Rootedness
This article was first published in the Minden Times in November, 2024.
I personally believe that this earth will be rescued from the error of its ways if and only if we embrace the Indigenous view of all components of the earth as family, including the inert (as far as we know) bits.
And that means that we need to increase our sense of engagement with the land on which we live. The wisdom of an un-named Indigenous Elder that Jane Philpott cites in her book (Health for All) sticks in my mind: that the four L’s essential to health were land, language, lineage and loved ones. I am envious of the Indigenous practice of introducing themselves by name, community, clan and sometimes spirit name, often in their own language and translated. I wish that I could be so clear about my roots. I wish that my forbears had welcomed my birth and celebrated my adolescence with a few naming clues about what my purpose in life was to be.
I say that, but then I remember how many times and how many ways I rejected the pathway that others predicted for me. They said I had to choose between having a career (which meant meaningful work) and having a family. They said I could be a nurse, a teacher or a secretary. They said I should get as much education as would be helpful to my husband. (My father, an otherwise lovely man, took me aside when I planned to return to university to get a Masters of Social Work degree in order to bring a semblance of expertise to the social work job I was doing. He suggested, kindly, lovingly, that I would educate myself out of marriageability. To prove him wrong – hmm, there may have been other factors at play as well, including escaping the terrible fate of spinsterhood if I hadn’t captured a man before I turned 25 – I got my MRS a few months before I got my MSW. That marriage didn’t wear well, but I think socialization rather than education was the culprit.)
Clearly I value my independence, my freedom to find my own way in life, complete with mundane and spectacular screw-ups. But also the heady feeling of owning my life, the responsibility of fulfilling the purpose for which I was placed on earth even when I’m not sure what it is. Especially when I’m not sure what it is.
But the connection to land, language, lineage and loved ones: that remains resonant. Even though I’ve moved a million times. Even though I am not geographically or psychologically close to many of my clan, including my children who have exercised their independence much as I exercised mine. Even though most of my extended family have only the faintest idea of who I am and what makes me me, and I could say the same of them.
In the current spate of publishing (that relate to this theme), there are two streams: one is an overdue honoring of the Indigenous story, and the other is the newer narratives of immigration. They are two sides to the same coin: one is of a homeland stolen and the other of a homeland abandoned. In both cases there is external coercion, even for those who felt they had choice (e.g., the immigrants who came ‘for a better life’: were they pushed or did they jump?). In both genres, there is a search to bridge the past with the present, to reclaim the language, to explore the lineage, to discover the loved ones. In both cases, there is a need to revisit the land, almost always called ‘home’ even if it’s the first time the writer has set foot on it.
Where does that leave us settled settlers? Those of us who are born-‘n-bred Canadians. Do we need to find land, language, lineage and loved ones if we don’t think we’ve ever lost them?
I think we do. I think that to take for granted that this is our land, our language, and our lineage is in contravention of our role in Truth and Reconciliation. We need to dig deep into the treasure trove (and dung heap) in which our past resides if we’re going to figure out who our loved ones are, what history we own, what words we use, how we coexist with the land on which we live. The circle we draw can be big or small, but draw a circle we must, and own it, if we are to survive physically and spiritually the challenges that are looming. The Truth is more than what we did to our Indigenous people; it’s also what we did – and are doing – to our Mother Earth.
This land is our land – not for ownership (we should know by now that that is not possible) but for stewardship. Happy rooting.
