every australian needs to read this book

We like to think matter, creatures, weather and organic processes have no power over us. But if you walk deep into a wild Australian landscape, the glossy armour of your self-possession may begin to show a few cracks. Tim Winton

I used to say that I believed every Australian needed to travel outside of our country to truly appreciate how lucky we are here. But after reading Tim Winton's treasure trove of a memoir, Island Home, I've changed my mind.

I now believe that every Australian should travel within ​our country, to not only learn about it's exquisitely rare beauty but to touch it, to experience the 7.7 million square kilometres of this sixth largest country on the planet, to feel the beating pulse of its long history and to connect deeply with its soul. Why? ​Because we can. (But we don't - in fact, recent statistics reveal that the number of Australians travelling abroad now exceeds the number of visitors to our shores).

Tim Winton's memoir invites us into a world that most of us living in this country know absolutely nothing about. He draws us into a landscape that goes well beyond our comfortable urban dwellings, our sprawl of cities and the associated congestion that comes with them, and he lures us  deep into the spiritual depths of our country, provoking and arousing our curious mindsets.

​His method of describing the indigenous connection to the land, to each and every specie and living thing, the spiritual and sacred bond running rich in the veins of our original countrymen, it's haunting and exhilarating at the same time. 

​As I'm poring over the pages his words are invoking my own deep innermost connection with my consciousness, something I experience when deep in my yoga practice or daily meditations. And how foolish I feel to realise that all these years I had been living on the doorstep of such wonder and beauty, and how ignorant I have been to the gems that exist right here in my own backyard.

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