Reconnecting with the Land

“In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources but to the original people it was everything - identity, pharmacy, connection to ancestors, culture, home of non-human kinfolk - it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold.”

—Robin Wall Kimmerer

Ph.D. Botanist, Anishinabekwe, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Fall brings Indigenous People's Day in the United States but every day must be indigenous people’s day in order for life to continue on Planet Earth.

While it’s an important time to educate ourselves about the history of colonial oppression and how we may continue to benefit from land theft, it's also a time to remember that, once upon a time, we were all indigenous to a land.

Your people were intimate with the hundreds of plants and animals that served as their medicine and food. Encoded in stories and customs they passed down knowledge of the specificity of weather, planetary and seasonal patterns that were necessary for survival. Chances are they could recite their lineage many generations back, as their great, great grandmothers lived on the same land. They had languages, rituals and ceremonies of connection passed down from generation to generation that were unique to their region. Far from being arbitrary, these ways of being and knowing actually grew up from the unique character of the land itself.

We each have a unique relationship to our ancestors and their land. Some of our ancestors were forced off their land, some were taken in chains, some chose to leave due to political, social or religious persecution. Many of us have been separated from much, if not all, of the traditional knowledge of our ancestors and their consciousness of how to live in harmony with the planet. We each carry unique yet complexly interrelated ancestral wounds as both colonizer and colonized.

Holding up a withered leaf to the sunlight in the presence of a friend, I comment sadly on how one of my house plants isn’t thriving.“House plants can never be fully healthy, they long to be reunited with their mother,” he replied. To be disconnected from the land is a wound that every plant and animal feels, including us.

“The land shows the bruises of an abusive relationship. It’s not just the land that’s broken but our relationship to the land. Our relationship to land cannot heal until we hear its stories. But who will tell them?”

— R. Kimmerer

At this time on the planet when human kind is lost and struggling to find our way, an ancient future, indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing are invaluable guides reminding us of what it is to be human.

Yet, if all the people and books were to disappear from Earth tomorrow and human kind were to start over from scratch, our stories, our plant medicine knowledge, the spiritual wisdom traditions would return because they arose from the land itself. It’s easy to forget that in an anthropocentric culture. But now, we’re remembering.

“Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you”

— David Wagoner

No matter how disconnected we may feel from our ancestry, the land holds their bones and stories and she is always just waiting for us to come back home, waiting for us introduce ourselves, waiting to speak truth directly to us, to teach us how to heal the wound, how to remember what it is to be human.

The indigenous part of us remembers, our bones remember that we belong to the land, that we belong to each other, that everything is connected in a web of inter-being.

Joy Work

1. Take quiet time alone in nature. Get centered. Introduce yourself, share who you are, and express your curiosity, skepticism, and/or desire to connect with the land. Close your eyes and listen patiently, breathing, knowing the land often speaks after the actual encounter in the form of visions, dreams, intuitions, synchronicities, or realizations.

2. See questions below in relation to indigenous peoples' day.

Together, let’s trace back our indigenous roots and reconnect with the land through fitness, relaxation, and embodied meditation.

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