The Land Teaches Resistance: Living Wildly and Sowing the Seeds of Revolution

Across Turtle Island, the majority of predominantly-white universities deploy settler colonial violence to sustain themselves as increasingly authoritarian neoliberal institutions. While violence in the Territories colonized as the “United States” has been widely publicized, less visible and increasingly harmful colonial practices are also deployed across universities in the Territories colonized as “Canada.” As a relatively new nehiyaw/Métis/settler (Indigenous) faculty member, at a small Catholic University, who teaches and acts for liberation from Turtle Island to Palestine, I have been multiply targeted by such violence. Seeking resistance strategies, I offered tobacco to a Haudenosaunee Traditional Healer and asked for guidance. She gifted me with the knowledge that deepening my relationships with the land, deshkan ziibiing (the river), and additional More-than-Human relations would offer the answers I sought. This online workshop shares a praxis of igniting ᐋᐸᐦᐅᐍᐏᐣ âpahowêwin revolution (liberation) through cultivating good relations with Grandmother Cedar ᒫᓯᑮᐢᐠ ᐘᐢᑹᑐᐩ mâsikîsk-waskwîtoy (cedar in nehiyawewin), deshkan ziibiing, (Antler River in Anishinaabemowin, a language of the Territories on which I am a guest), and ᒥᔪᐢᑲᒥᐘᐢᑯᐢ miyoskamiwaskos (dandelions in nehiyawewin). These More-than-Human relations have taught me to connect deeply with the land and water occupied by the university, and to carry their Teachings of protection, trusting my inner knowing as ᑮᐢᑵᐦᑳᓂᐢᑵᐤ kîskwêhkâniskwêw (my sacred gender role – kîskwê, live wildly), reciprocity, cultivating and thriving in community, and sowing the seeds of revolution. This Decolonial Co-Resistance (Notwell, 2022, 2024) with the land is rooted in decolonial love for ᑲᐦᑮᔮᐤ ᑳᐚᐦᑰᒪᑳᐤ kahkîyâw kâwâhkômakâw (All Our Relations). Participants are asked to have with them a small square of natural cloth, soaked in a body of water on the Territories where you live and allowed to air dry, and a glass half-filled with water. Together we will offer gratitude to, and learn from, the water as a modified land-based learning praxis that we can implement in our everyday lives with the More-than-Human relations all around us. Through storytelling and dreaming, we will also map strategies to enact world-building (Simpson, 2021) with students and community through co-liberatory teaching, research and action.