Good day wonderful people of Hive today I wanted to open up a community engagement post and talk about culture. Hive is a broad church so to speak and from many lands we are all from and that means different and similar cultural traditions.
In Australia currently it is NAIDOC Week where we celebrate our Indigenous history and culture with smoking ceremonies warding off evil spirits with the use of gum leaves.
Traditional dancing in native language that has begun to be brought back to life after almost extinction. An interesting topic was raised today that there aren't many Indigenous communities left that have English as a second language they all mainly speak English and are more likely to speak another foreign language as a second language other than an Indigenous one.
We also heard from elders as they shared their stories with us and welcomed us to country which is always a wonderful experience one I would recommend for anyone visiting Australia.
This years event was quite large with a few hundred people in attendance to share in rich culture and inclusion, story telling, dance and traditions. A vast increase beyond previous years events which shows a growing acceptance and want to learn about Indigenous culture and traditions.
My wife was also on a panel talking about Indigenous birthing experiences for the Royal Aust & NZ College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists RANZCOG which focused on barriers and teaching people traditions so they can approach their work more confidently with Indigenous peoples as quite often we don't identify as we don't feel safe in some settings due to past circumstances and the inter generational trauma.
Overall the events are always a bright and uplifting day.
Also on this week was the Rath Yarta which marks the nine-day sojourn of Lord Jagannath and his siblings at the Gundichha Temple and Australia has had an increasing population of residents moving to Australia from the Sub Continent and with that comes strong cultural ties and festivals.
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It was great to learn something new and be welcomed along by another community and share in such an important cultural and spiritual event. While my wife was invited to participate and even gave a speech myself and our kids also attended and had a wonderful time.
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One of my favourite things in life is learning and when you can combine that with learning about others it is a beautiful experience and participating in such events is really warming.
I wanted to establish a thread of sharing your cultural significant events or festivals as summer and winter seem to be the times when people come together to practice them.
It is also the time we teach them to the younger generations and as Hive is such a culturally rich community I wanted to learn more from you. So feel free to comment or maybe even write a post about one of your favourite cultural events and lets keep culture alive on Hive!
Have a wonderful day everyone!