Shift guilt about past injustice to feelings of reciprocity for the gifts we receive from the places we call home
I’m not going to lie; it’s been a heavy couple of weeks.
Not for me, but for the world.
My newsfeed is filled with so many images of so much terror and pain in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, and Nagorno-Karabakh.
While Canadians are free from war, we are hardly at peace. We are at odds over so many issues these days. Globally, we are concerned we are being sidelined and dismissed as old alliances fade and new ones, based on shared values rather than shared borders, come into focus.
A similar shift is happening domestically. Our traditional alliances, defined by geography and language, have given way, replaced by new alliances based on shared, borderless values that have been bubbling beneath the surface for years and released by the pandemic’s isolation.
We are adrift, and I worry, as I’m sure some of you do too, that these waves of change will only grow stronger, that we are in for more stormy weather.
I seek some ballast to cling to as we navigate through troubled times – and I think I may have found it on a Zoom call talking about tourism.
It happened in the opening moments of a webinar hosted by my colleague and friend Antony Upwards, originator of the Flourishing Business Canvas.
More about Antony and his canvas below, but right now, I want to tell you how he welcomed everyone to the event.
If you’re like me, you’re now familiar with the Indigenous land acknowledgement statement that precedes just about every event I now attend.
While I appreciate the sentiment, I am growing increasingly impatient and uneasy hearing and saying these statements because it feels like lip service, particularly if the event doesn’t mention or include Indigenous perspectives or framing once the land acknowledgement is said and done.
Then I heard Antony’s introduction.
He didn’t speak of acknowledging Indigenous land; instead, he spoke of the privilege of being on Indigenous land that exists within a specific shared ecosystem and watershed.
Then, he invited each of us to state where we are privileged to live and work.
My statement reads like this: I am privileged to live and work in the traditional and unceded territory of the Wabanaki Confederacy of the Mi’kmaq, Wolostoq and Passamaquoddy in the Bay of Fundy ecosystem within the Wolostoquik/St. John River watershed.
In our topsy-turvy world, where formerly innocuous words are now weapons of mass dismissal, Antony showed me how to reclaim and reframe my acts of privilege.
To shift guilt to gratitude – and to make me think about what it means to say I am privileged to work and live on this land, in this place.
This revised statement commits me to a sense of reciprocity for the gift that has been given, that all of us who live in this ecosystem and watershed are caring for together. To realize that my particular ecosystem has been sustaining human communities for over 12,000 years. I am part of a long tradition, and it is my responsibility to work with others to ensure that continuity and care.
Now, I invite all of you to consider where you are privileged to live and work. What ecosystem and watershed sustains you, with its diversity of species and ecological systems, and who has it sustained for tens of thousands of years?
It is your privilege to call it home, and our collective responsibility is to care for it, our ballast in the storm.
