Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Inner Traditions)

Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Inner Traditions)
by Robert Lawlor

Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Inner Traditions)
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $12.00
You Save: $17.95 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Robert Lawlor
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1991-11-01
ISBN: 0892813555
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Inner Traditions

Book Reviews of Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Inner Traditions)

Book Review: "Voices of the First Day" still speaks to me
Summary: 5 Stars

Well well well, I fully expected to find a five star reader rating here. I guess I forgot that these types of different, forward-thinking books polarize people so much. I too have seen Aboriginals in Northern Arnhem Land as well as in the pub in Katherine, and I am sure that many Americans have seen drunken Indians wandering zig-zagged down the side of the road. We can all see what have become of these cultures since being raped, pillaged and tempted by European settlers. They stood not a chance - even the Aboriginal communities that did not want any "aid" from the Australian government were forced to take it - and became addicted to refined wheat, sugar and a new 'easy' way of life. Talk about the Sirens' calling sailors to their deaths. Alcohol has had the most devastating affect on their lives of all our influences. It is interesting to note that kava is strictly illegal in Australia: This is a easily grown root that can be crushed and drunk to produce a mellow high, and does not induce the same ill-effects to Aborigines as alcohol.

Anyways, Lawlor talks of pre-contact Aboriginal culture. If he wanted to do a book on post-contact culture, derrrrr, it would be a different book.

The book that he has written is packed with insight and the information provided within is the sort of stuff that could change your life if you just stay open to it. You may not agree with all of it but it doesn't make the rest a lot of baloney. I have just finished reading it a second time and there is just soooo much to this book. Yes it has been compared with Mutant Message (which I didn't like at all) but this is the real deal. I don't want to be too effusive but it has changed the way I perceive the world on a daily basis.

To all the nay-sayers: there must have been something in that culture to have not self-imploded after tens of thousands of years. It is always hard to loosen the grip on a static world view that we have held onto so tightly - even when it is increasingly obvious that it no longer works.

Summary of Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Inner Traditions)


Australian aboriginal people have lived in harmony with the earth for perhaps as long as 100,000 years; in their words, since the First Day. In this absorbing work, Lawlor explores the essence of their culture as a source of and guide to transforming our own world view. While not romanticizing the past or suggesting a return to the life of the hunter/gatherer, Voices of the First Day enables us to enter into the mentality of the oldest continuous culture on earth and gain insight into our own relationship with the earth and to each other.

This book offers an opportunity to suspend our values, prejudices, and Eurocentrism and step into the Dreaming to discover:

. A people who rejected agriculture, architecture, writing, clothing, and the subjugation of animals

. A lifestyle of hunting and gathering that provided abundant food of unsurpassed nutritional value

. Initiatic and ritual practices that hold the origins of all esoteric, yogic, magical, and shamanistic traditions

. A sexual and emotional life that afforded diversity and fluidity as well as marital and social stability

. A people who valued kinship, community, and the law of the Dreamtime as their greatest "possessions."

. Language whose richness of structure and vocabulary reveals new worlds of perception and comprehension.

. A people balanced between the Dreaming and the perceivable world, in harmony with all species and living each day as the First Day.

Voices of the First Day is illustrated throughout with more than 100 extraordinary photographs, bark paintings, line drawings and engravings. Many of these photographs are among the earliest ever made of the Aboriginal people and are shown here for the first time.?

Australia Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Most Life changing books in my personal library
The Everyday Meditator: A Practical Guide ImageThe Everyday Meditator: A Practical Guide
by Osho
Tuttle Publishing; Published: 1993-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops: $16.95
Master Guide to Meditation and Spiritual Growth ImageMaster Guide to Meditation and Spiritual Growth
by Roy Eugene Davis
Motilal Banarsidass,; Published: 1997-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.83
Price in other shops: $9.95
Dare to Be Yourself: How to Quit Being an Extra in Other Peoples Movies and Become the Star of Your Own ImageDare to Be Yourself: How to Quit Being an Extra in Other Peoples Movies and Become the Star of Your Own
by Alan Cohen
Ballantine Books; Published: 1994-06-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.13
Price in other shops: $14.95
Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting: The Astonishing Power of Feelings ImageExcuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting: The Astonishing Power of Feelings
by Lynn Grabhorn
Hampton Roads Publishing Company; Published: 2003-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops: $16.95
Life on the Other Side : A Psychic's Tour of the Afterlife ImageLife on the Other Side : A Psychic's Tour of the Afterlife
by Sylvia Browne; Lindsay Harrison
Dutton Adult; Published: 2000-08-01; Hardcover; Book
Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians ImageJesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians
by Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2002-10-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.24
Price in other shops: $14.95
Transformations of Myth Through Time ImageTransformations of Myth Through Time
by Joseph Campbell
HarperCollins; Published: 1990-03; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops: $24.95
World's Religions, Revised & Updated, The ImageWorld's Religions, Revised & Updated, The
by Huston Smith
HarperCollins e-books; HarperCollins e-books; Release date: 2003-04-08; Published: 2003-04-08; Kindle Edition; eBooks
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops: $12.95
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Armstrong, Karen) ImageA History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Armstrong, Karen)
by Karen Armstrong
Gramercy; Published: 2004-03-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.19
The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy of Personal Transformation ImageThe Emerald Tablet: Alchemy of Personal Transformation
by Dennis William Hauck
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1999-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.80
Price in other shops: $16.95
Similar Books and other products
Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines ImageMyths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines
by W. Ramsay Smith
Dover Publications; Published: 2003-08-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.65
Price in other shops: $19.95
Earth Honoring: The New Male Sexuality ImageEarth Honoring: The New Male Sexuality
by Robert Lawlor
Park Street Press; Published: 1991-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.80
Price in other shops: $12.95
Mutant Message from Forever : A Novel of Aboriginal Wisdom ImageMutant Message from Forever : A Novel of Aboriginal Wisdom
by Marlo Morgan
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.48
Price in other shops: $13.00
The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia ImageThe Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia
by Ronald M. Berndt, Catherine H. Berndt
Inner Traditions; Published: 1994-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.55
Price in other shops: $19.95
Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice (Art and Imagination) ImageSacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice (Art and Imagination)
by Robert Lawlor
Thames & Hudson; Published: 1989-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.20
Price in other shops: $19.95
Mutant Message Down Under ImageMutant Message Down Under
by Marlo Morgan
Published: 2004-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops: $12.95
Aboriginal Men of High Degree: Initiation and Sorcery in the World's Oldest Tradition ImageAboriginal Men of High Degree: Initiation and Sorcery in the World's Oldest Tradition
by A. P. Elkin
Inner Traditions; Published: 1993-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.92
Price in other shops: $14.95
The Songlines ImageThe Songlines
by Bruce Chatwin
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1988-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.74
Price in other shops: $15.00
Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia ImageDreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia
by Harvey Arden
Harper Perennial; Published: 1995-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.46
Price in other shops: $17.00
Wise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers ImageWise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers
by K. Langloh Parker
Park Street Press; Published: 1993-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.52
Price in other shops: $14.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories