Image: Portrait of Jazz Money, University of Queensland.
Jazz Money is a Wiradjuri poet and artist producing works that encompass installation, digital, performance, film and print. Their writing and art has been presented, performed and published nationally and internationally, and their feature film WINHANGANHA (2023) was commissioned by the National Film and Sound Archive. Money’s first poetry collection, the best-selling how to make a basket (UQP, 2021) won the David Unaipon Award. Their second collection is mark the dawn, which was the recipient of the 2024 UQP Quentin Bryce Award.
‘Kin and clay … stories and spirit’
Andrew Collis
Ordinary Sunday 14, Year B
Psalm 48; Mark 6:1-13
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) says that a person is both spirit and matter, eternal and temporal, and that despair (Kierkegaard’s word for sin) consists in clinging to one or the other. I sin by thinking myself simply eternal (otherworldly, superior) or merely temporal (expendable, inferior).
In an oft-cited passage from a book called The Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard (Anti-Climacus) proffers a “formula for the state in which there is no despair at all: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it. This formula in turn … is the definition of faith.”
Faith means relating the eternal (spirit) to the temporal (matter), an ongoing process, learning and re-learning the art of living. Faith means becoming courageous, honest, open-hearted, patient … reclaiming life as adventure.
Faith promises meaningful life and abundant life, properly materialist (caring for the material world, for bodies in motion), richly spiritual (free to love, to give and receive love). And faith entails “discipleship”, that is, exorcising, understanding, truth-telling, working-through …
My love for Kierkegaard runs deep.
Discipleship, for me, however, has followed an Indigenous way.
When Garry (Worete Deverell) speaks of Christ as Country, I experience a deeper (social, ecological) understanding of faith, with love for First Nations visual artists: Rover Thomas, Rusty Peters, Roy Kennedy, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Vincent Namatjira, Konstantina … whose working-through bears witness … to prayer, ritual/ceremony, religious practice, culture, spirituality … humanity/animality resting in creativity/divinity.
Image: Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, ‘Thundi’, 2008.
Despite only painting for 10 years prior to her death in 2015, Kaiadilt woman Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori went on to find huge success almost immediately after she picked up a brush. Known for her kaleidoscopic colours and abstract shapes, Gabori’s warm works have found a place in many of Australia’s top galleries.
I could talk about these works of love all day (moved to speech and to silence – that I might learn to listen).
Discipleship, for me, has followed an Indigenous way … with love for Aboriginal songwriters and poets: Kev Carmody, Dan Sultan, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter; Evelyn Araluen, Jazz Money … whose working-through bears witness … to courage and honesty, communion and community … humanity/animality resting in creativity/divinity.
Ruby Hunter (1955-2010) was a Ngarrindjeri/Kukatha/Pitjantjatjara woman from South Australia. At the age of 8 she was taken from her family and placed in the Seaforth Children’s Home; she later lived with a foster family. At 16, she met her life partner Archie Roach at a Salvation Army drop-in centre.
Her songs explore the intersection of physical experiences and spiritual resilience, drawing on her own life journey and the broader history of her people.
One of her notable songs, “Down City Streets”, poignantly captures this interplay. The lyric speaks to her experiences of homelessness and marginalisation, yet also resonates with spiritual strength and connection to her roots: “Down city streets I would roam/ I had no bed, I had no home/ There was nothing that I owned/ Used my fingers as a comb …”
The song’s underlying message reflects her enduring connection to her cultural identity and the sustenance it provides – as well as empathy for others in distress, for others displaced or “put down”.
Image: Portrait of Ruby Hunter by Jacqueline Mitelman, 1996. Gelatin silver photograph on paper. Hunter released her first album, Thoughts Within, in 1994. She won Deadly Awards in 2000 for Female Artist of the Year, 2003 for Outstanding Contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music and 2004 for Excellence in Film and Theatrical Score. She made her acting debut with a key role in Rachel Perkins’ One Night the Moon (2001), starring Paul Kelly. In 2004 Hunter and Roach collaborated with Paul Grabowsky’s Australian Art Orchestra on Ruby’s Story, which told her life story through song and spoken word. The following year, Hunter was invited by Deborah Conway to take part in the Broad Festival project with Sara Storer, Katie Noonan and Clare Bowditch, performing their own and each other’s songs. She worked tirelessly to support and encourage young Aboriginal people, running an open house for teenagers. Hunter, who tragically died of a heart attack at 55, said her most proud achievement was keeping her family – Roach, their two children and three foster children – together as a stable unit.
Jesus calls disciples to travel lightly and to live simply – to discard weighty anguish, foolish ambition, gnostic wishes, fears of missing out, even worries over other people’s desiring and accumulating …
Shake off the dust from the soles of your feet is a call to dignity. It means do not dwell on opposition to peace, do not dwell on notions of peace unrelated to justice. Seek and go on seeking connection, understanding, wholeness, quality of life. Live an intentional life.
As you come and go, as you walk together, create space for appreciation and trust, for observing emotions, patterns. Become more attentive to the world around you, the people around you, the rocks, trees and animals. Become kinder. Rest in creativity. Rest in the power that brings together all that is useful and all that is good.
Thus, shake off the dust is a call to genuine encounter, face-to-face relations, which means facing responsibilities, weeping over injustice, staying with difficult/soulful conversations.
Queer First Nations poet Jazz Money, too, explores the interplay between spirit and matter, reflecting on themes of identity, belonging, and a deep connection to land and heritage (Wiradjuri and Irish). Their work delves into the spiritual aspects of Aboriginal culture and the tangible reality of living in a colonised land.
Money’s poetry invites us to reflect on our own connections to place, history, and the unseen forces that shape our lives. (The poet’s new book, mark the dawn, will be published this month.)
The poem, “as we please”, is a notable example of Money’s work that illustrates the theme of spirit and matter: “we are a product of old and new/ kin and clay/ saltwater and campfire/ resistance and pride/ stories and spirit …”
In this poem, Money intertwines elements of physical reality (“kin and clay”, “saltwater and campfire”) with intangible aspects of existence (“resistance and pride”, “stories and spirit”). This blending highlights the inseparable nature of the physical and spiritual in shaping identity and culture.
Perhaps for you, too, discipleship follows an Indigenous way … Thanks be to God for kin and clay, stories and spirit … First Nations painters and poets … teachers and keepers of culture … with grace that bids us come, listen, live. Amen.
