Proclaiming new worlds and new futures.

Picture 1. People tell me 'you've changed'. (n.d.)

The stories we tell ourselves are important. Like those of the first peoples of Australia, drinkers can get caught up in the victim narrative. Over on The Conversation, Carissa Lee Godwin discusses this issue. "It's easy to get swept up in a drinking culture. Every now and then we need a rope to pull us back to dry land. Hello Sunday Morning [HSM] is that rope" (Raine, C. 2010). This quote on HSM by Chris Raine proclaims why it exists. In effect the site was "written" into existence, like how the world of the Australian Aboriginal people was sung into being by the ancestors. Each time a user shares a new post, goal or picture, they add a new space for other users to inhabit by adding their words. This is much like the power that the Aboriginal people have over Country by singing it into existence mentioned by Chatwin (Chatin, 1987 p14).  

For months the team behind Hello Sunday Morning (HSM) have been working on a new geography to be discovered, Daybreak. In a post to address the questions and anxieties of the HSM community Chris Raine reminiscent of Moses on the mount has handed down portents of what Daybreak is. Whilst Raine brought the site into existence, like Moses, he is answerable to a higher power, that are government agencies, and to the community he speaks to. Some users fear change, but this could also mean "[a] change in the symbols [they] use to apprehend the world [will] change the world" (Kuttaninen, 2016). In other words, this new geography will mediate dialogue in a new therapeutic ways. Below, astronomer Wanda Diaz Merced lost her sight, which drove her colleagues and herself to find a new modality to convey language to continue her work. The loss of one ability or space can lead to new discoveries and new realms of power.

Chatwin, B. (1987). The Songlines: Australians aboriginies. Social life and customs. Jonathan Cape Ltd. London, UK.  

Diaz Merced, W. (July, 2016) Wanda Diaz Merced: How a blind astronomer found a way to hear the stars [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hY9QSdaReY 

Kuttainen, V. (August, 2016) BA1002 Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place: Stories of Place: Story Lines 

People tell me 'you've changed'. (n.d.). In Facebook [Word Porn]. Retrieved 26th August 2016 from https://www.facebook.com/thispageisaboutwords/photos/a.252010398268137.60553.252006304935213/875307019271802/?type=3&theater 

Raine, C. Retrieved from: https://www.hellosundaymorning.org/pages/what-is-HSM