Hi Friend,

"So I was at a conference in London recently with all these big players where people were talking about the need for systemic change, because the current system is broken and something new is needed" started Gwen Bridge during a workshop she co-led this past week as part of the Economic Futures 2025: Investing in Indigenous-Led Sustainability Solutions gathering in San Francisco. A few of us in the audience chuckled: we've been to those kinds of conferences, too. Maybe you have as well.

"And I was excited," she went on. "I thought, oh, great - so if you recognize that things aren't working in the system you created...you are now going to be talking about indigenous economies."

Again, the audience chuckled a bit. Obviously.

"But apparently, my colleagues and I were the only ones who thought that way. The big players, they still were not looking to us."

After a bit of an 'ah, too bad... but we are not surprised' moment, she went ahead and sketched out diagrams about how new/old indigenous economies are based on indigenous cosmologies which tend to include core values such as reciprocity, respect, living in harmony with Earth's systems, etc. Dominant market economies are based on colonial mindsets/values, such as extraction, self-interest, private property, competition, etc. The subsequent questions becomes: how do we grow indigenous economies? How do we engage in helping channel funds from dominant systems to indigenous-led solutions? How do we (can we? Is it even worth trying?) shift the underlying values of the dominant system?

These themes echoed larger conference themes, and with a bit of luck, you will get to hear/meet some of those really cool folks and their work that I met in some upcoming podcasts. (I was tickled that three of their speakers - Alexis Bunten, Ron Goode, and Lyla June Johnson have already been on my podcast!). 

I want, here, to lean into the bigness of what Gwen (who has been working in native governance of eco-system restoration and related fields for quite some time) was pointing to.

Let's tease out the basic argument:

The dominant system (political/economic/cultural) we have doesn't work for the environment. Or for most people.

That system was built by a very particular (and quite small) group of humans whose cosmovision (beliefs/orientations/ways of seeing the world) arose from particular systems of extraction that exacerbate the privilege of a few at the expense of the many. Specifically: colonization.

There are many other ways of doing things, Ways that have been cultivated over thousands of years and that are deeply sustainable. Those Ways were very threatening to the Colonial Mindset (embedded in institutions, not just individuals), and they kept trying to destroy them... in part through (literally) discounting them and dis-membering them from their homes, languages, and cultural traditions.

That attempt, while horrific, was unsuccessful. Much remains. Much is being reMembered. Much is being innovated/created/entrepreneured. 

So if you are frustrated with the 'dominant' worldview and the system that it creates, and you want to create something that is radically different, it seems like the first place to look would be towards those peoples who have been cultivating radically different ways of being and relating to the earth and have been, in at least some ways, very successful for a really long time and who are still here.

But much of the time, that doesn't happen.

As people (from tech billionaire foundations like Gates, whom she mentioned as being at her conference in London, to everyday Uber drivers, like the fellow who drove me home the other night and complained about current economic realities) recognize that 'the system is broken' they then want to 'fix it' and often look towards their friends (people kind of like them) for help. They tend to continue the pre-existing pattern of thinking the same kinds of thoughts and the same kinds of relationships that got them (and us collectively) into this mess in the first place.

Today, less than 1% of philanthropic funding goes to Native-led initiatives. Despite the fact that those are initiatives that are both healing some of the worst of the impacts of colonization and often are where some really cool thinking about new/ancient/different economic solutions can and are emerging.

It's so easy to get trapped within your own way of thinking. To continue the very patterns of dis-membering that got us into this mess to begin with.

I was that way myself for quite a long time. In my case, I looked for inspiration and solutions and 'other ways of thinking' that were being espoused by super cool Buddhist/Hindu philosophers, long-standing Peace traditions within my own Western culture, and complexity/systems-thinkers. I'm grateful for all of them (especially amazing folks like Buckminster Fuller and Gregory Bateson!)

I didn't realize the extent to which indigenous peoples have always offered and continue to offer viable approaches to a radically different life-ways.... or that I might have some/any kind of a role in engaging with them. Then I went on my own journey of ReMembering, leading me to see what was always right in front of me, and to much of the work that I get to do today.

Which is not to say that I don't still get trapped in my own cosmovision and in all sorts of related mindtraps. I definitely do. Indeed, learning how to work around our conditioned tendencies seems to be a life-long process! I continue to have many moments when I get in my own way!

Now, I want to acknowledge an important caveat/complexity to this larger trend of dis-membering.

Which is that the dominant culture (aka 'the west' and 'modernity' etc.) does, regularly and consistently look to indigenous cultures for various forms of inspiration and solutions... but it does not tend to do so in a 'good way'.

In addition to being extracative, this form of 'inspiration' tends to incorporate misunderstanding, miscommunication, taking only part of a thing without understanding the values within it, not being in enough dialogue about the thing itself, not respecting where the 'thing' (which is not necessarily a thing at all) comes from, the lack of animism and enchantment, the tendency towards aggregation, the tendency towards universalization and inappropriate scale and timetables and words without substance and shifting meaning and a regular lack of acknowledgement and appreciation. Then there are all sorts of appropriations.

The story of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag peoples of Massachusetts is one of many examples.

The Pilgrims left their homeland in part because the dominant (religious/political/economic) system in England was not working for them. (It actually wasn't working for the local ecology either - England was rapidly consuming its own old growth forests in the 1600s. That was not a particular concern for the first wave of Pilgrims, but it would strongly influence subsequent migrations.)

To say that the Pilgrims took inspiration from the Wampanoag peoples is not quite accurate: the Pilgrims could not have survived without various forms of help (both explicit and implicit) from the Wampanoag peoples.

So yes - a kind of learning from Indigenous Peoples did happen. As did theft (specifically of corn and other food).

Then (as now), that did not lead the leaders of the Pilgrims to say, oh, wow, we have these really awesome hosts/neighbors who are not only allowing us to live here but are also giving us some level of support. we should probably figure out how to be in ongoing reciprocity with them so that we can keep learning from them in a beautiful way and co-create something together that our two cultures would not have created by ourselves.

No, that's not what happened.

That said, there was a harvest feast between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims in 1621.

The feast itself was not, at that moment, called a "thanksgiving".

Puritans (and other Christians in England and Europe) at their time did not associate "Days of Thanksgiving" with "feasting".

The whole feasting thing was a bit of an accident. And it was almost forgotten, at least by the settlers.

About two hundred years later, long after the term and concept of "America" had stopped being associated with land lived in and held by Indigenous Peoples and had become associated with a 'young' country ruled by white men and largely dependent upon an economy fueled by, in part, enslaving people from Africa, America was in a systemic crisis of its own making. It went to war with itself. In the midst of the civil war, some Americans (especially the thought leader Sally Josepha Hale) pushed the importance of re-enacting an origin story around the dinner table: the story of the "First Thanksgiving."

In other words, many generations after the event itself happened, a few folks created for themselves an Origin Story. This new origin story made a difference to a country that was tearing itself apart. 

We could say that they drew inspiration from a barely-recorded historical event and turned it into a new Origin Story that fit their own purposes. They did so without ever talking to Wampanoag (or any other Indigenous) Peoples about how they wanted our shared story to be remembered.

Indeed, the story the white elites told in the mid-nineteenth century bore little resemblance to what happened in the early seventeenth century. Instead, it fit their own perceived needs at the time, and the story-telling needs of many subsequent generations of American politicians, citizens, land holders, immigrants, non-profits, families, football enthusiasts, and many others. It has become a very powerful story. Powerful enough that it became one of a small handful of federal holidays in a culture that seems terrified to allow most people to rest.

Which does not mean that the Origin Story being told around the holiday itself is true. Or right. Or just. Or the story that we want to keep telling, much less drawing inspiration from.

And like many origin stories, this one is not set in stone; it is not stable; it is not finished; it is not complete. The meaning of the story itself keeps changing; the meaning we imbue with the calendar-holiday of Thanksgiving keeps shape-shifting as our understanding of ourselves keeps changing. 

I'm going to be getting more into all of this during my next public sharing about Origin Stories. If you are interested in Thanksgiving, or in Origin Stories, or in working with calendar systems (I'm going to demonstrate how Origin Stories fit into calendar systems), then I encourage you to sign up. Yes, there will be a recording.

Do join us for the next offering on Origin Stories: a focus on Thanksgiving which is also partly an informational session for the next Origin Stories Course (which is starting in February).

Just so this is transparent - this next 'informational webinar' is way more content heavy than most of my informational webinars, which tend to lean towards being more relational.

 And - if you are not based in the US, don't assume this won't be relevant for you! I'm not designing this "for" Americans; I'm using an American story to point to a much bigger phenomena about how origin stories work.

Because the Origin Stories we tell ourselves really shapes the stories we tell about the future. Including from where we draw inspiration and how we think/act around solutions.

Including who, where, and how we think about the question "where do we find inspiration when the ways that we have been doing things is no longer working?"

I also want to emphasize the importance of giving funds to Native-led initiatives. Such as my partner Krissy's new initiative: Strawberry Wisdom. It's all about heart medicine, in a really practical way.

It builds from her relationships both within and outside of the Tuscarora Nation for over 35 years. In some ways, it stems from an ancient living tradition - the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's recognition of the leadership of the strawberry plant. The non profit is also very new: new enough that we don't yet have a website for it! Hopefully by the end of the month. You know, in time for Giving Tuesday.  The fact that she's already getting donations before the website is up is one of many signs that tells me that this is initiative whose time is now. There is a general donation option available on Give Native (I def recommend checking out their other non-profits as well!) as well as a specific project to support Indigenous elders.

Wherever you give (and wow, are there a lot of needs right now) during this season of giving, I hope some of those funds can go to 'backbone' work as well as 'project' and 'life support' work.

Happy Native American Heritage month!

- Sara Jolena

ps - yes, we will have a Thanksgiving Resource Guide out again this year. I haven't yet finished revising it. :-)

pps - here's the link again to register for the free Informational Session on Origin Stories: with a focus on Thanksgiving

ppps - for the more nerdy amongst you, the book, "Playing Indian" by Phil DeLoria offers many stories of ways that white settlers found inspiration from and 'played' at Native ways of doing things - and some of the ambiguous Native responses to this 'play'.