Without Reservation

Writing as an urban member of Potawatomi Nation, the author recounts his process of spiritual awakening after the death of his mother and resuming connections with his ancestors and their way of life. Appropriately, he is also a founder of the environmental organisation Ecologia. He identifies four pathways to knowing in visitations and connections, observation, reflection and storytelling. In connection with the first, he encounters a coy-wolf and realises the importance of capturing the wisdom and translating this into a story; also, that 'our desire to dominate nature is based on our lack of ability to tolerate diversity', reflected elsewhere in the imperialist desire to impose a monoculture, whether in terms of religion, science, education or agriculture. The author asks if we can re-animate and re-enchant nature, recovering our roots in the process. An interesting integration of cultures emerges from the story of Kateri Tekakwitha, the first native North American to be recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church, which also made her patron saint of the environment, reflecting a kind of dual spirituality.

An important historical theme is enforced assimilation, which also imposes a dominant way of knowing. The author questions some of the cultural background of native cultures, including the emphasis on the warrior in the cultivation of violence. He recommends instead that this energy be channelled into becoming environmental warriors like those at Standing Rock. Many such people are simply defending their ancestral rights and territories while demonstrating their capacity to live in harmony with Mother Earth. This can potentially become a new story of re-creation, reconnection, respiritualisation and inclusion. I liked the term 'Ecocene' as a possible successor to Anthropocene as recently articulated by Sir David Attenborough. For this to happen, we need a new set of values, and in this respect the author proposes respect, love, honesty, bravery, truth, wisdom and humility as a basis for healing and recovery, illustrating this with our current vulnerable situation in a chapter entitled Microbes and Black Swans. We need to recognise our collective hubris before nemesis sweeps us away. For the author, this also involves going beyond binary logic and embracing ambiguity to recognise that we are both individuals and part of larger social and ecological systems – in this connection there is an extraordinary pictograph (p. 149) sent in the 1860s as a protest against the breaking of a treaty and showing thread connections between the forms of life depicted. This all gives a very interesting overall perspective on current challenges.