By Samantha Wortelhock
Original Painting and Limited Edition Giclee Print Size: 700 x 1400mm

Oversoul

Perpendicular to the great Southern Cross
Runs the second cosmic Wardaman songline
It speaks of simultaneous time and space
It is transformation, manifestation, life force
It is Earth, Cosmos all spacial matter and paintings on an ancient rock face.
It is our spiritual connection
With All that ever was and Is and will be
It is what came out of the Universe
In a massive ejaculation of stars
And represented here is just one stellar child
Shining in the constellation Hyades
She is Earth Mother
DungDung
Froglady
Frog
Rock Painting and all of the Above
She is also black space ancestor
Sitting beside our great Southern Cross.
She is here and there all at once
And she represents cycles of earthly creation
Spawning transformative stellar dust seeds.
Repeating a sacred perpetual pattern.
She was wife of the Great Spirit Rainbow
And now she is to Nardi betrothed.
Nardi is black space ancestor Skyboss
Co-creator with his one great love
Forever beside her
And within us And around us
Casting their shadows in the great Southern Cross.

The Story Behind The Painting
This painting appears in the book Dark Sparklers by Bill Harney, an Aboriginal elder of the Wardaman clan from Katherine in Australia's Northern Territory. The songline which crosses perpendicular at the Southern Cross is a story of the Great Cosmic Mystery for Bill Harney's people. In this painting the Great Cosmic Being 'Earthmother' is the Spiritual prescence in the constellation Hyaedes.

Transformation is a key subject because Earth Mother or DungDung can appear in many places at once and in many manifestatoins. At the top of the painting she is the black nebula clearly seen next to the Southern Cross. Her head is in spirit form as a part of the sky and her body appears as a rock painting and as a frog beneath the water. Transformation is key here as black headed python also metamorphosises from snake, to rock painting to his nebula running through the centre of the Milky Way.

The painting is an insight in to Bill's people's cosmic and world views and how everything is connected and everything is sacred. It speaks of how we are Nature and Nature is us and how we are intrinsically linked to the spawning of the Universe. The Great Mystery is within us and all around us.