A cloudy, dampish, cool morning following a perfect spring day. Last evening was cool and clouds were settling in but we grabbed a pizza and had dinner in the van by the marsh. It was capital! I've been thinking about my experiences with the spirits over my lifetime. As much as I do struggle with … Continue reading It’s Not Personal
The Fourth of July! This is one of those holidays, along with Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, I struggle with. My father struggled with it as well, although, the truth be known, he seemed to love Thanksgiving. Indeed, many Native people have very complex, often humorous and contradictory, experiences of the holiday.
Perhaps the speaker himself did not notice his erasure of our collective history. After all, our national zeitgeist, like that of a trauma burdened family, is to move forward, forgetting the past as soon as possible. Microaggression is subtle, riding beneath normative cultural messages, and stealthily attacking the hearts and souls of it's targets. Microaggressions do not only harm their intended targets, but, over time, also deaden the souls of their users. In the end, everyone is harmed.
I often work with couples and families, and inevitably, they bring hurts to heal in our work together. The work of healing includes finding stories that allow for forgiveness without requiring forgetting. A couple of weeks ago I chanced upon a blog post by Practical Narrative Therapy. The post was a discussion of forgiveness and … Continue reading Responsibility, Reparation, and Forgiveness
Dreaming the World 