Integrate
I often write about saying grounded in the body. Present to the now moment experience.
Listening to our own bodies, our nervous systems, is a somatic practice used in many trauma treatment modalities.
Whether it’s a clinical setting or in an addiction treatment facility- mindfulness meditation and somatic movement are critical tools in many recovery programs.
Beyond a clinical setting, we know the value of mindfulness and somatic movement in a personal setting.
Working with our own selves to self-regulate our nervous system and be present with the sensations of our body provides undeniable benefits.
To be present to what arises in each now moment provides an opportunity to make conscious, decisive, intentional actions.
As each of us work to be more centered within our own physical structures,
… move toward deeper mind-body integration,
…… reconnect our integrated Self into the Earth,
As we build community, move to create political cohesion, and strive toward ecological regeneration, it is imperative we consider:
Our opportunities
privileges
access
Our limitations
restrictions
blockage
Our responsibilities
accountability
Therein lies a Reckoning:
What is my own intersection?
Physicality
Salt [NaCl]
As human beings, we design and exist within a collective social matrix.
While the sights, sounds, smells, and general flavors of these matrices vary across time space, it remains the fabric of each of our societies.
As we increase our social consciousness, we become more aware of our own participation within our social matrix.
We also become more aware of the impacts our social matrices have on the planet itself.
Human societies have developed unique ways to measure this impact on the planet over time and space.
The efforts we put into increasing our social consciousness provides an opportunity to consider our individual impacts within our respective social matrix.
We, each of us, hold an intersection within the collective social matrix.
Elements that determine our positions within the collective matrix include experiences such as:
bloodline
heritage
gender
sexual orientation
Social responsibility asks us to investigate our Bloodlines.
At all times in this process, we ask ourselves at least these two questions:
What is the relationship between my blood relatives and the displacement of American Indian / Native / First Nations nations in the region?
What is the relationship between my blood relatives and the plantation enslavement / trafficking of Black peoples?
Because these core themes are the foundation of the u.s., it is critical we investigate honestly here.
It is each of our responsibility to face complexities of our own intersection with integrity.
Fusibility
Mercury [Hg]
Since my own lived experiences are that of a citizen born in the united states of america, this is the only frame of reference about which I am qualified to write.
I’ll give you some solid leads on how to delineate your own intersection within the u.s. matrix:
If you are not Black: Do you use currency minted or backed by the u.s. federal reserve system?
If you answered “yes” to this question, then you are participating in the residual harms of plantation trafficking.
If you are not American Indian / Native: Do you have a u.s. federally issued social security number?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you are participating in the displacement of Native peoples.
This isn’t isolated rumination- social consciousness requires we maintain ongoing relationships with other communities who are, or who have been, directly impacted by the activities of our Bloodlines in any given area.
Understanding is realizing most of us don’t have much choice in our participation in the two questions above. This is ‘blockage’.
Nuance is understanding why our own intersection maintains either one or both of these elements re: anti-Nativeness and anti-Blackness. This is ‘limitation.’
Thoroughness empowers us to find where our Bloodlines created opportunities. This is ‘access to privilege’.
Responsibility is maintaining clarity on how privilege, power, restriction, and limitation coalesce to create our unique intersection within the u.s. colonial settler matrix.
Having the courage to face our Bloodlines is the integrity we need to move toward restoration of our own humanity.
Ferment
Sulphur [S]
How do I access resources without compromising the privacy of those creating Sanctuary?
I become the answer to this question by utilizing my access (points of privilege) to leverage resources that remove limitations and blockage from other intersections.
I’ve written about the socio-political spectrum of the region in which I was raised.
I learned how to Trojan horse equity principles into my interactions with settler institutions and communities.
The equity principles are Indigenous Sovereignty and Black Liberation. The Trojan horse is ‘organic soil science’.
But these lessons have often come after years of frustration.
If my frustrations had catch phrases: “invited in to be locked out.” “Listened to, but never heard.” “Credit due is optional.”
Thanks to my Razzle Dazzle + Covert approach, however, I can recognize people where they are while still being empowered to manifest my inner vision.
Here is my biggest lesson in security and confidentiality: those more firmly rooted in settler intersections don’t need to know everything about my inner vision.
In fact, it’s imperative that they don’t. This is the entire point of my Razzle Dazzle method I outline in Root.
Why? Because I identify settlers who can actively work with me and for me to dismantle the harms of their intersection whether they are consciously aware of it or not.
Historical justice doesn’t need to wait around for settlers to come to terms with their participation in creating specific harms.
I only need to investigate the nuance of a specific settler intersection to determine which points of access can be leveraged to lift limitation from other intersections in the matrix.
Their awareness of their own intersection doesn’t serve me: it serves to integrate settlers back to their own humanity.
While their awareness of this fact is acceptable, it is not required.
Seed Starter Pack: Social Matrix Integration toward Justice.
Integrity tempers transparency.
Discipline tempers honesty.
Listening and studying inform one another.
Listening to the experiences of others.
Studying the work of experts in related fields.
Empathy cultivates the fertile soils of Trust.
Communication is the seeds we plant with the purpose of achieving a harvest.
It is the consistent unspoken actions / behaviors that tend the garden.