Today’s dispatch is  Feedback.  Originally dispatched on 22 August  2015\

G’day you mob,

When a microphone is aimed at a speaker into which the signal picked up by the microphone is fed, an electronic loop is created. The result is a squeal known as feedback. Jimmy Hendrix used this effect to great effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53JpbrxM7O0 The pitch of the sound depends on the frequency at which the signal travels around the loop. Thus a shorter loop results in a higher pitched sound.

The same principle applies to electronic devices called oscillators but instead of audio frequencies, these generate radio frequencies that sally forth into the ether as electromagnetic waves. Higher frequencies still and you get light.

“ and we all know what happens when two mirrors stand face to face… a strange and infinite loop…” (the fellow being infinitely looped is Orson Welles in a scene from Citizen Kane)

Another way to describe this is to invoke the Russian Egg Principle or some images derived from Chaos Theory.

Feedback is also used to describe what happens in conversation.

Those wonderful people at the AFN (Australian Facilitators Network) are an infinite source of mirth and inspiration:

“… Excited to be co-hosting a class on ‘How to host intercultural conversations’…Will be relevant to any kind of facilitation work and we’ll be sharing practical tools from Adaptive Leadership & Deep Democracy & drawing on knowledge in the room. (I told you, feedback is everywhere) …we are both really passionate about creating spaces for people to reflect on, develop new insights & gain useful tools to support people to feel more confident & effective when they work inter-culturally …I’ve just returned to Melbourne after 12 years living and learning in and loving the desert and the top end of the NT…”

I am also excited, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdt0SOqPJcg (Good Vibrations…. Giving me the excitation). I’ve suddenly worked out how I will be able to usefully and profitably occupy myself in my retirement. Using the Russian Egg Principle, I could end up hosting classes in how to host classes in how to host intercultural conversations.

Dr.Seuss: “…a bee that is watched will work harder you see. So he watched and he watched, but in spite of his watch that bee didn’t work any harder not mawtch. So then somebody said “Our old bee-watching man just isn’t bee watching as hard as he can, he ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher! The thing that we need is a bee-watcher-watcher!”. Well, the bee-watcher-watcher watched the bee-watcher. He didn’t watch well so another Hawtch-Hawtcher had to come in as a watch-watcher-watcher! And now all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch are watching on watch watcher watchering watch, watch watching the watcher who’s watching that bee…”

Thus within an expanding universe there is an expanding facilitators network. And an expanding justice system. And an expanding police presence. And an expanding prison system. All social loops generating feedback, ever more feedback (the noisy squealing type).

In Yuendumu’s Baptist church Napangardi read out from the Warlpiri bible (from 1 Peter 5. 1-7). Some extracts:

“…Nyurrurla jaajikingarduyu wiriwiri warrawarra-kangkalu-jana Kaatu-kurlangu yapa yangka jiyipikingarduyu-piyarlukuja kajana-warra-kanyi jiyipi nyanungunyangu…”
“…Warrki-jarriyalurla Kaatuku kujanya, kula talaku, lawa…”
“…Kuja kankulu-jana yapa warrawarra-kanyi jaajirla, kulalujana kulungku jinyijinyi-mani, lawa…”
“…Nyampunya wangkaja Kaatuju Payipulurlatju:
“Kaaturlu kajana yapaju mamparl-pinyi kuja kalu-nyanurla pulka-pinyi wiri-piyarlu. Kala nyanunguju ngurrju yapakuju yangka kuja kalu-jana yapa-patu-kariki wurdungu warrki-jarrimi”

Napangardi’s reading in Warlpiri was followed by her husband Jampijimpa repeating it in English:

“…Just as shepherds watch over their sheep, you must watch over everyone God has placed in your care…”
“…Let it be something you want to do instead of something you do merely to make money…”
“…Don’t be bossy to those people who are in your care…”
“… In fact, everyone should be humble towards everyone else. The scriptures say:   “God opposes proud people, but he helps everyone who is humble”

Myself I don’t go to church, but it has always struck me that the Warlpiri people who regularly attend the Baptist church are also heavily involved in Warlpiri spiritual matters.

I’ve since become aware that so much of what is written in the Bible perfectly fits the Warlpiri worldview. To be a “good Warlpiri” is synonymous with being a “good Christian”

As a non-believer I struggle with such concepts as the Holy Trinity. To Warlpiri people the Holy Trinity is a cinch. Their Jukurrpa (a cosmology most inadequately translated as “The Dreamtime”) is chock a block of sacred multiplicities.

As my mother used to say:
Ik ben niet protestant, ik ben niet Katoliek,
Maar toch ga ik naar de kerk voor de mooie muziek!

(I’m not Protestant, I’m not Catholic, but still I go to church for the beautiful music- In Dutch it rhymes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2kbogwgBM

And, why not, another version from my all time favourite singer….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NshR2v2Pqgg

See ya’s
Frank