[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/05/30/end-of-may-ask/

End of May Ask

Discussion

[Rebecca McClinton]

I have financially engaged for May. I am thankful to be a part of this “positive and benevolent kudzu”, and the orange trees we are growing here towards the North Star. I have often found myself quoting things I’ve learned here outside of this space at work, in my household, and in my relationships. Ever in the process of becoming, making room for what I don’t yet know and need to uncover.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

Yes, I’ve really adapted so much of the framework and thinking of relational justice, both in racial work and other social justice spaces. Lace and this space provides such a powerful perspective and at the same time continues to emphasize the importance of not treating this as self-help, but as a path towards real racial justice.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Shannon, I like your wording about this space being a path. A path we are walking together.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

I love the smell of orange blossoms! And I’m happy to help buy more orange trees and help plant and care for them. I want more kind candor, more right relationship. The breeze will carry the scent quite a ways…

I have engaged for May and am preparing for June.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I have an uncle who is a reforestation engineer in Australia. We think of eucalyptus trees and a couple other iconic Australian trees as being the natural look of Australia but in reality much of Australia is disturbed land, deforested and mismanaged, so when we see those iconic Australian plants, we are seeing the weed trees that take advantage of unhealthy land. His own land in a rural area used to be this disturbed land and these weed trees, but 20 years or so ago, he started really putting effort into reforesting his land with the diverse native dry rain forest species that used to grow in his area before it was disturbed by settlers so that that land could become a model for citizens to see what the land should be and to know how to repair their land, and also so that it could be an oasis for native birds and insects and animals that struggle to survive in the disturbed land. It has been 14 years since I got to visit his young rain forest so it has matured a lot since then I am sure with the ecosystem growing ever stronger and being visited by more and more birds who as he says “eat and little fruit and then fly off out of the dry rain forest into disturbed land where they do a little poop” [he has a particular vowel that he uses in the word poop that doesn’t sound at all like ooh. It is a German vowel that I don’t know how to type here for you] “and that poop spreads the seeds into other areas so that the dry rain forest has a chance to grow back in other areas too.” And when I was there with him 14 years ago and we would drive somewhere, he always had seeds from his rain forest with him and every now and then he’d roll down the window of the car and throw some out as part of his guerrilla reforestation of the land.

So here at Lace on Race I’ve been collecting seeds from the rich young but maturing rain forest here, and some I take outside to my own “lands” and plant and care for them as they get established. And occasionally even already I have little birds come to eat a little fruit and go do a little poop. And other seeds I keep in my pocket so I can “toss them out the window” when there is an opportunity for a little guerrilla racial justice forestation and maybe those seeds take right away and start to grow or maybe they lay dormant, waiting for another storm to get them started. And sometimes later I “drive by” and see them starting to grow and I try to let people know where the seeds came from in the first place, that they are from the Lace on Race rain forest and it’s an amazing place that I come to daily and that they can come too. I found a little seed from Lace on Race growing just the other day in a place I did not expect to find it growing. It was so exciting to see it unfurling it’s leaves and bending toward the sun!

And the health of the original rain forest, the Lace on Race community, is so important to continue the ability for myself and more and more people to spread the seeds! I have engaged here in May to help this rain forest continue to grow strong.

[Shara Cody]

I’m connecting throwing the seeds out the window to the part in the post describing what Laura said during a team meeting about what Lace wants everyone to do “… bring our best and tell our truth and live in Hesed without regard for immediate outcome”. Throwing the seeds means we don’t know if they’ll germinate but living it out requires both throwing seeds and sowing seeds. I’m so glad to hear you found a seed that took, Emily, and it reminds me that sometimes when I don’t get much of a response to something I’ve said doesn’t mean it won’t germinate.

[Catherine Seaver]

I love how you frame the throwing of seeds here with Laura’s toast – without regard for immediate outcome. I’ve been thinking about how our work here and taking things outside will not show us immediate change or germination.. but that it is in our reliability and resilience that we’ll help build the change and be part of moving the stone of racism. So grateful to be walking with you @Shar

[Shara Cody]

Glad to be walking with you too, Catherine. Your comment reminded me that my own change and germination isn’t immediate and I need to keep that in mind as I throw and sow seeds. Germination is hard work pushing through that soil so the first steps are the hardest so I can’t expect others to sprout at light speed- it’s not eye to eye and it’s not how a lasting tree grows.

[Christin Spoolstra]

absolutely love the guerrilla reforestation analogy… beautiful and moving me to think about grow and intentionality and outcomes in new ways

[Catherine Seaver]

I love this story of your uncle – and am working on imagining just how he says “poop”! This idea of guerrilla racial justice forestation is a powerful one, and I’m also thinking about all the ways I’m taking seeds from this space and throwing them elsewhere…I have been amazed where these little sprouts shoot up in my life, and so glad you’re seeing growth and unexpected leaves unfurling.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

This is an especially striking metaphor because the eucalyptus trees being there were specifically a result of colonization – of white supremacy. I think that’s such a powerful symbol of how white supremacy starts in and then invades everything, to the point where people take it for granted, as the way things always are.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Yes! And I didn’t write about it here, but we could also extend the metaphor to include how the eucalyptus trees also produce a highly flammable oil that burns really hot and really fast and that contributes hugely to the devastating wildfires that we see annually in Australia now. The fires would not look like that if the original healthy and diverse forests remained. The affects that colonization/white supremacy has are extensive and dangerous for us all.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Thanks for sharing this beautiful and fitting metaphor! I especially love how your uncle keeps seeds in his pocket to sew when he’s out and about…you never know where one might take root and grow, and that’s such a great representation of this work here as well and how we take it out from here.

[Shara Cody]

“the seeds that have been planted, where I see our words and ethos echoed in other spaces, didn’t just happen. It was and is because I, and you, have made sure of it.” – This part about how things don’t just happen is really standing out to me today. Just because we hear about it, read about it, or understand and agree in theory doesn’t equate to change and application and living it out; we need to take action both individually and collectively. I’ve engaged financially for May and will continue to take action through financial engagement every month with LoR and other BIPOC organizations.

[Grace Bannerman]

I have financially engaged for May. It’s nice to hear about feeling the influence spreading beyond this community – a reminder that as I take in the lessons here, it’s also about bringing them out, reading while acting, including but not limited to engaging financially.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

Copied form FB post: I
was not here for your beginning, but even in the time I have been here,
it is amazing to watch the growth and the work and the tears and the
sweat and the joys and the celebrations and the struggles and the Hesed
that makes up this community, that makes up the LoR team. I am glad to
be here now. And I am glad that we will still be here in the future –
because of your vision and because of your willingness to think beyond
yourself and to create something that will last beyond yourself. There
is so much power in speaking truth with Hesed love with the North Star
front and Center. Glad to engage financially and through comments and
responses. Doing my smaller June engagement now and will do my normal
monthly engagement middle of June as well. For me, the two engagements
works on many levels – it takes away my “excuse” of why I wait until the
middle of the month and it reinforces my intention and my commitment
and it helps in a small way for the team to see amounts coming in sooner
rather than later and it keeps me grounded in the work her and
elsewhere.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Forever grateful I found LoR in 2019. I will continue to bring my full self here as well as to bring these principles and guiding ethos of the North Star into my other spaces. I have engaged for May and already for June.

[Julia Tayler]

I’m grateful I found Lace on Race too! Engaged for may and June. Love orange trees! And I appreciate the seeds analogy. You never know when some seed will land and plant.

[Laura Berwick]

I have financially engaged for May, and… well, now for June. I have my monthly alarms set to deliberately review at both times and engage to the fullest possible extent, mindfully.

I’m trying to spread those seeds. I appreciate that there is never a shortage of seeds. There is always something to be found here that I can bring to the rest of my life.

[Christina Sonas]

I’m so blessed to have found this community you built and inspire, Lace. It has helped me clean up my personal ethos and given me new things to incorporate. It has shown me what I need to do, and it teaches me how to do them well. I think most importantly, I have learned that I cannot *do* antiracism; I must *be* antiracism. I watched a heartbroken, heartbreaking ten-minute video today, recorded by a Coast Salish man about the discovery of 215 murdered children at a “residential school” in British Columbia. He said, “F*ck your apologies… f*ck your land acknowledgements… Find ways to heal Indigenous people, not with money, not with an empty apology.” I have to become a healer in order for my money and words — my doings — to be healing actions. Otherwise, as necessary as they are or seem to be, my money and my words will inflict more harm.

I engaged a little extra for May ? and my June engagement was sent today.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Thank you for your reminder here, both that ‘doing’ must be ‘being’ and also the powerful words of that Coast Salish man, how empty apologies and acknowledgements are without the actions of repair and healing.

[Catherine Seaver]

This space has been such a gift and a profound place of growth for me this past year – growth that is in service to our North Star. One of the things I’ve learned to do here is to admit when I don’t know things, and then do my best to figure them out – so I needed to google Kudzo. I didn’t realize that it is edible, that’s it’s used for preventing soil erosion, it grows at a rate of about a foot a day (!), and that it’s seen as an invasive species after its introduction to the US from Japan in 1876… as I read about its growth and pivoted to race, I imagined dismantling white supremacy in a kind of fast-forward, speeded up version… and the ripple effects moving through the country. I noticed myself wishing that it would work as fast as Kudzo can grow, choking out the system of white supremacy. I laughed to myself that it definitely reveals my desire to see change FAST – quite the opposite of Laura’s toast: to “bring our best and tell our truth and live in Hesed without regard for immediate outcome.” I have more work and walking to do.

I also realized that the term invasive species and “alien/native” language is pretty problematic – and the way invasive species are talked about as invading, taking over, and upsetting the “natural” balance is pretty revealing of so many common white fears of immigration and any challenge to holding power.

I’ve financially engaged for May – and now for June. It is a crucial part of my praxis. We keep walking.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

In terms of invasive – white people were the invaders of many islands and countries and spaces. I would say white supremacy is the invasion that was used as the justification for slavery and has invaded every part of society and it’s systems and organizations. I had a friend say that white people have reason to fear immigration and others coming in and “taking over” because we know that is what we did and it worked.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

The humility to not make a big deal about taking credit even when its due is so important for white folks in particular to learn. We have a tendency to shove to the front, waving our hands about saying “It was me, I did it!” I know there’s so many times I’ve gotten bitter about not being given credit and done a disservice to the work as a result. Finding ways to center the work instead of ourselves (despite the focus on internal change) is such a key part of the work here. I have financially engaged for May.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I love finding new role models who exemplify this. It is helpful for me to see it in action and admire it in action so that I want to emulate it.

[Kelsi Watters]

I am quite late not my engagement for the Enough of May. I have financally engaged and plan to do for early June well. This space has been a gift to me, as its fragrance has permeated my way of thinking and way of being. It is a gift to be here. I want to nurture the orange trees we have, and to dig my palms into the soil to plant more seeds, and watch the seedlings grow. I think in many ways I am still a sapling when it comes to antiracism work. It’s not easy to grow the branches of that tree, and like the photo text said, “the seeds that were planted here didn’t just happen” – but it is a gift when we witness the arms of out orange tree spread out to provide a resting place for tired souls.

[Author]

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