Never Being Settled

Something I came to again and again is the feeling of never being settled when sitting with the felt sensations in my body, while I intentionally sat on land while I contending with the effects of colonization. In a journal in the fall of 2021 i wrote:

 

I come [to this place] to learn to listen, and perhaps get to know this haunting. This haunting of colonization, of land theft, of never being settled.

 

Colonization is unsettling, yet when I am on land the energetic relationships with plants are about our connectivity and kinship. My body craves this. Developing relationships with plants where I respect their autonomy and I revel in our connection is a way to begin to somatically unravel my settler conditioning. In another journal entry from fall 2021 I wrote:

 

I know there is something powerful for white settlers in listening to the land, and taking instruction from it. To be with the complicated and violent past of this land, and listen for our place in the future.