Ever since the Wisdom Keepers Gathering in June I have been thinking about Cultural Reverence. I have been thinking about how, as a culture, we in the US often don’t know how to approach different cultures with reverence. And even more when wisdom keepers show up we often rush in and want to gobble up their wisdom and turn it into produce without regard for what the appropriate process is for them, for their culture. Often our American arrogance isn’t even aware that there may be a different way.
Last weekend I was at a gathering with Grandmother Enolia, a wisdom keeper from Angola. One woman rushed in to get close to the wisdom keeper and pretty quickly invited her to The Wisdom Keepers Gathering in 2025 at Hope Springs. The problem with this is she didn’t talk to me or the other wisdom keeper that co-hosts this event. If she did, she would know that there isn’t going to be a Wisdom Keepers Gathering next year and when we do it again it most likely won’t be at Hope Springs. She would also know that this event is invitation only and she isn’t authorize to extend invitations.
And then there was another woman. I witnessed this one go to Grandmother Enolia and say, “Grandmother, I want to give you an offering tomorrow for your generous holding of us. What would be an appropriate offering?” This is cultural reverence. This is the slowing down needed to understand what is appropriate. This is one way of how we build relationship across cultures.
In a conversation with Grandmother Enolia earlier at my house she spoke about how in the US we are all moving so fast. She said there is no other place outside of the US that moves as fast as we do. We lose so much in this speed. I often say we don’t realize that this speed is violent.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
-African Proverb
All this makes me wonder what is required of me? As I usher people through Fire & Water, a leadreship/rites of passage journey. What am I responsibile for passing along. As I share the different lineages that inform my work, how do I pass along the understanding that they now carry these lineages in them. How do I support them in learning that this doesn't give them free rign to these cultures and to the medicine that comes throught it but allows them access to learn more? To learn what is appropriate and what is not within these different lineages. How do I remove the colonized mindset that moves way too quickly to ownership and product.
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