The Kukatja live closely and unselfconsciously in a natural environment, believing that the land does not belong to them but that they belong to the land. Monica Furlong stayed among the Aboriginal community of Wirrumanu at Balgo in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia, surrounded by the mesmerizing, timeless red sands.
For the Kukatja, the great red interior is like an open-air cathedral, full of a sense of sacreness. Monica Furlong explores the Aboriginals' feelings, hopes, fears and, especially, their spiritual beliefs - once scorned by Westerners, but now seen to be remarkable for their closeness to the natural world. For the author her time in the desert is also a personal quest. Affected as if by a drug by the vast, untouched inner spaces of Australia, she begins to rethink her attitudes to time and death and silence, to learn to "sit still" as the Aborigines do, without guilt or anxiety.
