Composting Complexity: Stamina for Decolonization

Jose 00:03 

Shake Up The Establishment is a youth-led, registered (#1190975-4) national non-partisan non-profit organisation that operates within the geographical confines of what is currently known as “Canada”, but what is referred to by its First Peoples, as Turtle Island. Hello Establish listeners, my name is José Reyeros Sánchez – 

Luiza 00:36

And I am Luiza Salek

Jose 00:38

and we are speaking from traditional territories and lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples.

Luiza 00:44

Today we will be talking to you about our experiences in navigating the Climate Justice space in what is known as ‘Canada’ and our inroads in Latin America, reflecting on similarities and overarching sentiments across these regions. The topics in this discussion involve well-being, social mobility, and perspectives that are deeply rooted in thousands of years of culture, ways of knowing, and oral history. We are acknowledging that this episode will only scratch the surface of the depth of these subjects given our position as guests on this land for a short period of time. 

Jose 01:25

Today we use our voices in an attempt to engage with other ways of knowing and being as a ‘compass’ that can – quoting Dr. Vanessa Andreotti – “point to the need for us all to become healthy elders and good ancestors for all relations: to learn to live, to grieve, to give, and to die well” (Andreotti, 2021, p.38). According to Vanessa, this involves unlearning our learned ways: “of thinking and imagining; of sensing and feeling; of relating to one another, the earth, and the cosmos; of facing life, fear, pain, loss, and death” (Andreotti, 2021, p 37).

Luiza 02:03

The direction of the discourse will be informed by those in the community we were able to connect with and the stories we are gifted and able to share” We are very happy to be joined by Azul, thank you so much for being here today!

Luiza 01:46

I’m gonna introduce Azul Carolina Duque was born and raised in Colombia, and is currently a settler and Coast Salish territories colloquially known as Vancouver. She is a member of the gesturing towards decolonial future collective, and her artistic practice invites us relating to embodied sounding as a tool for remembering ourselves out of our collective denials. These explorations are informed by her training as a death doula in mind. She’s also learning about how to walk the path of relating to music as a living entity, as opposed to a product to be consumed, or exploited for validation. She is the producer of En Cuidado da Terra podcast series, a conversation with indigenous elders and products of sustainability and much more. We’re really happy to have you today.

Azul 03:00

Oh, yeah, very happy to be here talking to both of you about this.

Luiza 03:04

Would you like to share a little bit about yourself before we begin, as well?

Azul 03:08

Yeah, I was asked to say I’m born and raised in Colombia, and being Latina is an important part, I think of my identity. I’m also an educator and an artist in training for both of those really did learning so much about and re understand constantly what it means to be an artist in these troubled times. But also what, what education is needed and what kind of educators are needed. So that’s what I would like to share about myself for now.

Jose 03:39

Thank you for sharing that. In Mexico, you you say that to location is super important for you know, these ideas of development and read more about these education. Where does it come from? What are you an educator for?

Azul 03:47

Yeah, sure. Interesting question. What am I an educator for. Being part of the of the collective gesturing towards the colonial features collective? I’ve been incredibly lucky to have met people who are asking difficult questions about and important questions about why education is needed now. And so in some ways, I think of myself as learning how to sit with complexity, and that when I speak about complexity, I’m talking about complexity in many different layers. Because we are in a moment, we are going through what is called Liquid modernity. So this idea that the reality that we live in right now, is so volatile, is changing really quickly. If we think about modernity, before being solid, much more stable truths, or the illusion of stable truths was much more upheld. 

Azul 04:44

But now we’re moving into a space where things are very fluid, right? We can think, for example of gender and sexuality, but it happens in in all layers of identity. And so if you add to that, climate, the civilization biodiversity collapse, social collapse, you know, all these things, add the levels, increase the levels of complexity. And so in some ways, I think of myself or I would like to think of myself as an educator, who is sitting with this question of how can we, how can we be responsible to these really highly complex times we live in, and our responsibility really calls for maturity.

Azul 05:28

Just connecting to the quote you were reading at the beginning, how do we become healthy and wise elders? And that’s a central question I think of when I think of myself as an educator. And, you know, it’s a lot about learning together, right? It’s not like I am teaching anybody anything, really is about how do we learn together? Because while we’re going through we’ve never been through before, right? These are unprecedented times, really. And so it’s about feeling and making new mistakes. But doing so with a level of responsibility.

Jose 06:09

evil words, I think I, I always struggle with this idea of modernity, understanding my identity and playing with it and going to places and comparing myself You see, a lot of emotions are along that way I care a lot about about climate justice about the climate emergency, it’s overwhelming, I think, because I mean, as a Latino, it comes to Canada, I haven’t encountered that, you know, I’m chasing these dream for what could we call social mobility? So for me, it’s it’s a, it’s a mix of, you know, like, come into this into this country into the communities in Canada. As a settler, though I come here as someone who’s just trying to make the most out of the opportunities to advocate for climate justice. There’s a lot into it. 

Luiza 06:52

Yeah, I’m thinking of the communities that we become a part of when we come here, right? And what does that mean? In Latin America, we hear a lot about the term brain drain, and about the flow of people coming in and out and what that entails.  And I think sometimes we’re not even aware that we’re interacting with all these dimensions of modernity. But we are right, and Vanessa talks about how that has become that is the air that we breathe. And it is, it is an all of us as well. Right? So I think what I really didn’t realize when I got here, and I came to this, this almost level of capitalism and individualism that almost feels heavier here and different, but it’s everywhere, and can be felt everywhere. 

Luiza 07:24

And how do we find the words to, to, to express ourselves and, and this pain that we share, and that is a collective pain, but that we’ve become so numb to and that we almost don’t have the capacities to hold and to feel and, and to express in language, because our language, the language of the dominant culture doesn’t allow for these words to exist almost. And I think what we wanted to start is by trying to express that in language, which is really hard. So I think there’s always whenever I start to, and I want to bring this idea, what is modernity? How do we relate to it? And how, by knowing that it is there and it is in inhabits? And each one of us, how can we do this internal work? How does this live and all of us, and even if we change the external, we still have so much work to do. Otherwise, we were not getting out of this mess that we’ve created for ourselves. 

Azul 07:48

Yeah, I think you just brought a lot of points that I can see so many branches branching out for, for many things you just said, but I want to I want to rescue a few of those, and then kind of tied them together if I can remember.

Azul 08:01

Yes, you’re speaking about brain drain. And when you came here, like you’re kind of reflecting a little bit on new to Jose on your path when, as you as you arrived here as Latinos, right? Because we say you’re Brazilian. And as you said, Jose, you’re Mexican, I’m Colombian. And one thing that modernity does or that is really good at is creating these markets, right, of course, we understand capitalism in a particular way and free markets in a particular way. But it also creates a market of value and a set of identities that then we trade with, that we also engage with an economy of worth, right. And we see this really clearly, for example, on social media, when we create curated profiles of ourselves. And then we in some ways, make ourselves a product to them be consumed by other liked or disliked hyper consume go viral, etc, right.

Azul 08:57

And so one of the things that relate to modernity is this conversation about identity politics, and who has a voice and why and then we begin to race each other and to compete with each other even in the conversations about sustainability or social justice. For example, when I got here to Canada, I am a white person Latina, or a white Latina. Really, it’s it’s complicated to locate myself exactly in that spectrum, but when I got here, I remember a lot of people telling me you’re a person of color a person of color, do you want to come speak as a person of color. And at the beginning, it was really enticing to be a person of color, because it gave me a platform. And I would love to capitalize on that. Right. And later, I began to see that that is very problematic.

Azul 09:47

Because yes, here I am seen as a Latina. And yes, I, you know, have an accent. And that places me in that particular location within certain conversations. But ultimately, I speak English, I came from a family where there was always put on the table. You know, I had I went to a private education, regardless of if I came here with a scholarship or not, it’s almost irrelevant. I am a person in Latin America, that is part of the at least top 10% of my country. And so when I come here, I cannot occupy the spaces of I am the marginalized, because it is really embarrassing. 

Azul 10:32

And I did that for many years, because it gave me that capital. And because it triggered these, we also talk a lot about like the neural system, the endocrine system, like the horse was used as a metaphor in the in the collective, but we speak about the endorphins and the dopamine and, and these hormones that keep us really addicted to feeling good and feeling heard. We also speak about this idea of doing good, looking good, feeling good. And in the global north, and especially in spaces in university, like the one we, we were in or are in. People love that we love that we love the idea of doing good, feeling good looking good, as opposed to doing what is needed that in many times, doesn’t look good, and doesn’t feel good. Right. So with with time, and through, really meeting elders and mentors that gently showed me these parts of me, like showed me mirrors and were, you know, showing me these parts of me in these problematic things, I start to realize, no, I am much less a part of the solution, than I am a part of the problem, in fact, until I accept, and I integrate the fact that I am a part of the problem, then there’s no way I can be a part of the solution.

Azul 11:55

And so there’s this level of humility, that is really difficult to access in modernity, really difficult. And I think, also the one of the pillars of modernity, or or as we understand it through another metaphor that we use on the collective that is the house modernity built, there’s the floor, like the foundation of that house that modernity built is separability is this illusion that we are separated is this illusion that Jose you’re a person a completely separated from Luiza and then from me and I am separated from the grass, and I’m separated from from the metals that made this computer and this recording, and I’m separating from the electrodes that are flying through the air getting to the ears of whoever’s listening to me right now.

Azul 12:43

But we’re not we’re deeply entangled with everything. Right? And so there is where this idea of separation, when I think of myself as a separate entity, then I feel really lonely, really, and I feel really worthless, that’s where they are worthless has come. So in this void that we feel in this worthlessness, what do we need, we need to catch or try to grasp onto anything that makes us feel good. And what makes us feel good is this social capital of I am an activist, I am the solution, I am the youth that is going to either, as opposed to realizing that we don’t need to go into those markets, and instead, tap into this entanglement. But that’s really difficult. That requires ceremony. And those are the ancestral technologies that Indigenous communities know how to do so well. But I’m gonna tell you go learn those technologies. And then you know, that it’s really problematic, too. There’s a lot of extractivism there, too. So anyways,

Luiza 13:45

thank you for bringing all of that I think there’s a lot that connects. And there’s a lot that is almost like under the surface that we just don’t talk about in our routines. And we would rather talk about the news or literally anything else, other than the catastrophe that we’re sharing and the intimacy of it, and how it touches each one of us. I remember getting here to university and just talking about how everyone was internally really depressed. And knowing that that was a collective pain that we were sharing, but at the same time, not knowing how to be there for each other and and hold that together because that’s not taught and that’s not being done. I think it reminded me of Vanessa saying knowing that we’re both cute, empathetic, and that we don’t know how to do this, and I, I’m thinking here, so

15:07

about everything that you brought and i i to a about how I came from Brazil and all the privileges that I carry, and that I still carry, even though in this environment I’m seeing differently. And I’m seen as a Latina, Brazilian I, it’s still there’s so many dynamics that are at play. And I’m aware of that. But how I think a question that I asked myself and that I would like to extend to you is and also thinking about the words of Vanessa and like the need for us to learn to become good ancestors that has been kind of lost in the previous generations with is how I think it begs the question, how can we bring a critical view on our dissatisfaction with the current systems and the dominant culture in a way that we can use our privileges to help create something new, something that we don’t know what it is, and we should not? Like put our expectations and and we don’t know, but how can we use the platform that we have and us being here and having that perspective and the critical awareness that we are developing and growing and learning every day? Right, and that you seem to have learned a lot for your past in your past years? And how you learn to see yourself and others.

16:25

But do you may do you maybe have some some clues on how maybe we can we can hold this space for each other and hold our privileges and act? Yeah.

16:36

I feel that we have to sit with that discontentment. First, we have to feel it before bringing perhaps it might be that this is a critical view, but to feel the discontentment is to hold it and to ask what is beneath it or behind it? And the answer is probably pain. As you said, a lot of us are depressed. I remember also this moment when I looked around, I think it was three years ago. And my community of people is, is a very in all in all healthy community by realize we are all depressed, because we’re dealing with an earth that is dying, and we are part of this earth. So of course we are depressed and of course we’re anxious.

17:24

So I genuinely strongly believe that we need to sit with the pain and we need to feel the grief. And that is a step that we cannot skip. We cannot skip.

17:40

I’ve done some some I’ve learned with some that death, doulas were the people that accompany people into dying.

17:49

And through that experience, I’ve come to feel in my bones how important it is to metabolize that grief that we’re feeling because otherwise what we’re doing is there’s all this pain and as you said, we’re we’re very numb, we’re numb to it. And how do we numb through shopping through consuming knowledge consuming status, through consuming each other through consuming, you know, relationships, every kind of relationship, relationship, food, land through mineral extractivism relationships. Romantic relationships remain sort of who, you know, everything academia job, there are so many out, we’re experts in numbing. But when we start to declutter all that noise, while we start to feel into is that connection with land, that is ourselves, and that pain, because that connection has been strongly severed, it’s been wounded. No, as you either there’s a Maryam, we perform that. And on this, when we start working with that grief, then there’s no way we’re going to find quick solutions for it, because the grief brings the immensity of the problem. And then you know, that technology won’t bring it more than bring about the solution, then you know, that, um, you know, different forms of capitalism will bring on the solution, then, you know, you start seeing that all these things are not going into the depths of the pain that we’re feeling. And from there, you sit, and you listen. And then the solutions are not coming from your cognition, but they’re coming from the land and it’s not solutions. The line is saying, you just have to connect with yourself. That is also me. You know, we come from her, we come from it, we come from them.

19:42

And then the question about privilege and what do I do with my privilege is almost no longer a question. But you, you get this sense in your gut, and you’re just like, This is what I need to do. There’s no virtue signaling. There’s no

20:00

By using this, because of this, there’s just

20:04

kind of like this impulse that comes from your gut. It’s like, okay, this is what I need to do now. And this is just what needs to be done. And it’s not about me, it’s fully not about me. Now I say these things, I don’t do it. Like, it’s not like I inhabit the space of clarity. I’ve got a moment of it through mostly ceremony and artistic practice. But most of the times, I go back into the, what I call the spell, I go back to being asleep. And I also use these forms of numbing. It’s not like, you know, I’m not here trying to say that I’ve got it already.

20:38

But this is what feels in my bones to be true, or at least, the way I’m navigating this time is right now.

20:48

And I imagine that listeners in the paska, in this podcast could be thinking, okay, like,

20:54

wow, I just heard all of this now what?

20:59

Which, which brings us to kind of something to follow up with, and it is, you know, gesturing towards the golden futures is a collective Right. And, and I’ve, I’ve seen that you have tools, so So perhaps you can talk a bit more about what are some of those tools from GTF that can help us stay with these problems and engage with the entanglements that, as Dr. Andrea de mentioned, are needed for hospice in modernity. Maybe you can speak a bit about that.

21:30

Yeah, for sure.

21:33

Just before I continue, I wanted to, to acknowledge the the collective and the many, most of most of the things I’m saying, I didn’t come up with them myself, they came from a group of people, including indigenous elders, researchers, non Indigenous researchers to.

21:56

And

21:58

an incredible amount of work has gone into,

22:03

into all these insights into all these tools that I’m about to share. So just really want to acknowledge all the work from these people and nonhumans to because it’s been also comfortable ceremony and comes through those connections. So I’m just here passing on things that were gifted to me, it’s, it’s not like,

22:21

yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge that

22:24

there’s a tool that is very useful that

22:28

I started using about five years ago.

22:32

And through the years, I’ve gotten to know, it has taken almost a central role in how I navigate these times, and it’s called the bus and we’re ready to b(us) , so it’s the bus within us. And it is a way of,

22:51

of understanding of ourselves through multiplicity. So one thing that modernity wants us to believe is that we are a unified single human individual that has one view of the world, one opinion and one way forward. When in reality with fractals, we are I mean, this is how I see it now on how this tool invites us to see it into we are fractals, right? So we have many different this metaphor is just to think that we have many different passengers within ourselves. And these passengers are full of their own stories, their own fears, their own wisdoms their own experiences. So you know, in there’s a lot of conversation about the ego and and even last night, I was having a visit with some friends about you know, the ego, we think about this one thing that is the ego, but in reality, it’s spread all over these different entities that are winning within us. So when we I started to see myself as a bus full of different characters, then grappling with blurry vocality, so many voices, and at the same time becomes more

24:07

bearable. And also what I’m able to see is that I have people inside of me that are racist. I have people inside of me that are homophobic, I have people inside of me that are

24:20

like, I don’t know, deeply extractivist and hungry, and violent and scared. You know, just like I also have passengers inside of me, who are really wise elders.

24:34

I have jellyfish and cats and entities that are even know what they are. And they’re all there. They’re all there. So, when I’m going through life, and different passengers are speaking their opinions. What this tool allows us to do is to listen to those different voices and then discern with a psychoanalytic distance, right, as opposed to saying, thinking I am one person and then wherever

25:00

Are the passenger who is at the wheel than I am this person, and therefore I’m going to have this racist thought you can take a step back

25:08

and say, Oh, my God, that thought was racist? Where is that coming from? Where are you? Oh, got it, you’re this person in my bus. And then you are interacting with this other person in this way. And so it allows you to map a little bit better.

25:26

These ways in which we have internalized modernity, and it also allows us to discern, who do I want to listen to now, and sometimes is the voice that is the hardest to listen is the one that we should listen to. Because often what is needed, what needs to be done is not what we want to do.

25:48

But just to just to finish it, the speaking about this to hear briefly, when we start to grapple better with our internal complexity, we are able to better grapple with the external complexity, because what’s happening in the world is that we are much more, we’re more polarized than ever, and having difficult conversations is becoming increasingly more difficult. But when I can have hold space, for the paradoxes within myself, only then will be able to mate will be able to perhaps, hold space for the complexities in the world around me.

Azul 26:28 

So how do I have unconditional regard for not only my community, but those who are not part of my community? And how do we show up for each other through our differences through our problematic histories, and I could speak about the bus for hours. But that’s just a little snippet into one of the tools that are that is very, very helpful. I come across this a few times before and it takes a while, I think for you to learn and internalize that. And when I say learn, I don’t mean learning with your head, but embodying it, right, and bringing it to your body and feeling and being able to take that step back. as well. I know this, because I’ve learned it with my heart.

Luiza 27:09 

Sometimes I think, Whoa, I can hold space for all the sadness and the grief in my life. And I can also hold space for all the beautiful things that inhabit my body. And they can both be happening at the same time. They both exist. And that’s just where we’re at. And then once you’re able to do that for yourself, you’re able to do that for others. And for the world. This is one tool that we have when we want to come back. And we want to ground ourselves stick with it not for being a hero, not because you know I have this privilege in this, I have to use it but because I feel it in my gut. And I feel it as a responsibility. And it’s not a responsibility only for myself. But it’s it’s bigger than that. And knowing that with your body, I think I’m going to come back to this a lot the bus within me. 

Azul

It’s so useful. It’s incredible, really. And it’s a tool that was designed to allow us to have difficult conversations. And that’s what we need to have right now more than ever, I want to say, not only between our communities, but intergenerationally, for example, between people that have really diff different political views on the world, 

I also want to tackle something you were saying about not understanding things cognitively, but understanding it with our heart or with our bodies. And I think that’s super important. Because another thing that modernity does is that it reduces us to our cognitive brain to the mind, if if we understand the narratives, then things will change.

 But that’s not true. We have the information. We know that there we won’t have food systems and food systems will collapse in the next 20 years. We know that the oceans we know all these things, and then we’re not changing. We’re not taking the action that is needed. 

So the indigenous researchers that we work with tell us that we couldn’t not be more wrong when we think that way. They say that. It’s the gut, really, that gets the message, then the heart processes. 

And then the brain just is there to create the logistical decisions to follow the orders of the heart and the gut, really like when we can align our gut to what is being taught how the land is speaking through us, then we’re able to act accordingly.

Azul 29:29 

And I think art, Artistic practices are central to that. Really, like I don’t think there’s any way that we can

dream ourselves out of this mess without artists.

29:46

Not to say the artists are the solution, but they’re indispensable. artistic practices are indispensable because you’re working with a type of language that works through metaphor, that is not trying to index the world that is not trying to

are the solution but they’re indispensable artistic practices are indispensable because they’re working with a type of language that works through metaphor, that is not trying to index the world that is not trying to give you concrete definitions of worth of what things are and where they need to be. But the rather living

is living, como estas, una

casa tarea custom movie in dollars cost as it’s moving things, and it’s the cluttering things. Another thing art taps into realms of the unknown, and it doesn’t try to no it It dances with the unknown. And that is something also that that is one of our impairments in modernity, or an inability to be humble to the unknown in modernity, we really need to understand that all so that we can consume it, but when we let go that anything art, art that arts does that that is super important.

Well, yes.

Jose

Should we do a bus? Okay, go first. Alright, so. So my boss came from Mexico, went through some frontiers, and going through customs. So it was stressful, I get it, you’re visiting someone’s home. So it’s hard. I feel that I feel that how I packed my bag with with my heart. And I’ve seen a lot of people getting my bras in the last few years when I arrived to Salish territories, and I’ve seen the voices change a lot. And I’ve gotten worried about what I see outside of the window. But I’ve also seen some, some bus drivers telling me to calm down. I have started dancing in the bus when I was told that you should not dance in a bus before. And I begin to meet people in the bus that make that trip easier, it doesn’t mean that the trip is going to be less bumpy. But it’s become more comfortable to be around people. And

Luiza

I also think that I’ve been my bus been changing a lot. And some passengers stay, but some leave. And I welcome that sometimes it just feels very chaotic. And sometimes there’s space for it to be chaotic and beautiful. To hold out other ways of being that I don’t even know I was capable of. It’s been difficult to sit with all the passengers in all those different conceptions and ways of seeing things. And sometimes it requires me to be like, you know, this voice, this needs to step down. We need to welcome other things here and just step back, I’m, I’m sitting in my bus and I am trying to breathe and and see what are the possible paths that I could take from here. And there are many and the possibilities are endless. But the path that I want to pursue is has to be different than the path that we’ve been stimulated like lead. This is the path it’s laid out for you. And sitting with that and allowing for it to unfold differently is the is the task for me right now.

There’s something interesting there in the opposition about the path we went with my bus chief Ninawa was speaks about the possibility of quote unquote, better futures, depends less of our capacity to imagine those paths forward and those futures and more on the quality of relationships we’re able to build today. That is to say in other words, if we put our energy into mending building relationships, not only human, but also non human relationships that are based on trust, respect, reciprocity and accountability. That is what is going to perhaps take us forward to futures that don’t look as painful. And that is way much more important than our ability to sit here thinking, Where are we going to go next? How are we going to get out of this road that is burning or this flood? And instead looking into my my bus and saying, Okay, folks, our relationship in this bus is fucked. How are we going to work through this? And I think that’s a such a much difficult work to do, because it’s so good to know. And look outside and say, well, there’s a flood here, but over there, there’s a beautiful valley, like how are we going to get there? And instead when you look inside and you realize it stinks and you go okay, there’s a massive pile of shit in the middle of this bus. And nobody has been wanting to compost it. Because we’re all looking The outside of the window, looking at the rainbow. So let’s turn around, let’s smell this shit. And let’s get on the work to composting this really. So in my bus right now, there’s a lot of toddlers, oh my God, I’ve been really, there’s a lot of toddlers that need a lot of attention, and that want things the way they wanted. And then there is a few other passengers that really want the toddlers to stop crying. So they will do anything to just make them stop crying. And then there’s a few elders that are just sitting in the back quietly observing everything. Yeah, I think that’s a really brief version of my bus right now not to get too personal.

I love that. Well, thank you as well, there is, for me a clear invitation here to focus on the relationships and the quality of them, I want to sit with that for a while, bring that to the way I see my bus as well, and all the passengers in it, and the relationships that we have.

And perhaps bringing that back to how we relate to our listeners, just thinking of who could be listening to establish a lot of people out there might be thinking how to pursue climate action, and become political and do something about the changes they’re seeing in very hot summer is just not a very optimistic and it’s the jury really challenging future ahead. But taking this reflections and looking inside and composting, and sitting with complexities seems to be some things that are being suggested today. Any generic household?

Azul

I think I really think that the you know, the the first step is for us who people who are in our position is to inquire how am I a part of this problem. And then sitting with the magnitude of the problem. So in the collective we use the four denials as a guide into when I see this spell the four denials, in some ways make up the spell. So the first denial is a denial of violence. You know, people go around thinking, I am not the problem, I am not violent, I am a vegan, I recycle. And I studied, whatever social justice, and I work for an NGO, and therefore, I am part of the good team. And instead, when we start to look into the building blocks of modernity, we start to see that those blocks are violent, that everything we have, from the computers to the healthcare system, to the roads, to the clothes is built by and on. dispossession, genocide, ecocide like incredible amount of pain that we can’t even fathom in this lifetime. And so when we sit with that, that that single narrative of I am part of the good team begins to vanish, right? And then often what comes in is a sense of guilt, that is also not useful. Because again, the guilt is centering myself in the story. I’m the guilt, I’m guilty, therefore, I’m the victim. And it’s the centering the self is part of I think, of untangling that denial of the violence. And just sitting with that, saying, all right, this is the system that we live in outwards is violent, and inwards is violent, too, because that system has built a lot of not the entirety, but a lot of who I am. So that’s the denial of violence that most of us have in modernity, right? Because we’re sold, the ideas that we’re learning is not violent, well, whether anybody is great. We have hip surgery, and we’ve been to the moon and, and those things are great. hip surgery is fantastic. But, you know, we also have to sit with all of the rest. And then we have the denial of unsustainability, right, that we think, whether NAD or capitalism, or you know, yeah, the monitor system is sustainable. We just need to tweak something here and something there. But other than that, we can keep going the way we are going. We can continue our levels of consumption, our ways of relating, we just need to find a better AI, or we just need to find some circular economy that is going to keep this way going. And that’s a denial, because there’s absolutely no way no way we can keep going. Not with circular economies. Not with green capitalism. No the better AI Absolutely not. There’s no I’m ount of the amount of concrete that is needed to create the hydropower that is needed for a green energy transition is impossible. Like the amount of mining that is required for the lithium for electric vehicles will create so much devastation in Mega biodiverse regions in the world, that there is no point but we have electric vehicles when we don’t have the ecosystems that regulate the temperature in the world that regulate the water cycles that regulate everything food growing, if we don’t have the bs, you know, we know all of this, but we love it. We are in this denial, and we try to find the UN sustainability, the weather, or they call the sustainable development there. I don’t think there is such a thing as a sustainable development, not with the idea of development that we’ve had until now. And so that’s a huge denial. You know, it’s there’s a metaphor, I forget who I think is Jason Heiko, but he says that this crazy belief and faith that we have on technocracy and that technology is going to save us is like jumping from a building and trusting that by the time we fall, somebody is going to build a technology to save us. And the problem is that we already jumped. And I’m just gonna let that land for a minute there. And I’ll just go through the other two dials really quickly, because I get too much into the weeds of things. But there’s a denial of violence and denial of unsustainability. Than then there’s a denial of entanglement. And that’s what we spoke about before that we we think we’re separate, that we don’t think ourselves as nature, right? We say humans, and we say nature, and we our land, our bones are made of the same thing. Our bloods are made up the same thing, our breath is made of the same thing, our spirits are made of the same thing. We come from land, it’s crazy that we don’t think ourselves as land is ridiculous. When we talk to our indigenous partners or researchers, it’s one of the things that come and they say this is really the wound. This is where all of the other denials come from. When you it’s like you, you got into the spell that made you think that you’re separate. So that’s the nail of entanglement. And then the last nail is or the nail of the magnitude of the problem, which speaks for itself. I don’t think we have been trained to hold the immensity of the trouble we’re in. I think we genuinely cannot hold it. And so we compartmentalize it, we numb it, we deny it, because we don’t have the capacity to hold so much pain and destruction. Because we’ve been sold such a different story from every movie and book we’ve read and political campaign, we’ve seen that it is so far from what we’re able to do. So those are the four denials, that I think are important for people who want to become politically active as what you were sharing before, Jose,

thank you for bringing that framework. And it’s not easy to sit with that, especially when we’ve been taught to not sit with complexity, I’m really reflecting on the ways that we escape, and that we try to find these false solutions. And green capitalism is also not being talked about enough, especially being in Canada and all its mining background. And that is something that still has not been acknowledged. So I think that’s just a reminder of how important this is right now, and continues to be and probably will continue to be. And we have this challenge of, okay, maybe all these promises that were made for us that we’re going to have kids, and we’re going to live in this house, and we’re going to have this job, this is not going to happen, and this promise and we cannot resent the previous generations that came before us were thinking like that, and thinking that they had to provide for us, right? And but how do we find the emotional capacity to sit with that, and I find myself talking to my parents about this work. And it’s, it almost feels like a real education. And it’s hard to share it with people you love and you care about. And that is the magnitude of the challenge that we have ahead of us that we need to start practicing. So thank you for giving us a little bit of perspectives and practices. I encourage people to look them up and go more into the depth of this work.

So I have one last question. You’ve talked about sitting with complexity, and hopefully people will start doing that. What are moving with complexity if you get what I mean, maybe maybe some dancing or singing?

No, I’m gonna sing a song, though. You’re asking

how how can we talk about perspectives of a future beyond modernity with the words of modernity So sometimes art is the only thing that will do it sorry I’m toning

it was interesting when you were saying that right like how are we going to is like the masters to the Masters House I was reloaders school and a lot of my songs do have words and are telling a story I know using the words of modernity but I also think songs do something else but now you’re making me want to sing a different song

Azul sings………….

thank you for sharing your song, your gift your medicine to this world with us. I can’t begin to express what this means. I think you know, though, thank you for joining us, everyone who took some time to listen to this conversation feels right to sit with this in this way. I’m going to leave this a bit more with an open heart. So thank you. We’ll see you next time.