The
Buddha Barn
What once was a 19th century hay loft now holds some of the
tastiest gatherings a home concert series can have. From Buddhist
Rinpoches to Native American elders, to jazz bands and costume
parties, yoga sessions to conscious conversations, we proudly host
a number of events geared towards enlightened entertainment for our
awakening community.
This is a tiny home concert venue that presents only a few times a
year, but if you made our list we hope to see you!
Reservations only so please contact us here if interested in this
event
discoverbluestar@comcast.net
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Bob Randall to host screening of
'Kanyini' in North Madison
Buddha Barn
(this article originally published in the Day written by KYLE
CHEROMCHA)
After spending much of his life trying to improve the treatment of
Australia's indigenous populations by mainstream society - at best
incompetent and at worst barbaric - you'd think Bob Randall would
be a broken man, embittered from years of struggle and
disappointment.
But the aboriginal elder, who over time emerged as a de facto
spokesman for indigenous rights around the world, maintains the
same attitude he's held since day one, shaped by the beliefs his
ancestors have passed down for thousands of years: With mutual
understanding, it is possible for two disparate cultures to live in
harmony.
"We're all responsible for each other's welfare, that's really what
it is," Randall said. "We can respect the differences as well as
the commonalities between us, but the desire to do so must be
there."
Through lectures, books and songs, Randall has worked to spread
that ideology, known in his language simply as "Kanyini." Since the
1950s, he's also started a multitude of community organizations and
humanitarian projects for aboriginals across Australia.
Randall, who is in the area visiting his wife's family for the
summer, will host a screening of "Kanyini," a recent documentary
about his teachings, and a question-and-answer session at 3 p.m. Sunday October 3 at Blue Star
Studios in Madison CT
That Randall has managed to stay connected with his heritage is
something of a miracle. Born to a Scottish rancher and an
aboriginal mother sometime in the late 1920s, he is a member of the
so-called Stolen Generations, a term used to describe the thousands
of aboriginal and half-caste children forcibly taken from their
families by the government and placed into institutions and
orphanages. Although its ultimate goal was assimilation, the exact
reasoning behind the practice, which lasted from the mid-19th
century until the 1960s in some places, is still debated in
Australia today.
Up until he was taken at age 7, Randall lived the traditional
aboriginal lifestyle and spoke no English. After being removed from
his family and relocated to the Croker Island Reservation on
Australia's northern coast, run by the Methodist Church, he was
assigned an official birth date and forbidden to speak his native
language or maintain any cultural traditions.
"It was hard to learn English," he said. "They wanted us to be
white, but we weren't. We couldn't be."
Although his tough upbringing on the reservation provided him with
a quality education, it left him unprepared to understand and deal
with white society and government upon his release in the late
1950s. He moved to the nearby city of Darwin, and ultimately it was
his struggle to navigate the modern world that inspired him to
start working to improve the lives of aboriginals everywhere.
"We had to adjust to urban living, which involved making our own
decisions about everything, but we had no one to help us do that,"
he said. "The government just sort of dumped us into the world and
said you're not in our care anymore, so I took it on to look after
everyone that was coming in the best I could."
To do so, Randall started numerous community organizations in
Darwin, including the Aboriginal Development foundation and a
boxing club, a sport he said gave him an outlet for all his anger
at the system as a teenager. He also traveled around the country
and started indigenous centers at the Australian National
University, the University of Canberra and the University of
Wollongong, hoping to encourage aboriginals to pursue higher
education to give them a chance to begin managing their own
affairs.
"In my area, there are between two and five white people looking
after every one aboriginal, and it's just to create jobs for
themselves because so many of these public servants have nothing to
do," he said. "The result is that there are a lot of people looking
after us. But what we need is none of them and all of us, while
maintaining the same resources that are paid to the whites; those
need to be given to the blacks, and that never happens."
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Song
changes history
Randall's talents extend beyond community organizer. In the late
1960s he was sitting on a plane when his mother appeared to him in
a vision and gave him the inspiration for a song about the
government policy of taking children. The result was "My Brown Skin
Baby, They Take 'Im Away," a haunting song that became the basis of
a documentary, the publicity from which forced the Australian
government to officially ban the practice in 1973.
For Randall, who learned how to play guitar by listening to old
Hank Snow records on a windup gramophone on the reservation, the
song will never lose its importance.
"The song made the film, the film went 'round the world and the
world stopped to look," he said. "It changed the history of
Australia; isn't it amazing how a song can do that?"
The song describes a child being taken from his family, but when
the boy grows up and returns to his traditional land to look for
his mother, he discovers that she is dead. It mirrors Randall's own
experience - upon returning to his family's traditional land for
the first time, 20 years later, only his grandfather and one uncle
were alive. He says he is incredibly thankful that there was still
someone alive, not only to show him around his land, but to
validate his existence as a part of that culture.
Twenty years ago, after writing a few books on his life and the
teachings of the aboriginal culture, Randall returned to his
people's land once more, this time for good. He lives in a small
trailer in the shadow of Uluru, the well-known giant sandstone
mound in the middle of the desert, in a small aboriginal community
known as Mutitjulu. Many of its 150 residents live in abject
poverty with little education. |
An absence of
justice
On the other side of the rock, thousands of tourists stream into
the national park and accompanying resort complex every day.
Although the government formally handed back the land, including
Uluru, to the Yankunytjatjara Nation in 1985, the fine print of the
agreement leases the land back to the government for the next 99
years. The government collects all the admission revenue from the
park, and while donation slips to help the aboriginals are placed
in all the hotel rooms in the resort, the people of Mutitjulu, many
of whom cannot speak English, must fill out a submission form to
receive any of the money.
"The perception is that these people are being taken care of, but
the reality is that they have no access to this money," said
Barbara Schacht, Randall's wife. "Nobody has any idea that justice
has totally eluded these people."
Schacht, a local woman whose grandmother helped found the Waterford
Country School, met Randall in 2008 while visiting her daughter who
had moved to Australia. She lives with him in Mutitjulu and
compared mainstream society to a toddler in its capacity to
understand and learn from aboriginal culture.
"We're not talking about everybody getting naked again and going
backwards," she said. "We're talking about utilizing technology to
help people while remembering an attitude of mutual respect and
caring for all life; that's what indigenous cultures bring to our
world, that's what we've forgotten."
In other words, Kanyini. In 2006, Randall's teachings on that
philosophy became the subject of a documentary by the same name
that went on to win several film festival awards. He has a small
piece of advice to help people start incorporating it into their
daily lives: "Just say hello to every person you meet and listen to
them. If we do, it would make an enormous difference in the
world."
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Waka
Tanga
Leading off the afternoon there will be a musical offering by
a local eclectic band of musicians. Waka Tanga is composed of Ray
Johnson key board, Colin Benn on viola, Katherine Blossum Celtic
Harp, Pete Onofrio Didgeridoo and John Boiano percussion.
Waka Tanga
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