Reindigenizing: A pathway through the Polycrisis

I envision Reindigenizing as a multi-dimentional and multi-layered framework of belonging that addresses the root causes of the global polycrisis. It is also a pilgrimage —a transformative journey— an ongoing process of cultivating healing, spiritual resilience, the wisdom to act with integrity and becoming the keystone species of our local ecosystems. 

I recognize that this is a difficult word: Reindigenizing. Without context, it can sound like appropriation. Please stay with me as I try to explain this framework. I also welcome to use a different phrase: re-rooting, rewilding, revitalization, renewal or resurgence. My framework of Reindigenizing is based in a well researched fact that collective survival of human beings depends on respecting and integrating (only if and when we have permission) Indigenous wisdom and Indigenous technologies. Empowered Tribal Nations in the U.S. and Indigenous communities across the world are tied to a specific geographic area: They possess rich orally transmitted traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), including ways to increase biodiversity and resilience in the face of floods or droughts and ecosystem management practices to increase potency and availability of food, water, fiber, fuel and medicines. This framework seeks to make humans a “systems-level” “animist” “keystone species” i.e., a species that feels, thinks and problem-solves for our local ecosystems by considering the wellness of human/wildlife, birds, trees and insects simultaneously.

For me, the framework of Reindigenizing offers a path to honoring a primal “animist” truths: 95% of human population isn’t Indigenous but every human being had ancestors who were once Indigenous to a land. While Reindigenizing is a multidimensional framework, a deep sense of “animist” belonging to the sacred web of life is its foundational fabric.

Land Back and Reparations: A fundamental bedrock

Lands and ecosystems are alive, sentient and intelligent: they have their own will. They recognize who loves, respects and tends to them with an ethic of sacred reciprocity. Immigrants, settlers or colonizers who are living away from their ancestral lands and who have lost active connection with their own Indigeneity, must help revitalize Indigenous languages, spiritualities, ecological knowledge systems, governance traditions, and ways of life that were violently suppressed due to colonialism.

Reindigenizing, therefore, includes the ability of tribal nations in the U.S. and Indigenous tribes across the world to regain their sovereignty over lands and ecosystems that they were keystone, inextricable and sacred parts of, and that were forcibly taken from them. It means Tribal nations are supported by 95% of human population in reclaiming their agency.

For those who do not have Indigenous lineages: What reindigenizing is NOT

My call to Reindigenize is not an invitation to become a hunter-gatherer, to merely seek to develop compassion for those who have less favorable position in the society, or to start meditating, praying, or drumming in ways that we don’t have permission and training to engage in. It is also not simply a call to move away from corporate profits, over-production, and excess consumption towards simplicity, degrowth and local economies. It is much more juicy, deep and joyous. Many have already spoken about the necessity of recognizing and saying “no” to the late-stage capitalism that has landed us where we are. But what do we want to continue to have in our lives? What will nourish us? Reindigenizing is a call to respectfully and humbly reintroduce healing modalities, “kinning” technologies, spiritual values and skills that have been lost in the process of modernization. Lyla June points out in her poignant and moving article “Reclaiming our Indigenous European roots” that even people who are “White” had Indigenous roots: With humility, ally-ship and solidarity, we all have the potential to reclaim our ability to be heal our personal, cultural and ecological wounds.

Four layers of ceremonial belonging

My definition of Reindigenizing upholds the possibility of healing, belonging and reclaiming at four levels. This sacred belonging is about kinship and spiritual communication with

1. our “individual” bodies and hurting parts of our heart-minds and healing our traumas: This could be called Reindigenizing our bodies and minds

2. our human communities (across difference): This is Reindigenizing of our families, neighborhoods and organizations

3. the local ecosystems and more-than-human world. This would necessarily include Reindigenizing lands by bringing their original stewards back and Reindigenizing our relationship to our watersheds.

4. the invisible realms, ancestors and spiritual forcefields: This will include Reindigenizing of our faith traditions (including Buddhism)

I want to stress that these four layers are all crucial common components of “Indigeneity”. However, for 95% of human population that does not currently have Indigenous lineages, embracing these four layers of belonging will not make us Indigenous. We are unique but not equal. Honoring the wounds of those who are currently marginalized in the mainstream financial system and repairing the harm is a crucial part of our own grief at the loss of our connection to land. I also want to emphasize for those who are new to the path of Reindigenizing: these four layers are not faced in a “linear” way. We spiral through these four interconnected and interdependent layers. We must pay attention to all of these aspects but some of these layers will seem more approachable to us than others when we first embark on this pilgrimage.

Trauma Healing & Reindigenizing

The relationship between trauma healing and Reindigenizing is like the one between a chicken and an egg. Without trust in our human communities, or the deeper mystery and intelligence of more-than-human realms, we can not heal our traumas. Without looking at our shame, guilt, grief, rage, fear and stuckness, we will have a hard time trusting other human beings or the bigger universe and invisible realms. How will we know the message of the rivers and mountains if we cannot hear the pain of our own sacred body and mind? Initially, for modern humans stuck in cycles of being exploited by the mainstream oppressive and capitalist systems, trauma healing might feel like a portal that must be passed through in some way to begin the journey of Reindigenizing. Ultimately, a wholehearted embrace of animism and shamanism aspects of our ancestral lineages, regardless of how much we need to search to identify these aspects, is a core aspect of Reindigenizing.

Reindigenizing economically, politically & organizationally

The journey of reindigenizing will not be complete for me without humans consciously examining our relationships with money, technology and speed, food, lifestyle, policing, education, conflict/law, governments and land ownership. In practical terms, it means that we can Reindigenize our families, communities and organizations in a way that honor the four layers of belonging mentioned above. For example, I have explored how Western Buddhism can be Reindigenized.

Let us start where we are

We can start from where we are right now. We do not need to know all of our ancestors or ancestral lands. That capacity has been violently stolen from many groups of people. This spiraling journey of reindigenzing is one of spiritual healing, rediscovery, empowerment and joy. I refer to this journey as one that “spirals”, as we are never done with the process of grieving or healing, or with the endeavor of belonging—our actions in the socio-political world enable us to spiral around these topics, with each new turn providing us with a new insight or experience.

An alive Earth can be greeted and cherished as a relative, a beloved friend, and an ancestor. As a Zen Buddhist teacher, I understand that we are not just interconnected or interdependent; we are inter-being, a term coined by Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh to describe the concept that “you are me and I am you.” When one is in this state of consciousness, there is no “other”; there is only “one body.”

Reindigenzing encompasses a spiritual, psychological, cultural and socio-economic knowing that humans, regardless of our ancestry, belong to and can spiritually communicate with a sacred and beautiful web of life.