Dadirri

My girlfriend and I were caught between the closing doors at the start of COVID, and spent three years in Australia. These were beautiful years for us, full of growth and breakthrough, but they did separate us from our spiritual teacher in Mexico. At the start of 2023, we went back to Mexico, and immediately sat a retreat with our teacher. My girlfriend and I, speaking after the retreat, realised that both of us, on the first day, had felt the same feeling of warm relief, like a giant sigh washing through our bodies. It was a feeling of homecoming, a feeling like putting down a heavy weight. It was the realisation that “This, what I have right here, is what really matters to me.” It was like breathing in deeply after spending three years holding our breath. It was like getting a massage, and suddenly finding ourselves free of a pain we had not even realised we were suffering.

Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, an elder of the Ngangikurungkurr people in the Northern Territory, calls this knowing-feeling ‘Dadirri’. She says Dadirri is “inner, deep listening, and quiet, still awareness… Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us… When I experience Dadirri, I am made whole again. I can sit on the riverbank or walk through the trees; even if someone close to me has passed away, I can find my peace in this silent awareness. There is no need of words. A big part of Dadirri is listening… My people are not threatened by silence. They are completely at home in it. They have lived for thousands of years with Nature’s quietness. My people today recognise and experience in this quietness the great Life-Giving Spirit, the Father of us all. It is easy for me to experience God’s presence. When I am out hunting, when I am in the bush, among the trees, on a hill or by a billabong: these are the times when I can simply be in God’s presence. My people have been so aware of Nature. It is natural that we will feel close to the Creator… Our Aboriginal culture has taught us to be still and to wait. We do not try to hurry things up. We let them follow their natural course, like the seasons. We watch the moon in each of its phases. We wait for the rain to fill our rivers and water the thirsty earth. When twilight comes, we prepare for the night. At dawn we rise with the sun. We watch the bush foods and wait for them to ripen before we gather them. We wait for our young people as they grow, stage by stage, through their initiation ceremonies. When a relation dies, we wait a long time with the sorrow. We own our grief and allow it to heal slowly. We don’t like to hurry. There is nothing more important than what we are attending to. There is nothing more urgent that we must hurry away for. We wait on God, too. His time is the right time. We wait for him to make his Word clear to us. We don’t worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of Dadirri, His way will be clear.”

Robert Johnson, a Jungian analyst from Oregon, said that the purpose of adolescence, a time when the soul comes close the surface, was to furnish us with our own experience of Dadirri. We are meant, in our youth, to have a vivid experience of meaning, a definitive moment of orientation towards ourselves. This moment - and the certainty it engenders - is what sustains us as we set out into adult life. A sense of meaning is like an oxygen tank that allows us to dive deep into the waters of the world. The more deeply we dive into life, the more deeply we are challenged and changed. Those of us who have known Dadirri have a North Star, and this sense of direction allows us to be safely spun around in the world’s whirligigs. Without dadirri, we lose our bearings, we get sick, we are overwhelmed and lost. Dadirri gives us the faith to dive into the choppy waters, and seek the stillness of the depths. Without it, we thrash about on the surface, trying to keep our chin above water, and anything we do, no matter how impressive, bears always the signature of desperation. With Dadirri, we live in a straight line. We dive deeper and deeper into things: we become masters, and make deeper and deeper changes to the world around us. We find the strength to confront ourselves with challenge, because we know the secret of rest. At any moment, we can swim out of the churning waters, and lie for a while in a hammock on our own island, drink a coconut, nourish ourselves, and rest in the sun. Hermann Hesse said, “Within you, there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” That is Dadirri. It is a sine qua non of a rich and powerful life.

The world now, perhaps more than ever, needs its Dadirri. On Saturday, the probable next leader of the free world came within an inch of being assassinated. America and the West have become a broiling pot of angst, and the evasiveness and inhumanity that angst breeds. COVID was, for many of us, a rude awakening to the fact that we could perhaps not trust the people we had elected, and the institutions we had built, to serve us. The world of politics seems to be beset by dry-rot, and everything stinks of decay. Debate has become desperate. The media is probably lying. People feel deceived and vulnerable. The desperation is sizzling.

I, personally, am going through a little time of my own chaos. I am in the early stages of marketing a novel I wrote, spending time every day learning the ins and outs of advertising a book. Every day I make mistakes, every day I hurry down some new dead-end; I often doubt myself. The uncertainty in me seems to magnify my perception of the world’s uncertainty. From time to time I feel hemmed in.

But I have Dadirri. I have a way out, which is really a way in. I have a decade of meditation behind me; on my altar at home I have a photo of my teacher, to remind me of what matters to me. I also have a photo of Ramana Maharshi, whose eyes spell Dadirri. I have books by Eckhart Tolle and Prem Baba. I have nature, I have the sea. I have learned many paths to the sanctuary within me, and I am confident of finding it when I need. That confidence gives me the strength to continue, to take chances, to sink deeper and deeper into the life I am meant to lead. That confidence gives me the strength to be me, as well as the strength to look at other people, and really see. It is a strength we all need - the world now, more than anything, needs its Dadirri.

Hand of Comfort,
Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann
Dadirri - Miriam Rose Foundation