The above allegory perfectly summarizes my first experience of Australia. No matter where you go, you still get the impression of being lost in paradise. With the abundance and diversity of this land's fauna and flora, the empty and endless spaces you first think of yourself as a great explorer only to realize later that you are more of an intruder. A sort of a foreign body. This land certainly does not belong to you. Useless to even try to tame it. The more you try, the more it seems elusive. The more you feel empty and vain in your adventure. The only thing you can do is become part of it. But can you really? So many did try so far. So many were made to try by force. All that in vain. All that only to stir up violence towards those who were integral to this land just like hills, dessert sands, blue gums, parrots - the Aboriginal people. They knew it was not the question of taming anything. But can even Aborigines still live up to this land's natural cycle? I still keep on asking myself whether it is not to late. Maybe it is. Maybe it all belongs only to the puzzling mystery of the elusive concept of the dreamtime. And still I keep on asking myself would we really like to live in paradise?!
The nature has two faces here - nothing is only that what it seems. Rosa Australis also has thorns. And these thorns can be mortal. Just as it was with Adam and Eve in paradise it is easy to forget that you can lose it all so easily, that you are just a guest in this heavenly garden, but still, though they tell you not to do certain things, you keep on crossing the limits. Lured by the promise of exploring something pure and authentic. That seems possible only with someone native to this mysterious land, who it seems more and more difficult to meet. But even so could a white man see more but the heart of darkness?! This land certainly does not belong to us. We are just guests and it seems one can only exist here if he lives up to the rough and ruthless natural protocol. Rosa Australis seems possibly to belong more with the night sky. Just as all the beasts of this land. They watched the sailor dancing in his madness until he lost his powers and fell to the ground. The whole performance reminded the beasts of ancient aboriginal death dances. The sailor could not have not known about it, because he did not know anything about indigenous peoples of the land. So concentrated he was on his dream of finding paradise on this land. A paradise he could not find even in himself. He lay on the ground devoid of energy to move. He knew he was dying. Suddenly it seemed to him as if he heard the earth beating. No living being was around, though. He felt his body sinking into the ground. The beating became slower and slower. The sky went reddish. The sailor was gone with the first rays of sunrise on another never-ending journey.