Maybe it’s not too late

For reconciliation, for the planet, and our future

I have a hard time speaking up. I know I’m an intelligent person, but I always doubt that when it’s time to speak up. It takes me time to research and think something through before I say it. So what I have to say here, I’ve been thinking about for a long time. And something I feel compelled to share. It’s a journey I’ve been on for the past year or so. 

I’ve always thought of myself as someone who cares about the planet. Climate change is real, and I believe the scientists when they say that things are really bad. And I spent a lot of time earlier this year feeling really quite hopeless about that. 

Every time I got back from the grocery store, I just sat there, sickened by how wrapped everything was in plastic. We all know that it’s a major contributor to environmental issues yet, we seem unable to escape it. I do what I can to reduce the amount of waste I produce, but you can’t live in an urbanized society without impacting our planet. And it’s practically impossible to learn the ecological impact every single thing you consume has on the earth. In addition, the items we purchase are often so far removed from their place of origin; it’s hard to have any idea where they came from. We can learn to consume less and educate ourselves as much as possible, but nobody is perfect. 

Everywhere I turn, I see the overwhelming cost of modern-day conveniences to our planet. As a parent, my time is always at a premium. Try as I might, I find myself giving in to at least some time-saving conveniences. Unfortunately, these conveniences have a cost, and it’s overwhelming to try and deal with.

Where does one begin, and how does one escape the feeling that any of your actions to reduce, reuse and recycle are like using an umbrella to hold back a tsunami compared with the more significant impacts of capitalism? 

Reflection

After a long time sitting with this immense ecological grief, I stepped back. I uninstalled social media apps from my phone and stopped listening to the news. I turned off all the noise in the hopes of a more peaceful life.

It dawned on me that I was happiest and most at peace when I was out in nature. So I committed to being out in it as much as possible. I started thinking about how much harder it can be to connect with nature when living in a city. I thought about what was here before—and increasingly thought about the Indigenous people who looked after this place for thousands of years before it became a maze of roads and buildings.

Learning

So I started to learn more about the plants around me. I began learning their names and the medicinal uses Indigenous people have for these common herbs plants we often consider weeds on the roadside. 

It wasn't long before I realized just how much of this knowledge has been held for thousands of years by those who were here first. 

I began to comprehend just how much I don’t know because I live in a settler-dominated society that has historically placed little value on the knowledge and teachings of Indigenous peoples. 

The more time I spent outdoors, the more I felt myself waking up. I was more mindful. I became fascinated with the way everything smelled and sounded, how the ground felt under my feet, and how the seasons changed. I had seen and heard these things before, but they came to life and began to have more meaning and importance. 

On Truth and Reconciliation day, I felt the need to fill my emotional cup before listening to heartbreaking stories of residential school survivors. So I went for a run through the ravine. As I ran, I thought about how different western relationships with nature are from Indigenous peoples. I knew very little about the intimate relationships Indigenous peoples have with the land, but I knew it differed significantly from the culture I grew up in. What would it be like to have more meaningful relationships with plant and animal life? 

Gratitude

As I thought about this, I felt a sense of oneness with the trees around me. A profound sense of gratitude for these trees' existence filled me. I was in awe of them stretching up towards the light in such a beautiful way and remembered it was they who initially inspired me to start running again in the first place. The trees kept my feet moving; their branches beckoned me to run past them - to hear, see, and smell them. I was overcome by gratitude to the trees. They had given me so much, and I didn’t even know their names. 

I also felt an immense sense of loss. For the first time, I truly started to understand what a beautiful relationship we could all have with the natural world if we only listened. If only we opened our minds and tried to comprehend the wealth of knowledge Indigenous peoples hold as historical caretakers of this land. Indigenous peoples since time immemorial have possessed an intimacy with this land that we can’t even begin to fathom. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I have so much to learn, but I have the trees to thank for teaching me to take this first step. 

Desiring to know more, I started reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.” Kimmerer poetically describes Indigenous relationships with nature and brings them together with her scientific background.

I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s forever changed my way of seeing the world around me, and I hope I can continue to keep my eyes open in this way. This bringing together of scientific knowledge and Indigenous knowledge is also referred to as “Two-Eyed Seeing” and is a powerful concept that more of us must embrace if we have any hope of reaching reconciliation, or saving our planet. 

While I have only scratched the surface when it comes to learning from Indigenous perspectives, the more I learn, the more I see how valuable this worldview is when it comes to the climate crisis. 

One thing (of many) in Robin’s book that excited me was the idea of a culture centered on gratitude towards all forms of life. Robin describes how aspects of different Indigenous languages are based on animacy and how many aspects of the natural world are granted personhood.

Everything from an apple to a rock or river is referred to and treated as a being. Nature becomes made up of beings, rather than inanimate objects. Language has so much power to influence the way we think. Treating our natural world as alive and worthy of our respect seems a major, but a necessary shift in how we treat this planet. 

Kimmerer goes on to describe a daily recitation or prayer that the Haudenosaunee have called “the words that come before all else”, or the Thanksgiving Address. Every ceremony or gathering starts with acknowledgement. The earth, waters, fish, plants, trees, moon, sun, stars, and much more are each thanked for all they give to us.

I now find myself wondering how often I’ve received the benefits of nature without sparing a moment for thanks. How often do we stop to take inventory of all that the earth provides to make us rich?

The more I understand, the more I am becoming grateful. 

So many issues in our society are so completely intertwined it’s hard to see where one stops and another starts. If we placed more importance on the knowledge Indigenous peoples have of this planet, would the climate crisis be as dire as it currently is? I firmly believe the answer is no. 

Anyone wondering what this country looked like before colonization took over should consider Plants, People, and Places The Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology in Indigenous Peoples' Land Rights in Canada and Beyond. This book discusses Indigenous land rights in Canada. It paints a picture of people who maintained the forests. Indigenous peoples tended natural gardens and harvested foods. They did this in ways that were so completely in harmony with the natural world, settlers couldn’t see or understand it. The settlers saw the absence of plowed fields and assumed Indigenous people weren't using the land to its full potential. How very wrong they were. How much have we lost since that time due to our ignorance and naivety? 

When I read Robin’s account of an Indigenous basket weaver asking permission from a tree to cut it down for harvest, and how they allow the tree to say no, it becomes painfully clear just how different the western world operates in its interactions with nature. We don’t ask trees if they’re open to being cut down. Nobody asks the fish if they’re willing to sacrifice their habitat for a major development project. We just take. Capitalism always has. And now we’re paying the price for that. 

Finding Hope

Indigenous people possess valuable knowledge of this land we took from them and called Canada. As a white settler, that knowledge is something that I have been largely ignorant of my entire life. A completely different perspective comes from living with this land in ways that have never been the same since colonization happened. And I have not done nearly enough to understand that perspective or learn from it. 

That knowledge is still there, but like so many things on our planet, it’s disappearing fast. Unless we start to see, hear, and value Indigenous perspectives, we will spend lifetimes making up for that knowledge gap. 

Indigenous people have always fought to protect the land. They never saw it as something to be bought or sold. And there’s so very much we have to learn from that. 

I’m holding on to this belief that while I alone can’t fix climate change, I alone can change how I respond to it. I’m choosing to believe that if we each do what we can, that even small changes can change the attitudes of those around us. And perhaps those, in turn, will change more minds and drive more meaningful action.

Miranda Jimmy, founder of Reconciliation in Solidarity Edmonton, put it best in her response to Taproot here:

"If each of us is one drop in a pool of water, ripples connect and connecting ripples make waves and over time, waves can change a landscape."

-Miranda Jimmy

This planet is worth fighting for, and so are the rights, culture, and opinions of the people who I believe hold the key to helping us save it. 

As I've embarked on this journey, I've started to believe that maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can learn. Maybe I can teach my son to be better than I have. Perhaps we can ensure our children hear about residential schools, the sixties scoop, the importance of treaty rights, and the harms of colonization right from the start. Perhaps we can learn to live with this land instead of on it. Maybe we can teach the next generation to truly value and embrace Indigenous perspectives while we teach ourselves.

Maybe there is hope.