National Indigenous day will be celebrated for three days this year! I’m never really sure how to best ally myself with a cause. In most instances I feel like I’m virtue signaling and I don’t want to boil down a plight, as a publicity stunt for myself. Sometimes I’d like to just say no to activism. I don’t have the understanding to participate, nothing I do now can be genuine or beneficial.
I’ve reflected on this and decided to read two Indigenous books; “Braiding Sweet Grass” by Robin Wall Kimmer and “Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance” by Jesse Wente.
I’m committed to learning more about other cultures, practices and ways of knowing, however; it’s not about me. The loss of language, ceremony, identity and “land”(in a wilderness vs colonial sense) is so great that it out measures any one persons comfort zone. By committing to the understanding of another, the self will be reduced, making space for the whole of a nation again.
