Transcript: WOMAN STANDS SHINING (Pat McCabe) on Humanity's Homecoming /251
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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking with Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe).
Woman Stands Shining And that what the world needed is the world needed my forgiveness today, over those matters, versus 500 years ago. We needed it more today. That's what spirit told me, because when I could open up my heart of forgiveness, which bathes creation and light, I forego revenge. I even forego neutrality and I go all the way to forgiveness.
Ayana Young Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe) is a Diné grandmother, activist, artist, and international speaker. Her primary work is proposing to the Five-Fingered-Ones, that paradigm is a choice, and pointing to Indigenous cultures as examples that we have evidence that human beings can participate in paradigms in which we can become beings capable of causing all life to thrive.
Well, Pat, thank you so much for joining us on the Podcast. I've been following your work for quite a while and it's a real honor to be sharing some time with you today, and so I'd like to just begin by asking you if you desire to introduce yourself in any way that you would like to open this.
Woman Stands Shining Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so I’ll just say greetings to all who come upon this encounter, and [speaking Diné Bizaad], So I come from Diné Nation, as my daughter says people know us incorrectly as Navajo. So I'm greeting you in our traditional way by telling you my clans. And I was also adopted into the Lakota spiritual way of life, so I've been on that road and that's been such a blessing. And I would say the main informing spiritual element in my world for the last 28 years or so, and I'm coming to you today from beautiful northern New Mexico, my house in Taos up here in the land of the Red Willow People, Taos Pueblo. So I'm just very happy to find myself here with you today.
Ayana Young Thank you so much for grounding us in this moment, and where you are. And yeah, I’ve heard you speak about how at this moment in time, biologically speaking, the plan on Earth is very much to continue to live, and I’d like to start here because I think for so many who are in movements for environmental justice, or climate justice, we find ourselves entangled in narratives that focus on extinction, loss, a lack of time, and a tremendous amount of misanthropy; but looking at the world around us shows us that our more than human kin are giving birth all of the time, they are not ceasing their lineage of their own volition. So I wonder if you could clarify the inherent truth that life wants to exist, it is this current paradigm that does not...
Woman Stands Shining Well, I had the deep honor of having a conversation with Joanna Macy recently and we were talking about, I guess, a film that's coming out that's really supposed to be very hard-hitting with the facts about climate change. And anyway, some of her work was being included, and she was just feeling tender about it. And so I think I've said this in different ways at different times, but sort of the way it kind of is coming out for me at the moment is to say that, you know, I often say that modern world paradigm is very intellectual, intellectually driven. I mean, we're very, very much taught to rely almost actually exclusively on intellect. So I say, you know with the intellect, you know, we do need intellect, I'm not trying to propose that there's no use for intellect, but I think we're way over-reliant on it. And what I say is that what intellect is especially good at, is making the airtight case for something or against something. I mean, if you, if you set two people down and say, give them any kind of inspiration, say, you know, even though you've never thought about this before, I want you to take this position, and you over here, you take the opposite position, boy they could probably go at it all day and all night, you know, because that's what the intellect loves to do and knows how to do.
So if we're only being centered as a human being only in intellect, then you know, we make the airtight case for things, and right now, there's a huge faction of us that wants to make the airtight case for doom. And I know that the impulse for such films as whatever the one was that's coming out, I don't know, there's probably several coming out, you know, the idea is that if we can impress deeply upon the people enough that doom is certain, unless, unless we do X, Y, and Z, you know, it's supposed to be an inspiration of sorts. And it's not that I disagree with that completely, but my own experience and I'm gonna say that, as an Indigenous woman, as a woman who, you know, along my journey, I started out, being raised to, to be very intellect centered. You know, the plan was for me to go to Ivy League schools, and to, hopefully, have some fame and fortune in that way before this life was over. But my heart and my spirit were not going to go along with that plan. even though I was a great student, let the record show, my heart and my spirit was not up to that life and that way of looking at life, and I was suffering very greatly.
So I started out in that realm and when I was about 27-28 years old, I got called into my very first Indigenous ceremony. It's kind of a late start for me, some might say, but, you know, my parents and my grandparents were taken into the Dutch-Christian Reformed Missionary Boarding Schools and so in those places, they were not allowed to speak our language or practice any of our traditions or culture and so by the time I came along, that was very absent in my immediate family. So it's only been a little bit later in life that I've come back to this, what I call my great homecoming, and I say that that's my greatest gift to the world is describing that journey, because I really do feel like humanity is on that exact, like that exact same journey of a return to Earth and a return to, well, maybe not a return, but an inclusion of a knowing of how to be human that is beyond this modern world paradigm, outside of this modern world paradigm. Indigenous peoples have been, you know, really putting forth their own paradigm, their own worldview, their own value system, against all the forces of the modern world paradigm. But, you know, they're seeking something outside of modern world paradigm, and I feel like all of this intensive search on the part of social justice, folks and environmentalists, and all they're looking for something outside of this current paradigm as well. So in that, we are aligned.
But I guess what I want to say is that I have found opening up, what I'll call a broad spectrum of ways of knowing, that all of my spiritual practice has afforded me and allowed me to experience and what I have come to know and what my elders have told me is that the intellect is the least reliable way of knowing anything. You know and I guess I'll add here right away that you know, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, in that, you know, I say if sustainability is the highest and most sought after technology on the planet, Who should we be talking to? We should be talking to those people who have known how to live in one place over an extended period of time, say 1000 years or 5000 years or 10,000 years or 20,000 years, in relative health, harmony, and happiness. And we call these people Indigenous peoples.
So their science is sound, their social technologies are sound, this whole continent was filled with 1000s of different cultures with unintelligible languages, different cosmologies different understanding of the Divine so to speak, and yet they coexisted. They coexisted here in kind of a remarkable way, certainly relative to what our social technologies are able to give us in modern world paradigm. So, you know, what I say about it is that our “intellect alone” way, has never been the way to have sustainability. You know, is it an accident that all these peoples who have such a broad spectrum of ways of knowing, their way of knowing includes ceremony, their way of knowing includes the song and the dance, their way of knowing includes seeking vision and seeking input from the larger community, the larger community of life, and also the spiritual community? You know, it was through opening all of those modalities that a human being has, and I'm gonna say, every human being has them. The question is, have they been cultivated have they been pointed out to us? But Indigenous peoples, you know, I'm going to say that having a broad spectrum of ways of knowing and sustainability go hand in hand for a human being. So it's not that I discount or dismiss the science entirely, I'm just saying that I don't believe that that can be the whole story. And part of the way I say that is, you know, try having a romance with intellect only, see how far you get, and see how enjoyable it is.
And that's really kind of what we're what we've been brought into in modern world paradigm is proposing that you know, that we can have this incredible, deep, powerful relationship with this exquisite Earth, and all these exquisite beings that surround us here, you know beyond human, and that we were to do this without the romance, that we're to do this with intellect only. And I suspect that there are many other possibilities if we were to open up together, in exploring what it would mean to expand our spectrum of ways of knowing that this time together. And so I'm, I'm going to stand for what the people stand for, the people, the nations that I've been brought into culturally born into, or are called for, you know, and that's what we always say, we do this so that the people can live. The reason I'm speaking with you here on this interview is I do this so that the people can live, we want to live with all of our relations, in a good way. And so that's what we say, with all of our endeavors, placing life at the center, ideally. So I think we are still that, that's something that we're finding in common, is we do want to live. And we do want to live with all our relations in a good way, no matter what culture or background we come from. So perhaps now we're coming to a convergence of understanding that was not possible until now.
Ayana Young Thank you so much, Pat, that was really comforting to hear. And I do see, so many humans in the sustainability movement, feels kind of like running around in a cage, and I can see people wanting so badly to intellectually find the answer, so to speak, but we feel so far from it in those spaces, even with all the ideas and the analyses, and it just feels like we're gonna be running around in a circle forever, under this thought process. And, you know, in talking about paradigms as choices we get to make, I’ve heard you raise the question of “who would we be in another paradigm?” And this has landed very deeply in me as I also think about the many people who are lost and suffering in this current paradigm, those who are deeply grappling with addiction, mental illness, and loneliness, and I wonder who they would get to be? And so, your question is so powerful because it encourages us to get excited about choosing a different paradigm, while also extending grace to those who are deeply misfitted for this current one. How do you see a thriving life paradigm re-instilling the honor of being a human?
Woman Stands Shining Well, I think that's a gigantic proposition and I think I'm pretty sure I'm the one who proposed it and just those words. So here I am caught out in the open. But I guess, first of all, what I'll say is, you know, for myself, where I start getting very battered by this time, is when I start trying to take the whole thing on myself. When I start wanting to attend to all the environmental issues, and all the issues of mental health issues, and anguish of the young people, and all the economics, and even what's happening with the water in my own home here in Taos, New Mexico, and when I start getting into that mode that wants to attend to all of it, I get beat up right away, and I get diminished. And so I want to say that I have this image of me, before I was born, you know, in the spirit world. And I'm like tugging on Spirit’s sleeve and saying, “Put me in coach, put me in, I know, I could do it, I know I could do something here. Just put me in, I want to go in.” You know, and Spirit finally saying “All right, here you go, you get to go in.” So you know, as I have that image for myself, I have it for everybody I meet. And I think wow, just think about choosing to come in right now, choosing to come and walk this Earth right now, as human being, you know, and I say this to the young people that I encounter, as I say, “Man, I just have so much respect for you right off the bat, just that you're here that you're coming in right now.” And I have total faith, as I do for myself, that I came here for a purpose, there's something for me to do here. And perhaps it's [something] that only I can do, or perhaps I am a part of some kind of constellation that is destined to come together. Lately, it's been feeling like that, and I offer my piece and, and we are greater than the sum of our parts.
So I have to stay focused that way in, deeply, in what is mine to do. Otherwise, I do get completely run over and battered by the situation. So what I am equipped to do here is to like I said, you know, is to use this incredible privilege. I mean, my people’s history is harrowing, you know, the United States government ordered every male member of my people to turn themselves in or be captured or murdered in the mid-1800s. And, and we barely survived that. We were walked hundreds of miles to a concentration camp in the southern part of the state. So the fact that I am here, and that I was put into East Coast boarding school, and I lived on Stanford campus when my father was getting his Ph.D. there. You know, I thought a lot about how meticulous Spirit has been with my education, and my education has had very little to do with the schools. I mean, it gives me the mannerisms and the vocabulary and the language to be able to be heard by those who you know, who are also embedded in those institutions and were given that as their platform, or education but I'm going to argue for every single one of us that there has been like the real school running along side by side with that, and that has to do with all of the experiences, the families we were born into, the people, the ethnicities we were born, into the gender we were born into, all of that, you know, because as I look at my own world, I just see that I have been meticulously prepared for the role I am to play. And a large part of that role is doing exactly what I'm doing right here right now, which is describing my journey from being a modern world paradigm human to a human that is more or less outside of that at this point and observing. I'm observing and I'm describing that journey.
So I don't know that I can say what the whole picture would be like of the thriving life paradigm. I feel like there have been groups of humans who have been operating from an ethic, you know, this is the way I've been thinking about it lately that you know, when I look at the sacred hoop of life, so maybe some people have seen the medicine wheel, this circle, and we say that every single member of all living things gets to have a seat on that hoop, including human beings, we're not the whole hoop - we get to have a seat on the hoop. And that every, every single member is really called on to uphold its part of that sacred hoop of life, and when any member does not uphold that part, then the integrity of the hoop begins to fail. And I do believe that is what we’re seeing, that Earth is suffering because humanity has forgotten to place life at the center of every single one of its endeavors. Other things have come before that, and we are experiencing the consequences of that. Which is why I'm sure you know, my people are very, very clear and say, with every endeavor, we do this so that people can live, so that we never lose sight of what's actually the plan around here. The plan on Earth is life, clearly, everything is doing one thing, it's making more life, making more life, she's always trying to find the way to push life up and out.
So the amazing thing about this circle of life, well there are so many amazing things about it, but the one that I've been thinking about lately is that every single other member, apart from humanity, every single other member on that hoop, who knows, you know, just by their very existence, just by their very being, their way of being, the fruit of their seed, that every generation, going back as far as you want to go and forward. I think as far as we want to go to every single being there, the way they live their life contributes to, supports, upholds every other member on that sacred hoop of life. I mean, that's incredible. Like we look at that prospect as a human being right now and it's completely overwhelming and baffling to us. How would we do such a thing we ask ourselves, but I want to point out that we have all these other beautiful relatives, I say, elders, the trees, the stones, the waters, the birds, I had a pair of hawks doing their mating ritual right over my head a couple of days ago, outside of my house, it was just astonishing. But just to think that every single one of them the way they live supports every other form of life. And so I have to believe that we also have that capacity. I don't believe we could be placed here, I don't believe we could be given a seat on that sacred hoop of life if we didn't have that ability, somehow, somewhere some way. So right now, as much as you know, you're saying we want to know of course we want to know that's the intellects way, right. It's not happy if it can't know. And if it can't really know, it starts to make something up. But we don't know right now. And that's an uncomfortable place. But what I have learned is that when we can fall in front of that great mystery door, with true humility, with true willingness, with true love for this life, and for all the life around us, for the next generation’s lives, you know, because that is a place that we find in our ceremonies, when we are able to meet that place with true humility and willingness. Astonishing vistas open when that door swings open, and shows us things that we never could have conceived of before. So perhaps it's actually a necessary place for us to encounter and to really be confronted deeply by that mystery at this time.
Ayana Young I’d like to move our conversation to look at how gender behaves in this paradigm, and I’ve heard you acknowledge that this is a very difficult conversation to have right now, but it is also desperately needed. And so often when we talk about gender, we talk about the harm that the binary does, with many pointing out how the gender binary itself is a colonial construct. So, I’m curious to enter into this topic with you in a way that holds the necessity of the non-binary, while also exploring how gender behaves differently in different paradigms, and how gender has been held in very sacred ways as well. How can we have gendered counterparts without the oppressive nature of a binary?
Woman Stands Shining So in this power over paradigm, in which might makes right, men are going to dominate is what I see, because it's really about brute force, it's really about, you know, overcoming another. And so, this is, to me why men are dominant in this paradigm and have been dominant on the Earth for some time now, by and large. So we associate that power and the way it is used, that overcoming, that overpowering, of others with masculinity. And there is truth in that there's, there's no question about that. But again, as you say, I ask myself, who would men be if they were not in a paradigm that required of them to overcome others in order to have what they need, and in order to be that provider for the life bringers, the children, and the elders? Who would they be then, and, and so then I feel like I also have to ask, so those who appear female, if not identify as female, they are then also held in a certain position within that paradigm, and for me, I feel like it's very hard for us to take a look at gender without fully acknowledging the extent of the paradigm, that power over way, and how anybody, whatever gender, whatever race, you know, is going to behave when you have people that are going to overpower you and make it next to impossible for you to get what you need to live. The same dynamics are going to arise and they are rising, we're seeing it arising politically, we're seeing it arise racially, we're seeing it arise in gender, you know, that that's been going on for forever, not forever, but for a very long time, 1000s of years.
So I think that that's the first place that I always want to start in having any conversation about gender, is how can we really know? So I will agree that that the current gender constructs are a human construct? Well, they're, they're a product of this paradigm. And so I don't think I can even really know who I am as female outside of that paradigm. And that's what you know, I think that's what you're quoting from me is that the Spirit said to me, you think, you know, a masculine is but you don't and you think, you know, a feminine is but you don't, all you know is how those two energetics behave in a power-over paradigm. But if you were to plug them into a different paradigm, they would behave in a completely different way. So I notice that when I am engaged in my cultural spiritual practices, gender is held in very particular ways. And, and I will say that, that the patriarchal way, the power over paradigm way in which men are dominant, has definitely infiltrated into Indigenous culture. It's quite convoluted there, I find, so it's, it's not that there's perfection going on there. But I do notice and I can feel how the ceremonies call upon gender in very different ways than we're accustomed to in modern world paradigm.
So I can just say for myself as someone who identifies as female and woman, and who also menstruates, who also menstruated, I should say, I don't menstruate anymore. There was a very particular spiritual capacity that I had that was based upon my biology and I don't know how there can be a human construct around that capacity. In other words, I feel like that was as natural of female being, as I've ever known how to be, was to be going into the practice of dismantling, you know, acknowledging that I'm dismantling the holy altar of life once a month and that I have the opportunity to offer that gift to the Mother Earth. And that when I do that, she responds, she responds to me so deeply, and actually blesses me in very particular ways as the female of our kind and, and also gives me vision and instruction about how to be on this Earth at this time. And so based on that very personal experience, I extrapolate quite a bit. And I ask myself so if that is what my biology can afford me to contribute, you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, I've had it with genius. I've had it with brilliant ideas, I want to be led, I want to be called by life itself to action. Because I don't think we know what we're doing, all we can keep doing is operating out of the same, you know, the same modern world paradigm, it's very hard for us to, to know even as an Indigenous person with a full-on living example of how one could be a human being in a completely different way. It's still really difficult. And then many people don't have that privilege don't have that opportunity to participate in a paradigm other than the modern world paradigm. So it's quite challenging. But I'll say that, you know, for me to be able to, to hear in that way to be able to receive instruction is so profound and so that makes me ask myself then, so what do all the other genders hold for us? What does the whole spectrum of gender hold for us? The biology of the Two-Spirit, the biology of the men and the masculine? I think that there is a huge amount of resource for understanding how to be human in such a way that we can cause all other life to thrive by being able to instead of seeing gender only through this, through the eyes of this terrible, terrible power play going on. To begin to ask, you know what is my perfect design for thriving life that I am meant to fulfill here, and how does my gender, whatever gender I'm claiming, how does that afford me that possibility to do that?
Ayana Young Hmm. Thank you, Pat, for going there with us. And yeah, I'm thinking in terms of the wounds of gender in this paradigm, I think about the shame and trauma that colonization has inflicted upon men both here and in Europe, and how that trauma in Europe begets what unfolds here in Indigenous communities. And I know that this is a topic that doesn’t always land softly, because, under this paradigm, it can be so much to ask women and non-binary folks to step into this approach of understanding men’s participation in violence and abuse, or their silence in movements for the safety and physical return of those who have gone missing or been harmed by men...but as difficult as it is, it’s worthy of noting the cycle of trauma that arises, and I know that this is a question that perhaps really needs to be addressed to the men in our lives, but as someone who has traced what the witchhunts of Europe set in motion, I wonder if I could ask you about the importance of factoring this part of the story in terms of healing the masculine and feminine, and how it is also embedded into the trauma that exists between European settlers and Indigenous people in settler-colonial countries?
Woman Stands Shining Where to begin? I'm going to begin by saying that at one point, my spirit guides told me that I, as the mother of the children that I've birthed, I am their first medicine woman and that I can orient my people to life by orienting the babies, and the toddlers and the young children to life, to what makes life to the principles of life to the original instructions. And that I actually guide the destinies of the people in that role of being this first medicine woman to the people, and that it's not until they get to the place of the coming of age, so, you know, as they're, as they're heading into puberty. At that point, you know, I've already been with them 10, 11, 12 13, 14 years, and I've been able to give them instruction, and orientation. And so at that point, it's correct for me to perhaps turn them over to the medicine men of the community for initiation, and I imagine there are women who can also do those initiations of course, too, but it was explained to me in that way. And it was also just added that women's nation has been tricked into giving up that capacity by turning our children over at very young ages to kind of random strangers, honestly. And that has to do with economics and such, but what I was, but it was pointed out to me that, that that that is a possibility for who I could be as the mother, the mothering being to the future generations.
So first of all, I'm going to say that these men who are doing harm, they were raised by mothers who had been harmed also, they didn't just arise out of nowhere. And that's a really hard thought for me, but I have four sons and it's really something to watch how they view women, how they view other humans, and to see you know, what stirs violence in them? What stirs harshness and hard-heartedness in them? It's very, very humbling to watch my own sons. And to see how well I've done in terms of this question of bringing violent men into the world, makes me want to weep sitting here, thinking about it, such an overwhelming prospect, and endeavor to raise sense. But I, I love my sons, and I am very proud of my sons, I'm very proud of their stand for life. I'm very proud of their stand for Earth, all of them, all of them would go to great lengths, and have gone to great lengths to protect Earth. When my sons returned from Standing Rock, they had a new thing, a new way about them. And that way was, you know, anytime that they were going to take action, environmental stance, and take action here in our community, they felt like they needed to have the presence, the blessing, the guidance, the prayer of an elder woman, that was new. So I really give congratulations to the women of Standing Rock, for instilling in these young warriors, you know, and of all the groups of humans, they are some of the most intimidating to me, the young warrior men, intimidating in the sense that, you know, I, I don't ever want to get heavy-handed. I feel like if I had to get heavy-handed there, well, you know, I would, and in that sense, I'm not intimidated, but I don't ever want to come to that with them. I want another kind of relationship with them.
So I've been thinking a lot about this at this time as I come into my elder womanhoodship, as I say, you know, I think in our old societies, pre-colonization, you know, we went to war at times with different tribes surrounding for different reasons. And I, I believe that it was most likely the elder women who had the final say about when we go to war. As being, you know, I call myself Holy Earth Surface Walker, Life Bringer, Life Bearer, and I stand with the full authority of the Mother Earth with me, behind me, as me, and I always am in the position and have the authority to speak on behalf of life in every situation. So that's how I claim my gender. And, and so to have these, these young men, asking, you know, as they watch the world be torn asunder, to have them pause and stop and ask, what do we what do our elder women have to say about our actions? That is really some powerful medicine woman work that was done. So I acknowledge that. And I ask myself, how do I know how to give that guidance to these young warrior men? That is a piece of training that I have missed in this life between these two paradigms. But I want to know the answer. And actually, that's one of the conversations that Joanna Macy and I were having is how do the elder women reclaim that role, to be a guide, to be a voice, to be a help, and potentially to be that final permission. What do I need to do to really know how to do that with these young warrior men?
So I don't think I've ever answered this question in this way before. But it's coming out this way today. And I guess what I'm trying to say here is we women have an enormous influence in this world, not through the power over paradigm. But through the actual real-life authority, which is this Mother Earth, she is the final authority, there is no bigger authority than her, you know, we're not living on Mars, we're not living on Jupiter, we're living on Earth, and it's gonna be her way or not at all. We think we're going to bend her way to our will, we're not, impossible, cannot, is not going to happen. So we have one choice, and that is to align with her way, her thriving life way. And we're being confronted with that very deeply right now. And so, you know, to stand with that authority is huge. There is no greater authority that I could stand with and that could be moving through me.
So at this point, you know, I've said it in other ways and other talks, you can go look for those other explanations around this or other discourse. But here today, I'm just gonna say that I have to accept my responsibility as the female of our kind, of the five-fingered ones, standing on this Earth today with the full authority of Mother Earth, and speak on behalf of life. And those young men who are here to defend life, I need to find my way to speak to them too. And I have to be a woman, fair or unfair. I have to be a woman who can raise a young boy into a man who knows how to honor life, which means they also know how to honor women's nation, and elders, and children, and other men. I'm responsible for that, too.
Ayana Young I just was taken by chills hearing you. Thank you for your truth and vulnerability and your personal experiences. Yeah, it's very moving. And well, I'd like to transition our conversation to discuss the topic of consent. And there are so many facets we could cover, but something that I’ve really been sitting with is how Western ideology and capitalism raise us to understand that in our life, in order to obtain our desires, we must never take no for an answer. We are never taught to respect limitations or how to take no for an answer gracefully. Do you think true consent is even possible in this paradigm?
Woman Stands Shining Is it possible in this paradigm? I'm not so sure it is. I mean, if indeed it is a power over paradigm in which one must overcome another in order to have what you need to live, that pretty much demands that you're going to overcome someone else, whether they give you consent, or not. And by and large, they're probably not going to give you consent. Right? So that's where the violence of this paradigm is deeply rooted. You know, I think about, when I try to feel into, what would it be like for me to be a human being, that causes all other life to thrive, my very presence does. One, it might be hard for us to imagine. So I'll take us on a little side note here, which is that my daughter, some of you may know, Lyla June Johnston is getting her Ph.D. in Indigenous Land Management Practices, Traditional Land Management Practices, and she told me this really fabulous thing that I just love, which is that you know, they're taking these core samples out of the Earth, which honestly, for Indigenous people is a little bit problematic to be just gouging holes into the Earth, just because we want to know something, but they have been taken and, and so what we what they're looking for is the deeper down, you go into the Earth, the farther back in time you go, because we have these sediment sedimentary layers of not only rock but life and, actually human activity shows up, and so when you go back, you know, a very long way, say, even here in the south, southeastern United States, for instance, you'll find that the plant life, the diversity of life here might be very minimal, like three or four major species around, and then we find that as human beings arrive on the scene, suddenly, the biodiversity just explodes. And so we have a way of doing a kind of agriculture, I guess we'll say because there's an intention to cause things to fruit and flower such that we will be able to benefit from them in a somewhat predictable way. So that will be my definition of agriculture in this instance, right. But the way that we did, it wasn't about changing the whole landscape, it wasn't about making curves into straight lines, it was another way. And so we had, we did have controlled burns, we had a huge number of possibilities for managing land. So lands were managed for, you know, 10s, and hundreds of square miles, by people and so while they want to call us hunter-gatherers, there was actually quite a bit more going on there. Modern science has just been beginning to catch up with that, and part of the reason it's been hard to see is because you can’t actually see it on the landscape. Because the idea is to not leave a mark, to not leave a monument to yourself, to not show I was here and I did this, it was to be in that very deep harmony with this symphony of life. So when I think about that, that's what gives me faith in this new prayer that I have, we actually could cause places to thrive, to explode in biodiversity in a way that was not harmful, in a way that was welcome. And so it's given me this, this new perspective on us as a species. Because I think right now I say we have low self-esteem as a species that we're that everything we touch we destroy. Well, that hasn't always been the case and it really hasn't been even all that long ago, relative to the age of Earth, and actually the age of human presence on Earth, which science hasn't quite caught up with yet either. But they keep making discoveries that keep pushing that time further and further back, don't they? We’re saying hundreds of 1000s of years. And so when I see that, and I think “Wow, we have that capacity.” But what was at the root of it? I'm going to say what was at the root of it is this understanding of the sovereignty of all beings, that when we acknowledge every being, again, as having not only the right to be there but as actually a necessary part for my own well being and the well being of every other life form - I mean, that's what every plant is, they're supporting all the rest of the life.
So, yes, I have to think very carefully about what I'm going to do if I'm going to interfere with its trajectory of what it has to offer. And so to me, this idea of consent, having consensual relationship, so, so here we are bound by a deep, deep law of consent of the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of all beings. And we're all required to eat each other. I mean, it's the craziest setup, right? Like, we all have to eat somebody, whether it's a carrot or venison or whatever, it's going to be right, we're going to interrupt a life. So that means that we have to come into some kind of place of consensus, and consent, we have to have a consensual relationship. So this is why we make offerings when we're going to take plants, plants for medicine, we ask permission, who wants to come? Who really needs to stay? And we make sure that we take only one out of every three or four, you know because those beings have to continue on in order for everything to be well in a region, right? So consent is inherent to this place that we live in. So your question is, do I think consent can exist in that paradigm, in modern world paradigm? I'm going to say I don't think it can. But I do know that we do have to come into a place of consent and consensual relationship with this creation that we have been placed in if we want to continue on.
Ayana Young Thank you for sharing your personal experience, and yeah, I'm thinking about how Western narratives around environmentalism and climate change fixate on humans as these great destroyers...and I think, many of us have a hard time challenging that notion because we know that the behavior of some is indeed driving many kin to their extinction. But I’ve also been reminded by many leaders that change is inevitable, the universe is always in flux. How do you balance our responsibility to uphold the integrity of the circle of life as we know it, while also revering transformation and change, even when it appears in the form of destruction?
Woman Stands Shining Well, I think what helps me hold that is, culturally, we say that we have already been through several worlds. So sometimes you might hear Indigenous people talk about the Fourth World or the Fifth World, or the Sixth World, or the Fifth Sun or such like that, and so we're talking about this very, very long history that I alluded to earlier, hundreds of 1000s of years of humanity, human presence here. And, and there have been rises and falls with it, we've lost worlds. You know, my clan grandfather says that the reason we lost the last world, which was the flood, was because men and women believed they could live separate from each other. So some cultures even say, we know how we lost our worlds and had to begin again. And then we had, you know, some benevolent relatives, you know, for us, we say it was the dragonfly that led us through the hollow read through the water to be able to come to the upper world again and begin again. So you know, those stories, that everybody likes to call myths, as though, I don't know, I'm not sure what that word means anymore. But it implies to me that it's not real. It's not a “true” story. It's some kind of moral teaching or flight of fancy, but I'm gonna say not so.
And so I think, for me, again, I have to go back to what did I come here for? What is my, my reason for being here now? What can I do? And, you know, I went through a period that I know, many people I encounter, go through and might still be going through. And certainly young people are thinking it over that I encounter, which is, you know, is it too late? Is it too late and what's the point or whatever like that, and then I feel like the way that that got sort of resolved for me is to say, you know, I feel that my work is either going to help with this fantastic wake up that we all hope will somehow happen in the midst of all of our dogmas and hoarding and all the many addictions we have to ways of life that destroy life, but we nevertheless hold out that there's going to be this wakeup. So either that will happen, and my work will contribute to that or my work, I feel like some of the work I get called to do is to - so for instance, when I was called to do the work around the witch hunts in Europe, and that was named an archetypal wounding of humanity, to realign our course there, to retell the truth of the matter, and the stories about what that really was, and what really happened there and how that altered the course of humanity, to really spend the time there and to come to the understanding and to be willing to be instructed, and even torn asunder and reassembled, which is pretty much what happened to me there. And then to be able to tell the story in a new way, they said it will automatically change your trajectory into the future. And so I trust that, I believe that, I believe that is what happened at the time when we did the ceremony, and it's still unfolding now.
But I feel like that reconciling was almost a moral realignment, and my sense is that that level of healing and realignment plays out along the line of time, even if we end up losing this world, and only some of us get to begin again. That that bit of work somehow sets us up to be in a better place than we would have been had that work not been done. So that's probably as literal as I've ever been, I've ever spoken about that, but that is how I feel about it. So our forgiveness, our reconciliations, our acknowledgments of traumas that we have inflicted upon each other. All those are so important, they're so important. I don't think we can begin to understand how important they are. And I was shown during the time of doing the ceremonies in Europe, around the witch hunts that, you know, my job is to hold the faith, my job is to hold the light, perhaps over hundreds of years. And the prayers that were made by the women, and men, and children that were suffering during the so-called witch hunts, they're being answered today. Some of them, so what is that? 300 or 400 years later, and I'm supposed to hold the faith through all of that. That's what I was told. And that what the world needed is the world needed my forgiveness today over those matters, versus 500 years ago. We needed it more today. That's what spirit told me. Because when I could open up my heart of forgiveness, which bathes creation and light, I forego revenge. I even forego neutrality, and I go all the way to forgiveness. That's a blessing for the world. And Spirit said, “Well, you know what, we needed that blessing for this world right now.” And so that gives a really different meaning to me about that phrase, the meek shall inherit the Earth. So in this strange, roundabout, riddle kind of way that Spirit has given, those who have suffered the most have the greatest potential to bless and to fortify the world and our possibilities for a future, now more than maybe anyone else.
Ayana Young I really needed to hear that. I've been struggling with forgiveness and what you just shared was really powerful. In a post titled “Native on Native Studies”, you write; “I was given a deep caution by my spirit helpers. They said to me that it was crucial to be cautious about making a study of ourselves as indigenous peoples. That we, by doing this, we could endanger our own understanding of who we are and how we are. In the same way that the Academy tried to make our life through their studies of our culture, logical, linear, and intellectual, we, by participating in this academic methodology, we ourselves might reduce our way of life into this same two-dimensional understanding.” And, I think this continues to happen in environmental spheres through the fetishization of Indigenous knowledge, but the other side of this is that the only people who have a successful record of living in relative harmony with the Earth, are of course Indigenous people. And so, I have this question swirling for all of those who have a vested interest in sustainability, around how to best support rekindling all of the knowledge that has been stripped from Indigenous peoples in many different ways?
Woman Stands Shining Well, I feel that, you know, this land back movement taking place in the United States, in maybe an unprecedented way, and by that, what do we mean, we mean, returning lands that traditionally belonged to Indigenous peoples - for it to be back under their care again. And so that's happening with gifts of land, in some instances, sometimes, funds are gifted to the Indigenous peoples in order to be able to purchase lands. So it's coming back and in different ways. I actually, to my surprise, am being called to participate in something like that. So I think that this is a very powerful way and a pretty daunting prospect, honestly, because our lives have become quite complicated, meaning Indigenous peoples. So we have, we have members of what certainly my tribe all over the board, from Ph.D.s to traditional medicine singers to, I don't know, just everybody doing lots of different things in lots of different ways. So for a lamb to be returned, “my people”, there are lots of different ideas about what that could be used for. Maybe it's going to be used to reenact our old lifestyles, or maybe it's a way to get a jump on some kind of, you know, really lucrative deal. You know, it's hard to say, what would happen, in some instances. Well I use my own Diné tribe as an example. I don't I don't really know what would happen if certain lands were returned to us at this point, which ideology would win out at this point?
But I feel that when we raise that possibility, that there is this possibility of, you know, because it's hard for the modern world to understand what it means to be so closely tied to a very specific location for 1000s of years. It's almost beyond our imagining, it's almost beyond my imagining, but to have that kind of relationship, to truly be in symbiotic relationship with place where you are causing, you know, an ongoing endless cycling of benefit, co-benefit, that's the engine of sustainability that we have known, one example we can point to. So can that be recreated? Can we continue on and do that? So when we're not able to be in the places that we had that relationship with, in many instances, we can't really, truly be the full nature of our people, of our culture. You know, I say, the Mother Earth, you know, culture isn't a human construct - culture is the Mother Earth expressing herself as human being in any given place. So to get that level of relationship going is going to take a lot, and I think Indigenous peoples can do this. I think it's, I think we still hold enough of our ceremonies, we could say it's literally in our blood in our DNA, you know, in my blood, and my DNA is built for desert, high desert, right? I don't do well in tropical humidity. I mean, I enjoy it for short periods, but it's not that easy for me to thrive there. I mean, it's literally in my DNA to be in this part of the Earth, the southwest of what we now call the United States.
So to help these Indigenous peoples begin to make those relationships again, sometimes the land that's being returned might have to do with our initiation processes, maybe we haven't really been able to hold our initiations as deeply, as we once did. And maybe by returning that land and allowing us that possibility, you know, we can recreate those really profound relationships with Earth. And that, you know, what I want to point out is yes, I know that some of my relatives feel that my euro descent relatives feel like they really need that part that says, “Yes, I am doing this because of what my ancestors did to your people.” So I acknowledge that it is a form of justice and restoration, and conceivably reconciliation. But I also want us to consider that it's going even beyond that, which is to say that when we have human beings, enacting those old relationships of the most profound sustainability, I mean, I don't even like that word. In that context. The most profound mad love affair with Earth is really what we're talking about, and then not only Earth, but with cosmos. So Earth has her destiny, she has a role to fulfill in our solar system and in the cosmos, and she's on her way to do that in her unfolding, and I don't think she's gonna let us get in her way of doing that. But we could be a tremendous ally and help to her in doing that.
So for us to support these land back endeavors, I think, right now is one very tangible, concrete way to help Indigenous peoples as for conceptualizing, conceptualizing our cultures, very interesting to hear those words read back to me right now. But it's hard enough for us to hold on to the truth of our I mean, I want to say ceremonial life or spiritual life, but that is implying as though it was somehow separate from our day-to-day life and it's not. To be you know, the closest I can come is knowing what happened when I went into prayer and ceremony during my menstruation, and really had visions unfold for me, one after another about what I could do, what a good direction would be, who, what people would be involved, even the ceremonies we did for the human reunion ceremonies in Europe to address the witch hunts, that were all given to me. So it's a collaborative, and co-creative relationship with all the rest of the sacred hoop of life and for those of us who are able to, and can, I'm going to extend that out to a spiritual community of helpers that have been surrounding the Earth and have been collaborating with human beings and Earth for I don't think we can even say how long: the White Buffalo Calf Woman, the Blue Corn Mothers, I'm sure there are other entities in other parts of the world, but just to name those ones. You know, to come into that kind of deep collaboration is hard for us to come by in some ways in Indigenous culture. We're really fighting to preserve that. And so this also is a part of this question about co-opting culture and misusing of culture, so that's something that people may not realize is when there's all this, because it's very hard to make that jump, it's very hard to make that jump from intellect into the true meanings of Indigenous ceremony very, very hard. And I know that at this time modern world is really seeking that and really trying to do that.
One of the ways I think they feel is like the easiest way to do that is through plant medicines, because that will definitely alter your consciousness in ways that nothing else will and that you can't explain, and things happen during that time. But honestly, I feel like those ways are way advanced, way beyond most human beings on the planet at this time, in order to really work with them in a way that is beneficial to life and to even your own self. You know, in the Lakota way, a prayer we say, we pray with our own juices, you know, so we're not, we're not involved in hallucinogenics, we come into vision through fasting, generally, and prayer, and so on. And to drop into that place is so precious. So for folks to come along and want to hop right in just notice, I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm probably more open than then many Indigenous people you'll meet, but I do see that it's a little bit hard sometimes with this clamoring of people using these ways when they're coming out of intellect. At the same time, as we are desperately trying to hold on to what we hold not only for ourselves, but for the balance of the whole planet of the whole Earth for ourselves, so that we can keep that strength, so that we can have that relationship that is necessary for human beings to have with Earth. Sometimes, all of that extra stuff to navigate by people coming into our cultures in wanting to participate, can make it difficult. So it's just something to keep in mind as people keep asking me about that question co-opting culture. I don't again, I don't say never do it, don't want it, I can't say that. But I can just point out some of the stuff that makes it difficult so that hopefully we can be aware and collaborate.
Ayana Young Thank you, Pat. I think that's really important for all who are listening to hear, and this has been such an incredible conversation. I'm so grateful for this time with you. And as we come to a close, I have one last thought and that is both prophecy and science have given us certain timelines for radical change when it comes to the habitability of the planet, and I think definitions of radical change might look very different depending upon who you are speaking to...maybe not...but I’ve been thinking about this messaging lately, and how daunting it can be that we may have only about 5 years to “turn things around”, so to close our conversation, I’d like to ask you what radical change means for you in your day-to-day life?
Woman Stands Shining Well, what I'm noticing, and I think this is something that this quarantine has given everybody an opportunity is to understand where do you get your food from? And what does that mean? And what happens when your food supply chain is cut off. And for that matter, your toilet paper chain and so we've all hopefully had a good chance to think about that. And maybe go so far as to say that getting a bigger storage house and storing more is probably not going to cut it. And so I'm no exception. So my job I feel like legitimately has been to voice some of these things like I'm sharing with you right now. So I've been called on to do that in all different parts of the world at different gatherings. When lockdown happened in the United States, I was just coming from Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. I was gonna wash my clothes and maybe get some sleep and then take off for Australia and London and Ireland, two weeks after I got home and in those two weeks, everything came to a halt. So that was my lifestyle and I had to think a lot about it, about my carbon footprint, flying, etc. And I kept hearing that I needed to do that and I also needed to be a part of the drawing, like drawing an energetic web onto the planet with the prayers that I was carrying, as well. So that's how I guess we could say justified that life, it has been really hard to just come to a screeching halt as I know it was for many of us. And so I'm confronted with myself pretty deeply. You know, a question really came up early on: “What were you in it for, really?” And so I've had to gain clarity about that again, and now like I say, this land back piece is coming up, there's some folks who have land at the base of one of our four sacred mountains, that is pretty much all private land at the base, we haven't really had much access to that mountain for our own ceremonies and such. And now they want to sell it and they, they really would like me and my family to be the keepers of it and, and want Diné people to always have access to the mountain. So that's like a pretty radical turn for me, likeI've been asking spirit lately “Seriously?” So now it's time for me to be like a homesteader. You know, like, I wish you'd brought this up when I was in my 30s because now I’m coming up on 60, and it's not going to be that easy. And, and the truth is, it's not going to be that easy for me to just, you know, put my head down and do it all myself, which is, unfortunately, a little bit of my MO. But no, so it's forcing me like if I'm really going to listen to that call, which I have always to the best of my ability answered every single call that spirit has ever given to me. When I'm standing in the front of this one going, “Wow, this is a big one.” To go live out in a very remote place and to begin to build community that is based on spiritual values and principles that I hold now and that I'm going to come in to learn from my own people. And again, to also be able to say I don't see the need for having tribal government involved with this endeavor, even though it is to benefit ultimately Diné people. So it'll probably be held as a private transaction. But it's, it's radical, it's a totally different lifestyle, a totally different way of being and I just feel like, as, as hard as some days, it's really like an overwhelming prospect. And other days, I'm very excited about it. But, but I really feel like we, each one of us, has to have an ear out for such a radical calling, because the life that we have been living cannot be lived much longer. It just cannot.
As the Spirit said to me, by the time all of the chaos of the Earth hits first world nations, it's going to be late, late, late, late in the game. And so I feel like this is where we're at, we're seeing, you know, a lot of our relatives have already been deeply overcome by all the changes, and are already in that position of trying to understand what in the world to do. And some of them were maybe trying to prepare, but probably many of them were not. So I was told, you know, to not necessarily go into this sense of shame and guilt that that wasn't going to serve, but you're really asked myself, why am I in this position? So here I am an Indigenous woman who is not even supposed to be here, the plan was genocide. I was supposed to be exterminated. But my ancestors lived through that. And I'm here and I'm living here in a first so-called first world nation and what does that mean? What am I able to do from this place? Who am I able to be as you say and as I've been saying, to uphold the honor of being human being now. And so this is the calling that's coming for me in conjunction with working with a lot of other people who are involved in similar endeavors.
So I feel like we are looking for our place to create is as one of my favorite authors back when I used to read pre-menopause, I read Joseph Chilton Pierce's The Biology of Transcendence, and he talks about, you know, maybe the goal isn't to try to create global change, but the goal maybe is to create lifeboats of coherence, and that if we create these lifeboats of coherence, that when structures fall, when chaos hits, that the new will begin to coalesce around these lifeboats of coherence. And so that's another teaching that I take forward into my life right now, and I feel like whatever this calling is that the mountain, it's actually the mountain calling - is calling for a certain kind of lifeboat of coherence there and I'm doing everything I know, including yesterday crying my eyes to be, you know, I don't have to know how it's gonna happen. I just have to be, I just have to not say no, that's what spirits told me. As long as you don't say no, we will see this through, it will happen. So I'm doing all in my power to be able to at least not say no. And working very, very deeply on being able to say yes.
Ayana Young Thank you, Pat, for sharing that and everything that you have opened us up to in this conversation. And I'm really glad you're saying yes and I feel confident for you, and excited for the radical changes in your life, and feeling very certain that they will inspire radical changes in others that get to come into connection with you. Wow, I'm really so moved by this conversation. And I feel like I'm definitely going to spend the whole weekend just letting it sink in. Thank you.
Woman Stands Shining Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, and I'm really grateful to have had this conversation. There are things that I've said today that I don't think I've ever said. So I find that very satisfying.
Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by The Range of Light Wilderness, Violet Bell, and Sea Stars. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell and Julia Jackson.