Weaving Ancestral Threads
An Exploration of Governance and Community
It’s International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples as I sit down to begin this draft. One day after the Lion’s Gate Portal. I do not know exactly what that means, but it feels like something. ☺️ With this writing, I am giving thanks to all the Ancestors moving with me. Growing alongside me. And, I am deeply grateful for the Resonance Network for yet another soul nourishing offering. Admittedly, I signed up for the 4-Part Series without fully understanding what a “reclamation of governance” could mean. I simply needed to be in a multilingual dream space with other folks invested in building safety for our past, present and future selves (i.e. people committed to WeGovern Agreements).
Our first gathering together was about rooting in our bodies and introducing ourselves in relationship to our people, places and beings.
Allow me to introduce myself —
I am the great granddaughter of Edith Louise (Brown) Mitchell, Anna Sesson, Michael Mitchell and James Cooper.
While I was born on the stolen and Ancestral lands* of the Tsétho’e (Cheyenne), Očhéthi Sakówin, hinono’eino’ biito’owu (Arapaho) and Ute People on a military base in Denver, Colorado, I carry the energetic imprints of the lands of my Ancestors and the lands I have traversed in my first 40 years, including the lands of the Redware People and Arawak Tribes (Xaymaca/Jamaica); the Lumbee Tribe, Chowanoke Nation, and WiYaPeMiAk Nation (Elizabeth City, North Carolina); Mohican Nation, Wappinger People, Munster Lenape People and Schaghticoke Tribe (Bronx and Harlem, NY); the Lenni-Lenape Tribe (Bordentown, New Jersey), Indigenous Tribes of Panama and Indigenous People of Kenya.
As I experienced peer introductions, written in the chat box and spoken aloud, I truly felt the connection to global community through Zoom and across waters.
With introductions made and community agreements in place, we moved on to share physical practices we all engage in — gardening, Tai Ji, walking, yoga…
Why is this important for world-building?
“Our bodies have a form of knowledge that is different from our cognitive brains. This knowledge is typically experienced as a felt sense of constriction or expansion, pain or ease, energy or numbness. Often this knowledge is stored in our bodies as wordless stories about what is safe and what is dangerous. The body is where we fear, hope, and react; where we constrict and release; and where we reflexively fight, flee, or freeze.” (Menakem, Resmaa. 2017. My Grandmother’s Hands. Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery Press, page 5)
Really rooting in my body allows me to relieve myself of the constriction of my muscles/breath (a result of living in this anti-Black world) and breathe into the expansiveness that is my birth right. This is the place to dream from.
During Session two, we dove deeper into our individual and collective experiences with governance. It was clear that many of us felt resistance in our bodies to the term “governance” because we associated it with the systems that failed our Ancestors and continue to fail many of us. Governance felt like “something separate from community”; something tainted by money and power.
Then more folks offered definitions of governance as a “return to what we know” — Ancestral Wisdom, traditions, languages and worldviews.
Since that session, I have been reflecting more deeply on the lessons passed on to me through my Ancestors and living relatives. Yes, systems have failed us, but we have always created our own foundations. Moved to our own rhythms. I have started to understand governance as the way we care and show up, and not as a system of control.
During Session 3, Narrating Our Story of WeGovern, our peer learning deepened and I was moved to tears listening to stories that really demonstrated for me that we all are connected. It was powerful to hear people around the world sharing similar stories of mending bridges with family; seeking healing space in nature; and desiring to be the elders and Ancestors we needed as children (and adults!).
With each session I felt the mystique of “governance” disappearing. Creating the world I/we want to live in, and our future descendants can thrive in, is not only possible but it is happening.
During our final gathering, we got to visualize that growing collective hope on individual slides. We chose the principle(s) that we were intuitively guided to focus on at the outset of the series and named the leaps we can take in the present to get us closer toward the future we are dreaming.
The two WeGovern principles that I was guided to focus on (by Spirit/intuition) for this Future-casting exercise were:
The well-being, dignity, respect and agency of the most vulnerable are indicators of the success of a community and its governance.
Lands, waters, natural resources are part of our collective cultural heritage and we steward them for all beings and future generations.
I invite all caretakers, change makers and sensitive souls to “get out of the underworld, remember the sovereign self inside” and join us in this redemption work**.
*Stolen Ancestral lands identified using the Native Land Digital Map. Please forgive and correct any mistakes. Further, gratitude to all of the Indigenous wisdom keepers I was connected with through the East African Transgender Health and Advocacy Network. Looking forward to deepening my knowledge.
**Quote and “redemption work” phrase from lalah delia and her sacred conversation with Jaiya John (John, Jaiya. “Episode 273: Sacred conversation with lalah delia”. I Will Read for You: The Voice and Writings of Jaiya John, Published July 25, 2024) ❤️💛💚
