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Same same, but different.
SEEING THINGS ANEW
Issue Nº 5, April 2021
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Fairy garden in my new neighborhood.
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Hello fellow people!
This month I’m thinking a lot about place, connection and roots.
After nearly 6 years living in other parts of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area, we moved back to a neighborhood in South Minneapolis, in close proximity to the neighborhoods where I spent my wayward youth, lived during graduate school, and welcomed my daughter into this world. The nagging anxiety that has plagued me in recent years—even amidst the lush park-like land of the suburbs where we lived—is melting away, replaced by a sense of the familiar, of connection and belonging. The sounds of not-so-distant sirens, cars going by with their windows down and music on loud; a boulevard fairy garden complete with miniature ‘BLM’ and ‘Defund the Police’ signs; the creaking wood floors of an apartment in a 100 year old building. While this land is not my land (as we’ve written about before) this place is home to me.
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“The Kanaka Maoli word for land—ʻāina, meaning “that which feeds”—teaches that what you care for cares for you back.” (from a short creative nonfiction piece by Anjoli Roy)
“Place is still the key connection linking Native Hawaiians to each other and to an indigenous heritage.” (from This Land Is My Land: The Role of Place in Native Hawaiian Identity)
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The relationship to land is strong in many indigenous cultures. The notion that we (humans) are separate from (and can control) the land, from nature, from the ecosystem, is one of the many fallacies of white dominant culture. I’ve been reading quite a few indigenous authors lately, each opening up a new corner of thinking, a new wisdom or inquiry.
In the small but mighty book, Ideas to Postpone the End of the World, Ailton Krenak asks for whom is it the end of the world right now, as many indigenous cultures have faced (and survived) the end of their worlds.
Shawn Wilson’s book, Research as Ceremony, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s beautiful book, As We Have Always Done, and Louis Yako’s article “Decolonizing Knowledge Production” are a few of the many voices that advocate for cognitive justice, redefining knowledge production and consumption, and opening up a more just (and, for me, refreshing) approach to what we know, how we know, and how we share our wisdom. These three pieces open up new ways of thinking about my own knowledge production and consumption, ways of knowing and where our work is situated in a much richer and more vast landscape than I had been conscious about, and my relationship with the land, my ancestors (biological and cognitive) and the many sources of wisdom.
Which brings me back to this land and the blessings of being rooted in community, of living in a place with many stories yet to be heard and yet to unfold. There is magic in going deep, in staying with a community, a place, a challenge, an idea or a question long enough to let it really sink in.
It is critical that we have a place or a people with whom we can be nourished. This home base, this community, is where we return to replenish, rest, see and be seen for who we truly are. A strong base, deep roots, make us more resilient. We can venture out, go out on a limb, mobilize, advocate, fight and find our way back to be soothed, restored, rejuvenated and filled up. I recently wrote about our nervous system, home and connection here.
It is spring. Ramadan began this week. It is a time of renewal and transformation. I am enjoying the birds that have nested in the awning outside my kitchen window (we think there are 5 eggs!), the trees are budding out, the native perennials with their long and deep roots are starting to push forth new growth.
May we all experience the generosity and abundance of this time as we celebrate new growth.
Note: we sent this on a Saturday on purpose. Read more about that below.
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