00:05:35.900You know, here at the outset, I want to apologize,
00:05:40.180particularly to our international or native or tribal
00:05:43.800or indigenous partners in humanity, it's an unfortunate but true circumstance that most
00:05:53.040discussions of this nature, or for that matter, most discussions around access and capacity
00:06:01.940tend to be designed for primarily American audiences. Generally, for the audience of
00:06:11.680the culture of modernity, you know, that reflects the Western European world. But
00:06:17.080I want to acknowledge right here at the beginning of this conversation, there's a lot of other
00:06:21.520people in the world and a lot more going on than I think we get informed about in our standard K
00:06:29.320through 12 education here in the world of modernity. That being said, I think that's the
00:06:38.760reason we created the organization. Olohana, which appears to be a Hawaiian name or Hawaiian
00:06:47.120word, was the name of a chief, was the name of John Young, an Englishman who joined Kamehameha's
00:06:54.380court and was principal in establishing the Hawaiian kingdom. And the name itself is just
00:07:03.520a derivative of what we thought he was shouting his name out to be which was all hands on deck
00:07:12.580and he was shouting all hands because he was the boat swain of the deck which is the weapons
00:07:18.880master or the master sergeant as it were so from the Hawaiian or indigenous perspective
00:07:26.340from the native peoples we thought he was the religious leader since he was walking out ahead
00:07:33.200of everyone else and proclaiming something and then we saw action by everyone else in the group
00:07:39.720so our assumption was he was the leader and it turns out the master sergeant is in fact the
00:07:46.240leader of that working group of people on the deck of the ship so we named our non-profit
00:07:54.460Oluwana in tribute to the idea that all hands, all hands are needed to solve these global
00:08:04.500problems facing the world. And by that, I mean, our adaptation to the impending climate change
00:08:11.440and how that will impact food systems globally, large food supplies impacted by large trends
00:08:21.300in water resource whether it's in the atmosphere or translated into soil moisture based on these
00:08:30.280giant sweeps across the planetary atmospheric indicators and the hydrology indicators on the
00:08:41.500surface of the planet we've been monitoring with the national center for atmospheric research
00:08:48.220So it led me to believe that we not only need to look at this from a 400,000 foot perspective, up high in the stratosphere, but we need to be able to take action directly on the ground.
00:09:02.940you know and i'm talking a quarter of an inch under the soil everything from the celia all the
00:09:11.380way up to the the troposphere in order to understand the water bubble that we all live in
00:09:18.740and that led us to creating this community organization to ground truth or work directly
00:09:27.600with indigenous local and tribal communities on the ground to verify what we're either experiencing
00:09:36.740as food producers in community or as the science community as we're observing these larger models
00:09:44.840and greater trends. I'm sorry I talk too much I know Julie says I talk too much. No no not at all
00:09:54.540I'm just taking it all in because this topic is, it's about survival and surviving in a
00:10:04.500way that we, that we can also have mental stability.
00:10:11.040And I, I just, I'm taking it all in and preparing for this interview.
00:10:15.800I came across the three fundamental questions that seem to lay the groundwork for the Alohanna
00:10:21.440Foundation, the questions being, quote, are the children fed? Are the elders comfortable? Do women
00:10:28.160feel safe? End quote. And these three questions are so simple that one would think that a country
00:10:35.860that boasts about being the first in everything or the most developed or abundant with opportunity
00:10:41.280would have no problem answering yes to each of these questions, but the reality is we can't
00:10:48.160argue that any of these needs are being met. So I'd like to open this up to you to share in your
00:10:54.520own words why these three questions are at the center of the work you do and how and why you
00:11:00.880think we've strayed so far from these values. Thank you so much. I mean, it's really interesting.
00:11:08.100I was having a conversation with some other elders here just yesterday about this topic,
00:11:16.340about values and how the fix may not be where it is we are looking presently.
00:11:25.300And from the indigenous world and the native tribal world
00:11:30.720that I've experienced over the last few decades,
00:11:34.120I can say there is a concerted dialogue around the need
00:11:41.560for our dominant narrative to review the values that exist at the core, at its driving fundamental
00:11:53.380center, to re-inspect what those value sets are and what it is that they are targeted at,
00:12:04.040what it is that that dominant narrative hopes to achieve by its practice.
00:12:13.060And I apologize for being diplomatic about the conversation,
00:12:19.100but I think at this juncture, we should be cautious with our language.
00:12:25.840We should try to have the conversation in a way that invites everyone to the table.
00:12:31.840I believe that we may be facing the sixth great extinction event on the planet, and it could
00:12:41.740include the Homo sapiens. And to that effect, I think you're right that we need to talk about
00:12:49.740the changes needed in our society, in our family groupings, in our institutions,
00:12:58.480and certainly the change that needs to happen at an individual or transpersonal level.
00:13:07.020At some point, the idea of participating in the water bubble in a responsible way,
00:13:16.840responsible to the environment and our surround,
00:13:21.620responsible to society and the people that partner in survivability with us,
00:13:27.120responsible to our family members, and certainly responsible to ourselves around our behavior
00:13:36.420and the way we engage with all others in this water bubble. This, in fact, at some point,
00:13:45.580is a transpersonal decision. Whether we decide to be a predator or a participant in life
00:14:24.200controlled by community that helps one move from child to adult in a responsible way.
00:14:31.640I don't know if the education system as it exists now has undermined our community capacity
00:14:38.920to develop relevant and needed participatory citizenship in social ordering, but I noticed
00:14:51.140a lot of charter schools and home schools lately designed to teach from a myriad diverse background
00:14:59.420of social beliefs and religious structures I want to celebrate all the crayons in the box but I want
00:15:07.320to remind the varying crayons and the diverse palette of colors that it's really not about
00:15:13.820the crayons it should be about the picture we're all painting together did that make sense
00:15:20.880Yeah. Well, something that I was thinking about that really made sense was being diplomatic and really choosing our language and inviting everybody to the table. I don't think that we need any more divisiveness at this point.
00:15:35.620Not to say I think that we should be justifying actions that are detrimental and painful, but I also think that there needs to be a way in which we can communicate with one another.
00:15:50.760And the other thing that you were mentioning about responsibility, I see a really interesting dichotomy that's happening right now. There's this piece of people feeling like somehow their actions don't count or it doesn't really matter if they vote. It doesn't really matter if they recycle. It doesn't really matter if they use plastic or treat.
00:16:14.700You know, it's kind of like, well, the world's kind of going down anyways, or I don't really have power. People feel like they don't have power right now.
00:16:25.320And I feel like then what happens is people don't feel like they have power, so they don't take responsibility. But then they go, well, it's the corporations that are doing this. It's the corporations that use all the water. It's the corporations that use all the pollutions, so on and so forth. But we're not realizing that we are responsible because the corporations are extracting because we are purchasing the items that are in the use of extraction.
00:16:50.320So I think this topic of responsibility of our individual power and what you were saying about responsibility to ourselves, to our community, to our family, to our earth, that really strikes a chord with me.
00:17:06.040And I really appreciate you bringing that up because I think we need to get out of the
00:17:11.040mentality that somehow our actions, no matter how small we think they are, actually add
00:17:18.100to either the collective harm or the collective healing.
00:17:22.860I mean, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:17:26.020You know, George Mason University in Yale in 2017, between May 18th and June 6th, they did a study with a large group of Americans, more than half of which, 58%, believe that climate change is human-caused, that we're an agency, the major agency in it.
00:17:49.260Four in ten Americans, according to this study, think the odds that global warming will cause
00:17:56.720humans to become extinct is 50% or higher.
00:18:01.280One in four Americans say providing a better life for children or their grandchildren is
00:18:07.040the most important reason for reducing global warming.
00:18:11.640Now, all this documentation about how well-informed Americans are about the global situation,
00:18:20.220yet the American government is pretending there's no such thing as climate change.
00:18:24.140I think that's symptomatic of the greater problem, which is, and I mean this in the
00:18:33.160best possible sense, a lack of leadership, which is leading to the apathy in the social
00:18:39.660group that you're, I think, commenting on. They see no real leadership. They see those that are
00:18:48.400the haves ignoring the problem. They feel disenfranchised, ostracized from either the
00:18:57.280resources or the political access that they need to make a change. And so they find themselves
00:19:04.580retreating into a corner of despair. Now, this framework of modernity, it's intentionally put
00:19:15.520forward by those that are extracting and profiting greatly. You know, I got to remind us and remind
00:19:24.000myself that while the 97% of us argue for 95% of the, you know, resources on the planet, that
00:19:34.060That other 3% is fighting one another for the 95% of the resources on the planet.
00:19:42.120And it's amazing that as a group of people, we won't address this larger problem.
00:19:50.920And that's quite possibly, again, a transformative personal moment.
00:19:57.260Is it, in fact, about personal integrity, and respect, and regard?
00:20:04.660And then we start thinking on a larger global scale about stories like the Doctrine of Discovery,
00:20:11.720the Papal Bulls, and how they construct the framework around land courts, and land ownership,
00:20:19.640and the Admiralty Courts, and that all plays into our legal findings today.
00:20:24.280So we find ourselves adhering to a man-made law that seems to be weighted, weighted to support one particular slice of our society at the expense of the other 97%.
00:20:41.700So this is all very interesting from a behavioral perspective, but the truth is when that extreme event happens, when the great balancing effect happens, whether it's a large natural disaster or a catastrophic global economic collapse,
00:21:04.720When it happens, those systems, irregardless, and I can use that because it's in a comical sense, irregardless of anything we do or say will collapse and will not support the mechanisms that drive our society today.
00:21:25.420And so, one has to be ready in that liminal space, in that moment of change, to respond.
00:21:35.860And that's where we began looking at this in a different way.
00:21:40.100At that moment, each human being is going to have to decide whether they are a victim or not a victim, whether you're a victim or a responder.
00:21:50.880This is what happens to us right in that moment of the event.
00:21:55.420And so we thought at our foundation, working with Peaceboat, working with other community
00:22:02.800organizations and particularly children's groups in education settings, we would need
00:22:09.740to develop a new language, a new way to talk about this that enables people to internalize
00:22:17.800their own decision and their own capacity building to prepare themselves for that personal moment of change.
00:29:15.240this disaster capitalism but if the fisher folk knew that they actually had to prepare themselves
00:29:21.000for a disaster like this i wonder how different that would look and it's really it isn't it's
00:29:27.420kind of a form of insanity that somehow we believe or are so entitled to believe that somehow
00:29:34.260somebody else is going to take care of it and we aren't really responsible we don't have to be the
00:29:39.340ones that are preparing. And then of course, that after these disasters happen, like I think about
00:29:45.800the fires in California last year, whole towns burned down, Walmarts and Targets. And you can
00:29:52.980imagine everything burning up on the shelves. And then what happens is so many times these disasters
00:29:59.280come and then people rebuild the same ways in the same places without thinking it's going to happen
00:30:05.180again and we really have to be looking at the fact that these natural disasters aren't going
00:30:12.760anywhere and we cannot keep rebuilding in the same ways thinking that somehow we're not going
00:30:19.700to be affected the next year or the next year or the next year or the next year it's it is this
00:30:23.840kind of yeah insanity uh thought process but it's our language right thought process insanity
00:30:31.400thought process our language the way we define the way for example see we were just talking about
00:30:38.700natural disasters but they're not disasters these are actually natural processes and then
00:30:47.600it's only a disaster or a hazard because people with their stuff are standing in the way
00:30:55.920so it's sort of like 10 years ago the wildfire came through here but there was no walmart
00:31:02.820right but now we built a walmart and there's an intersection over here so now when the wildfire
00:31:08.160comes through the walmart is destroyed but it's like wow it's a disaster now only because we put
00:31:16.020the walmart there so these natural processes they fluctuate like all other events in life
00:31:25.080They're on an arc, a curve, a natural arcing cycle of positive and negative influence.
00:31:33.220So some years they will be greater, some years they will be less.
00:31:38.100But overall climate change suggests that the less is getting lesser and the more is getting more, if you know what I mean.
00:31:48.920So we're going to see greater, hotter, longer duration and higher impact events and less throttling down to smaller events now in the cycle because where we are as climate is impacted by our actions and activities.
00:32:08.000that being said we really do need to prepare our communities and we need to do it in a way
00:32:15.180that makes us not victims but responders you know i mean so that we don't feel like
00:32:22.260we're dangling at the end of a leash waiting to be supplied something by some emergency service
00:32:29.840contractor but rather that we're definitely in control of our situation and able to provide
00:32:37.460for ourselves and that's a whole shift in consciousness yeah it is absolutely as a whole
00:32:45.960shift in consciousness honestly i've i'm shifting right now and just hearing you say natural
00:32:51.300disasters versus natural processes and how just in that language shift there's a different
00:32:58.180relationship to the event itself and absolutely i was i was writing a thought about the doctrine
00:33:05.760of relationship is this in fact a response to the doctrine of discovery like for example
00:33:14.140if we rather than vilify the doctrine of discovery if we take it instead and place it in the medicine
00:33:22.180wheel or something we might see more holistically than giving it that bifurcated zero-sum look
00:33:32.140that modernity or the culture of Europe always tends to do, right? They always tend to
00:33:38.680have a culture of debate. They put things into two columns, pro and con, and then they simply
00:33:47.520do this ping pong match back and forth, decide which one has more on the list, so the weight
00:33:54.340of their evidence, and then they choose the lesser of two evils. But I think in the indigenous world,0.96
00:34:02.140We tend to place things in a circle, in a medicine wheel, and it's cyclical, and it's seasonal, and it moves through a living expression.
00:34:12.280So in that look, I'm thinking the doctrine of discovery, maybe this is just the north or the element of air or ancestry, and it's relegated to our past.
00:34:27.300And at one time might have held validity, but we can see now through our growth that it was erroneous, that it needs to be brought into harmony.
00:34:40.240And maybe opposite the north in the south was the doctrine of recognition, of protocol.
00:34:46.120whereas if Christopher Columbus had recognized that the Taino or the Arawaks were also people0.80
00:34:54.740with families and civilizations and rules he might have shaken hands rather than chopped
00:35:01.460hands off looking for gold so there's that and maybe in the east is the doctrine of creation
00:35:09.140the feminine the verdant the thing that supports life and and maybe in the west is the doctrine of
00:35:17.600separation of destruction the way of the masculine which of course leads to resurrection and the
00:35:24.940re-beginning but might i suggest that the doctrine of separation is something we as a society do
00:35:32.340poorly. We tend to want to collect our gold toys and get buried with them rather than transfer
00:35:40.000our wealth and our knowledge to the next generation. So in that thinking, I think the
00:35:47.760intergenerational transfer of knowledge is perhaps one of the big missing elements in our education
00:35:56.300system and in that initiatory experience we were speaking about earlier and that as a society we
00:36:03.960need to rediscover ways and means to transfer this knowledge in a deeply personal way between
00:36:11.600grandchildren and grandparents re-establishing this deep intergenerational connection that gives
00:36:19.140us a relationship. If we include all four directions, the north, the south, the east,
00:36:26.420and the west, in this doctrine of relationship, a more holistic learning, a way of realizing our
00:36:34.100deep interconnectedness to all that is, we might develop a different value set that drives our
00:36:41.780society to a different capacity around adaptation and response to both each other, the environment,
00:36:50.460and to the society that we all want to serve in a greater way.
00:36:57.640Yeah, I really see a future in which that could happen. And I so hope for it. But I want to get
00:37:08.400back to violence for a minute and i was on this thought thinking you know how can we be proactive
00:37:15.520in the face of the future that could very well possess an increase in violence during these
00:37:21.920periods of massive change and transformation so as a peacekeeper and advisor to the center of the
00:37:28.080global non-killing or for global non-killing and of course somebody who is walking through this
00:37:33.520world with awareness, I'm hoping you could speak to nonviolent conflict resolutions during the age
00:37:39.960of climate change. And how can we prepare ourselves for this? You know, what does it require to
00:37:45.900envision a world in which non-killing is possible? Yes. And it's interesting. It begins there at zero
00:37:54.420to five. It begins with this idea, you know, it's so interesting. And that's why I wanted to send
00:38:00.940you the notes on these books and the look we're taking at it. And a little lesson called Hana
00:38:06.920i Kolima, which in Hawaiian means work with the hands. We were thinking the design is really with
00:38:14.140the children. It's really about this intergenerational transfer of knowledge, a way of
00:38:19.420sharing deeper, reflective teaching that we perhaps may not be focused on in the culture
00:38:29.360of modernity so um i can give you an example of that and it would be for example this simple idea
00:38:42.100at the beginning of the book around what it is that we do as people as society and i'll do a
00:38:53.480little if you'll allow me a little excerpt please nana kamaka to look with the eyes
00:39:02.420to listen with the ears most people see what they want to see most people hear what they want to
00:39:14.900hear but if you put your emotions ahead of what you observe you could be led astray
00:39:22.100Indigenous knowledge seeks to remove personal bias.
00:39:28.560Nana Kamaka, look with your eyes, not your heart.
00:39:48.920So, for example, those are just two of some of the early principles that begin to establish the ability to listen actively, to communicate deeply, and not for altruistic reasons, but to be self-serving.
00:40:09.020The fact is, if you participate as a collaborative human being, you will be far more successful.
00:40:18.960So human beings are basically cooperative and compassionate beings.
00:40:25.500Given the right set of circumstances, they can achieve most anything.
00:40:31.000So part of what we need to do is create the right field of play,
00:40:35.460the right table or setting for our children to express themselves
00:42:57.840that you intersect so many pieces of this really complex puzzle and I am thinking about you know
00:43:08.260just how you're speaking to spirituality and cosmology and this interpersonal transpersonal
00:43:14.540work and connection and communities and I'm also thinking about the ways in which you infiltrate
00:43:21.200large governmental, very strict sectors. You know, in the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
00:43:29.160Change concluded, quote, indigenous local and traditional knowledge systems and practices are
00:43:35.860a major resource for adapting to climate change, end quote. But, you know, indigenous people's
00:43:42.100traditions and knowledge of the environment have long preceded the field of climate science.
00:43:46.920And as a cross-cultural facilitator, which I love that you are, and you work with universities and organizations like NOAA, what are some of the most important ways Westerners and Western science and scientists can honor this traditional ecological knowledge?
00:44:04.260You know, what is it like to work in and between both sectors?
00:44:08.840Wow, that is a great question, you know, and it's interesting because really, whether we work institutionally, organizationally, in communities stratified by economics or social station or religiosity, you know, religious beliefs,
00:44:34.840beliefs, you know, I've found that it's really moot. It really doesn't matter. At some point,
00:44:43.580we're dealing with the small sea of culture, right? At some point, we're dealing with
00:44:49.100the little things. There's been so many great human thinkers, philosophers through the ages,
00:44:59.540who've reflected things and I want to point one out and I think he's done a great job at this
00:45:10.160George Lucas you know and I think he pretty much got this through conversations with others in the
00:45:19.380field. But as Yoda, I think he put it best. He says, try not, do or do not.
00:45:30.900That pretty much is life, right? And so I think we need to honor that idea about doing. And
00:45:41.260The government tries very hard, and there's a lot of institutions like the Nature Conservancy,
00:45:52.020Wildlife Federations, and they all try terribly hard.
00:45:58.260But I'm not convinced that they do much if you are following me.
00:46:08.480And so the doing, I feel, comes down to actual community.
00:46:15.160And when we talk about community, some folks think it's community by political party, jurisdictions
00:46:23.380drawn around registered voters' boundary lines.
00:46:27.660Some people think it's community defined by municipality or by state boundary lines.
00:46:35.380a lot of different concepts about what that means. But the fact is, community is actually
00:46:44.300family at some point. It all comes down to family. And so we at Olohana like to work
00:46:53.900in that way. I like that word you use, infiltrate. When I've been working with these larger organizations,
00:47:02.440whether it's the Rising Voices Consortium or IPCCWG
00:47:07.160or any of the other groups we work with, NOAA, Pacific Services Center,
00:47:26.100I will only do action or an effort if we will do it as family.
00:47:32.440and there's a reason I want that kind of familial obligation to the effort and it goes like this
00:47:42.160family always has that that that uncle that you don't trust around the young kids you know
00:47:49.860and family always has that crazy aunt the one that brings up the same old argument every year0.99
00:47:57.920for the last 10 years that everything's giving an Easter dinner. And guess what? Next Christmas,
00:48:05.660she's still invited to the table. And so is that crazy uncle, because that's family. It's messy.0.93
00:48:13.040It's dirty. It's ugly. But we still must persevere. Well, the way I look at it,
00:48:20.500The family of man is living inside this water bubble, and no matter how ugly it gets, we're all still in the same canoe.
00:48:30.660So we must, for the sake of our children and the next generation, figure out how we can all be here together in a responsible way that serves all of our purposes and moves the human race, propels us forward in a responsible way to the rest of the biosphere.
00:48:53.720One could say that in some sense, although I consider myself a Hawaiian citizen and a sovereign person of the Hawaiian nation, I am a Jeffersonian, and I do value American politics and philosophy.
00:49:14.220And I think Jefferson was a rational anarchist, and I subscribe to that kind of thinking.
00:49:20.540I believe everybody in the world should be able to do whatever it is they want to do, as long as they don't negatively impact anyone or anything else.
00:49:32.540Oh, goodness. I wish we all lived by that.
00:49:37.760Yes. And yeah, you see, though, if we begin teaching our children, they will never go to violence.
00:49:45.040You know, in the global non-killing effort, we actually did a demographic study from 1900 to 2000 of all the wars in that 100-year period.
00:49:59.420And we counted all the victims of the wars, any violence incursion, and then added in any of these political unrest situations.
00:50:10.480and you realize that it comes down to less than 1% of the human population
00:55:09.680What I've noticed when we're talking in policy is you can condemn
00:55:14.960pretty much everything except somebody's food.
00:55:18.920Don't be saying nothing about their food.
00:55:22.420Food is the thing everybody gets touchy about.
00:55:25.280gotta feed the kids gotta and really the production of beef globally has some serious
00:55:33.940impacts for us all but we can't talk about the beef industry because that would be taking food
00:55:40.880out of people's mouths so uh we have to find ways to talk about it so me i talk about food security
00:55:48.260and food sovereignty so we try to put diversified food back on the ground what's really happened
00:55:56.280with our food supply is the entire globe is now being sourced out food by about six major
00:56:06.140corporations globally and they don't want you actually being able to hunt or gather or procure
00:56:12.900your own food. They want you to buy it from them in some form or fashion, wholesale, retail,
00:56:21.320some form. So I think they have an awful lot of global power in terms of influence policy-wise,
00:56:30.580politically. And wow, I'd almost venture to say through the pharmaceutical companies,
00:56:37.320They have military capacity also, as evidenced by the war over the poppy flowers.
00:56:46.440But all that aside, the fix still comes at a transpersonal moment, when people decide very personally that they will live a different lifestyle,
00:57:01.000live more in harmony and balance with the earth mother. And so we run into real policy problems
00:57:11.400in governance when government wants to separate religiosity, spirituality from governance,
00:57:18.760and for good reasons. But it has a sterility, a way of distancing the moral impacts of governance.
00:57:27.880And then I think we further want to stratify control by economic access and capacity. And that's a false indicator created by aristocracy and the serfs, which is also another false description of the human race.
00:57:48.540And yet, until we create the mechanisms for properly educating or indoctrinating or invigorating our young into a society that is more compassionate, more inclusive, more in keeping with our environment,
00:58:07.860then we are doomed to repeat this slow climb and rapid descent that the human race seems to have been experiencing for 100,000 years.
00:58:24.220So I invite any communities to get in touch with us at olohana.org or myself at mkalani.com.
00:58:34.860If you want to engage in some global ideas around the formation of community capacity in a way that literally puts water, food and energy resources and waste management, which is a huge part of our problem in the world today, back into the hands of community at a small scale.
00:58:55.460Thank you so much, Kalani. This has really been an incredibly heartwarming and also very invigorating conversation. I feel like riled up, but at the same time comforted, which is such an interesting mix.
00:59:08.320but yeah you should feel energized to do something not to try something you know try not do or do
00:59:18.120not you know what I mean it's like and in doing something you want to get fired up but not in a
00:59:25.280confrontation or aggressive way of fired up or on optimism that it's possible we can yes yes yes
00:59:32.660yes we can we can and we have to yeah thank you so much again for the chance
00:59:38.920and an opportunity to talk story around this this is the only way we get stuff done
00:59:42.980thank you for listening to for the wild podcast i'm ayana young i'd like to thank our incredible
00:59:54.640podcast team andrew stores our producer and editor francesca glass bell our research collaborator
01:00:01.620and writer, Molly Leboe, media director, and Carter Lou McElroy, our music coordinator.
01:00:08.340The music you heard today was by Cover Story Duop.
01:00:11.840Our theme music is Silence Returns by Boe and Like a River from Kate Wolfe.
01:00:17.060We want to thank you again for tuning in every week and sitting with us in the complexities