This Is Where It All Began

from frameworks to visions & everything in between

I realized I was thinking in a colonial way, and I had to stop. Sometimes it feels like we can’t really help it, can we? Colonization seeps in when we don’t even realize it, and before we know it, we are thinking about things that are attached to what sells, to how hard we can hustle, to the always-applauded ideas of assimilation we must give into in order to be accepted.

When I wrote my new book, Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day, I struggled so much with the subtitle. I knew that I’d created something really special to me— the Venn diagram design on the front of the book, called the realms of resistance. And I loved the main title, reminding us what it means to live into the work and embodiment of resistance.

Even as the book was nearly written, I was still struggling. I was still looking to how it all began, to that beautiful Venn diagram, those circles overlapping and connecting. But I was picturing a framework, something I thought could be steady and sure, something I could present in a boardroom full of executives to convince them that Indigenous wisdom still matters in the world.

Do you see the problem here?

Instead of leaning into the cyclical, seasonal wisdom I’d just written about for over a year, I was leaning into the strictness of colonialism, trying to fit myself once again into the boxes and spaces that don’t hold me and won’t truly have me.

I had to stop and remind myself that my own inner wisdom and Indigenous wisdom from around the world is timeless, decolonial, and sacred.

The earliest drawing of the realms of resistance, where it all began

With the help of my patient publishing team and my partner Travis, we finally landed on the subtitle: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day.

It took me a little bit of time. A vision. Is that truly what I’m creating here? Will I be taken seriously? The longer I sat with this language, the more at home I began to feel. A vision is fluid, moving, transcendent, capable of change and sacred beauty. A framework isn’t.

A vision can be carried into the next generation.

A vision can be carried to us by our ancestors.

A vision cannot be denied.

A vision is a dream.

A vision is an arrival.

So let’s lean into the vision together.

I hope that when you read Living Resistance, you are taken on a journey. This isn’t a book of answers, but a book about curious belonging, about care for ourselves, one another, and Mother Earth.

And when I step back and remember how it all began, I couldn’t call it anything but a vision. Where will this vision take you? What journey are you about to embark on? What will resistance mean for your own life and the lives of those who come after us? I can’t wait to find out.

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Friends, Living Resistance is out NEXT WEEK!

I wanted to share a few things with you as we approach this last weekend before it comes out:

1. Make sure you pre-order your copy now to get it in time! Pre-orders really help authors, because they signal to stores and online retailers that our books are wanted out in the world.

2. When you get your book, take a picture and share it on social media with #LivingResistance! I can’t wait to see where the book shows up in your life.

3. Please reach out and let me know what’s speaking to you in the book—it means a lot to us as authors to know how our words are shaping others’ lives.

4. Ask your libraries and local bookstores to carry Living Resistance.

5. Share the news with your friends! Invite them to subscribe to The Liminality Journal!

   Thank you all so much for journeying with me. It’s been a long few years to get to this moment, and I’m feeling a lot of things—mostly overwhelm, expectancy, and deep gratitude.

   Onward!