We are embarking with a series of interviews to share our common humanity that lies beneath our many differences. I am interested in increasing all our chances of being heard and understood, including the non-human world.
After the first interview, I found myself pulling out an old book from my shelf called, “Neither Wolf nor Dog”. Within minutes of reading I found the following summary of words:
“We can like each other, hate each other, feel pity for each other, love each other. But always, somewhere beneath the surface of our personal encounters, this cultural memory is rumbling. Tragedies have taken place on our land, and even though it may not have taken place on our watch, we are its inheritors, and the earth remembers.” (Kent Nerburn 2002).
These series of interviews search for common meaning, common understanding and common redemption. It doesn’t matter if we are on opposite sides. We aim to reach across our differences and hold each other in common embrace.
“We stand, strong and adamant, within the confines of our own values and self-understandings, but we reach out and care for each other”. (ibid)
Let’s not distort the reality of people we really care about and turn them into a reflection of our own needs. Let’s be unashamedly who we are and trust that those who see us will honour what they see, and treat it with gentleness and respect. Let’s realise that the world we enter is not ours to reduce to the size and shape of our understanding.
Marina Robb, Circle of Life Rediscovery Director.
Common Ground with Matt Belhumeur
Matt Belhumeur is a Cree Man from The Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement in Alberta, Canada. He is a single father to a beautiful daughter who is currently six years old. Matt is currently in his 4th year of college chasing a degree in Indigenous social work.
On our 4th Common Ground interview below, Marina Robb and Matt Belhumeur discuss:
- What does it mean to reclaim your own education?
- How do we move towards healing?
- What do we need to hear as the ‘colonialists’?
“I feel very honoured to be apart of what I feel is the beginning of my people reclaiming their education. I believe that we are amid an especially important shift within our country as there are more and more of our people becoming educated. Together this will enable us to hold people accountable and create conversations around how to best dissemble those systems that are founded on colonisation and systemic racism.”
Please view the interview below:
Matt is the indigenous liaison worker in an organisation that specialises in working together with children and youth. The goal there is to give the people the tools they need to help regulate their behaviours and work through the traumas that they may have faced in their lives. His programme specifically takes a relationship-based approach in helping the people heal. He includes those indigenous practices and utilises talking circles, fire teachings, land-based teachings, sweat lodge and other ceremony just to name a few.
“This has been an exciting journey so far and I look forward to completing my education and beginning the next chapter in my life, wherever that might be I guess only creator knows.”
To view all of our Common Ground interviews, please see our website.
Transforming education, health and family through nature.
Circle of Life Rediscovery provides exciting and highly beneficial nature-centred learning and therapeutic experiences for young people, adults, and families in Sussex woodlands, along with innovative continuing professional development for the health, well being and teaching professionals who are supporting them.
www.circleofliferediscovery.com
01273 814226