Ubuntu Contributionism in Australia

While on the east coast of Australia, in the Byron Bay area, I had a chance to visit with my new friend Liam, who ran for state senate in his district under the Ubuntu banner. We were able to spend parts of 4 days together! We swam in a river, went to a film festival with several of his friends, volunteered at an organic farm community, and met with an activist attorney who is working with him to start an Ubuntu community on indigenous land, with mostly indigenous people, at least to start.

His necklace in this photo is a puma tooth he got several years ago in Peru, where he had a life-altering experience assisted by a shaman. Ever since, he is very aware of the oneness of All That Is, and also when his ego is kicking in to block that awareness.

Liam feels that the One Small Town concept (see www.onesmalltown.org) will not work in Australia, and so he is taking a more grassroots approach. He participates in a small organic farming community and enters into discussions with whoever he can engage in the idea of Ubuntu Contributionism. He even recently started a conversation with the mayor of Brunswick Heads, one of the two towns in which we met.

Right next to another of the two towns, Mullumbimby, is an odd-shaped mountain peak. As soon as I saw it I thought there must be a pyramid buried under there. And the local indigenous people say there is. And there is another one very similar in size and shape a few miles away. Halfway between them, according to one of Liam's friends, is an ancient stone circle with a giant egg-shaped stone in the center. This stone circle is apparently at a leyline intersection, and is said by the indigenous people to be a mother portal.

On my way to South Africa, I took a long enough layover in Perth to briefly visit with the head of the Ubuntu movement in Australia, Branwen Morgan. We had a great conversation and it will be easier to continue the dialogue now that we have met in person. She is interested in having periodic online meetings with any Ubuntu people from around the world as are also interested.

Branwen has gotten as many as 20 people coming to meetings in Perth (when she lived there, which was until recently) to find out more about Ubuntu Contributionism. She gave me several copies of the professionally printed tri-fold brochures she created to introduce people to Ubuntu.

Although they have been working towards organizing as a political party, she indicated that she and her core team of about 5 or 6 may consider organizing as a nonpartisan qualifier and endorser of independent or party-member candidates if they feel they would gain a wider audience thereby.

Despite Australia having a small population spread over a large area, there is a feeling that a core group is developing that can hold the space until such a time that everyone feels the need to move toward a world free of the scarcity principle inherent in any financial or barter/trade system.