Embodying Peace and Interdependence
by Katherine Elmer
“And Now our Minds are One.”
The Radical Art of Embodying Peace and Interdependence when Domination and Independence are what is Familiar
Manifesting peace on earth starts within. A disentangling. A return to a state of being that many of our bodies have not felt for likely many generations and many lifetimes. How can we manifest the unfamiliar? It starts with trust.
“Human beings whose minds are healthy always desire peace, and humans have minds that enable them to achieve powerful resolutions of their conflicts.” - John Mohawk, American Indigenous Democracy (2026)
I am a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, who met on the Mayflower and are also relatives of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. My ancestors include 13 generations of white settlers on the lands colonially known as “New England”- Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. Colonization and domination is what is familiar for my recent ancestors, not trust and collaboration and relationship to land. I am also a survivor of domestic violence. My nervous system is wired for surviving, not thriving. It has taken me years to even recognize that the manipulative dance of withholding belonging is not love. I’m learning that true love is steady- like roots or a solid foundation. So here I am, grasping in the dark, searching for footholds in unknown territory. Learning to trust the path, and feel my way to healthy interdependence and liberation and healthy interdependence...
Love in peacetime
I’m a seasoned warrior.
I know how to fight for love.
But I’m not so sure how to melt into it.
My heart is so battle-hardened.
And you come on so soft.
How do I meet that softness when I feel so clumsy?
And unsure.
And grateful.
And surprisingly delicate.
Like a flower.
Cautiously hungry to open to the sun.
The blessing is that I am not doing this alone. We are all embodied in this sacred time of Re-Membering. Many of us are being invited to literally reconnect our brains and souls to our bodies after generations of military colonialism. We are learning to feel after lifetimes of normalized numbness/disassociation. We are reawakening sensation and the wisdom of our vagus nerve; the wandering nerve to guide us in the darkness of the unknown.
When we choose the humble work towards liberation and interdependence, we can open to the wisdom of others humbly walking this path. I feel gratitude for those who have been redefining the word “pioneer” to be about liberation, not domination and colonialism. Prentis Hemphill, Trisha Hersey, adrienne maree brown, Valerie Kaur, Amber Arnold, Spoonful Board Member Carl Brokenhorse Koehler, Arthur Blackhawk, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Candace Taylor, Tatjana Cady, Sherri Mitchell, Katsi Cook, Alixa Garcia, the Penniman siblings, and Eleanor Hancock to name a few among many who have been beacons for me in the dark. And we can look to those communities who never stopped the steady work of embodying collective peace.
Some of my Mohawk neighbors across Lake Bedabog (colonially known as Lake Champlain) have continued the legacy of The Peacemaker. A practice of interdependence and democracy that white settlers Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and my distant cousin John Adams acknowledged as inspiration for a system of governance and freedom. What failed is not our US system of governance or the principles of democracy, but the choice to build that foundation in the form of words on paper. Declaring independence (not interdependence) on lifeless pages to gather dust on a shelf, alive only in the elite, inaccessible pages of policy journals and some expressions of the legal system. Another option would be to weave these principles of peace and interdependence into the fabric of a living, evolving community, accessible to all. A vibrant oral tradition of communal practices and stories shared with children, breathing life back into the words generation by generation. The founding fathers of the United States treated the wisdom of collective peace as another white European “discovery” rather than a generous invitation to collaborate with the first peoples to steward Turtle Island together. A missed opportunity to practice and live in harmony with the experienced wisdom keepers of these lands.
Peace and harmony is a practice, not a destination. And it starts within. We can learn the flavor of harmony and pursue it, just as my white settler ancestors entrained the flavor of greed and domination.
My collective practice includes re-membering alongside other white settlers who are shifting our relationships to the land. In the wise words of Daniel Quinn in Ishmael and introduced to me by Candace Taylor- learning to be “leavers” not “takers”. Learning to be “wildcrafters” who connect with the land with restraint and heart connection and trusting abundance, rather than foragers operating from the entitlement of “finders, keepers” and voraciousness fueled by the myth of scarcity. We practice consent. A potent practice, as we also participate in the disentanglement of rape culture. As Robin Wall Kimmerer taught me, we ask and listen for permission before harvesting, we honor the “no”, and we harvest only what we need. Practices that, for descendants of colonizers, take a lifetime or more to integrate, but have the potential to anchor in a new generation prepared to declare (and embody) interdependence.
“I have met too many people who suffer from an empty self. They have a bottomless pit where their identity should be – an inner void they try to fill with competitive success, consumerism, sexism, racism, or anything that might give them the illusion of being better than others. We embrace attitudes and practices such as these not because we regard ourselves superior but because we have no sense of self at all. Putting others down becomes a path to identity, a path we would not need to walk if we knew who we were.” - Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness (2004)
Freedom can and must be practiced and savored in a form that does not limit the freedom of another. Those others must include all of creation that we coexist with.
I leave you with the Haudenosaunee thanksgiving address, also known as “The Words that Come Before All Else”. These words are always given space and attention at the beginning of Haudenosaunee gatherings, starting each communal meeting from a place of agreement and a shared expression of gratitude. Come-unity as a verb and a prayer to be witnessed and experienced from a place of wholeness, not a static object to be forgotten in the hustle with our empty selves.
And, as my white settler neighbors and I move through the 250th anniversary of the United States, I hope we will get curious and allow ourselves to be inspired by the Haudenosaunee teachings that are the foundation of this nation. It is not too late to Re-member. (see resource list below)
Photo Source: Syracuse Cultural Workers
Resources:
Here are resources featuring the wisdom of our Haudenosaunee neighbors across the lake, stewards of the lands colonially known as New York, USA and Ontario/Quebec, Canada. The Haudenosaunee or “People of the Longhouse” include 6 nations (Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Onondaga). They are colonially known as the Iroquois people, but this is a derogatory name.
Check out the following resources including a short video on the Doctrine of Discovery.
Thanksgiving Address
https://igdvs.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/haudenosaunee-thanksgiving-address.pdf
NEW BOOK! American Indigenous Democracy https://americanindigenousdemocracy.com/
Blog post on Americas Big Awkward Birthday party (Baritunde Thurston) https://newsletter.baratunde.com/p/how-to-celebrate-americas-big-awkward?r=204q7&triedRedirect=true
Interview with Baritunde, Valerie Kaur and Alicia Keys https://youtu.be/rRaRPk-2mws
Rematriated Voices PBS series
https://www.rematriatedvoices.org/