[Silence]
[Arrangement: Acoustic guitar, didgeridoo-inspired drone, hand percussion, piano, bass, layered vocal harmonies, atmospheric synths]
[Intro]
Long ago
(And far away)
Under stars
(They found a way)
Stories carried
(Through the land)
Passed along
(From hand to hand)
[Verse 1]
Seven sisters
(In the sky)
Watching seasons
(Passing by)
Songlines stretching
(Over stone)
Mapping pathways
(To the known)
Generation after generation
(Watching Country breathe)
Learning lessons
(From the things they could perceive)
[Pre-Chorus]
The stars remember
(What we’ve seen)
The earth remembers
(Where we’ve been)
[Chorus]
Dreaming story
(Pass it on and on)
Extraordinary
(Pass it on and on)
Dreaming story
(Singing through the dawn)
Extraordinary
(On and on and on)
[Refrain]
Pass it down
(Pass it along)
Keep it living
(Keep it strong)
Pass it down
(Pass it along)
On and on and on
[Verse 2]
Sixty-five thousand years
(And even more)
Listening closely
(To the shore)
To the flowers
(To the rain)
To the animals
(On the plain)
Every signal
(Had a place)
Every pattern
(Left a trace)
A living calendar
(Written in the land)
A deeper understanding
(Than many understand)
[Pre-Chorus]
The stars remember
(What we’ve seen)
The earth remembers
(Where we’ve been)
[Chorus]
Dreaming story
(Pass it on and on)
Extraordinary
(Pass it on and on)
Dreaming story
(Singing through the dawn)
Extraordinary
(On and on and on)
[Bridge]
No species stands
(Above the rules)
Nature teaches
(Hard-earned truths)
[Instrumental]
[Piano Solo]
[Drone and Percussion]
[Vocal Harmonies]
[Verse 3]
Human bodies
(Have their range)
Not everything
(Can simply change)
The world can shift
(Faster than we)
Adaptability
(Is not infinity)
Every generation
(Faces its test)
What we leave behind
(Becomes the rest)
[Final Chorus]
Dreaming story
(Pass it on and on)
Extraordinary
(Pass it on and on)
Dreaming story
(The future carries on)
Extraordinary
(On and on and on)
Dreaming story
(Learning right from wrong)
Extraordinary
(On and on and on)
[Final Refrain]
Pass it down
(Pass it along)
Keep it living
(Keep it strong)
Pass it down
(Pass it along)
On and on and on
[Outro]
Under stars
(Still shining bright)
Ancient stories
(Guiding through the night)
Dreaming story
(Pass it on and on)
Dreaming story
(On and on and on)
About the Song
Heat Stress, Environmental Stressors, and the Limits of Human Adaptability
A Follow-Up to Heat Stress, Human Survivability, and the Emerging Physiological Limits of Climate Change
/global_warming/Heat-Survivability-Thresholds.html
Q: How Adaptable Are Humans to Rising Heat and Compounding Environmental Stressors?
A: Far less adaptable than many assume.
Modern humans (Homo sapiens) are approximately 200,000 years old, with some of our closest ancestral lineages dating back roughly 140,000 years. One of the oldest known oral traditions may provide a remarkable example of humanity’s long environmental memory: the story of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades.
The Pleiades are a cluster of stars in the Taurus constellation. Today, six stars are easily visible to the naked eye, yet many ancient traditions across the world describe seven visible sisters. Some researchers suggest these stories may preserve observations from many tens of thousands of years ago, before stellar movement made the seventh star difficult to see without magnification.
Among the oldest continuous cultural traditions associated with the Pleiades are the Dreaming stories of Aboriginal Australians. These interconnected “songlines” span much of the Australian continent, linking ecological knowledge, astronomy, navigation, and seasonal cycles across dozens of language groups and cultures.
First Nations Australians are also among the earliest groups to recognize localized ecological disruptions associated with anthropogenic climate change. Their approximately 65,000 years of continuous connection to Country produced highly localized ecological calendars based not on fixed months, but on relationships among plants, animals, weather patterns, and stars. This deep environmental literacy enabled them to track subtle shifts in ecosystems long before modern climate science emerged.
Yet even populations with millennia of environmental adaptation have limits.
Although Aboriginal Australians survived in some of the harshest climates on Earth, they have not escaped the physiological and societal burdens associated with environmental stress. Today, Indigenous Australians continue to experience significantly lower life expectancy compared to non-Indigenous populations, reflecting the complex interaction of environmental, social, economic, and health stressors.
From the album “Unwritten“