006 | The Smoke

A lesson from the oldest living culture.

The night was still and eerily quiet. My head throbbed, grappling with the trough that inevitably followed the adrenaline spike that had kicked off early that morning; my breakfast of eggs & lettuce left uneaten on the dining room table.

I struggled to keep the fire alight as I fought with an unfortunate combination of shitty wood, weird smelling fire starters & a sore lack of kindling. The fire coughed and spluttered for a time before eventually being content to smoulder slowly, releasing intricate wisps of smoke up into the winter air, growing ever thicker as the night wore on.

The outside downlight illuminated the ever-changing patterns as the wisps curled and turned on themselves. We sat, beers in hand, entranced by the smoke show. It wasn’t til hours later that I realised I’d left the back door open, the house thick and choked with smoke. ‘How is the smoke alarm not going off?’ I wondered quietly to myself

As we opened all the doors and windows to let the smoke slowly creep out, I couldn’t help but feel as though it was taking something with it; some heavy darkness being sucked out.

—

Smoke has been used by people across the world, for a range of rituals, over thousands of years. Arguably some of the strongest connections to smoke come from cultures that have thrived on this continent where I live; and in the places that have shaped the person I am today.

After following the often awkward Anglo-saxon rituals around death, my family and I decided to embrace an important ritual integrated into the oldest living culture in the world: the smoking ceremony. After asking a friend and local Bundjalung knowledge holder if he would be open to holding this type of ritual for us, he kindly agreed, before explaining that these types of rituals were a gift graciously offered to us whitefellas; one of the bridges that would allow us to cross the river of wrongs in our collective past. It’s up to whitefellas whether to accept this gift, he pointed out.

After burying my father in a cemetery located on a vast, old sand dune we carefully chose a place sacred enough to hold the ceremony. I picked up my friend from his house in the neighbouring town on a beautiful, sunny winter morning. On the drive down to the coast, he told me we needed to keep an eye out for some eucalypt leaves. Ten minutes later I veered off the coast road as we spotted three perfect tree.

"You gotta use this type of leaf, they make white smoke. And it doesn't sting your eyes either." he said.

After parking the car, we walked into the special spot to a chorus of morning birdsong. Honeyeaters and robins darted across the path in front of us playfully, blissfully unaware of the purpose of our visit. As we caught our first glimpses of the ocean, a humpback whale breached – disturbing the unbroken line between sea and sky on the horizon.

We took our place in a circle around the unlit fire. He explained the importance of the ceremony to all of us, and the way in which it connects the past to our present. We were encouraged to commit only happy and positive memories to the smoke.

The paperbark kindling burned quickly, and as the heat of the small flames reached their zenith he carefully placed the eucalypt leaves over the top, smothering the small fire. The fire appeared extinguished. Yet slowly small wisps of white smoke began to seep out, slowly dancing around us in the coastal breeze.

In a simple twist of fate, the beach remained empty for the entire ceremony. As the fire puffed the last tufts of smoke and extinguished itself, people seemed to suddenly reappear. We’d been gifted some sacred time alone together in this place; amongst the smoke and away from the noise.