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528 28th Street, Oakland, CA, 94609, United Statessigne@earthaxiswithin.com
 
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As we (white people) learn more about the construction of whiteness and the history and ongoing legacy of racism, we often experience guilt and shame. We long to identify as something besides white. That’s because whiteness is entirely determined by oppression. It does not exist outside of systems of privilege and domination. To gain access to whiteness and its benefits, those formerly known as Italian or Irish or Jewish had to, in large part or entirely, abandon their ancestors, one of the many ways that racism is bad for whites too. A lot of white folks today want to connect with something deeper, especially Earth-based ways of living. Reconnecting to ancestral wisdom is crucial to undoing white supremacy - if we are only white, and whiteness is solely a construct of violence, we need to be something more. I am NOT advocating for color blindness or claiming that because I’m in touch with my Jewish ancestral traditions that I do not benefit from white privilege. What I AM saying is that I’m not ONLY white. And the more I learn about and claim the wisdom of my Earth-based ancestors, the more I create a world in which whiteness loses clout. However, claiming the wisdom of Earth-based ancestry is not apolitical, as Elizabeth Warren has so clearly demonstrated. The history (and currency) of white folks leveraging Native American ancestry while abandoning the ancestors whose names they actually know, is despicable. But I agree with what is under there — whiteness is some made up shit that has caused irreparable harm. Let’s own our privilege and the systems that continue to harm due to our silence, and relearn who we were before we were white. And let’s pay reparations so the salmon come home to the Winnemum Wintu and African Americans can visit the lands of their ancestors.
Really grateful to have learned from Sherri Mitchell today- a workshop called Decolonizing Our Hearts and Minds. Something that keeps calling to me that she spoke about is the importance of being in touch with and valuing what actually nourishes our survival - food, water, energy, education. There is a lot of talk today about basic human rights. Water is a basic human right. For me there is no question that corporations should not own water, but I also agree with Mitchell that a problem is that few people are willing to take responsibility for water. It is easier to depend on systems to deliver it to our tap. But if no one is there with the river developing relationship, we’re almost on the same level as the corporations- calling something ours that we’ve given nothing for. So yes, water is a basic human right, but only if it is also a basic human responsibility. These ideas are just a little of what I learned today- they are not mine, but the wisdom of Indigenous leaders like Mitchell.
Happy Indigenous Peoples Day! Donate to your local native peoples today, and always. ——— -Still Here- Thank you. Thank you for your incredible stewardship. For living “what happens to the salmon happens to me”. For centuries. Since the beginning of time. You are still here. Chained to the pipelines. Walking prayerfully as the salmon run. We are also still here, the colonizers and the settlers. Most of us don’t think of ourselves that way. The past is the past, they say. But the past is the present in many ways. Missing and murdered sisters receive no justice. Treaties dissolve like packing peanuts. Permits to gather traditional foods? Just bring the papers burned in 1492. Few of us hear what you’ve been saying. Then a white woman speaks our story and we are appalled when they don’t listen. They haven’t been listening. We haven’t been listening as capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy deliver hungry children who don’t think of themselves as colonizers. This has gone on for generations. And you, despite all attempts of destruction, Are still here. I hear you. Thank you. I hear you. I am a settler and I will do better.
Almost missed the season this year! Not too many canning projects since I stopped farming, but I still do hot pepper jelly every year. Mostly because my siblings would hunt be down otherwise. Hot pepper jelly was the first thing I canned! Mom knew about my growing interest in sustainable agriculture and homesteading and cut the recipe out of the local newspaper when I was visiting home from freshman year in college. We went straight to the farmers market and in a couple short hours the kitchen was covered in sweet/spicy, bright red, by all intents and purposes, glue. But it’s so damn good. #worthit #urbanhomesteader #farmeratheart
I’m been wanting to say this for a while, but worried it might come out like “all lives matter” and I really didn’t want that. Then I read the idea way more fleshed out in writing presented by @andrearanaej in Coaching As Activism and I learned how true it is. What I want to say is that living in this world is hard. Oppressive systems are painful and dehumanizing to everyone involved. Add to that the debilitating effects of capitalism and you have a lot of people who are not even close to thriving. Our society is not life-enhancing. OBVIOUSLY it is a hell of a lot easier to get on if you are white and more so white, male, cis-gendered, straight, rich and Christian. But even if you are all of those things, this world hurts you. Oppressor and oppressed need some level of healing and wholeness to even show up to social justice spaces. I believe if white folks were whole and healed (and had basic knowledge about current conditions) they’d already be there. Obviously most BIPOC are already in social justice spaces because the pain of oppression is so deep and because they are not awarded the benefits of it. We have to look in the face of what is happening and see it. Grieve for the incredible beauty, humanness, and capacity that are often violently destroyed and at best just ignored by this corrupt way of living. We have to grieve it so we can heal from it and come out the other side as warriors ready to love the world into something better. This is NOT a call for BIPOC to “deal with” their wounds from oppression. Exactly opposite. BIPOC know how to heal themselves and are constantly doing it in transformative ways that ripple out into their communities and the larger world. This is a call for white folks to see the ways we’ve been dehumanized, ostracized from our ancestors, and socialized into oppressors, despite our innate humanness being beautiful and good. We are corrupt. And we must heal that, and then show up.
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