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ASPLETT &
HEALING The Koori Mail (as well as a local paper) published the letter,
headed 'Regretting my lack of action: During the Olympics my children and I went to the city and caught the train from Central at about 5 pm. There was a Koori boy sitting on one side of the vestibule with a white man and two women opposite. Yeah, well we could call the police and then we could see what you have to say. I felt uncomfortable and couldn't work out what was going on. There was a bit more back and forward, then the boy got up and walked away, abusing them as he did. There was a lot of tut-tutting." Tutu's comment about the need for rehabilitation and reparations
programs in the South African context applies equally to the Australian
situation with regard to the removal of Aboriginal children: She decided to wear a silver-coloured mask, out of which she cut a mouthpiece, so she could eat and drink. Every day, for six months, she put on' a pretty silver face' .By wearing the mask, she felt that rather than being locked out, she'd chosen to keep separate. After six months, 'I just took my stuff and left one day, never to return!' Apologizing to whites at the Tent Embassy, was not the first time she had done such a thing. She has regularly lectured in schools and on one occasion, she looked at the group of students that she had been teaching at a North Sydney High School and felt she just had to apologize -for her own healing. 'If I can't heal myself, how can I work as a healer to others?' she asks rhetorically. The apology at the Sydney Tent Embassy was not planned; 'Isobell and I go back a long way and she asked me to speak a bit about my story , and the apology just happened, spontaneously' . Asplett explained to us that the healing weekends (she prefers that a person does three) have the theme of 'healing as the beginning of life', and they involve a range of experiences, including deep breathing exercises beneath 'The Spirit Tree', a special tree blessed by her spiritual guide, Aunty Jessie Williams from Nambucca Heads. There are short meditation times and group times to acknowledge and gently share the pain, reclaiming the stories of the past. As well as nutritious and well-presented meals, rest, campfires and companionship, the women are offered a range of facilitated activities including massage and reiki, bush-walking, drawing, discussions and reflections about Aboriginal Spirituality . Goslett's family story has always been that she too is of Aboriginal descent, through her paternal grandfather. Ironically, she understands Asplet's old rage as she has also been told that her grandfather, as he walked to work through Redfern, 'carried a stick to bash the boongs'. Was he bashing out, Goslett now wonders, at his own Aboriginality and his pain around that? I was indeed privileged to be at the meeting of these two women healers, one from an Aboriginal ritual and spiritual tradition, the other from a western tradition of counselling and psychotherapy. These days they are taking steps to combine their considerable skills to work together. A serendipitous moment has become an enterprising joint venture by two courageous and compassionate women committed to healing and reconciliation. |
When
Barbra Asplett was asked to speak by Isobell Coe at the Tent Embassy
in Sydney during the Olympic Games, she was introduced as a member
of the Stolen Generation. She stood before a very liberal and supportive
crowd and made an apology to white people because of the way she
had treated them; because of the way her anger with them had led
her to behave. In the audience that day was psychotherapist and
artist, Mary Goslett. While driving in Sydney with her daughters,
she had seen the Tent Embassy and had decided to stop by. She couldn't
quite believe her ears when she heard Asplet's apology; here was
an Aboriginal woman who had clearly been deeply wounded by government
policies around her separation from her family, and she was doing
the apologizing. At the same time, the Prime Minister, John Howard
was still categorically refusing to apologize on behalf of former
governments for the misguided and catastrophic policies that had
created so much trauma amongst Indigenous families across the length
and breadth of the country. Goslett, trained as a healer from a
western tradition, says she was moved to tears in witnessing Asplett's
courage. In Asplett, she saw a woman who had every right and reason
to be angry and vengeful, and yet had obviously achieved a lot of
personal healing and was coming from a place of responsibility ,
of owning her part in her own process. Goslett saw Barbra Asplet
as a person of integrity , capable of great personal awareness and
possessing a higher consciousness, and hastened to meet her . Asplett
had also been introduced by Coe as the Co-ordinator of an Aboriginal
Women' s Healing House, and Goslett believed that she would have
great skills, compassion and grace as an Aboriginal healer. She
introduced herself and her younger child to Asplet, telling her
how much she had been moved by the dignity and courage of her words,
felt Asplett's warmth and then took her leave from the Embassy,
greatly inspired.
Only
three weeks later, Goslett was travelling home from the city by
train with her girls and happened to see an Aboriginal boy being
harassed by a group of non-Aboriginal adults. Not wishing to make
a fuss, she said and did nothing. Getting off the train only one
station later, Goslett was already ashamed and mortified by her
inaction. Thinking of Asplett's courage deepened her distress. She
decided to write a letter of apology and sent it out to various
newspapers, including the Sydney Morning Herald, hoping it would
be published and seen somehow by the young boy, half-hoping at the
same time that it wouldn't be published, such was her shame at her
non-action. 
I
watched the opening ceremony that night, saw the final lap of women
around the track with the Torch, and Cathy Freeman light the cauldron.
I thought someone had really got it right, and was incredibly moved
that they'd chosen Cathy. 
The
South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission faced the same
difficulties. Chairperson Archbishop Tutu remarks: 
Having
survived removal as a child along with her siblings, from her Gamilaraav
mother at the Coonabarabran Mission and then , further separation
from her two brothers and three sisters, to a Children's Home in
Burwood, Sydney Asplet knows only too well the trauma involved.
She didn't see any of her siblings again until she was about 19.
She says that for years she absolutely hated whites: I used to insult
them and harass them. I was so rude. I blamed them for the terrible
pain I felt. I remember when I lived in Alice Springs about twenty
years ago, I was a radical black and I was so angry I couldn't get
on with anyone - whites or the local (Aboriginal) people. I worked
for a white woman boss there and she was appalling. By the time
I left though, Wenten Rubuntja (an Elder and esteemed Arrernte painter)
gave me a lovely farewell corroboree. 
Over
time, she says she got to understand and accept that 'it wasn't
the white people now who caused all the pain, but it was government
policies. 'And yet,' says Asplett, 'John Howard will not acknowledge
that. His lack of "Sorry" is still painful for a lot of Aboriginal
people. He just doesn't get it.' In her last public service position
as the State Policy Officer for the New South Wales Home Care Service
in Parramatta, Sydney, Asplett decided to take radical action about
her perception that she was locked out of the real decision making
loop and that, as in all her previous jobs, decisions about Aboriginal
people were not being made by Aboriginal people, nor were they being
made in consultation with Aboriginal people and, furthermore, they
were frequently not in the best interests of Aboriginal people.
Asplett
has made a Gunyah away from the houses down near the stream and
inside that space, she lights a healing fire for the women. When
the sun is setting, she suggests that the women put their pain into
a rock which she has asked each of them to bring along and then,
having placed the rocks in a bowl, Asplett scrubs them clean of
pain, after which, the women place the rocks with others along the
edge of the stream. Farewell rituals with herbs and candles ensure
that the women leave well-nurtured in mind, body and spirit and
with hope in their hearts. Asplett believes that hopefulness is
a really important emotion to capture, as it is hope that facilitates
the journey of healing. 