00:15:29.680What comes to mind is a few weeks ago, I was speaking somewhere and this elder came up and said, thank you for reminding us of the power of imagination because we were doing some journeying.
00:15:39.360And I thought to myself, oh, my goodness, I've never really put it down to simply that.
00:15:46.460But I really think about how we've been colonized away from our dream time, our connection, our divination systems, our imagination, our ways of using our visionary capabilities.
00:16:03.080So every time I speak to people, it's like we have to reframe like this is equally this indigenous ways of knowing and being are so profound and powerful.
00:16:13.640so I think that if we could return to imagination perhaps there would be that hope would be there
00:16:21.240we could imagine and dream that world into being instead of being inundated about all of this
00:16:27.720collective consciousness that's constantly taking up I hear what you say about opening up social
00:16:32.300media it takes up so much of our energy space and I wonder if we blasted through with reimagining and
00:16:38.080re-dreaming and re-visioning and if we really claimed that as medicine what could shift if we
00:16:44.140held that as equally as valuable equally as important um I'm here for that so I and I know
00:16:51.140my children are and children always are right they're my favorites to work with so yeah that's
00:16:56.440what I'm claiming right now around this question I love that and I love what we're throwing down
00:17:05.220because, you know, with the understanding that we are stewards and we are the elders
00:17:11.400of the future leaders is very important, equally as important to understand that we are standing
00:17:18.620on the shoulders of our ancestors. And a lot of us, because of what Asha was talking about and
00:17:25.600what Chris was talking about, this, you know, detachment, whether it's social media or
00:17:30.260colonization or the systems it's just really really interesting because we do need to
00:17:36.700sometimes we feel so removed from ourself even as indigenous people at least I do as granddaughter
00:17:42.820crow even though the blood flows through me um the systems you know come in and so
00:17:50.580be proud of who you are and how you are in this world and how your spirit is um beyond
00:17:59.580understand whatever culture you come from. What I would like to say, I just like to add a little
00:18:05.020bit to this beautiful topic of imagining and divination and how that can help us through
00:18:13.660deprogramming colonization. And so what I'll just say is my father, he, full-blood Navajo,
00:18:22.520English is his second language. But he learned English very well. But he was a bridge between
00:18:30.740the Navajo speaker, thinker, and the English speaker, thinker. The idea here is that the
00:18:40.440words that we select reveal how we approach a world in our mind. So we think the language,
00:18:47.280we think the indigenous we think the the imagining we think it and then that we speak it so I asked
00:18:55.020him one time I said I said dad you know how is it being a translator between these two very0.98
00:19:01.040cowboys and Indians yo-yo you know and he's like oh let me put it this way it's really hard he says0.99
00:19:08.760if you get an English thinker to stand in front of a tree and the assignment is get to know that
00:19:16.160tree. The English thinker will automatically separate, label, segregate in order to understand.
00:19:25.060This is like a scientific quantitative analysis type of a thinking. And so we look at the tree
00:19:33.100with an English speaking mind and we go, trunk, branch, leaf, bark, I will call you apple tree.
00:19:42.840and that's how we get to know the tree and this is a very left centric left hemisphere way of
00:19:49.200thinking and it is beautiful and it is scientific however like was said we've got to bounce that out
00:19:56.260with the right hemisphere the creativity the divination the the beauty and so I said well0.99
00:20:02.520then what does a Navajo thinker do and he says oh he slows down gets in his cadence you know
00:20:10.640oh joy joy he calls me a Navajo thinker will stand in front of a tree and they will see this
00:20:18.860beautiful organism and they want to get to know the tree but they just see its beauty
00:20:24.860and they keep watching and all of a sudden a wind blows and the branches and leaves go this way
00:20:33.800And the Navajo looks at their hair, and it's blowing in the same way that the tree is. And now I know the tree, because there is something that connected us. That is a very qualitative, right hemisphere, creative, different approach.
00:20:54.640and we all have those two different approaches but I think it's it's really beautiful if we can
00:21:01.800approach things from another mind our creative intuitive dream like divination I can't wait to
00:21:11.480pick up your book the retro and an oracle deck from you I'm just like yes I never really realized
00:21:19.520that working with divination tools actually can help us decolonize it's it's so interesting to me
00:21:28.560because when we spoke last year i think asha um one of the things you said about the creation of
00:21:34.620your oracle deck now oracle decks um you said to me this is how we decolonize decks and i thought
00:21:44.420of you asha and you gdc so much when i was reading your book chris um some of the themes of red tarot
00:21:51.860are liberation self-determination collective healing and i think that these themes apply to
00:21:58.500all of y'all's work they're so connected um i want to ask you chris and then if asha and gdc
00:22:07.260could sort of weigh in on these connections like what comes up for you when you hear these words
00:22:12.800together in one sentence and how are they connected liberation self-determination and
00:22:19.040collective healing other than inside my book um how are how are these how are these things connected
00:22:25.760and i'm like turn to page no i'm just kidding um uh i'm like well no um you know i'm as the
00:22:36.160conversation is is coming i'm as well like i think that of course um and something i mean that i do
00:22:42.640emphasize like continuously in the book so that so that decolonization is not taken to be seen as
00:22:50.620a theory in an institution that gets slapped on to like anything that wants to to be popularized
00:22:59.760now right but it's an actual land back movement it's actually a divestment from um the institutional
00:23:06.620spaces, it's actually, it requires action, you know, it requires a re-relating, it requires
00:23:12.820a collectivism, you know, and there is a sense of sovereignty, not in the way that is defined by
00:23:21.120a Western white man, a slave ownership model that our founding fathers quote-unquote
00:23:27.080uphold by having complete total control over another being, rendering other, rendering everything
00:23:34.660else into an object to be sold into commodity to be commodified and so like within this i'm also
00:23:40.780thinking of because i'm an astrologer um capricorn and aquarius and pluto being retrograde pluto going
00:23:48.820from capricorn pluto going into aquarius um the last decan of capricorn is the is tied or are
00:23:56.400syncretized to the four pentacles and in that you see an image of this like mini monarch who's
00:24:03.060holding on to four coins you know and it's this image of possession and ownership and i think what
00:24:10.620indigeneity and what liberation looks like is is actually what is afforded what is imagined by
00:24:15.960dispossession you know and reordering the ways that we think about that so that we can actually0.96
00:24:21.060imagine a world without masters and that comes from and then getting into um the five of swords
00:24:58.720And being able to inhabit some of that rupturing creates space.
00:25:04.780Like, I always say with that idea, it's great to fail an empire.1.00
00:25:09.140You know, it's like the art of queer failure.1.00
00:25:11.680It's like if you were pushed out, if you could not conform, if you had a hard time trying to be colonized and be conditioned and tamed and made your hair not less kinky or your accent less thick or what have you.1.00
00:25:27.660Those are actually good things that actually can help free you. And especially where we're at now, more radically align you with other failures at empire, other queers, other freaks, right? Other Native, other kin, you know, who, which we all are, again, of course, because this is like such a self-destructive impetus that colonialism and empire aspires towards.1.00
00:25:55.380And Asha, how do you connect liberation, self-determination, and collective healing?
00:26:23.700I was thinking about my relationship that I have in spaces that I have to engage in, especially the publishing spaces in the publishing world, which are highly all the systems, highly capitalistic, highly colonial, highly white supremacist.
00:26:38.360And what an impact that has had on my body and continues to have on my body and how if I don't stay in my body, I will never I will never even attempt to reach liberation in any way.
00:26:49.480I will be shackled or I will be frozen or I will be oppressed in that way um so it's almost been
00:26:56.300a really personal journey I think for me in those spaces to remain myself in a world that wants to
00:27:04.120make me something else um and to find as we talk about like collective healing and community like
00:27:10.780to to not feel that loneliness or that I'm all alone or I'm doing something wrong because I'm
00:27:16.160the one that's different or i care about untangling and dismantling these systems or i want to be i0.71
00:27:23.360want to re-indigenize a space that has no thread or whisper of indigeneity in a room on a stage
00:27:30.880in a like that that is it for me um and sometimes as i'm speaking about it because i'm getting
00:27:37.480emotional it can be just really heavy and really hard um so right now that journey is very like in
00:27:43.120my body and noticing what's happening to my body being in those spaces um and then i've all seen
00:27:48.760the collective the community are always on my heart on my shoulders in my in my being because
00:27:54.820that that is who i'm hoping my work is rippling out to and i'm hoping that it's liberating other
00:28:01.300folks younger folks two spirit folks those are the folks that i get these dms from that i get
00:28:05.760so excited about who say um i'm so excited there's even a two spirit card in your deck and i'm so
00:28:11.340excited I feel so seen and I've been so fractured from my my teachings and I didn't expect that so
00:28:18.260to me that feels like part of the liberation that that's happening I love that I love that so
00:28:28.360when I when I hear those words liberation self-determination and collective healing
00:28:37.500I go back to being a little girl and seeing my grandmother, Shanela, shearing a sheep, dyeing the wool, making the yarn, and weaving.
00:28:53.500I come from a long line. I don't do it myself, but I come from a long line of traditional Navajo weavers, literally.
00:29:01.840but I might not do it in the traditional rug or tapestry or blanket but my mind still thinks like
00:29:10.240that and so when I think about liberation I think about getting that wool and honing it
00:29:18.540this is you you have a color you have a feel to you I'm helping you to be strong in your own bond
00:29:28.580with yourself and then when I think about the self-determination I think about how the weaver
00:29:34.760is weaving us all together on that loom and that that's that collectivity to the collective healing
00:29:42.740and then we end up making this beautiful organic tapestry together so when you know you don't find
00:29:53.980a tapestry that's oh it's so beautiful it's all white it's all black it's all red it's all gray
00:30:00.980it's all purple no the beauty in it is the colors that come together and the strength of the soul1.00
00:30:07.120of the other and I know that we're dedicating this to indigenous futurism so I'm going to keep
00:30:12.340focusing on that but I also want to say and to all other groups that have been called other that has
00:30:19.080voice has been taken away that you don't know if you have the strength to stand on your own like
00:30:24.200my grandmother showed the wool that it can turn to yarn so let's be a blanket let's do some weaving
00:30:32.980let's be individuals and come together collectively and it does take self-determination I think the
00:30:39.760word self-determination is you know they say that we sit here polishing the bars of the jail
00:30:48.840that we hold or that we have been placed into when we don't even realize that the door is open
00:30:54.500and it takes in order to liberate yourself you have to have self-determination you have to be
00:31:01.240able to go wait i'm worth it too and even though i feel disconnected from whatever thank god you
00:31:13.000don't fit in that box can i say as you uh brought that that image to mind it just really touched me
00:31:21.040you know i think a lot often about my grand my maternal grandmother um and she was incarcerated
00:31:26.320she spent a lot of time in and out of prison um she had some of her children in prison and that
00:31:32.480mother wound has been a deep uh legacy that i have worked to heal i think is also in the passing of
00:31:41.020the baton of that understanding of literal incarceration and we're so of course matrix
00:31:47.440and like confined in our bodies in so many ways but the difference of being behind bars
00:31:54.580giving birth in bars behind bars to now being able to come to my body and feel free and give
00:32:07.200myself permission to pursue my dreams and to work with community and to feel her in me you know what
00:32:14.500I mean into like uh and not only her not only my own family legacy but I think like you know to
00:32:20.180what you were saying Asha as well as like um I'm like I can like we feel the grief collectively
00:32:27.580like we feel the pain collectively through our body as well and so there's a a self-determination
00:32:34.860of course that was required and that we're not following the edicts of some script that was
00:32:39.500written for us by some white oppressor by some colonial mindset internalized or without um but
00:32:47.180that we're also co-responsive and like uh collectively self-determinating like so like
00:32:54.620that that is held in clarity that we are also informed by our relationality as your story
00:33:01.800you know with the tree brought forward the wind moves us both
00:33:06.100right and so how is that determining us and towards what aim and towards what direction
00:33:12.800i have a question about signs and symbols in the sky
00:33:20.600i want to talk about i want to talk about the the lights the northern lights i want to talk
00:33:27.560about the eclipse. I just feel like this is this massive experience we've had with a symbol in the
00:33:33.760sky and your diviners and astrologers and people who are taking lessons from the universe around
00:33:41.340us. And I just wonder what you think is going on. Asha, do you have any thoughts about it?
00:33:52.880I might need a little bit of time to think about that one. That's a big one. That's a big one. So
00:34:13.840And the reason why I say that is because I know, you know, that a lot of indigenous people around the world believe that the holy people came from the stars, that we ourself came from the stars and all of that and the Great Star Nation.
00:34:30.300And I just wanted to say, you know, if you want to have a convo, I'll have the convo.
00:34:35.640But at the other side of the spectrum, you know, we're living in times of, well, like what Chris was saying, this, you open up social media and you get pummeled with this idea that everything is bad in the world.
00:34:53.200and like asha was saying that that you have to go into these systems and that your body feels it if
00:35:03.040you are brave enough to feel what your body is feeling so kudos on that you know but and and
00:35:11.920so this is man-made like this stuff that we're talking about about social media and this and
00:35:18.300that's man-made so we need to check ourselves on the man-made stuff look up to the skies
00:35:25.160look to mother nature look to the tree look to the skies and see the beauty that is overarching
00:35:34.060that is beyond a screen so that's just what I would say is that you know I wisdom of the natural
00:35:43.340world is one of my books spiritual and practical teachings by plants animals and mother nature
00:35:48.540and basically I say that I utilize the natural world to be my teacher because a lot of times
00:35:57.140when I have a thought like I'm not good enough I don't belong I need to be shorter I need to
00:36:05.460be taller I need to be something beyond myself I look out into the natural world and I say to the
00:36:11.360tree. Do you think that way too? Do you think you're too tall? The tree's like, what the hell
00:36:18.440are you talking about? I am me. Then I go to the rose bush. I'm like, do you think, are you jealous
00:36:24.040of that tree? Why are you so sharp, but you smell so good. And the rose bush is like, I'm just being
00:36:30.240me. And so when, when we think about the concepts of I'm not good enough, I'm unlovable, I need to
00:36:36.380be something beyond myself that's man-made that's man-made so check it at the door and realize that
00:36:45.420the natural world when you go in there and you're not like oh I love you the natural world the
00:36:51.640natural world will look at you and go yeah you're a part of us did you forget you are the natural
00:36:57.460world too and so that's what I would say I love that I I love that so much I mean I think that
00:37:05.880the oak trees are often uh holding holding me towards my own growth and like holding that down
00:37:13.340for me so I can just keep growing into being as big and tall and strong as I can be um and at the
00:37:19.320same time like literally communing and singing with the trees and with the birds and like these
00:37:24.580experiences that I had at pivotal moments were the land's way nature's way of saying no you're
00:37:30.180native too like you are kin like we are kin like you wouldn't be having these experiences you
00:37:35.240wouldn't have this communication open if like the land verified me where the ruptures of
00:37:41.380colonialism like destroyed that lineage you know and i think um that attunement to the land to the
00:37:50.180trees to to nature um is of course that indigenous mode of witnessing of necessary um heating you0.99
00:38:00.060You know, I also had I remember, too, I had a communion with nature and I felt like they didn't they weren't like COVID's coming, but but they were like, some shit is coming.0.98
00:38:09.520You know what I mean? Like you need to like go and be home with your people.0.98
00:38:13.360And like I was in Santa Cruz and and like, you know, prepare in a sense.
00:38:21.360And I mean, thinking about the witnessing of the lights, how we would perceive them and engage with them naturally and allow the authenticity of that moment to emerge without the filtration of just like, quote unquote, knowing better or knowing through our logical mind or rational mind or whatever it is.
00:38:43.940There's a divine witness, definitely, I think, in that moment, you know, that I think is also very comforting against.
00:38:51.360you know, when nature roars against us, you know, so that's what I think.
00:38:58.200Oh, I love, I love all of this. What comes to mind, sometimes I need a little time to reflect
00:39:03.560was, you know, when the eclipse was happening, what I thought was really astonishing was how
00:39:09.220much fear there was, you know, my children had to come home, the school day was canceled. And
00:39:13.780I thought, oh my goodness, this is like the natural world. We have lost our connections
00:39:18.980so deeply to the natural world that we are now hiding in our homes and canceling school and
00:39:24.640that was quite sad for me and in a lot of our teachings that day there was a lot of teachings
00:39:30.440that were being shared that the sun and the moon were were you know coming together as one so
00:39:35.040actually we should leave and let them be let them be and do their thing and let creation do their
00:39:39.300thing so it was interesting to me almost it felt like you know there was this hiding there was this
00:39:45.040fear. There was this almost a disconnection to perhaps the awe, the beauty, the grace, the
00:39:52.000things that of course we should be relating to every single day. And of course, as GDC says,
00:39:57.840like that's in our natural world, our daily walk every single day, those teachings. So I thought
00:40:03.060that was really interesting about what it brought forward and just noticing perhaps where the
00:40:07.880collective consciousness is and what these events stir up or bring up. And then those lights were
00:40:15.260so gorgeous, you know, and we see all the pictures and all the colors. And I read a teaching from an
00:40:21.000elder saying, you know, it really is our ancestors dancing in the sky. It's the spirits dancing
00:40:25.180together. And I thought, imagine we all just knew that and we saw, oh my goodness, that's my star
00:40:30.120ancestor. That's my grandfather. They're all dancing. They're happy. They're showing us their
00:40:33.980joy so I like to think about it that way I thought that was really beautiful but I'm so grateful to
00:40:39.880listen to all of your thoughts around that because it's definitely a phenomenon it definitely leaves
00:40:43.940me in awe and brings me back to that childhood presence I want to know and whoever feels most
00:40:52.840compelled to speak to this first please unmute what's your favorite way of fostering the radical
00:41:00.240hope is is the turn of phrase that chris used what what's your go-to i think our listeners and
00:41:08.780our community and literally everyone we know needs to because we can talk about hope um as a feeling
00:41:19.420but risa and i lately have been talking about hope as an action item and so what what's your
00:41:25.860go-to action item when you're looking to foster radical hope? I'll jump in, and then I'll develop
00:41:37.440my thoughts, and then you guys jump in, and I'm like, shoot, I should have said that, but
00:41:41.200honestly, the most tangible thing is this conversation right here. That is the action
00:41:48.760of hope. In the last few years now, I'll just say I'm Gen X. And so you can kind of gauge me,
00:41:57.160oh, she's, you know, but at the end of the day, I was native indigenous before it was cool.
00:42:06.540I know what it feels like to want to dye my hair blonde and get blue contacts. You know,
00:42:13.320I was always proud that I could tan really well though, you know, but at the end of the day,
00:42:17.640wanted to fit in when I was a child. I think a lot of us experienced that. And then the next thing
00:42:24.580that happens is, all of a sudden, I wake up one day, and everybody's like, Oh, my God, you're
00:42:29.220Native American, you're indigenous. And I'm like, yes, that why? Why did it change? And, and I've
00:42:35.500been asked in the last few years, questions that I've never even asked myself. Like, what do you
00:42:41.320want to be called and I'm like well I don't know did I have a choice like this is new to me I did
00:42:49.760not know that I oh now I have to come up with an answer to appease the guilty white man so that
00:42:55.060they can get it right again I'm sorry I'm going there you know and it's just like well you can0.96
00:43:01.140call me granddaughter crow or karma bitch you know I mean so I get a little fun but at the end of the
00:43:07.780day beginning of the dialogue we are at the beginning of the dialogue and nothing happens0.94
00:43:16.620unless we start those conversations and as much as I feel in the last few years oh my god I've got
00:43:23.580to come up with a statement for you know my people and it's like no you know the missing
00:43:28.160witches say no no no no no tell us of your experience just yours and I'm like oh I get to
00:43:33.900do that you know it's it's this whole thing of having a dialogue starting the conversation
00:43:42.340tripping and failing you know and all of that kind of stuff through whatever this is and and
00:43:49.720and the permission that you know Risa gave us you know you could be someone different in five
00:43:54.620minutes and heck I just might do that you know maybe I'll be like oh I want to be called red0.96
00:43:58.640body woman you know that's that's kicking you know call me that you know but at the end of the day
00:44:04.500what brings me the most hope beyond the fact that my people came from they were they were going to
00:44:14.300be exiled all of us in one way or another were exiled even if you're a female body or if you are
00:44:20.360a queer or if you are you know the redhead in the room or whatever you know we have this spirit
00:44:26.960and we can come together with drums and song and music and nature but quite honestly if we want to
00:44:33.300use the hopeful in an action item it's what you guys are doing right here i'll jump in with
00:44:40.160something because again it's always interesting how kind of i sink into my body first and just
00:44:44.720feel it and hope is um hope is a feeling for me in those moments where i say more of this creator
00:44:51.700more of this please and it's like noticing the light sunlight dancing on the water and I have
00:44:58.420to take a moment consciously to be like more of this creator more of this please or going ice
00:45:04.280skating under the moonlight with my children and I just get this like beautiful vibration of
00:45:08.980expanding that somehow because those beautiful moments we can get so wrapped up in what is not
00:45:15.740beautiful and I think those moments are moments so hope is like a moment by moment gathering up
00:45:22.160and collection of things that I have to imprint in my heart and imprint in my vision um and become
00:45:28.880the dream it has to become part of my dream um so yeah that's what it is to me I love those images
00:45:36.700Asha and I love what you're saying granddaughter crow I like go there I love I love that we can
00:45:43.200go there I'm always here for that um I think that also what comes to mind for me like hope when I
00:45:49.580personally um am faltering is I put on my playlists and and I sing honestly I just love
00:45:57.580singing and music and then prayer like personally like those things are like really um
00:46:05.100found like music has saved my life like truly it has helped me survive onward and there's something
00:46:13.620when you feel when you're constantly silenced or when you feel shamed and repressed that
00:46:18.760learning your own radiance learning how you can project learning your different voices like and
00:46:25.400then along with the rhythm and a cadence and there's just something that like shakes it off
00:46:29.500and blast it off and I think that um it transmutes the the energy around you as well um and then and
00:46:39.800then being in certain spaces of nature absolutely like I gotta be by a body of water I gotta be
00:46:44.480under a tree or whatnot you know those are those are very important places and then of course uh
00:46:50.580communally gathering you know being able to find like-minded souls and spend time together um it
00:46:58.260pulls you out again like this isolated like the world on your shoulders kind of a thing
00:47:01.780um and then my and then the last thing on this list is just that it is a choice you know it's
00:47:08.360a choice that you if there's no magic to it other than you can just you just have to choose to make
00:47:13.540it daily over a moment against moment in moment and you learn the pattern you know but it's there's
00:47:21.140know their magic to it and the choice of it as well just gotta jump back in and say yes and yes
00:47:29.740and it kind of takes me back to the thought of what we were just talking about about the liberation
00:47:35.740and about you know the self-determination and collective healing is to make that choice you0.64
00:47:42.940are liberated and it is your decision and you know there used to be this old saying gigo garbage in
00:47:50.480garbage out and but there is a truth to that and if we can take in the moments of the beauty of
00:47:57.280I envision under a full moon ice skating with your two boys and I'm just like oh I want to be
00:48:03.520there except for I don't ice skate but I'll watch and drink hot cocoa but you know or this idea of
00:48:10.200being by the body of water and that it's your choice that to me speaks volumes of
00:48:20.480disciplined mind and a disciplined spirit that has been taken through the fire and