Radio silence as we renavigate our old stories to prepare to co-create new ones

This is a time where many of the people whose voices have inspired me for years are quieter.

And my voice is quieter too.

There has been lots of thinking going on in our households. It's important. Uncomfortable thinking.

Unpacking our cultural narratives, what's normal, how privilege really truly infiltrates our lives, our goals and ideals.

How colonialism has affected our ideas about what we are entitled to, our definitions of spaces and our ways of being.

There is a lot of discussion around decolonisation in many permaculture circles.

These are immeasurably important discussions. I listen to them a lot. 

I research and read and work to understand the perspectives of others.

I've worked really hard to start kicking myself free from the ideas that "good" and "bad" people exist in the world and that because I'm a "good" person it excuses my actions. 

This is a narrative lots of white people use.

Decolonisation is not about guilt and shame. It is about taking responsibility and listening. Guilt and shame do not help us take action. They make the story about our feelings, rather than about recognising the issue someone else is facing as a consequence of our cultural norms. 

In all of this, as I've been facing the reality of the stories I used to justify my actions and my ways of being.... I've found solace in finding and hearing diverse voices, voices who talk about stories, about old stories old knowledges. Voices who talk about a resilience I cannot imagine. Voices like Rowen White, Chris Newman, Victor Steffensen, Tyson Yunkaporta.  Films like Gather.

The joy has been in remembering that it's okay that I don't know answers and there are first nations people holding knowledge and who are willing to share it, after all this time. Looking for reconciliation and not revenge.

How can something like that not just fill your eyes with tears and make your heart full?

And I know, so many of the words I type here... I will look back and cringe over in a few years, when the ideas I'm mulling over now are more clearly formed, or when the ideas I'm letting go over hold less over me.

But for now, I know that I need to say something.

To make it clear that the reason for this silence is not that I'm ignoring this issue. Or that I consent to the way that so many aspects of the permaculture world are painted as if they are "white knowledge" or "white discoveries."

Renavigating who I am in this world is interesting and often completely terrifying. 

Renavigating who we are as a community, a society, a world is something we all are going to need to dream together.

So for now, these are my thoughts.