The cyclical practice of ritual caresses us. It doses us with reverence, relationship & deeper understanding, and guides us into mindful & loving dedication.
An intention wrapped in sensory actions, ritual can guide us in our endeavours to study, to commune, to be of service or to give our gratitude.
I wonder then about the many ways we* are being called into deeper relationship with Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people, the cultural & somatic barriers we face, and the way that ritual can companion us in sinking deeper into practicing our values.
I wonder about what justice could look like if we gave the same tender care to our allyship rituals as we do for our other spiritual practices. If we apprenticed as allies as much as we studiously learned witchcraft or manifestation.
We have not been institutionally taught this kind of accountability however, and for this reason it also does not show up in our spiritual culture, which is often a shape-shifted replica of the same capitalist norms as the mainstream world.
Due to the absence of this teaching, most of us are accidentally complicit in the harm of the original & truest caretakers of this land, despite them embodying so many of the values we have come to hold as spiritual folks today. On paper this doesn’t make sense, that we would deny the livelihoods of people we admire or share philosophies with. Yet in reality, the lines become very blurred between valuing something for ourselves while ultimately not supporting it in the lives of others.
PART 1 — Why are we complicit & accountable, and why is it hard to change our actions?
Through concealing the destruction of our colonial history, while teachings in solidarity remain absent, we have been validated by white australian institutions in our lack of concern & action. Instead of being shown the foundational skills & understandings for collective change, we have been affirmed that we don’t need to do anything about First Nations injustices, all while living with insurmountable privileges of residing on land that was stolen through war and degradation.
Yet taking action against injustice can be very different from disapproving it.
When we are working with conditioned complicity, many of us become daunted & distressed by reaching outside of our comfort zones in order to create change.
Through the vulnerability of going against the colonial grain, our personal wounds are provoked in their forms of people pleasing, avoiding conflict, defensiveness and more.
Within such triggers around allyship, some of the emotions that float around can commonly be shame, guilt, fear of getting it wrong or numbness.
Shame that we know something needs to be done, but we haven’t yet contributed.
Guilt that we as white people of settler lineage benefit from the destruction and oppression of Aboriginal & Torres Strait people, or that we can disengage from these harsh topics at any time.
The numbness is promoted by constant overstimulation & digital living, and may also be a blanket sensation for underlying stress responses and internalised racism.
Just like we haven’t been taught the harrowing history or present-day harm of british colonisation, we also have not been taught how to hold space for challenging & conflicting emotions.
We need both in order to move into a future of honesty. If we don’t prioritise them, we are accepting a hierarchical way of life where we inherit our privileges in exchange for the degradation of people of colour. This is called white supremacy — the belief that white people are superior, and therefore should centre all things through domination.
I believe that most of us reading this would not be okay with identifying in this way, and yet we do accidentally by allowing our conditioning to go unchecked.
Despite allyship holding the possibility of being triggered, choosing to show up in small ways is more healing for ourselves & the collective, than choosing to not show up at all. Ritual can help us to do this.
We must get better at feeling our discomforts, and normalise a new level of showing up for this future. More specifically, we need to normalise new extents of allyship with the people that our lineage has intentionally & ongoingly abused.
Recultivating new ways of being can take time, but consistent efforts (which help us grow new neural pathways), are most important of all — even if small.
Ritual facilitates this potential.
Yes, we are still redefining what it means to be caring toward ourselves in our capitalist society — I understand. But rarely have we considered what it means to practice this loving generosity toward the people & culture to which our lives are literally built atop of.
We may never get to a point where we’ve “self-cared” enough to feel like giving outside of our comfort zones, so we need to think about how we can set ourselves (and our collective) up to thrive now, rather than waiting for an illusive check point that may never come.
Everyone living in so-called australia of european ancestry is responsible for tending to these past & ongoing colonial wounds, because:
a) we only get to live in this beautiful country because our ancestors falsely claimed “terra nullius” and committed genocide of aboriginal & torres strait islander people
b) we receive support from systems that deeply harm indigenous people of this land (and other lands) — the act of participating in any kind of normal life conflates with validating this harm
c) caring for nature includes caring for the ways british colonisation has exploited, extracted & traumatised the land through attempted extermination of the custodians who had — and still have — reciprocal relationship with Country
d) humans helping other humans shouldn’t be radical, much less those in our localities, and who love this land that we share
With all these direct & subsequent threads between our livelihood as white people and the oppression of indigenous people, don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that we’ve never been taught of this responsibility to a consistent allyship & solidarity practice?
No one can mend these wounds quite like those of us who benefit from them. We are in positions of power & choice (ie privilege) to choose better ways. Just like astrology, wicca or the new age have shown us alternate ways of being (including ritual), we must too learn of the ways our society perpetuates white supremacy.
I am deep in this unlearning, and I invite you to join me.
As I sink into a more committed allyship & solidarity practice, I share this resource of a ritual scaffold & somatic tools alongside the voices of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people. It was originally written for Reconciliation Week, though I have since learned that reconciliation was never a term established by First Nations communities, but rather a way to phrase a particular law that made small attempts toward equity (specifically, the 1991 formation of the Council for Reconciliation under the Hawke government — thankyou @gurrnoong for sharing this information).
Reconciliation week is one of fifty two weeks in the year where we can practice our allyship & solidarity. The more we practice, the more we may find there are things to refine, growth edges to lean into and errors to apologise for.
However, we need to be willing to get it wrong in order to do the right thing.
We must interweave the acceptance that allyship will be imperfect. We have been conditioned into ways of being that cause pain toward first nations folk as well as ourselves, of which is the bedrock of how our lives and our euro-centric society functions. Unlearning & recultivating from this place is messy, yet absolutely necessary.
This is where building our capacity for discomfort plays another important role, and why somatic exercises can be engaged with for reasons far beyond our own healing.
They aid us in collective regeneration too.
So as we arrive into ongoing allyship together, let us remember:
we need to be willing to get it wrong in order to do the right thing
building new ways of understanding & being takes consistent gestures, even if small
starting now & imperfectly is more supportive (to both society and our own healing) than not starting at all
PART 2 — Forming a Ritual Structure
The following is a format I hold in both therapeutic sessions & my personal rituals. Form it into shapes that work best for you, intermingle it with practices you already have, and allow them to dance with the rest of the offerings in this article + beyond.
Set space with things that soothe the senses, including identification of support resources (like an anchor, mentioned in somatic tools video below)
Acknowledge unseen supporters & beings of the land, perhaps specifically asking for support & offering something in return
Recall values & beliefs that are informing the ritual — then set your intention for the ritual (verbally, through writing, poetry, artwork, energetic expression etc)
Carve time to receive stories from First Nations people (if digital, pre-load before you commence the ritual)
Interweave receptivity with somatic practices that support in active listening, and cultivating observation of personal responses to the stories
Allocate time to reflect on the stories, and/or reflect on personal responses & triggers from the stories
Apply a process that deepens into your needs eg:
the need to spend more time with an enquiry
the need to grieve or express rage
the need to create an alternate neural pathway to begin practicing
the need to make an action directly related to the story you received
Remember to value non-verbal & creative forms of enquiry & expression, balancing these with verbal & mental approaches in ways that are both comfortable and meeting a growth edge
Recognise an offering you can make to the space that was held for/with you, such as a moment of reverence or an artwork you’ve made
Give thanks to those with you, those that supported you, the many factors that came together to allow for your ritual to take place. You may also like to give thanks to yourself for showing up, and the people who’s stories you heard.
Close the ritual in a way that honours possible experiences of vulnerability while also safely transitioning you into the next part of your day or evening
Hold the sense that no matter how this ritual went for you, the practice will grow to become consistent, and there will be many more iterations to come
PART 3 — Three Somatic Tools for Growing Capacity for Discomfort and Cultivating a Practice of Allyship
Each of these tools I have been integrating into my own practice as I strive to increasingly & dedicatedly show up. My intention is that you might watch this video, then experiment with the tools as you read, watch and listen to first nations teachings listed below, as well as the countless more you can continue to learn from & engage with moving forward.
Additionally, next time you see a somatic exercise on instagram or facilitated at an event, I invite you to consider how it can be offered toward collective regeneration as much as our individual healing.
Chapters
0:00 - 0:40 — Intro & Invitation
0:40 - 2:53 — First Somatic Tool, Identifying an Anchor
2:53 - 6:07 — Second Somatic Tool, Dual or Multi Awareness
6:07 - 9:27 — Third Somatic Tool, Conscious Creative Pleasure
9:28 - 10:37 — Personalising, Experimenting & Sustaining Long-Term Practices
PART 4 — Voices & Teachings of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples
Watch, Listen, Read & Follow.
A variety of media & stories of indigenous experiences — importantly, that are told from their perspectives. I’ve also listed some instagram accounts to support your feed in being a meeting place of intersectional voices.
We have been taught to see people of colour — especially Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people — through a hierarchical lens, rarely hearing their stories without the distortion of white politics or ignorance. Consistently receiving their stories from their perspectives is an important part of unlearning the harmful ways we’ve been taught to relate with them.
As we bring our presence to their sharings, can this be one of many gestures to come where we reach outside the white echo chamber and expose ourselves to alternate views?
◖WATCH◗
Ngurrawaana by Garuwa & Juluwarlu Art Group
Native Title, Dispossession & Colonialism: A Legal Examination by Taylah Gray
An Introduction to Australian Indigenous History by Aunty Helen Bnads
Luku Ngarra: The Law of the Land by Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM & Sinem Saban
◖LISTEN◗
Beyond the Vote: First Nations Yarn on Post-Referendum Impacts with Maggie Blanden — Yarning Up Podcast by Caroline Kell
The Australia Wars with Rachel Perkins — Frontier War Stories by Boe Spearim & Awesome Black Media
◖READ◗
What is Colonisation? — Tyson Holloway-Clarke for Common Ground
First Knowledges Series: Songlines, Design, Country, Astronomy, Plants & Law — Digital & Print
This Reconciliation Week is Different — Sissy Austin of Clothing the Gaps
◖FOLLOW◗
@blak_wattle_coaching
@commongroundfirstnations
@nessaturnbullroberts
@ga.ru.wa
@seedmob
@gurrnoong
@frontier_war_stories
@this_mob
@taylah_gray_
@moogiewoogieee
@rachelperkinsau
@saltwater.people
@awesomeblackorg
Thankyou to each Being that offered their energy & stories, for them to be compiled here as opportunities to listen & learn.
Thankyou to each of you who have read through this piece, and who are trying to cultivate your allyship & solidarity practice.
This piece was created with care from Bundjalung Country of the Widjabul Wia-bal People. I offer my reverence & gratitude to this land, and pay my respects to the First Nations communities & Elders of whom I live amongst.
we* refers to all of us as a collective in so-called australia, with emphasis on those of us of european & settler lineages, and who benefit from our whiteness & euro-centric norms