Long ago, in the time of the Dreaming, when the land still remembered the footsteps of the Ancestors, there lived a Dugite snake named Warlu. Warlu was not an ordinary snake, he was a spirit-traveler, a guardian of waterholes and sacred paths that stretched across Country.
One morning, Warlu heard the call of the wind from the west, whispering through spinifex and red sand. The land was drying, and the rivers were shrinking. The balance was shifting. Warlu knew he had to journey across Country to awaken the old waterholes and reconnect the songlines that kept the land alive.
Warlu slithered out from beneath a cool rock near the coast, where the ocean sang, and began his long journey inland. As he moved, his body carved soft tracks in the earth minyma tjukurpa each scale leaving behind a memory of movement, a story.
He passed through red desert dunes where emus once danced, and their footprints shimmered under the sun. He weaved through ghost gums and ancient rock faces painted with ochre, the marks of those who came before. At each waterhole he reached, Warlu dipped his head and sang the old songs, calling the rain spirits and reawakening the land.
In the night, the stars watched over him, and the Milky Way became his dreaming path, a sky mirror to the ground he traveled. The spirits of the ancestors walked beside him, whispering stories of kinship and land, telling him where to go and which sacred sites needed care.
Warlu’s scales began to glow with the ochres of Country: red of the desert heart, yellow of sun and sand, white of spirit, and black of deep knowledge. His journey became a painting on the land, a winding path of circles and lines, dots and spirals—each one a waterhole, a campsite, a teaching, a memory.
When Warlu finally reached the eastern hills, he coiled around a great boulder and rested. The land shimmered behind him, now alive with flowing creeks, blooming bush tomatoes, and the laughter of birds. The Dreaming paths were strong again.