The Destruction of the Djab Wurrung Birthing Trees – Victoria, Australia The School of Shamanic Womancraft Statement – September 21, 2019

Re : Proposed Western Highway work impacting the sacred Indigenous lands and Birthing Trees

The School of Shamanic Womancraft expresses our deep concern at the proposed Victorian Western High- way and its impact on the Birthing Trees and sacred lands of the Djab Wurrung peoples.

At the School, we honour these trees as the placeholders for the 800+ years of birth and death, where mothers and families have rejoiced and grieved on the sacred lands in this country.

The destruction of these sacred Birthing Trees is destroying life stories. These trees themselves have seen 50 generations of families and children. This removal is an extraction of a biosphere that has held these lands strong, witnessed countless flora and fauna on the earth and the indigenous peoples that were custodians.

We see a woven story here of not just a mother giving birth with these trees, yet a whole knit of woman and families that have sat in the sacred Djab Wurrung lands around the Birthing Trees. The land there is pregnant with life… How possibly can 50 generations and 800-year-old trees be taken away to save three minutes in traffic?

The School invites people to have their voice and also acknowledges the de-humanisation of the people involved with the works. By the workers not speaking their beliefs, it is further endorsing colonisation and carrying on the burden of shame. What other countries would honour such destruction of sacred and essential land?

Would people in 10 years driving on that highway know and understand the sacrifice of sacred land, will this all be forgotten? Will our children ever know these beautiful trees or what existed under that sealed tar?

We sit in gratitude for the people using their voices, speaking out with their grief and hope for the sacred Djab Wurrung lands, to those people who are holding their hope and their hearts right up to the moment when nothing can be changed, beyond redemption.

Imagine if we embraced the traditional and sacred indigenous culture and their connection to The Mother, Earth – it would completely change the face of life here in Australia and how we value such sacred lands.

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