In an era of supposed reconciliation, and the revitalization of Indigenous legal frameworks across Turtle Island, one would hope to see radical action and alignment between colonial governments and the Indigenous governing bodies on whose territory colonial forces reside.
Democratic institutions around the world are being challenged as we see a return of authoritarian governments and a balancing of the “scales of justice” by an equally passionate rise of civic rebel peace cries. While tensions build around resources in the global south, our northern hemisphere will be coming into focus more intensely over the coming decades.
My question is, how do we turn political processes into processes of healing?
How we interact with, and are in-relation to one another matters now, perhaps more than ever. We are in a time that demands a creativity that births an evolutionary politic — one which is more liberation than destruction; co-creation than dysfunction; and a re-imagining of our societies and selves as global citizens, as opposed to the reenactment of exhausted trauma narratives, long since past their due.
Could we not be so bold as to imagine policy and legislation that crafted love and compassion into justice and
constitution?
The power we hold, as a civic body, lies in our political imagination — how we imagine, and re-imagine, our own power as citizens, how we imagine our institutions, and how, or who, we imagine power is held by, is our greatest source of potential for change — true evolution.
Mother Nature shows us attributes of abundance that are quantified, not by dollar value, but by abundance brought through a diverse interaction of nations — literally a plurality of relationships and economic exchanges that continually take place on a global, other-than-human stage, every day. Rain is the product of water, air and heat (fire) — these elements, all differing in their constitutions, find balance in reciprocity. It’s an inter-dependence with one another that acknowledges not only their differences, but, actually, the necessary dependence they, in fact, have with one another. Rain — a life sustaining force — is only created in their intermingling — their sharing. This could, and should, be a model for commerce that humbles us and our insane humanistic hubris — the overheated pursuit of power that would miss the humble offering of this exchange that could be defined, in so many ways, as love.
As water gifts itself to the sky, pressure and heat transform what will eventually pour down on us as rain; truly a unifying dance of sacred differences. This is a sacred economic exchange, given freely.
I dream of a revolution that does not include detonation to the current system, but a detonation, rather, to limitations on our perceptions of politic, policy, civic responsibility and evolutionary action within our own hearts and minds.
To me, this is the true evolutionary politic — the frontline of our civic hearts, the banners we each carry out into the world every morning. This, to me, is the fundamental importance of generative political dialogue in the here and now, still manifesting contracts among ourselves — citizens of Earth, human, and other-than. Because right now, life demands of us humans creativity over fear, love over hate, and unity over division.
How we live “in-relation with” is of the utmost importance now, whether that be in relation to one another, our social structures, the natural world or our selves. Shifting how we perceive and relate our interdependent relations to one another could be the only pathway forward for revitalizing this world we share.
It is time for colonial systems to retire their exhausted superiority and ridiculously untethered human centric freedoms, because there is no such thing, and surrender to that which Indigenous cultures have known, lived, and exist, still. Because the knowledge that Mother Earth possesses is not an extractable resource, but a living body we a part of.
And in learning to mirror her generosity and abundance, we can live simple, sacred lives, in tune, with Earth and all her denizens.