WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO GATHER...
when we live in a wounded world?
If you wonder how to celebrate with joy and meaning in the midst of ongoing madness, you are not alone.
While there will never be one convenient, comforting, or 'right' answer, we believe in the power of what we can do together. There are myriad ways to gather:
- Gather your resources: pay reparations to Indigenous folx. Depending on your financial situation, you might reapportion money spent on a holiday meal to Indigenous communities, match money spent with a donation, or purchase items for your meal from Indigenous producers like Tocabe Indigenous Market and Sweetgrass Trading Co.
- Gather your people: If you are in a position to speak up in your circles, please do it. The work you do at your table makes a difference to humans everywhere (@indigenzingartsed).
- Gather knowledge: If you are wondering, How do we learn & speak with children about Native American History & teach truths? @desibookaunty has a starting point with Keepunumuk:
Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story.
- Gather your community: If we take time to gather in person, we also take time to think about how to do it safely amid the ongoing pandemic.
- Gather your time: It may take only a minute. "For centuries, the U.S. government has enforced paternalistic and inhumane policies to separate Native children from their families. ...In 1978, after federal investigations found that public and private agencies had removed a third of all Native children from their homes and placed most of them in institutions or homes with no ties to American Indian tribes, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)." - Wašté Win Young of the Lakota People's Law Project shares one thing you can do to prevent the Supreme Court from threatening this important legislation: send an email asking President Biden to intervene.
- Gather your courage: @theindigenousanarchist has a starting point for choosing different paths to recognition.
We want to hold space for the complexity of 'celebrations'. While they may create space for the best parts of togetherness, we can also honor the ways in which they cause harm, historically and in the present. While we respect boundaries, we also recognize the ways in which power structures work to silo and silence us - to make us feel like we are alone and incapable. As we reimagine what the holidays look like in a continual fight for justice, we harness the energy of what we can all do, together.
All together now,
Tay + Dor
photo by Christine Han
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