There was a foundation myth I craved connection to as a child that had a kind of quiet but powerful hold over me. At times I would look beyond those granite hills, seeking the Russia my paternal grandfather had come from, which an instinct told me contained some reality that would help form me. I wondered what the villages, fields and forests would look like…

Rod Myer has had an unusual and interesting life. A member of the celebrated Myer family, he had an adventurous spirit and explored his identity through travelling and research. A farm kid born in Kelly country, he had premonitions and yearnings which led to mustering cattle with Aboriginal people in the Top End. He worked in politics and journalism, and discovered family secrets which led to revelations about his Jewish roots in Eastern Europe, something that altered his life completely.

That past, I believe, stays with us, as life is not a linear progression. It is more a series of spirals drawing on a spiritual world to nourish our progress through our own reality. That reality is built on the past and the present concurrently, and at times I feel the honour of my forebears touching and inspiring me now.