20/08/2026
I have just come back to Australia after spending 3 weeks travelling in a van and hiking around Ireland and Scotland.
It was striking to say the least, and the places I saw and experiences I had filled my heart and took my breath away. But being there also had me thinking about belonging and what heritage really means to me, and how relevant that is when considering the brumbies, too.
I’ve always loved everything about Ireland and Celtic tradition. The music, the landscape, the dancing, the folklore and history. Since I was a little kid, I've been obsessed. I figure I lived there in a past life. And I have always had a great love and admiration for Scotland, too, with it’s remarkable mountains and breathtaking presence. Both are a part of my heritage (Irish on Mum's side, Scottish on Dad's) but visiting them made me realise that I didn’t necessarily feel a sense of cultural belonging. I didn't go there for that reason, not by any means. But I found it interesting none the less.
I felt so welcomed and felt connected to the stories and the people, and particularly when it came to the music in Ireland, I felt incredibly at home. But I didn’t quite feel like I was 'of' the people. Maybe that would be different if I moved there, or if I had been raised immersed in the culture and taught their traditions from childhood. Heritage is something you inherit, but culture is also something you live.
It made me think of what it is to be Australian. I may not be native in a generational sense, but this land is native to me. It's all I have ever known, and I love this country more than anywhere in the world. The Brumbies and I share that sentiment, although their generational roots run deeper into this country than mine, too.. or the majority of white citizens, for sure.
I wonder if many other Australians feel sort of disconnected from the cultures their ancestors came from. (White) Australia has such a young history compared with places like Ireland and Scotland, where history can stretch back through so many generations.
You can visit somewhere and know that your bloodline comes from there, yet still realise that you don’t truly belong to its culture in the same way as someone who was raised within it.
People overseas often reduce white Australian ancestry to British ancestry because of the convict history and British colonisation. But that is not a part of my heritage story either, and to be frank, I’m quite happy about that.
However, where I did feel an incredible and undeniable sense of belonging (and such has been for all my life) was with the land itself. If you think a human culture is old and has a community, know that the land is infinitely older, and every living being is a part of that community. The mountains, the earth, the water, the trees.. they were a part of me despite me never being there before. I felt that wholeheartedly.
The land isnt something we live on, it is something we come from. Our bodies are made from the same elements as the earth beneath us. The water within us has existed in this world long before we did. The minerals in our bones, the oxygen in our lungs, the energy that keeps us alive. none of it began with us.
The land and its energy is older than all of us, and it is a part of us all.
That is where I have always found my deepest sense of belonging, no matter where I go or who I'm surrounded by. I don’t need to have been born somewhere, or raised in its culture, to feel connected to it. I don’t need to inherit its traditions or claim its history as my own.
“Heritage” means very little to me personally. Those I have shared my path with in this lifetime (animal, human or landscape) make up my culture. They have shaped who I am and have made up my whole being.
That can encapsulate a hundred different cultures, a thousand different bloodlines, and every river, tree and mountain on the Earth.
I think, that is what belonging means to me, and maybe why I never feel lost or alone in nature, no matter how far I am from family, friends or places I know. Recognising that we are a part of something much older and much greater than any human identity, and feeling like new rivers, trees, mountains and landscapes that I see are old friends. They have existed long before me and will remain long after me, and not only do I have every right to be a part of that, I *am* a part of it. No human owns any land. No one ever has or ever will.
My culture is the accumulation of everything I have ever known, and everything I will know, just as it can be for every living being I share this Earth with.
