Hi everyone. I'm Josh, and this is The Emerald, Currants and Trends Through a Mythic Lens,

the podcast where we explore an ever-changing world and our lives in it through the lens of myth,

story, and imagination.

The Emerald.

All that's happening on this green jewel in space. Tyson Yonka-Porta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who's a member of the

Appalach clan in far north Queensland, Australia. He carves traditional tools and weapons,

and also works as a senior lecturer in indigenous knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne, where he lives. There are an

increasing number of books these days looking at how indigenous thought systems can be used for

things like planning long-term sustainability. Sometimes the incorporation of indigenous thought models can be

something that happens at a fairly surface level. As Tyson says, hold a sustainability conference,

open and close with a native performance, and check your box on the incorporating indigenous thought

systems category. But Tyson's book, Sand Talk, is completely different. It's about

looking deeply at the basic pattern that is nature itself and reflects through all of creation,

informing not just our understanding of natural systems, but also how we conduct ourselves

and how we communicate with one another.

Everything is creation, says Yonkaporta, and there are always patterns to perceive.

If wombats are on the move, the sap is running in the gum trees and it's time to cut bark.

If the tea trees are flowering, leachies and cherries will be available at the supermarket,

where Jingle Bell's Rock will be playing in an interminable loop. This pattern radiates out from a single point, a big bang of sorts,

an infinite source, into a honeycomb or sugar bag, as he calls it, of intricate relationships.

As he says, quote, it all comes out from that central

point of impact, that Big Bang expanding and contracting, breathing out and in, no start or finish,

...