The Aboriginal Dreamtime
The Aboriginal Dreamtime describes the time of Creation when the ancestral beings wandered the land, creating rivers, mountains, trees, the animals and the human beings, before the returned to the sky or remained on Earth in places that are now sacred sites to the australian Aborigines.
In the Botanic Garden in Sydney is a self-guided walk which tells you about the history of the Aborigines of the Sydney area. There you can read the following about the Dreamtime:In the beginning, long before there were any people,
plants or animals on this land, Baiame, the spirit of
our ancestral being, lived up in the sky.
He came down and formed and shaped the land.
He created the rivers, the mountains, the forests,
the mangroves, the creeks, the seashore, the cliffs and
other places of great significance and sacredness.
It is he who gave the people the laws of life,
their traditions, their dance, their art and their songs.
When the work of creation was completed, Baiame returned to the sky.
The people called him the “Sky Hero” or “All Father”.
Dreamtime (often called Dreaming or Dreamtimes) is eternal and is an awareness of all things. In Dreamtime past, present and future are one. The human beings, the animals and the land are one. All these things share the one spirit.
The Aborginal Dreamtime or Tjukurrpa also means to “see and understand the law”. It was handed down by the ancestral beings in the Dreamtime to the Aborigines who sing and dance, tell Dreamtime stories and express the Dreamtime in their paintings to maintain a link between the Dreamtime and the present and thereby passing on the law.
The Dreaming contains links to the mythology, the ceremonies and the sacred sites of the Aborigines. They live out the Dreaming by performing their ceremonies, visiting their sacred sites and telling the stories.
The Aboriginal people are connected with their land and the spirits living on that land. They are always in Dreamtime.