Walking with Whiteness Module 7

Walking with Whiteness Module Seven: Healing Our Indigenous European Ancestors

How do we take accountability for our whiteness while also healing the inherited trauma in our lineage? What if we understand whiteness as a form of cultural trauma stemming in part from land displacement and coming out of right relationship with Earth? What happens if we all remember we are indigenous to somewhere?

Vocabulary: Counterpublics Kaleidoscopic Consciousness Land Displacement Somatic Practices Recordings: Sacred Heart Cave Meditation Lineage Clearing Meditation Concepts: Counterpublics: A counter public is an intentional, conscious, socially sanctioned space, set of ideas, or group(s) that are in contentious opposition to the dominant ideology of a particular culture, and that strategically work against and subvert the dominant ideology present in mainstream discourse. In the context of white supremacy culture, a counterpublic could take

the form of “race traitors,” disruption of public space, creative resistance, multi-racial/multi-identity based organization efforts, counternarratives, living and loving across racial boundaries, and anything that subverts traditional hierarchical white power structures.

Kaleidoscopic Consciousness: A term coined by José Medina for our ability to hold multiple points of view and perspectives in tension without collapsing them into false reconciliation. The ability to operate in the world from a kaleidoscopic consciousness allows us to toggle between worldviews and perspectives to read the same cultural event, interpersonal exchange, and cultural texts such as books, music, and films. As we become more adept at holding multiple perspectives, our episteme (worldview) grows more expansive, and we are more able to show up in the world from a place of curiosity and beginners mind.

Land Displacement: Land displacement can occur for many reasons, and in the context of Turtle Island Indigenous people have been systemically displaced from land since the arrival of European settler colonialists. Enslaved African Americans were also brought to Turtle Island through violet removal from their ancestral homelands.

The uncomfortable truth is that European settler colonialists also experienced land displacement, although for many—though not all—this was more voluntary. Without flattening the very different realities, power differentials, and circumstances, the lived effect is still disconnection with their ancestral lands, which in many ways led them to treat the land upon which they came to occupy as an object to obtain and control, and through routine extraction.

This dominating posture was both created, and further enabled by, colonialism and capitalism. Many European settler colonists had also already been displaced from their ancestral lands for multiple generations by the time they arrived on Turtle Island.

Practices: Sacred Heart Cave: The Sacred Heart Cave is a metaphysical concept for getting in touch with our most authentic self. This is connected to what we call the “Hrit Padma” or “Seat of the Soul” in the Yogic Tradition. It allows us to understand that the Heart of the Self and the Heart of the Cosmos are one. As we re-ignite the pilot light of the heart it allows us to reconnect with the Oneness of the Universe, and to begin to step outside of Ego and duality.

This cave is a safe meditative space that allows you to connect with your true authentic self. It is a safe haven within yourself that allows you to get still and quiet and meet yourself with love. As we strengthen the vibration of the heart, we begin to shift from an ego, mind-driven approach to life to a spiritual, soul-based approach.

As you make your way into your heart cave, consider: Inviting in all of your younger selves still in need of healing and ask them what they need.

Allow your Shadow Self (the parts of ourself we judge, deny, or compartmentalize) and ask what it needs to feel safe and worthy to come out of hiding. Practice sending it love and compassion while being held in your heart space.

Call in your Ancestors. Talk with them. Witness them. Honor them. Send them gratitude for allowing you safe passage into this realm. Ask what they still need.

Connect with your Higher Self. Ask your Higher Self for guidance.

Lineage Clearing: From a Spiritual perspective, linear time does not exist and can connect with our Ancestors in the present moment. As we heal, we work to heal our entire lineage. Those who have come before us, and those who have yet to arrive.

Indigenous wisdom has long taught that we carry the coding of our Ancestors within our body, and recently Western science has begun to catch up. Our DNA contains the experiences, healed and unhealed, of our ancestors. Because we are vibrational beings, we are able to energetically connect with them to clear some of the karma and density that they accrued during their time here.

Below are some Lineage Clearing Prayers you can do on behalf of your family:

Lineage Forgiveness Prayer: “Divine, for me and my entire lineage throughout all time, past, present, and future: please help us all forgive all people, help all people forgive us, and help us all forgive ourselves. Please Divine.

Thank you, Divine. And so it is.”

Full Lineage Clearing Power Prayer: “Divine, please help me forgive all people, help all people forgive me, and help us all forgive ourselves. Please Divine. Thank you.

Divine, for me and my entire lineage, throughout all time, past, present, and future: Please help us all forgive all people, help all people forgive us, and help us all forgive ourselves. Please Divine.

Thank you.

Divine, for me, my spouse(s), all our family members, all our relationships, all our ancestors, and all relationship with all creations and life forms, throughout all time, past, present, and future: Please help us all forgive all people, help all people forgive us, and help us all forgive ourselves. Completely and totally.

Please Divine. Thank you.

Divine, please help us all love each other and love ourselves, be at peace with each other and be at peace with ourselves. Please Divine. Thank you.

Divine, we give you our love and thank you for your constant love and blessings. We love and appreciate all your creations, and we fill your creations with our love. We love you Divine. Thank you for loving us. We love you Divine. Thank you for loving us. We love you Divine. Thank you for loving us. Thank you Divine.

Divine, please open, bless, empower, expand, lead, guide, direct, and protect me, my family, all humanity, and all of creation, throughout all time, now and forever. Please Divine, thank you Divine. And so it is.”

Journaling Prompts: Self Reflection: • How can I connect with my ancestry in a way that is not trying to bypass or avoid taking responsibility as a whitebodied person in this cultural moment?

• How can I work to understand some of the trauma that my ancestors endured and brought with them to Turtle Island in a way that allows me to understand myself and what I bring to this cultural moment in a deeper way—without being afraid of being judged or “found out” for the actions of my ancestors?

• How can I work to hold the “both/and” of understanding that our Indigenous European ancestors both endured trauma and oppression and also perpetuated trauma and oppression? How can that help me to hold my own “both/and” of my intersecting identities and sites of privilege and marginalization without using my marginalized identities as a shield to prevent me from taking accountability for my whiteness?

• What does it mean to understand that all of us are Indigenous to somewhere?

• What does it mean to understand that part of “whiteness” is being culturally (language, rituals, wisdom) cut off from our ancestry and also physically cut off from our ancestral lands— regardless of the circumstances of how that came to be?

• What are practices that you can incorporate to begin reconnecting with your ancestors? You might consider creating an altar and engaging in Ancestor Veneration. You might begin by looking at old family photos, or researching your family tree.

• What are practices that you can instill to build relationship with the land on which you now reside? What are ways in which you can learn about the plants and topography of your ancestral lands? I remember hearing an Indigenous leader

say, “it’s not that we want you [settler colonialists] to leave, it’s that we want you to treat her [Earth] as family. We want you to be in right relation.”

Reading Reflections: • How does Mia Mingus’s “Dreaming Accountability” challenge us to see accountability as an opportunity—as something we want to live into?

• How does Susan Raffo’s “It Starts with the Land” encourage us as white-bodied people to walk the lands which we occupy with deeper respect, intention, and awareness? How does she encourage us to step outside of historical amnesia and actively place where are ancestors were at during key moments in history?

• Zenju Earthlyn Manuel’s The Way of Tenderness encourages us to see ourselves and each other as living together in the Oneness, and to understand “tenderness” to refer not only to gentle ways of being, but in terms of woundedness. What happens when we understand the cultural trauma of the histories we carry in our bodies all wound us in different ways? How do we hold that alongside of an understanding that the repercussions of history play out unevenly on bodies of the Global Majority?

• How does “Cultivating Counterpublics” offer an example of building a “kaleidoscopic consciousness” that allows us to see outside of the epistemic parameters we were groomed within as white-bodied people?

• How does “Waking Up to Whiteness” address the “colorblindness” approach that often shows up in whitebodied spiritual circles?

• How does these readings ask us to rethink what is possible and what we want to envision? How can healing our Indigenous European roots help us to step more fully into the Global Family?