Scarcity. How would you know you’re about to lose something unless you had already lost it? Why would anyone have a fear of losing something unless it had already happened? Or had already happened to someone before?
Indigenous doesn’t necessarily mean Native North American, it means to be “from a place”.
We all were once from a place and for an Indigenous person, one who is at home, there is not thought of scarcity. Growing up and living in a place that you belong to leaves you with an uncompromising knowledge that life regenerates and supports us. We don’t expect life to, in the modern sense of the term, “be on our side”, or, “give us what we want”, as sometimes there are droughts, severe storms, and early deaths, but cycles reliably through all stages ranging from giving to taking.
I don’t live with this knowledge fully intact in myself, I strive to, but I also recognize this is a big proposition given how many generations of my people have lived without this kind of trust. The Bible and even older stories, such as Gilgamesh, the epic written already 1000 years before The Bible, both rumour that something has been lost. In other words, scarcity already has entered the lexicon of the creation story. Could it be that something has already happened by the time these texts were written?Could something so grievous that it cannot even be articulated already have happened by this point? If so, what could it be?
There was a time every people knew the land they lived on. A time when yours and people knew their home place and for that reason experienced the meaning of “Indigenous”. They (you) lived with a deep sense of the place- the sounds of the various winds as they blow through grass, the quality of rains during different seasons… What would it be like for us, even if we haven’t truly been home for thousands of years because all our peoples migrated, to be begin the process anew?
When I studied with Stephen Jenkinson, co-founder of The Orphan Wisdom School, I once heard him say, (and this is a Tweetable):
“A place does not belong to you, you belong to it.”
Please enjoy this this Week’s Episode of The Sahius, as I talk about how we can all partake in the place we live and move towards living as if we truly are at home:
And if you haven’t already, I invite you to sign up below to receive a note from me every two weeks in which I can share with you some personal stories about what I’m learning, thinking about, and offering.