In 1991, curious about the ways of humanity’s oldest continuous culture, Greg Campbell exited corporate life to live in the remote Kimberley region of Australia with a traditional Aboriginal elder and powerful maban (shaman), Lulu, and his people. Concerned about the state of the world and threats to the continuity of all life, Lulu asked Greg to work with him and the Aboriginal people on one book, a journey of 31 years.
Total Reset (2023, 1st edition revised) is available on this website as a printed book and audiobook (narrated by Mark Coles Smith) as well as on many global platforms where an ebook version is also available.
Explore First Peoples' Culture and History with Total Reset
Cultural Sensitivity Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website contains names and images of people who have passed.
Thanks to Greg, we now know that the true story is being told. It is one that seeks to preserve, maintain and pass on knowledge of how to live with Country proper to the generation of today and those to come.
– DANIEL ROE
GENERAL MANAGER, MILLIBINYARRI INDIGENOUS CORPORATION, BROOME
One day, soon after arriving in Broome I was chatting with Lulu.
“You seen a lotta that world out there. How’s it lookin’?” he asked.
“Don’t know if it will last a hundred years, Lulu. The mob running the show seem hellbent on ripping the heart out of everything, all life.”
He chuckled. “True, bubba, very true. Got no dreamin’ them fellas. Only lookin’ at one thing.”
“So what can be done?” I asked.
“Well, that’s why we gotta send it out. Gotta send out the Dreamin’, for everyone to walk.”
No more dividin’ people, settin’ one against another, makin’ one more big, one more small. Not the proper way. We all gotta come together, work together; blackfella, whitefella, yellafella, every kinda fella. Don’t matter who we are, if we dig below the white soil on top an’ find the black soil inside at the bottom of everythin’, yair, we can see. Then we know – all one under the Dreamin’ – an’ we go that way.
-Lulu, p. 2, Total Reset
TOTAL RESET AND ITS PURPOSE:
In a nutshell
Though more than half of Total Reset focuses on the traditional settings, values and ways of the oldest continuous culture on Earth, that of the First Peoples of Australia, its purpose is much broader. Total Reset is about the future of our shared world and what can be done to permanently reverse the destructive trajectory so many are observing and experiencing.
Whenever anyone looks at reality through the lens of original knowledge such as that shared in Total Reset, it opens up boundless opportunities for the development of creative solutions for removing threats to the continuity of all life and driving a return to balance, sapiens again functioning as a cohesive part of our Whole Earth system.
Lulu in 1992 at Bindingangun beside Yellow Creek, 16 kilometres north of Walmadany (James Price Point) in the remote West Kimberley region of Western Australia, sharing ancient knowledge with the author.
Photo credit: Damian Kelly Photography | Aerial view of Walmadany, 2012
Photo credit: Damian Kelly Photography | Teresa Roe in 2012 urging people to protect the living Country of the songline.
Photo credit: Jim Sinatra | Lulu in 1993 sharing cultural knowledge with the first group of students from RMIT University to walk the Lurujarri Heritage Trail.
Photo credit: anonymous | Maja and maban (Butcher) Joe Nangan OAM (1900-1989), Lulu’s tribal brother and mentor.
Photo credit: Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation | Goolarabooloo boys dancing to the song and rhythm of songman Phillip Roe as the maja taps his boomerangs on the final night of the August 2015 Lurujarri Heritage Trail walk.
Photo credit: Julia Rau | Traditional grinding stone in situ on the Lurujarri Heritage Trail
Photo credit: Folmer | Lulu in 1992 visiting a jila (permanent freshwater hole) on Roebuck Plains where his rayi (spirit self), a manifestation of the Rainbow Serpent, incarnated. Behind him is the author followed by archaeologists Dr Sue O’Conner and Dr Peter Veth.
Photo credit: Julia Rau | Teresa Roe and supporters at the James Price Point blockade, May 2011
Photo credit: Goolaraboo Indigenous Corporationloo Millibinyarri | Teresa Roe with Goolarabooloo Lawmen after ceremonial business at One Arm Point, 2001.
Photo credit: Goolaraboo Indigenous Corporationloo Millibinyarri | Indigenous and non-Indigenous people (author third from left) in a public corrboree on the final evening of the July 1993 Lurujarri Heritage Trail walk.
Photo credit: anonymous | Lurujarri Heritage Trail walkers making clapping sticks under Richard Hunter’s guidance.
Photo credit: Damian Kelly Photography | The three Goolarabooloo majas in 2012 at the height of the battle to preserve Walmadany (James Price Point): (L-R) Phillip Roe, JR and Richard Hunter.
Photo credit: Julia Rau | The red pindan cliffs of Walmadany (James Price Point), 2012
Photo credit: anonymous | Lurujarri Heritage Trail walkers traversing the centre of Wibijagun, July 2014.
Photo credit: Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation | Lulu under his tamarind tree in 1996 making a shield with one of his great-grandchildren, Janelle Cox.
Photo credit: Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation | Lulu (carrying six boomerangs) with Janice Roe and her three sons, (L-R) Daniel, Jason and Errol, after Jason’s angui (1st stage male initiation) at Julirri, 1990.
Photo credit: anonymous | Goolarabooloo maja, Richard Hunter, aboard the Steve Irwin
Photo credit: anonymous | Renowned senior Aboriginal maja (Law boss) and maban, Paddy (Lulu) Roe OAM (1912-2001)
Photo credit: Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation | Lulu in the 1970s, singing to the rhythm of the tapping of his boomerangs.
Photo credit: Jim Sinatra | Able to see a long way in both directions – past and future – Lulu knew others with no feeling for Country would come one day with plans to take it for the principal purpose of profit. It was a mystery to him why “whitefella got no Dreamin’.”
Photo credit: Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation | Lulu boomerang-making under his tamarind tree.
The author in 1992 at Bindingangun beside Yellow Creek, 16 kilometres north of Walmadany (James Price Point) while receiving ancient knowledge from Lulu.
“Total Reset is an exploration of the human spirit. In my Nyikina language we call this liyan; our moral compass, intuition, values and knowing that connects our human being to the universal lifeforce.”
– WAGABA, PROFESSOR ANNE POELINA
NYIKINA WARRWA GUARDIAN OF MARTUWARRA, RIVER OF LIFE
“In Total Reset, Greg Campbell honours a life-long promise to legendary Kimberley Lawman, Paddy Roe (Lulu) to pass on to the wider world the gift of understanding he received at first-hand from Lulu.”
– FREYA MATHEWS
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY, LATROBE UNIVERSITY
Storytelling
