One of my most popular posts on Facebook in months was a simple question: If a few of us started an eco village around the Edmonton area, who would be interested?
A lot of people liked the idea and over 50 people put their hat into the circle. I feel moved to write about the idea. My own experience over the last 13 years to work with people on the land has been full of failure, but also some astounding success. I am no fan of using colonial constructs to build community. If we are going to decolonize, return to the land and rebuild our ancestral tribes, we must go through a significant amount of healing and decolonization. Most of the intentional communities that I’ve read or heard stories about, have fail or struggle because some foundational truths are not realized and addressed. As a result, trauma, co-dependency and colonial constructs seep into the relationships and start to erode the hard work that people have put into the community.
My school, White Walking Feather’s School for the Pacem Arts, is designed to work on those core fundamentals to help people prepare for life within such communities. With the deterioration of modern social structures, institutions and relationships, people are now interested in returning to the land, growing their own gardens and working together to provide for our basic needs, social interaction and security.
I’ve modified the medicine wheel to reflect some of these de-colonization medicines required for us to make this transition. It starts with the green circle in the middle of the wheel, which represents our heart. By healing, we find space within ourselves to no longer participate in war, violence, force or aggression. This is why the school is centered on the Sacred Heart Circle and started here first. By being vulnerable and walking as Spiritual Braves, we confront our past, heal and build profoundly intimate relationships with one another. If people refuse to do this work, it will be identified early and could safe a lot of problems and heart ache as some people refuse to end the war and declare peace. It is this type of peaceful relationships that is at the core of any intentional community or tribe. War has no place here. By learning the protocols on how to do this work, we significantly increase the probabilities that our relationships within the community or tribe will be successful.
The blue circle is all about personal knowledge and health. Of all the investments in the world, these two reap the greatest rewards and can never be taken away from us by others. When we explore the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual relationships in our lives, we acknowledge the wide scope and depth of our relationships with self, Creator, Mother Earth and everyone else who shares this realm with us. When we have done significant work to heal ourselves, we are now ready to venture out into the world and explore what community is all about.
When we are invited to learn about a community, it is our responsibility to learn, adapt and grow. There are four seasons and each season brings with it many challenges and learning opportunities. That is why it takes a full year to really get to know what the community is all about. Explore all aspects of the medicine wheel within the community, such as the land, buildings, earth, plants, animals, air, water, energy, waste recycling, collection, storage, ceremony, protocols, etc. This is an important aspect of the medicine wheel and is often where colonial constructs seep into the organization as the heart centric work has not been done. When intellect drives the process we will end up with colonized institutional type thinking within the community. But when we heal and allow spirit and our heart to guide the process, that is when our communities can be strong, vibrant, flexible and resilient.
After a year of exploring the community, learning and growing, the community then must gather within its Elder’s Circle (purple circle) and make a decision on whether to extend an invitation to invite people into their inner circle. This is a serious decision as it has a profound impact on the community as a whole. This whole process is allowing both sides to learn and grow with one another to make sure it is going to be a good fit. It may also mean suggesting that people explore other tribes or communities as the fit may be better suited with other groups.
I am in no position to dictate protocol, how communities are formed, built, etc. In fact, I suspect that when billions of us go through this protocol we will end up with millions of different types of solutions and that is a good thing to do. Our environment, ancestors, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, challenges, etc will all form different and unique solutions that we can share with one another openly on social media and other forums.
My new book: UNGRIP – A Sacred Transformation, will take the reader through this protocol as I’m writing my book to follow this idea. If people are willing and able to work with me, I am open to the challenge. This is not ‘my’ community or tribe. I am a facilitator to help people work through these protocols. I claim no ownership and refuse to have co-dependent relationships with people. I am looking for people willing to build their own independence and work on having a healthy, respectful and equal relationship with me and others within the group.
We will have dispute resolution protocols and other techniques to help people work through any challenges that may come up. That is the whole spirit and intent of the school. If this interests you, then you can sign up at the lowest level to start reading my book, at the Sacred Heart Circle level to start your heart centric journey, or as a student to really dig into the meat and potatoes of what it’s going to take to participate fully within a community and decolonize.
I fully suspect that when people do this work, our own communities and tribes will start to manifest naturally as spirit moves us to work together! Each of you will gravitate towards each other and your community and tribes will form organically, as they should! If this resonates with you, then I encourage you to join the school and lets get to work!
I am running a whole bunch of classes over the coming months to help with this process. I’ll be posting a calendar shortly! Please check in with me in a few days if the classes interest you. I was scheduled to go to Blood reserve to teach classes this spring, but due to the pandemic, that is off. So I’m going to do this work online instead.
