A New Dawn – Some Humbling Acknowledgements
I have stepped into a New Dawn today. I’ve been busily prepping my website for launch. I asked several respected friends and colleagues to sneak-peek it for me. Here’s what I learned from them, and why I thank them for their teachings.
There’s a lotta stuff packed into this web site
Several intelligent and business-savvy friends (you know who you are, grand merci à tous) pointed out that people may be like: does this chick really do all this stuff? Why doesn’t she just pick a lane? How is accessibility connected to writing services connected to yoga and shamanism?
All that is so valid. And I was having a hell of a time explaining it on my About page. I was forced to re-think. In grappling with the oh-mah-gawdess-am-I-trying-to-be-too-many-things syndrome, I discovered that I was making waaaayyy too great an effort to justify myself. A couple of friends and family called me on that (thanks, Big Sis #2 and John Wood, my incisive editor).
Okay, deep breath: at this moment in my journey (wise words, MR), this is where I am. This is what I offer. All of it. And it’s all connected. The words we use are as intrinsic to our well-being as how we move through the environment where we live, and how we care for ourselves. We are whole beings, spiritual and physical.
True, a few things might fall off the truck over time. Time changes everything. And that’s why I love the EDIT button.
Strip it down, baby
Less is more. Further to the above, I need to keep it simple. Stay with my overarching vision. As much as that is possible for me. There is an element of negativity—manifest insecurity, really—in over-explaining myself. So DELETE and BACKSPACE are my friends sometimes. Of course, even I see the irony in the fact that my “vision” may appear to run to divergent paths.
I’m going to rely on the Sanskrit here:
ekam sat vipra bahudha vandanti – The Truth is One – knowers call it by different names
Continuing on this theme, when my brilliant, rip-off-the-bandaid editor suggested that I eliminate the impersonal Home page, replace it with my About page, and reduce the verbiage, I was in awe. And terror. So I tried it. I told him I felt naked and exposed. But it was strangely good. He sent me a link to Peaches performing her song Light in Places. In this tour de force, Peaches takes the stage (seemingly in the buff, at least in the live Berlin version) with a trapeze artist who has a light affixed to her nether regions. Peaches sings: “Liberate en masse / Eliminate the class / All humans, free at last / So much beauty coming out of my…” Okay, this is an all-ages web site. You’ll have to watch the video for yourself after your kids are in bed.
Land Acknowledgements are incredibly important
Yes, even on a website. Especially if you call yourself a shamanic practitioner. The daughter of one of my friends taught me this. Her dad was looking over the site with her, and she picked up on it right away. I am so grateful that she did. I am of a generation of Canadians that needs to learn so much more about this. This brought me to some research on the lands where I have settled, and how to begin to honour the indigenous peoples of these lands, past and present. I found even a short acknowledgement challenging to write. I wanted it to be respectful. I wanted to find the best words. I was scared it wouldn’t be good enough.
Then I read that the acknowledgement needs to be genuine, and it needs to come from the heart. That it is okay to stumble because I am learning. And it is important for such acknowledgements to make both me, the writer, and the audience uncomfortable. Because we need to come into conversation about colonialism and all the damage it has wrought. We must speak and hear and be with the discomfort to begin to heal.
My niece was kind enough to query her stepsister (both have indigenous heritage) and run my draft attempt by her. Her kind and encouraging words moved me greatly and helped me finish writing the acknowledgement. Thank you, brilliant young women. I learned something wondrous in this—and there’s no stepping back.
So—from the mundane to the visceral to the sublime. Who could have known that the mere creation of a web site would be another step along the path of constant initiation? Ain’t life a wonder.
