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Sep 23, 2022Liked by Markael Luterra

Although it (necessarily) hazards presenting fiction as nonfiction, and (necessarily) merely synthesizes the work of others (including Deloria Jr.), I feel that James Wilson's 'The Earth Shall Weep' is an insightful portrait of pre and post-colonial Indian life and therefore the likely default for pre-societal (ie tribal) human experience in general. It provides a lot of very good meta analysis, imo.

He quotes Alfonso Ortiz's "The Tewa World:"

"A Tewa is interested in our own story of our origins, for it holds all that we need to know about our people, and how one should live as a human. The story defines our society. It tells me who I am, where I came from, the boundaries of my world, what kind of order exists within it; how suffering, evil and death came into this world; and what is likely to happen to me when I die...

Our ancestors came from the north. Theirs was not a journey to be measured in centuries, for it was as much a journey of the spirit as it was a migration of a people. The Tewa know not when the journey southward began or when it ended. We are unconcerned about time in its historical dimensions, but we will recall in endless detail the features of the 12 places our ancestors stopped.

We point to these places to show that the journey did indeed take place. This is the only proof a Tewa requires. And each time a Tewa recalls a place where they paused, for whatever length of time, every feature of the earth and sky comes vividly to life, and the journey itself lives again."

This is in the context of Wilson debating the Western / Christian viewpoint that migration is intrinsically and always displacement: In the tribal perspective, it is precisely what makes location meaningful.

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Sep 23, 2022Liked by Markael Luterra

"Most concerningly, though, it sets up a psychological barrier of guilt to beginning the personal process of becoming rooted in place."

It doesn't improve upon your analysis and description, but the language that came to my mine was that land acknowledgements are a modern "spell of alienation" from body and place. There are probably loads of such "spells" one could find in both sjw rituals and the social media landscape (with the exception of the heavy promotion of geotagging in the case of the former).

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Sep 21, 2022Liked by Markael Luterra

My heart feels your deep soul acknowledgement of your rooted place within life, nature, Earth, and your current home in the Willamette Valley. I also appreciated your direct yet respectful way of speaking to the surface ways in which we attempt to include the Native experience in this country while standing on top of rather than within our generative wise living Earth.💚🌎💗

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Such a beautiful and well articulated essay. I really connected with your sentiments being an immigrant in rural Ireland and trying to develop a rootedness here....I'm actually in the process of recording a song about my experience! I think the process you outline here is bang on and something to indeed be followed.

I myself have felt the barrier of guilt preventing me from developing a sense of belonging too...being English and knowing how past generations of my countrymen treated the Irish people. Having children who are half Irish has strangely helped me to overcome this though.

Thank you so much for such a great piece of writing.

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The social and environmental justice crusades of today have had a foul odor I couldn't quite identify, and you articulated it so well here: "Most concerningly, though, it sets up a psychological barrier of guilt to beginning the personal process of becoming rooted in place." These barriers indeed endanger the ability to connect to the Earth and Nature, and if this mentality gets instilled into a single generation, separation from our roots may be fully achieved. It kind of seems that has been the name of the game for quite some time, tragically. Hopefully enough people will see clearly enough through this guilt-inducing lens to see a better path forward, such as the principles found in this post.

Thank you for putting such a beautiful spin on this topic <3

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