…this is a flow of thoughts,
a rushing river through my mind
thoughts that are hard to hold onto
because like water
they are on the move,
constantly recycling.
I had a particular teacher
at age 19,
an indigenous man.
He introduced me to indigenous authors and literature from North America/Turtle island.
He was the first to introduce me to the concept that wherever two elements or entities exist,
there is always a third,
and the third is a portal,
often unseen and unnamed by the western mind.
Reality was altered by this perspective
it became part of an unraveling
an opening of new neural pathways,
and even now, 26 years later
I continue to strive to learn from this.
It is a devotional practice
often lonely,
as devotion in a nihilistic era can be,
one of living into questions
and tuning into my senses
to feeling and seeing beneath the surface of things.
As I confront whiteness, assigned to my body–
the unearned privilege and power and ease
the silent complicity in violence against, and oppression of, others
the intersections with marginalized othered parts of me–
i encounter a wound at the core–
it feels like a dark abyss.
A gaping, void,
a severance of my ancestral roots
a series of displacements resulting in amnesia
a loss of a people, language, land, culture and spirit
a colonization and subjugation manifesting disease and addiction.
the grief is so acute
I buckle
I weep
I cannot hold it, alone.
I do not know where to begin
who to turn to
and yet I do begin, again, every day.