Journey Sticks

      In many ancient cultures (e.g. Australian aborigines) recording an event takes place in several different ways such as songs and stories, dance, drawings or tokens. In many countries people have developed the idea of creating a journey stick to help them tell the story of their journey to others. It involves tying objects and colors to a stick that represent different experiences, feelings or parts of the journey.

When Australian Aboriginals went on their journeys they collected things and tied them to a stick in chronological order. After a long time they finally returned to their people. Referring to the objects attached to their stick, they were able to remember their journey and recount the stories. This formed a verbal map which described the journey to someone who wasn’t there. It was a very personal way of recording their journey and unlike a map, there was no right or wrong way.

Throughout the week we have been out on our Nature Trail collecting "small" items from Posts 1-6. At each sight we also recorded things that we could hear, smell, feel, and see. Documenting these things was important so that today in the Art Studio we could create our own Journey Sticks. It was a little tricky wrapping string and tying on our objects, but we worked together to figure it out. We even chose the yarn color to represent something we smelled, saw, touched, or heard on that part of the trail. The Journey Sticks look like a very organic form of collage or mural. Of course the trail has 12 posts so we are only half way done. We'll finish up next week and do some writing to accompany them. What do you think so far?