photo taken by Stacey Wegley
Indigenous leaders around the world teach us how to live in the space between echoes: listening carefully and learning from ancestral wisdom while attuning to the ripple effect that our actions will have through future generations. Every decision must honor what came before and what will come after.
Much of this comes down to listening. Deep listening. In Moana Oceanea, talanoa is the art of collective listening and exchange of ideas. In Australia, Aboriginal people practice dadirri, a state of inner stillness and listening with deep respect for everything and everyone. Lakota practices of listening encourage listening ‘beyond the ears and through the spirit.’
It is through this deep listening that we can foster meaningful change based on deep accountability. It can help get to the roots of current challenges, recognising plurality of perspectives. It can help ground decisions in a web of relationships and responsibility for each other and our environment and greater-than-human life. It can allow us to think and act in steady ways that honour slow, long term changes.
Like deep listening, intergenerational thinking expands the scope of who and what we are accountable to when making decisions. Seven generational thinking is an Indigenous concept and practice that is attributed to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace. It requires considering the impact of today’s choices on descendants seven generations into the future and ensures that current actions contribute to the wellbeing and sustainability of communities yet to be born.
This practical wisdom has much resonance for how the WE in the World network is creating intergenerational change for health, equity, and racial justice. WE in the World embodies these principles through their long-term mission to help people become better ancestors today for generations to come. This creates radical accountability, listening deeply to what communities already know while building solutions that will strengthen intergenerational well-being and equity.
by Geordan Shannon
