Becoming Present to Our Choices

In a divination I had with Yeye Teish in 2017, she asked me which side I would have the feline she was seeing in her vision choose. I chose, and my answer satisfied her. The side I chose—instinctively, from the truest part of me—refused captivity, and the feline spryly leapt to freedom.

In 2022, the two paths appeared before me again. At a gathering for a new PhD program in which I would be teaching, Dr. Stephen Wall (citizen of the White Earth Nation) in his remarks shared the coyote’s dilemma. To abbreviate from memory the dilemma: the coyote must choose between staying close to humans, getting domesticated, and getting fed—or, staying hungry but free. Coyote’s dilemma made a deep impression on me and felt significant in a personal way. Being somewhat of a contrarian, I declared that I would not choose—that I chose both—to stay free as well as fed.

By this time, I had been teaching in higher ed contexts since the Spring of 2020—after taking a break from teaching while I completed my PhD—and had found myself consistently amazed by what became possible in the classroom. My other “laboratories”—the page; the ritual container—allowed for other kinds of transformations. In the graduate classroom, I discovered an emergent aspect of myself, and noticed that something different happened. I saw the students “catch” something. This—that was so precious and alive and sacred—I was here for this to grow.

I paid attention and made a call to pursue higher ed teaching more seriously. My heart was uncomplicated in its devotion. The Earth was my employer. Spirit was my employer. The painted coyote, who found me in Santa Fe on the evening Dr. Wall gifted us with the coyote’s story, kept me close to my promise to the spirit of freedom.

Being provisioned felt good because I was free. When conditions changed and my spirit found itself less and less free, it was time to make what, on the surface, looked like a hard choice—it was time to create something new.

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Many things occur—the arc of our lives morphs and shifts. The last few months have been a spiritual odyssey. Spirit and root have held me close during a time that has felt challenging and has nonetheless—as I look back—borne into being a change my own soul called for. The soul’s mandate is clear: what is false will be shattered: what is true will ask us to become even more of ourselves. It will ask us to examine the many definitions of strength.

Colonial reality bristles with those operating out of a narcissistic handbook who support and defend the aforesaid reality (or outcomes defined by it). In turn, it is they who get endorsed and protected by this reality’s mechanisms and institutions.

A few years ago, getting out of a narcissistic relationship, I’d learnt that such encounters hold forth invitations for the true self to blaze through—that the antidote to predation by a narcissistic or manipulative false self is to integrate more of our own light—more of our real selves. At the same time, I’d learnt that the glare of the true self could be too much for some, and, that some would inevitably choose social comfort. This made it even more crucial for those getting out of the narcissistic web to remember and center ourselves in our whole selves. The integration of our true selves remains an imperative for those of us seeking to remove ourselves from the ambit and false belonging of colonial realities, mechanisms, and institutions. Are we able to bear—and to flourish within—“the intimacy of scrutiny”? (Lorde)

To survive in colonial realities, many of us learned to swallow our feelings or keep them around, as Lorde would say, “as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes.” The work of becoming present to our broken hearts, unplugging from the conformity matrix unto the “dark place within where… our true spirit rises,” and releasing our sacred tears is a decolonial task. The lessons we learn as the old shatters can wither us or grow the sapling parts of us; toughen us into crone-wisdom.

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This is why this summer I will offer a cauldron for women of color and the global majority who are interested in the possibilities opened up by becoming present to the charter of our revolutionary innerscapes, where we give shape to life and freedom. If you too are facing the two paths and wish to tap into the ancient, deep places within yourself that already contain the seeds of the future, I’d love to work with you. To learn more, please join this list.

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The writing here was conceived, developed, and constructed by human intelligence only

(though I always like to give a nod to the spirit worlds for their contributions to what euromodernity sees as “human” intelligence).