Meeting in September during the week of Orange Shirt Day and the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, witnessing was an important emphasis. We shared strategies for effective and compassionate listening, as well as carefully challenging subtle and overt denialism as guided by the writing of Daniel Heath Justice and Sean Carleton at this link. One of our group members offered a personal practice that has supported them to engage in difficult conversations like this, with the following steps:
– Pause
– Validate what is being shared
– Request permission to respond to them with additional reflections
– Speaking from the heart about their own feelings

We also reflected about connection to land, beginning by thinking of mapping in a conventional sense, considering our linear journeys to places that are special to us. Then to close, we came back to the same place with the prompt below, as inspired by the concept of counter-mapping, which is explained in this article and illustrated in this beautiful video with Zuni community member and museum director Jim Enote.

Go back in your mind to that place that brings you calm and clarity, put your awareness in the stream, lake, forest our mountain, and witness yourself arriving there, instead of your path of travel. Each place has a unique spirit. How does the place see you? Does it have any messages or guidance for you? What are the constellations you carry of story to that place and away again? How could you honour it with art, story, song, prayer, weaving, making?