as I tried to learn more about my father's ancestry after I completed my year-long Dharma mentorship with Saraswati Miller in 2022. Salmah's thesis was titled:
"Speaking for Ourselves" Kwato Perspectives on Matriliny and Missionisation
In it, I have found vast treasures of family history, providing me with strong and healthy roots for the crafting and expression of my life. Combined with my own lived experience growing up in my father's birthplace and family environs in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, I have unquestionable power and love flowing through my veins. I am also deeply grateful for my Australian mother's self-trust and inner knowing to go to Kwato mission as an Australian Volunteer Abroad (AVA) as a bookkeeper-secretary in 1964 and bravely craft a life with my father for 22 years in Milne Bay Province. My father is one of 12 grandchildren of the cannibals spoken of in the excerpt below; from the Kwato Mission newsletter of October, 1939, by the English missionary's son, Russel Abel. Might I add with "silent fire" that my great-grandfather, Chief Bwagagaia (first picture in the photo gallery above), is reputed to have led his people to put down spears and learn new ways of surviving in their changing homeland. Chief B. (as he is affectionately known by his descendants), provided and persuaded other chiefs to provide tribal land for mission use, and permitted his two eldest sons to be trained on Kwato. He enabled the missionary, Charles Abel, to establish a mission on Kwato Island to support the vocational training of boatbuilders, teachers, doctors, nurses, diplomats, homemakers, musicians, Christian ministers, etcetera. Charles Abel had proved himself to be a kind, practical advocate for self-empowerment, being more of a humanitarian than a missionary. Kwato mission became a unique place for profound and swift transformation where the Abel family also learnt to speak the local language and make Milne Bay one of their homes. But there was an emotional-spiritual cost of handing over "power" that has not been spoken of through the generations. Salmah's thesis title resonates with me, 'Speaking for Ourselves'.
Bosilema, my paternal great-grandmother, left her changing "Christianised" homeland when her "sibasiba" or ancestral knowledge and wisdom of nature and its cycles and seasons was condemned as witchcraft. Salmah's thesis documents how Bosilema paddled her canoe a long distance across the open waters of Milne Bay and married and settled in a new place (Davadava, also mentioned in the excerpt). Bosilema's mother "Sialeubo", her grandmother "Didileia" (my namesake), and her great-grandmother "Sipiniei" had all traversed difficult terrain, travelling individually to settle in new homelands. Bosilema's step-sister "Wawaulo" is Salmah's great-grandmother.
I grew up experiencing both my mother's and my father's families as peaceful, skillful people who are unshakeable in their inner power and love. I honour my two cultures and ancestral lineages, especially at this "yin within yin time" of approaching New Moon in early winter here in West Gippsland in my husband's birthplace of Warragul. The period from late autumn to early winter harbours a vulnerable time in the Wise Earth Ayurveda calendar called "Yama Damstra" where the elements are transitioning strongly and the air element is particularly unsettled. We might understand that "the veil is thin" and so we are well-advised to "shore up" physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It is a good time for practising gentleness with our digestion, energy, mind, and heart and supporting healthy ground of body and being while honouring our ancestors.
Ignorance and superiority masquerading as saving souls
This is a direct excerpt from Russel Abel's, 'Leaves from My Diary' article in the Kwato Mission Tidings newsletter, Vol. XVI, October, 1939, No. 48 mentioned above:
'Cecil turned up in the "Eauedo" after lunch. I and some of the boys boarded the launch and joined him on a Saturday afternoon picnic across the Bay to Davadava. The gusty weather of yesterday has quite gone, it was cool but sunny, and delightful as only the fine spells that punctuate the Papuan rainy season can be. We fished and caught a couple of beauties. Business was mixed with pleasure and the objective that gave point to our trip was the inspection of some property on the way. Having done this, we landed up at the river-mouth where Andrew and Eabomai, old Kwato students, have a little school and center on a little neck of land that divides the sea from the river. Eabomai had refreshments ready for us in her little house which was spotless with fresh mats on the floor. We sat round on the floor and yarned, while she served tea, delicious baked godibu (a kind of native asparagus) and pawpaws. We enjoyed the fellowship with them. Eabomai is a real patirot who has done a lot for her country. She has been responsible for teaching scores of adults to read. Everwhere she has lived she has made it her duty to see that people could read their Suau Gospels. Papuan adults with their ossified brains are no joke to teach. But Eabomai has dogged perseverance, a quality Papuans are supposed to lack. There are many who have New Testaments today, and owe this great privilege to her patience. Added to this, she has run a little boarding school for quite ten years now. Some of her old pupils have married and built their homes at Davadava, where quite a flourishing little village has developed in the past few years. When I was inspecting village schools a few years ago, I was impressed with the amount of Scripture knowledge she had drummed into her pupils. Whatever else they did not know, and the standard attempted was not high, you could not floor them on Scripture, and they were able to quote it by the ream. On top of all this Eabomai has given eleven children to her country. The youngest is an infant in arms; the eldest a teacher in the Maivara school; the second a kindergarten teacher at Kwato; the third, a boy, is in the Kwato High School and is learning engineering. They are stepping along in the family tradition of service. The rest are littered all down the grades. Their parents have established a heritage for them to live up to. Their grandparents on both sides were cannibals.'
I note corrections to this article in that, for all intents and purposes, my grandparents had 12 children, having adopted my uncle "Palameni". Also, I know my family to have deep, all-round intelligence to learn new ways so quickly and have open hearts and higher minds to unify with their peers on a common goal of peaceful, skillful, self-sufficient unity. This must have required steadfast trust and self-belief. They were not victims; they were tribal leaders and individuals choosing a new way of being. I have also witnessed dugout canoes being hand cut out of a tree trunk, paddles carved out of wood, phenomenal seafaring skills, I have helped strip bark off tree trunks for bush string to be made, and thatch village hut roofs with folded sago palm leaves. Handmade mats and baskets were normal, shell necklaces used as currency, and so much more. 'perseverance [that Papuans are supposed to lack]'. Mmmm ... I am not sure how you can be so blind to such obvious perseverance, tenacity, and skill to live a life in harmony with nature. My Australian mother also recounted to me her witnessing of the healing power of plants and my Aunty Talita's knowledge to dress my elderly grandfather's severe leg burns when he rolled onto a fire in his sleep. Obviously, my grandmother Eabomai had passed on her mother's plant knowledge to her daughter. They had quietly chosen to harmonise and practise their Spirit-and-Nature traditions for essential well-being, without compromise. I am glad to have named my eldest daughter, Talita, after my aunt.
Speaking for Myself
As a woman, wife, and especially as a mother, I have in-born power and love to use the gift of my voice on purpose, for uplifting and empowering self and others as the leader of our own life. I feel and express my creative intelligence very deeply with joy and truth. My mother-heart is to do all I can to ensure that other parents and our children feel our personal embodied power and love, and recognise our choice to craft our life-experience with inner harmony, on purpose, naturally.
Being in our power means to establish deep self-knowledge and self-awareness and accept responsibility for our personal daily well-being; with what we choose for our inputs, digestion, and use of energy.
As I clarify my awareness of universal and natural laws, it is obvious that as we grow and mature as a human life-and-nature;
we are responsible for our own well-being;
we are responsible for how we use our own life-time;
we are responsible for how we treat other people;
we are responsible for how we treat our Earth.
Coming Back to Our Senses in Wholeness
It is simple to reconnect with our wholeness as a life-and-nature on Earth. We have only to check in with our five senses: hearing (space); touch (air); sight (fire); taste (water); smell (earth) and remember that the life-long instrument of our body is made from these five great elements. We have only to take a deep breath and in-spiration into the base of our lungs, exhale completely and breathe in again, or feel our pulse. We can trust our whole-body awareness and whole-body intelligence (much more than our mind - including the sharp, delicate instrument of our mind). We can keep distance with quiet awareness to notice our body's senses and feeling, and experience to clearly know what is good and not good for us personally.
Leading Our Life with Inner Power and Love
As we feel value and purpose for our own sacred nature and life-opportunity, we can support others in the very same self-awareness and self-leadership that we are cultivating. By tending to our own inner harmony of body, mind, and heart with our inner power and love, we will cultivate greater understanding and practical compassion for others within our family, extending to our human family.
As the wise gurus' say, "The only way out is in!".
We can move away from self-doubt, inner conflict, and seeking meaning and purpose towards feeling purpose and harmonising our body, mind, and heart. This is inner work! Only we can understand and feel the depths of our inner landscape. Only we can harness our inner resources and value what is within us to give. I am pleased to support you with this inner work.
