.
As we approached, the sandridges keep separating from the horizon in mirages. As we draw nearer they seemingly float upwards, smearing into the emptiness of the sky. Finally they settle and enlarge. One minute everything is magnified and distorted then suddenly a change - bleak and grim, they stand stark against the blue sky.
A circle of fire stones uncovered by the wind and rain a circle of stones lay bare. What feasts had been set and consumed by the departed race of men among this ring of broken blackened stones? Now only the shadow of their ritual remains. I touch the stones gently, feeling the pulse of life beneath my fingers. The fire place still holds its purpose like a secret. It still holds the aura of the past. I close my eyes, allowing sounds and movement to encroach. My thoughts enter past lives present in actuality.
The smell of roasting meat, the crackle of flames, shadows dance and play. The wind smacks the embers and the rising smoke is whisked around in abrupt crazy patterns. I feel the beat of singing, the pulse of the land, I see the glowing faces in the firelight, painted. Eyes slanted, high foreheads, relatively tall upright, slim in build, these a beautiful people. Where had they come from? Did they move across the land mass of Asia and thence into Australia? How many years did it take them, one hundred, five hundred a thousand? I gently remove my fingers and feel saddened. Crouched over the stones, I feel the shock and the after shock of the touch and my thoughts.
Looking towards the dried lake bed, I recall the landscape before the sheep had eaten the place down to the roots and trampled the fragile humus. Before the sands blew in. Like everyone with a need, a craving, a determined drive, the motivation to strip until nothing worth taking is left is a part of man's nature. I understand it, it is the tale of the opportunist. So much lost, forever shattered, desecrated, traded, pillaged, destroyed by ourselves. Yet, I also feel the tug of renewal, the altered landscape is still filled with unformed desire. Now, slowly the land begins to regenerate to become like it was before, before there were sheep or white men in this the spirit country.
