Amazing Questions and Thoughts From GTDF!

THIS ARTICLE ​

7 steps back and 7 steps forward, by Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures, touched me in the deepest way.

This collective is exploring so many topics I am passionate about! And also asking some very identity destabilizing questions, which I feel, in my whole body, are very very needed at this time.

These thoughts, perspectives and questions could be a long term practice!

Amazing, provocative, mind-bending questions!! I'm just beginning with them.

The ones that hold the most juice, for me, in this moment are #6 and #7 of the seven steps back:

6. "Step back from the normalized pattern of elevating humanity above the rest of nature: To what extent and how is what is unfolding a consequence of the perceived separation between “man and nature” and/or the rendering of “nature” as property? How would you approach the problem differently if other species and entities (e.g. rivers, coral reefs, mountains) had legal personhood (if you could be liable for damages, negligence, injury and ecocide) and if they were accorded independent and inalienable rights to exist and to flourish (i.e. rights of nature)? To what extent are the interests of other species represented in your problem posing, problem solving, accountability and coordination approaches?"---GTDF Collective​

7. "Step back from the impulse to find quick fixes and expand your capacity not to be immobilized by uncertainty, complicity and complexity: In what ways is your approach to the problem part of the problem? To what extent are you being driven by desires for innocence, benevolence and hopefulness (e.g. a saviour complex) and how can these desires be harmful and/or detrimental to the task at hand? How can you leverage the recognition of complicity in systemic harm towards deeper and more enduring forms of responsibility and accountability? To what extent are you equipped to repair and weave relationships grounded on trust, respect, consent, reciprocity and accountability?" ---GTDF Collective

I am playing with these questions.

I am collaging with them.

I am dancing with them.

I am musing and writing poetry

and making a snow angel with them.

I am weeping and grieving with them.

I will touch the void.

Be-coming anew.

Answers aren't endings.

We open.

Together.

Reweaving narratives by composting, shapeshifting our past stories into imaginal becomings. We can. Question. All.

And you dear friends?

As exciting or challenging as these questions may be---reach inside yourself.

Wonder at what came up as you read them.

Note where you got tight or loose.

Write one of them on a piece of paper and tape it to the frig or a mirror. Draw, dance, sound, touch the potential.

Then---

Bring a question or reflection to the dinner table

or to a conversation with a colleague

or out for coffee with a friend

or a work retreat

or a classroom of kids

or an amble

or a barstool

or to your journal in the wee hours of the morning.

​
​Sit under an evergreen tree as you ponder

Or by a murmuring river

Or with a knife blade of grass

Or look out at a billowing snow covered landscape

Or cuddle snuggle your beloved pet

Or consider with a crack in a decaying sidewalk

Or sit on the rotting stump of a once tree sliced

Or next to a swath of clear cut

Or by the bleeding heart of ocean

Or---your turn-—

It's in the invitation to consider the world differently that we open to possibilities we can't yet see?

Check out the Unheard of Importance of Listening Course HERE​