Visiting Madre del Mundo at Alma de Mujer, Austin, TX.
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My elders at Alma introduced me to a kincentric system of knowledge, a kinship worldview,* that brings humans down to size. From this approach, humans are not unimportant, but they have their place alongside the rest of creation: plants, animals, fungi, the land in all forms, the elements, ancestors, descendants, everything seen and unseen, the cosmos. Everything constituting a sacred circle of dynamic interdependency. Knowledge not being limited to the cognitive mind. Knowledge not being something that is individually owned but collectively held and cultivated. Personhood not being limited to the human. From this dynamic lifeworld, humans are not alone, nor burdened with needing to have answers for everything. The exact opposite is real.
I centered my entire dissertation on a collaborative dialogue with my elders at Alma de Mujer. We talked about their histories, their stories, and their passion for reclaiming and recentering Indigenous ways of knowing and healing at this time on the planet. I wrote about what our community elders have to teach Western psychology and how we, as therapists, might lean into ways of knowing that honor deep roots of healing on the planet. |