Mountainsong Expeditions
  • Trips & Classes
  • Contact Us
  • Register
  • Directions
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Way of the Weaver
  • About
  • Way of the Huntress
  • Huntress Mentorship

Hunting Wholeness

11/14/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Companionship of the Hunt

Sitting in my treestand this evening, on opening day of Vermont's rifle season, I tried to think of a time when I had felt lonely while hunting.  While I often hunt solo, I could not recall a single instance of loneliness.  

​Yesterday, Vermont's governor announced a "social lockdown": as Covid is spiking here, we shall continue going to work and school, but may not gather with anyone outside our households, not even a masked outdoor walk with a neighbor.  I'm lucky to live in a homestead of three adults (not to mention the goats, dogs, and chickens), but I still felt some deep loneliness and isolation during lockdown last spring, since I'd been accustomed to exchanging hugs, smiles, and affectionate words with a wide variety of friends throughout my community every week.  A pandemic is a hard time for those of us who are not "coupled" in the traditional sense.

But today it occurred to me that I have never felt lonely while hunting.  I've contemplated many things while sitting in the woods, including my own heartbreaks and disappointments, but that is not the same as the embodied sensation of being lonely.  Hunting not only gets me outside, where the trees and squirrels and weather patterns clamor for my attention and engagement, but it adds the act of courtship.  When I hunt, my posture is one of prayer, one of questing, one of calling out to the Deer Spirit to send a willing buck my way.  I make offerings.  I prepare carefully.  I "dress up" for my beloved, in a big marshmallow blob of wool, down, camouflage, and hunter orange.  I know I may only get one chance.

While my personal hunting practice is usually solo, in non-pandemic years I also guide.  When I guide another person in the hunt, we don't talk much.  We are in a parallel silent courtship of the same beloved, each calling out with our spirits in the way that feels right to us.  We collaborate, and in questing together without words, we come to know deep things about each other.  You don't know how much you understand without words until you put them aside.  But while we keep each other company, each of us is primarily in relationship with the elusive deer that we are seeking together.

This year has brought layer upon layer of struggle, stress, and grief.  For many of us, it has made us feel alone many times over.  Learning how not to feel alone may be one of the most important "survival skills" of our time.  So I invite you, in the next few days:  go hunting.  Seek that which is elusive and filled with mystery.  Whether you bring a rifle or a camera or just your observant senses doesn't matter.  Spend a day, hour, or week in quest and courtship.  Perhaps you'll find, as I have, that you can't feel lonely when you are devoted to the patient search for grace.  In the search itself lies our wholeness.  I think we'll need every bit of our wholeness to navigate the times ahead.

Picture
0 Comments

Is A Gun Really The Tool You Need Right Now?

3/27/2020

0 Comments

 
Exploring survival strategies in a crisis

It is late March of 2020.  As the gravity of the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak directs many of us into home isolation, and anxiety about the stalling economy grows stronger, I've suddenly gotten a LOT of inquiries about people who want to buy their first gun and learn how to shoot it.

Although I was raised in a pacifist family, I own several rifles and a shotgun.  I hunt for food, and I teach others to use firearms safely for that purpose.  I honor the right of people to defend themselves, and that guns can sometimes be the equalizer that allows a marginalized person to protect their body and and their family.

I also don't think most people should buy their first gun right now.  And let me be clear:  I'm a queer, white, educated, assigned-female person who has experienced virtually no interpersonal violence in my life.  Most of the people I know who are asking about guns are of a similar demographic.  I offer these ideas to anyone who finds them helpful, and do not intend to tell more marginalized people than myself how thew should respond to their circumstances.

Learning from Psychology and History

Let's look at human psychology: studies show that after a big disaster, the most common human response is empathy and helpfulness, including towards strangers. This is very different from the riots, theft, and violence that many of us are taught to imagine.  Studies show this compassion rises quickly, peaks after one week, and then drops off sharply (1).  Yet that does not mean violence is the next stage.

Let's look at history.  During the Great Depression in the 1930s, overall health and longevity rose noticeably across the population of the US.  One cause of death that did rise was suicide, which showed a direct relationship with unemployment (2).  We know from gun death statistics that suicide is the number one cause of death by guns:  in 2017 in the US, six out of ten gun deaths were suicides(3).  That means that if you keep a gun in your home, it's far more likely that you or someone in your family will be harmed by an accident or suicide than it is that you'll need to use the gun in self-defense.  Also, if you are not trained in using your gun, you likely won't be effective in defending yourself.  In-person training isn't advisable as we try to slow this pandemic, and the idea of people learning to shoot purely from online resources frightens me... especially when those people's critical thinking capacity is reduced by a constant state of fear and anxiety.  We humans get pretty stupid when we're afraid.

I do believe guns are a great tool for acquiring meat.  For some people, in some circumstances, they can offer an empowering path towards strength and self-protection.  Personally, I choose to only own rifles and shotguns, because handguns were designed to shoot humans and that's not something I intend to do.  I keep all my guns locked up, with additional trigger locks on each firearm, and ammo stored separately.  None of my guns are stored in my home.  I've made a vow to myself that if I'm feeling really low and start thinking about self harm, I'll tell a friend and ask them to keep my gun-lock keys until I'm feeling better.  I have actually taken this step before, many years ago after a bad breakup.  It was very humbling, but I trust myself to do it again if I need to.

While individual circumstances vary, I don't recommend that most people become first-time gun owners right now.  But what can you do instead?  Well, a basic hunting rifle and ammo would have cost you between $400 and $2500.  So that's a pretty nice budget to work with as we plan our non-gun survival strategies.  What tools will we need?

First Alternative:  Plant a Big Garden

My first suggestion is to plant a Corona Victory Garden.  This is a brand-new movement that encourages anyone with access to fertile land to plant an extra-large garden this year so they can share that bounty with people in need.  There is good evidence that gardening actually REDUCES depression(4), so it seems logical it could also help mitigate the tendency for suicide that accompanies an economic depression.  Also, gardening begets community!  When people help each other in their gardens and give away their bumper crops, it strengthens the system of mutual aid among their friends and neighbors.  If the world really goes to pieces, your ammo will eventually run out.  The goodwill of your neighbors is a renewable resource that tends to strengthen in tough times, and it could be far more important to your survival.  Think of how many seeds you could buy with the money you would have spent on a gun!  If you do not have access to fertile land, you could invest in a CSA share instead.

Second Alternative:  Make a Go Bag

My second suggestion is to make yourself a Go Bag and a Survival Cache.  First, a little background: many of us have anxiety about people coming for our resources, and being harmed or left with nothing.  These fears are vividly narrated in books like Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy.  These kinds of fears are inevitable in any society based on inequality of resources: the Haves must always guard against the Have-Nots, usually with military force.  The history of colonization gives us a stark rendering of this scenario, from the Middle Passage to the Trail of Tears, and many other acts of theft and genocide.  Much of this violence continues today, in forms like the Prison Industrial Complex (a.k.a. modern slave labor) and the continual breach of treaties with Indigenous People that has recently been very visible in the movements to defend Standing Rock and the Wet'suwet'en Nation against pipelines (a.k.a. modern land theft & degradation).  Such violence and theft was also practice in Europe, especially during the witch trials in the middle ages.

Since these fears are so deeply rooted in ancestral trauma, I think we need to first honor them by LISTENING TO THEM, and then do the healing work needed to unlearn them.  That work is long and follows its own timeline.  In the meantime, honor these ancestral fears by making sure you'll have what you need.

A Go Bag or Bug Out Bag is a small backpack that contains the things you need for basic survival for a few days to a week.  A Survival Cache is a sealed bucket of survival tools buried or hidden in a place that you've memorized and can reach on foot from your home.  Some good things to include in them are:
  • Matches, lighters, or other fire-making tools
  • Dry tinder for kindling fires (cottonballs soaked in vaseline are commonly recommended, but dry birchbark works just as well).
  • A sturdy survival knife.  I recommend the Mora Companion (especially the version with a built-in fire steel).
  • Lots of paracord.  You can't have too much.
  • A lightweight cooking pot with a lid.  You can use this to cook food and boil water.
  • A week's supply of rice and lentils (I eat about 1.25 cups per day when I am active).
  • A generous amount of salt.
  • A sturdy water bottle
  • A dropper bottle of plain chlorine bleach.  To purify one liter of water, add two drops of bleach and wait 40 minutes.
  • An emergency blanket
  • A small tarp
  • A poncho or other rain-gear
  • A warm hat
  • A small first aid kit that includes good blister are supplies
  • Some cash in a waterproof baggie
  • A flashlight & batteries (or a hand-crank flashlight)

Extra goodies that could be great to have:
  • A knife sharpener
  • An ax or hatchet
  • A shelf-stable source of fat (maybe crisco?).  Lack of fat in your diet is what you will begin to feel first.
  • Leather work gloves
  • Extra thick wool socks
  • A sleeping bag
  • A radio (especially a hand-crank radio -- often these have a flashlight and a phone charger incorporated)
  • A compass
  • Relevant medications for your circumstances, such as Doxycyline for Lyme Disease (you'll need a prescription)
  • Good hiking boots (if you're likely to not already be wearing them).

In a true crisis, imagine being on the run with just a gun, versus being on the run with all these incredible tools.  In which scenario do you feel most empowered?

Lastly, the most important resource you can have in your Go Bag is your skills.  Do you know how to build an emergency shelter to stay warm and dry?  If not, google "debris hut."  Are you skilled at making a fire in wet weather?  If not, practice.  Can you navigate by the sun and stars?  If not, read The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley.  Do you know the edible plants in your region?  If not, find someone who can teach you.  Are you skilled in making decisions and solving conflicts in a small group?  Explore consensus decision-making and restorative/transformative justice.

Third Alternative: Archery

You know what I do keep in my home?  My hunting bow & broadhead arrows.  Since modern compound hunting bows do not need to be stored un-strung, it is always ready to go if the need for self-protection should arise.  It also give me hours of calm mediative archery practice, and could help me acquire some wild meat in a pinch.  Archery takes even more practice than firearms to become accurate, but it's dang intimidating -- if you walked into someone's home and they were pointing at you with a fully drawn bow and arrow and yelling, would you stick around?  As an added benefit, bows are not generally a workable tool for serious self-harm.  Children tend not to be strong enough to draw an adult hunting bow, so accidents involving children are less likely.

Conclusion
What part of yourself do you want to feed?  Do you want to feed the part that fears your fellow humans and assumes bad intentions, or the part that believes in compassion and mutual aid?  Do you want to build your capacity to fend people off, or the capacity to tend your neighbor?  

We can move on all fronts at once.  If you do decide to buy a gun, I hope you'll implement these other strategies as well.  Let's move forward in the direction of our dreams: a world where resources are distributed fairly, justice is a daily reality, and we can stop fearing each other.



About the Author:  Murphy Robinson is a hunting and archery instructor and the founder of Mountainsong Expeditions.  They are also a Street Medic and decolonization activist.  They live on a mountainside in Vermont.

SOURCES
(1)https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201709/how-long-does-public-empathy-last-after-natural-disaster
​
(2)https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290
(3)https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
(4)​https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/13/green-therapy-gardening-helping-fight-depression
0 Comments

Street Medic Resources for the Coronavirus

3/14/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture

Spread the Calm, Know the Symptoms, and Embrace Plant Allies


What can we do as Street Medics?  How can we offer support at a time when the number one recommendation is to stay home to slow the spread of this pandemic?  I've been grappling with these questions, and here is what I've found.
  1. Spread the Calm.  One of the prime directives of the street medic movement is to "Spread the Calm."  Panic causes poor decision making and people get hurt unnecessarily, and this is just as true in a global pandemic as it is on the front lines of action.  The rest of list suggests some ways to spread the calm.
  2. Instead of focusing on anxiety, pivot towards helpful action.  Here is a list of Vermont mutual aid information.  If you are outside Vermont, find out what is happening in your own community.
  3. Know the Symptoms so you can support people who wonder if they may have COVID-19.  They are:
    1. Fever
    2. Dry cough
    3. Shortness of breath
    4. Sore throat.                                                 
    5. In only 4% of cases is there a runny nose present, and those are probably instances of secondary infection. 
    6. If you have these symptoms, CALL your doctor (do not visit the office in person) and they will direct you to a testing clinic and call ahead to tell the clinic you are coming.  While access to COVID-19 testing access in the US has been inconsistent, you can definitely get tested for influenza and strep throat, which is useful for a process of elimination.  You should seek to get tested even if your infection is mild, because that helps public health officials trace your contacts and monitor them proactively.
  4. Know how long the Cornonavirus germs survives on surfaces:  about three days on hard surfaces, and less than a day on cardboard and fabric.  Accurate information on this can be found in this New York Times article (March 17, 2020).  Spreading this information can help calm fears about the spread of the virus on surfaces.
  5. Boost your immune system however you can.  It's possible to have an asymptomatic or mild infection if your immune system is strong, which means you are freeing up hospital beds for those with more severe infections.  Get rest, breathe fresh air, exercise, stay hydrated, and eat healthy food.  You can also utilize herbs that boost the immune system:
    1. My friend Vincent wrote a really helpful guide to Peace of Mind for Cornonavirsu:  Herbal Support For Viral Infections, with advice about immune boosting herbs as well. 
    2. Guido Mase, founder of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, offered this EXCELLENT webinar on herbal responses for COVID-19.  It is definitely worth watching.
    3. If you live in the northern forest, you can collect evergreen needles, usnea lichen, and the chaga mushroom directly from the forest for immune support (thanks to Trevanna Grenfell for this reminder!).  Pine needles and chaga are best made into teas, and Usnea is best tinctured.  Chaga is slow-growing and often over-harvested, so only harvest in moderation and only where it is locally abundant.
  6. Art, poetry, and music raise our spirits, and keeping up morale is key to any prolonged struggle (I learned that first-hand at Standing Rock!).  Here are a few pieces that have been inspiring me:
    1. Wash Your Hands poem by Dori Midnight
    2. Italian citizens in Siena singing to each other from their windows along an abandoned street.
    3. The "What to do in a Pandemic" animal art series by Ricardo Levins Morales
  7. Wash your hands frequently (for at least 20 seconds).  Hand-washing with soap is WAY more effective than sanitizing gels.  Model the new "elbow bump" greeting instead of hugs and handshakes.
  8. For balanced, trustworthy, and easy-to-understand daily updates on the Coronavirus situation in the USA, check out the new NPR podcast Coronavirus Daily.

I'll continue to update this post with new helpful information and links as I come across them.  Please share widely.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Murphy Robinson has been a street medic instructor since 2010.  They have offered medic support for Occupy Wall Street, Shut Down VT Yankee, Standing Rock, and Montpelier's May Day Parade.  They have also been a practicing Wilderness First Responder since 2006, with first-hand experience caring for injured and ill patients on backcountry expeditions.  Murphy offers Street Medic trainings in Vermont and wherever else they are invited to teach.

Sources of Medical Information used above:
  • "The Daily" Podcast, March 13 episode: "Learning to live with the Coronavirus" (an interview with science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr.)
  • Belluck, Pam. "What Does Coronavirus do to the Body?" New York Times, March 12, 2020.
  • Health Bulletin email from Tree of Life Medicine in Montpelier, Vermont (March 10, 2020).
​
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
0 Comments

Murphy's Law:  Canoe Crash on the NFCT

10/25/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Murphy and Tierney, post-crash, with the section of river that flipped their canoe in the background.
Oct 20, 2019:  22 miles, from Island Pond to West Charleston, VT, on the Clyde River

I launched my canoe with my friend Tierney this morning, full of excitement.  Our goal was to paddle all 32 miles of the Clyde River in Northern Vermont today, which would mark my official completion of the 700-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail!  The journey has been a checkered patchwork of love and tears, beauty and hardship, and finishing it felt like a bit deal.  We launched in the pinkish dawn sunlight, mist still hanging in curtains over Island Pond.  This sweet little river wound through cattails, beaver marsh, and groves of silver maple and cedar trees.  The water levels were high from the past week of rain, making it much easier to push the canoe over the occasional beaver dam.  We talked and talked, as old friends will when they haven't seen each other for a few years, and the hours slid slyly by.  We had lunch after the first portage around Great Falls dam, with 21 miles already under out belts.

I always like to joke that Murphy's Law applies doubly to me:  If something can go wrong, it will!  That's one reason I tend to be so religious about things like always wearing my lifejacket and tying my gear securely into the canoe in case we capsize.  As we ate lunch I skimmed quickly through what the guidebook had to say about the river ahead, but only paid it half of my attention, since chatting with Tierney was so much more fun.  There was a mention of a few ledge drops that should only be attempted by expert paddlers, but the notation on the map didn't mention any such hazard, so I figured we could just follow the portage signs and they'd steer us in the right direction.

We jumped back into the canoe and paddled across Charleston Pond.  When we got to the dam the portage trail had no sign marking it, but the path was clear enough.  We loaded the canoe on the portage wheels and set off, and soon started seeing signs marking the portage trail at the intersections of the small roads we were wheeling along.  An arrow very clearly pointed us down a dirt driveway that accessed a small power plant.  Just where to put the canoe back in the river wasn't signed, but we scouted all the options and chose to put in just above a class II rapid.  After that the river seemed to flatten out, although we could not see too far around the a sharp bend in the watercourse, and the steep bank discouraged us from scouting further.  It seemed logical that the hazardous rapids mentioned in the guidebook were the ones above our put-in spot -- they sure looked like something only expert paddlers should attempt!

We launched back on the river and did a great job following the line we'd planned through the class II rapid, whooping with excitement as the very swift water carried us around the sharp bend in the river.  Then we stopped whooping:  ahead was a drop in the river far too steep for our watercraft, growling its watery roar at us, and we had no time to steer our craft to shore.  "Go Left!"  I shouted, "The left side looks better!"  But none of it looked good.  There was nowhere to go but down that ledge drop, and it was upon us in a moment.  We slid down the first stair-step of the ledge and only took on a small wave over the bow as we nose-dived towards the next part of the drop.  I'm not exactly sure what happened next, except that I was very quickly in the water, with the cold of the river on a 45-degree day seeping through all my clothes.  The canoe was overturned, and Tierney was stuck underneath it.  I let go of my paddle (which you are not supposed to do) and saw it shooting down the river's current as I tried to turn the canoe upright.  The force of the water on the hull was extreme, and I suddenly realized the whole canoe might push me over and sweep over me down the river.  I got out of it's way, all of us floating down the river and bumping into rocks as this kaliedescope pattern of canoe-and-human shifted before my eyes.  The force of the rushing water kept sweeping my feet out from under me, and I flung myself clear of the barreling canoe, floating downstream feet-first for a moment to gather my wits.  I was cold, but not paralyzingly cold.  The bank of the river wasn't far, but my abilty to steer my floating journey seemed poor.  My paddle was clearly gone forever.

Tierney managed to flip the canoe, and suddenly was on her feet in a shallow spot in the middle of the river, wrangling the canoe towards shore like some sort of badass aquatic cowboy.  I stood up on the slippery rocks and tried to help her, but every time I tried to take a step my feet were swept out from under me.  Noticing for the first time that there was ANOTHER ledge drop below us on the river and fast approaching, I decided to focus on getting myself to shore.  Tierney miraculously got the canoe to the bank, we dumped the water out of it, and hauled it up onto dry land.

"Are you okay?"  I asked.

"Yeah.  I thought I was going to die for a minute there, but I'm okay.  I'm really glad I was wearing my lifejacket.  You?"

"I'm fine.  Well, I guess this is the part where we hitchhike back to our car." I said sheepishly.

"Really?  You don't want to keep going?"  Tierney asked, genuinely surprised.

"Well, I wish we could, but we don't have any paddles!"  I pointed out.  Tierney had been so busy focusing on a)not dying, and b) rescuing the canoe that she hadn't even noticed our paddles were gone.  Examining the canoe, I saw that the wooden gunwales were busted in three places, and the tough Royalex hull had a three-inch tear in it where the gunwales had broken.  It's really hard to damage a Royalex hull, so that felt like it gave us some serious bragging rights!  It should all be repairable, but that craft will have a battle scar forever.
Picture
The damage to the canoe
Luckily we had hauled out right next to a road, so we carried the canoe up to the road, and returned to the woods to change into the dry clothes we had in our drybags.  A giant bruise was beginning to swell across the bridge of Tierney's nose, and my right hand was bleeding from several abrasions.  Stripping to change revealed more bruises and scrapes that we hadn't even felt yet, since adrenaline was still suppressing our pain response.  

"I'm so sorry I didn't read the guidebook better," I apologized.  "We were so close to the end that I got sloppy!  Murphy's law, I guess!"

"That's okay, I wasn't paying much attention either, Murphy.  And there's no one I'd rather tip over my canoe with than you!"  We grinned at each other.  Despite everything, we were still having a great day.

The first passing car picked us up and drove us back to my vehicle, the driver assuring us that nobody ever canoes that section of the river, and certainly not in such high water.  We collectively marveled at the fact that the clear portage signage had directed us to put in above that ledge drop.  Tierney and I drove back to Newport, and were greeted by a huge double rainbow arcing over the river we'd just come to know so intimately.  I found myself feeling rather happy at how it had all worked out.  I've canoed over 1,000 miles in the last 13 months, and this is the first genuine capsize in all that time.  A canoeing sabbatical is poorer without at least one capsize story to tell.

So, I still have 10 miles of river left to paddle before I finish the NFCT!  I already have a friend lined up to share that journey with... pushing my thrupaddle adventures into November.
Picture
End-of-the day rainbow in Newport, VT
Addendum (Nov 6, 2019):
​
Picture
Finished with the NFCT!
0 Comments

Northern Forest Canoe Trail 2019: Vermont and Quebec Sections

9/4/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Murphy eating wild rice with fresh wild blueberries near Nulhegan Pond.
I'm closing in on my thrupaddle goals!  Here are my journals of nearly 100 more miles of paddling on the NFCT in Vermont and Quebec.  The final journal about the Clyde River section will be added to this post in late October or Early November.
nulhegan_and_connecticut_journal.pdf
File Size: 4414 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

missisquoi_journal.pdf
File Size: 8402 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Picture
Alder swamps lining the shores of the upper Nulhegan river
0 Comments

Northern Forest Canoe Trail 2019: Maine & New Hampshire

8/15/2019

0 Comments

 
Here are my journals from the Maine and New Hampshire sections of the NFCT, which I canoed with many different friends (and some of it solo).  Enjoy the tales!
Picture
Canoeing below Mount Kineo on Moosehead Lake in Maine
west_branch_journal.pdf
File Size: 1396 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

allagash_journal.pdf
File Size: 4130 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

maine_and_new_hampshire_section_journal.pdf
File Size: 5266 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

Cultural Appropriation in Spiritual Practice, Part Four: A Checklist for Evaluating your Practices

8/14/2019

6 Comments

 
Picture
The path forward: an ancient pathway through an indigenous Irish oak and hazel forest. Photo credit: Murphy Robinson

What have we learned?

To sum up, here are some things to think about when assessing your own use of practices from cultures other than your own:
  • How did you receive the practices?
  • Have you gone through the traditional initiations of that culture, or skipped over them?
  • Have you examined your white privilege and settler privilege generally (or just your settler privilege, if you’re a non-native person of color)?
  • Do you practice the traditions privately or publicly?  Public practice requires extra care and scrutiny.
  • How thoroughly do you explain the source, transmission, and permission when you discuss the practices with others?
  • Do you teach the practices to others?  Who gave you permission to do this?
  • Do you receive any money associated with these practices (this a HUGE red flag)?
  • Are you in current relationship with living people of the culture they come from?
  • What are you doing anything to give back and support the struggle against ongoing cultural genocide?
  • Are you using your privilege to lift up the voices of oppressed peoples and not just to promote yourself?
I don't think that all settlers completely shunning native practices is the answer to this problem, but I think that most settlers aren't doing it right.  I've met two or three white settlers who seem to be doing it well, and hundreds who are doing it poorly. I don’t think I’m doing it entirely right yet, but I’m getting much closer.  Awareness of your ethical impact demands constant evaluation and updating of your practices as you learn better ways to do things.
    Always remember:  the power of your magic is created by your integrity.  Be as impeccable as you know how to be. We are all figuring this out together, and we’ve all made individual and collective mistakes in the past.  Don’t get bogged down in guilt and shame, but once you know better, do better.  

Recommended Reading:
Johnson, Lyla June.  “The Vast and Beautiful World of Indigenous Europe.”  https://whiteawake.org/2018/01/31/the-vast-and-beautiful-world-of-indigenous-europe/

Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang.  “Decolonization is not a Metaphor.”  Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society.  Vol. 1, No. 1, 2012, pp. 1.40. https://www.latrobe.edu.au/staff-profiles/data/docs/fjcollins.pdf

Federici, Sylvia.  Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation.  2004.

For training in open-source priestess/priestx/priest skills in a culturally aware setting:
The Way of the Weaver, a spiritual training taught by Murphy Robinson and Jamie Waggoner:
http://www.mountainsongexpeditions.com/wayoftheweaver.html

6 Comments

Cultural Appropriation in Spiritual Practice, Part Three: The Importance of Reciprocity

8/14/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Understanding the cultural practices of our own ancestors is a key step in the process of shifting cultural appropriation into cultural exchange. Photo by Kristijan Arsov on Unsplash

Asking Good Questions

In part one of this series we examined the nature of cultural appropriation, and in part two we explored how the capitalist context we live in limits our ability to share ideas freely, and can even inhibit our ability to ethically act upon knowledge and guidance we receive directly from our plant allies.  In this third part of the series, we’ll look at some helpful questions for the constantly evolving process of navigating these tricky waters in a good way.
This teaching I received about cultural appropriation was from my friend Jude, who is a white pagan priestess of Jewish descent.  She told me that facing cultural appropriation is not about learning one clear set of rules and sticking to it, because nobody agrees on what those rules should be, and often each situation is unique.  Facing cultural appropriation is always going to be an ongoing conversation and self-inquiry about what you are doing, who it is impacting, and what is ethical. The three sets of questions she recommends asking are:
  1. Am I sharing the accurate origin of the practices I am using when I practice them around others?  Am I giving credit and citing my sources? Did I actually learn them from a credible source? Do I need to do more research?
  2. Am I in active and meaningful relationship with members of the culture that developed these practices?  Who will give me feedback if I am using them incorrectly?
  3. Am I engaging in reciprocity by supporting the survival of that culture through activism, volunteering, monetary donations, or other means?  Is this an ongoing practice for me?
If your answer is no to any of these questions, you are probably not using the practices in a way that is respectful.  Because of the power dynamics inherent in colonization, you may feel like your practices are honoring the culture they came from, but they may actually be having a harmful impact.  The line between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation takes effort to discern honestly. Remember that your impact is more important than your intent.
    A complimentary insight that I received was from Darcy Ottey, a white woman who has spent most of her life leading land-based youth rite of passage experiences.  Darcy was one of my teachers in a class called “Before We Were White: Ceremony and Ancestral Recovery for Anti-Racist Action,” taught through an organization called White Awake.  Darcy has spent years uncovering the history and practices of her ancestors in Eastern Europe, and she gave me an eloquent understanding of cultural exchange. She explained that cultural exchange is possible only when both parties arrive at the table with gifts to share.  When a white person with no understanding of their own lineage goes to a pow-wow and comes home with lots of sage sticks to burn and native chants to sing, that is not cultural exchange, because the transmission of culture only goes one way. You cannot participate in exchange if you are a beggar with nothing to give, that is just cultural taking.  Once you have put in the hard work to research your own ancestral earth-based traditions, you come to the table with something to share. When an indigenous person offers to show you one of their practices, you can offer to share one of your ancestral traditions in return, and that is an actual exchange. It’s the difference between arriving at the potluck with a big hot casserole to share and arriving starving with only an empty bowl.
    Now, reconstructing the practices of your indigenous European ancestors is a whole lot harder than finding someone (indigenous or not) who is happy to teach you some version of North American earth-based traditions.  That is because traditional place-based European cultures have been repressed since the rise of the Roman Empire and violently enforced Christianity. Our practices have been suppressed for over two thousand years, so the trail of breadcrumbs is scanty.  However, there are many people, both in Europe and around the world, who are reconstructing these traditions from the scraps of lore and archeological evidence that have come down to us. If you are prepared to do your homework, much can be discovered. Learning about relatively intact earth-based spiritual practices from non-european cultures can help give us the skills of pattern-recognition we need to comb through our own ancestral traditions and see what is hiding in plain sight.  This is different from taking indigenous North American practices and pasting Europeans words or deities on top of the Native ones. What I’m talking about is familiarizing yourself with the spiritual technologies that seem to be universal to our species so that you can recognize their unique manifestation in your ancestral culture as you do your research.
    In the final part of this series, I’ll share an explanded checklist of questions to ask yourself about any cultural practices you are using that might be culturally appropriative, and share some key recommended reading for deepening your understanding of this topic.

Read part four of this series HERE.

0 Comments

Cultural Appropriation in Spiritual Practice, Part Two: Magic is Real, but so is Oppression

8/14/2019

0 Comments

 

Capitalism and Animism Collide

Picture
Burning White Sage for purification. Photo by Brittany Colette on Unsplash
One of the more interesting ideas I’ve encountered about cultural appropriation focuses not on spiritual practice directly, but on the effect of our economic system on the way we share ideas.  This insight relates specifically to the argument about whether white people are allowed to use certain healing or ceremonial plants that are sacred to indigenous North American cultures. The argument is that cultural appropriation is only possible within capitalism, where everything from plants to medical knowledge to spiritual practices are commodified, bought, and sold.  Within capitalism we have “intellectual property” and that becomes something you can buy, sell or steal (when you culturally appropriate, you are stealing it). In contrast, within an intact animist culture, each person is in direct relationship with the spirit of the plants and animals and elemental beings around them. If you are in direct relationship with White Sage and it tells you that you should burn it for purification, then that matter is between you and the plant, and no one else in an intact animist culture is going to try to mediate or gainsay that relationship or that knowledge.*

    This insight is a slippery one, because if you aren’t paying attention it can seem to give you permission to do whatever the plants tell you to do.  But you have to remember that we do live in a capitalist culture, and no amount of personally recusing yourself from that philosophy can actually extract you from that context.  You must be accountable for your actions within that context, even if you object to the system. We can work to build a less commodified, more ensouled world, but ignoring the harm that cultural appropriation causes in our current context undermines that restoration rather than enhancing it.
    A common pitfall is the issue of being given permission by indigenous people to use (and in some cases even to teach) their practices.  For example, I’ve been given permission to burn sacred purifying herbs such as sage and sweetgrass by spiritual leaders such as Candi Brings Plenty (Lakota) and Sherri Mitchell (Penobscot), but that doesn’t mean that all Lakota or Penobscot people agree with them.  I’ve also been gifted with sweetgrass by an indigenous woman who harvested it herself using traditional practices. So do I burn these herbs? Here’s what I’ve worked out over time for myself: If an herb from their culture is gifted to me by an indigenous person, I will accept the gift with gratitude and use it in my private personal spiritual practice.  In the past, I would also use the gifted herbs in ceremonies while I was teaching students in my wilderness skills school, but only after explaining to them how it was gifted to me and what culture it came from. After a while, I realized that this probably wasn’t ethical due to the fact that I am making money from these classes. Also, I am not trained in the deeper traditions behind the use of these herbs, and wonder if I will represent them inaccurately.
Through research and discussions with friends I’ve learned that my Gaelic ancestors burned mugwort and blue vervain as sacred herbs, both of which grow well where I live.  I’ve planted both of these perennial herbs on my land, and found other places I can harvest them locally to make my own dried herb bundles for ceremonial use. My current practice is to use only these and other European-based plants when I am teaching, as well as integrating them into my personal practice as my default plant allies for offerings and purification..
I don’t buy White Sage or Sweetgrass.  If I for some reason I needed to buy some, perhaps as a gift to honor an indigenous elder for their teachings, I’d only buy from a indigenous owned and operated company that sourced all the herbs from indigenous harvesters and was committed to ethical harvesting practices, and I haven’t been able to find one.  The sage bundles being sold in your local New Age store are likely profiting white settlers, not native people. Perhaps the reason I can’t find a native-owned commercial source for these plants is that many indigenous people consider them too sacred to exchange for money. Hint: that probably means you shouldn’t be exchanging money for them either!  Try growing your own instead, and donating half your crop to indigenous-led ceremonies.
Lastly, the most confusing complication for me in figuring out cultural appropriation is that I do actually believe that spiritual energies are real.  I believe that White Sage has a unique healing and cleansing property that can’t be entirely reproduced with substitutes. I believe that the gods of all cultures are real beings that can independently decide to contact you and invite you into relationship and service, regardless of your bloodline.  If a plant or a god or a sacred site asks something of you, you are still responsible for the personal ethics of how you fulfill their request (and you can always decline the request if you need to). I think it’s a good idea to ask the being about your concerns about cultural appropriation directly, but in my experience the subtleties of this are sometimes lost on these Elder Beings, whose experience of time is much more expansive than our own.  In that case, it’s up to you to do the research, relationship-building, and service that you need to do so that you can ethically engage in the work that’s being asked of you. It could take years, and that’s okay. Part of rejecting cultural appropriation is taking the time to do things well, no matter how long that takes. Our culture of instant gratification is what made us sloppy in the first place.

The next part in this series will introduce some key questions for grappling with the ethics of sharing culturally-specific teachings.

Read part three HERE.


*This idea about animist and capitalist contexts was first shared with me by the herbalist Sean Donahue in June 2018, on an ancestral pilgrimage we led together in Ireland.  In the time since we taught together, Sean has been confronted with serious accusations of sexual misconduct with women who were his students in the past. I send earnest prayers for healing to all parties, but still thought this particular idea was worth sharing.

0 Comments

Cultural Appropriation in Spiritual Practice, Part One:  Articulating the Problem

8/14/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
Standing Rock: Flag Road at Oceti Sakowin Camp was lined with the flags of scores of inidgenous nations. On the horizon, the security lights of the pipeline crew keep watch. Photo Credit: Murphy Robinson

At Standing Rock, I begin to understand...

I’ve found cultural appropriation to be one of the most slippery topics to understand in the fight against racism, and I want to share what I’ve learned now that I finally feel like I have a firm grasp on how to understand it and avoid it.  I’m a white person of European descent practicing earth-based spirituality in North America. I’ve worked pretty hard to understand what cultural appropriation is, how it impacts the people whose culture is being appropriated, and how to practice in ways that are less likely to cause this harm.  This article focuses mostly on the appropriation of spiritual practices from cultures based in North America, but the principles also apply to practices from native cultures elsewhere in the world. This essay assumes you have a general understanding that appropriating oppressed cultures materially harms those oppressed people.  It contributes the erasure of authentic culture, exoticization of other cultures, the breaching of consent by stealing sacred traditions, and many other dynamics. Cultural appropriation is subtle but pervasive.
My first big awakening about cultural appropriation came in 2016 and 2017 when I volunteered supporting the indigenous water protectors at Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.  As the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from threatening tribal lands gained momentum, there was a huge surge of non-indigenous people traveling to the water protector camps to support the struggle.  Often these people didn’t know how to interact with indigenous people respectfully, so a group of anti-racism educators called Solidariteam worked closely with the indigenous elders of the movement to create an orientation for newcomers that would help them avoid common mistakes and be genuinely helpful to the cause.  Over the six weeks I spent at the camps, I eventually became one of the trainers that presented this orientation to new arrivals, and that experience has profoundly impacted how I understand colonization and cultural appropriation. Ongoing study, reading, and conversation with anti-racism activists and indigenous people have continued to refine my understanding.
At Standing Rock there were countless ceremonies and prayers that were open to anyone.  Non-indigenous people were invited to participate, but they were also asked not to take these ceremonies, songs, or sacred practices home and use them for their own spiritual practice.  This was hard for many people to understand, but Solidariteam’s handout explained the significance of this very well:

“Being in this space can be life-altering, especially if you are not grounded in your own spirituality, ritual, healing traditions, ancestors, or connection to the earth.  If you feel the pull to take on indigenous people’s spirituality, customs, and lifeways, know that it’s been a central feature of colonial oppression for non-Natives to help themselves to Native culture without building the necessary relationships, asking permission, or supporting indigenous survival.  Although it can feel like respect or honor, this dynamic is inseparable from genocide and colonialism…. Own your own history.  European settlers came bearing the traumas of violence, lost connection with the land, and severe repression of their spiritual traditions…. Being around indigenous people who still have those connections can bring up feelings of longing for white people, or the illusion of having found a “home” in Native culture.  It’s important to face our own historical losses, and draw on our own roots, rather than trying to claim the cultures that Native people have fought so hard to preserve. If you feel this pull, make space to grieve lost connections and knowledge. Learn about your own ancestral traditions, and develop a spiritual practice rooted in them.”

Some of the people I oriented were stunned by these concepts, and struggled to take them in, reacting in a panic to defend their own access to spiritual practices that had great meaning for them.  Perhaps I had an easier time embracing the instructions than most white folks, since I had been developing a European-based pagan spiritual practice of my own for 16 years before I arrived at Standing Rock.  I had not intentionally set out to reclaim the traditions of my own bloodline as a political act, but rather felt intuitively drawn to the practices of my Gaelic and Norse ancestors and studied them for their instinctive appeal.  I had my own Nordic prayers to say at sunrise and sunset while the Lakota people were saying theirs. I had my own restorative practices with the runes and my European gods to practice while my indigenous friends were in the Lakota Inipi (sweat lodge).  Through a combination of luck and instinct, I had a big head start on this homework assignment. The advice of the Standing Rock elders reframed my practice for me as an act of decolonization.
    However, I’d learned my spirituality in many circles and communities across America, and many of these circles blended together indigenous practices from Turtle Island (aka North America) alongside the old European practices: we sometimes smudged ourselves with sage for purification, sang chants in native languages we didn’t understand, and offered tobacco or cornmeal in our ceremonies.  No one ever stopped to think about whether we had permission to cherry-pick these traditions from another culture. Slowly, I began to tease apart what practices I could continue in good conscience and which practices were not mine to use. Several teachings I encountered along the way helped me puzzle it out.
    In the next three parts of this series, I’ll share what I’ve learned.

Read part two HERE.

1 Comment
<<Previous

    Murphy

    Murphy has been writing about connection to nature since they were a teenager.  Their work has been published in Communities Magazine and Stepping Into Ourselves: An Anthology on Priestesses.  Murphy is a huntress, wilderness guide, Tiny House dweller, and the founder of Mountainsong Expeditions.

    Archives

    November 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    February 2016
    July 2015

    Categories

    All
    Beaver
    Canoe
    Canoeing
    Gender
    Hunter's Safety Class
    Hunting
    Huntress
    Minnesota
    Poetry
    Queer
    Trapping
    Wild Food
    Wild Rice

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.