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S1E3 DEIcipher Podcast: The Domain of Decolonization

Ruthann (00:01)

Hello, hello and welcome. Hi, Yoli. So glad to have everybody with us for this episode. And as we have been practicing, Yoli, could you lead us in with a land acknowledgement?

Yoli Maya Yeh (00:05)

Hey!

I would totally love to, just another opportunity to connect, to be in the body and to just get into both the palace in the heart space as well as connected into our cosmology that surrounds us, that we're a part of. So embodied land acknowledgement is a pause.

Ruthann (00:22)

Oh yay. Yay.

Hmm.

Hmm

Yoli Maya Yeh (00:48)

really just cultivating a space in between. So I'm going to invite you to find a position that allows you to access your breath. That does not have to be sit up straight. Maybe your breath is beautifully accessed right now by laying down, by being upside down, by crumpled over on your side, whatever. Maybe there's no right or wrong about it. Just an opportunity to listen and follow the body's lead.

Ruthann (00:50)

Hmm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (01:17)

You could close your eyes or if the eyes just want to be naturally open, could there be a little diffuse? Like your gaze relaxes and you're just out of the peripheral vision. Or maybe it feels good to have the eyes closed.

Just noticing the flow of the breath. There's an inhale. There's a space in between.

There's an exhale.

And there's another space in between. This is the natural structure and flow of the breath. I guarantee if you are a human respirating, no matter what kind of constrictions or expansions you have in the lungs, there are four parts to that breath.

You can start to notice though some differences between the parts of the breath. Like is the inhale longer than the exhale? And what about that space in between? One at the top of the inhale, another at the bottom of the exhale. You may notice they're not the same. They also have different qualities.

In this moment I'm thinking about the world. In this moment, how things feel very tight. Not a lot of room to maneuver.

And so when I think about what are practices that can be helpful in this moment, I think about the space between the breath. Is it possible that we could make space in more places in life? Let's see what the wise body thinks about.

Where is your breath landing in this moment? Maybe in the chest region and feeling the flow of the diaphragm expanding outwards, drawing breath in, even coming into parts of the lower abdomen.

Allow your breath to descend with each inhale a little lower. The navel height below in and around the reproductive organs towards the base of the pelvic bowl, nested in the strength of all the muscle fibers at the base of the pelvic bowl.

Maybe we can even move a little around that landscape clockwise or anticlockwise. Noticing.

things and the spaces in between.

Now use your imagination, your sensation, and reach into the Earth as if you had tendrils or vines that could reach in and feel the Earth below you. And notice in the Earth as well, there's substance and there's spaces in between. Because of the presence of the spaces in between, we can keep reaching. We can feel the solidity of Earth, the fluidity of water.

The spark of fire. The movement of air. But it really is because of the presence of all the spaces in between that we're able to feel.

While we're here connected to Earth below, let us acknowledge the ancestors of land.

the many threads that are meeting in this exact moment in time, this exact place in space.

as we acknowledge the ancestors of land.

those who have walked before us, the wisdom that we have inherited, life-giving wisdom.

And now bring that little elemental inquiry back into the body. In this body is also earth and washer, fire and air and lots of spaciousness.

and bring yourself back to the breath and feel the spaces in between.

Such an abundance in the spaces in between connects us to the ancestors of family. Bloodline. Contracts. Associations and agreements. Ancestors known and unknown.

here in this spacious elemental cosmology, we remind ourselves just how connected we are.

What would it be to breathe as one? To be in the spaciousness as one.

to dance among the elements as one. What would that feel like? What would we do? How would we dance and celebrate as you open your eyes and take in the space around you? How shall we dance and celebrate in this present moment together, this time that we're sharing?

just feel the abundance of the moment and all the spaces in between. And let's see where our conversation goes. I thank you for listening.

Ruthann (07:44)

Oh, Yoli, thank you so much. Just continue to be so grateful for the kind of embodied land acknowledgements you share with us. Oh, well, speaking of, today we are going to talk about one of our four core domains, decolonization. And...

If it's all right with you, I would love to start with your expertise and your, uh, the way that you've been defining it, the way that you've been working with it. And we'll kind of go from there. If that, that sounds okay. I feel like, again, I learned so much every time you share this knowledge, um, and this deep practice that you've been so engaged with and sharing with others.

Yoli Maya Yeh (08:36)

But of course, decolonization, something that I'm challenging myself to learn about every single day, to embody.

Ruthann (08:39)

Hehehehehehehehe

Yoli Maya Yeh (08:48)

Decolonization.

Let's talk maybe just framework for a little bit first. Right now, decolonization as a term is getting thrown around all over the place. It's being weaponized. Um, it's being utilized as a helpful tool. It's being named as an unhelpful tool. It's giving, uh, one population hope and possibility. And for another population, it's felt as a

Ruthann (08:55)

Yum, yum.

Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (09:20)

weapon of silencing and I think, wow, that sounds like a lot. And, you know, like intersectionality or any other praxis, decolonization has a birthing place in the imagination of Indigenous people. Decolonization, first and foremost, is of, by, and for Indigenous people. It is a

Ruthann (09:22)

Yeah.

Yes.

Yoli Maya Yeh (09:50)

practice an embodied way of breaking the chains of capitalist, imperialist, colonialist, settler colonialism, reclaiming language, spirituality, culture, dress, ritual, storytelling. It's taking our truths back from myth.

and putting them back in as truth. And fundamentally decolonization means land back.

And this will be the first of many yes-ands. That is from the perspective of indigenous people, the indigenous leadership, the handful of meaningful scholasticism that is indigenous authored, that speaks to decolonization, its global arisings.

Ruthann (10:37)

Mm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (11:01)

Africa, from Asia, from North America, from South America, from the globe whole.

Decolonization is not limited to academic pursuit and intellectual knowledge and interpretation. It's a lived, radical, embodied practice. Yes. Decolonization like all liberatory work is ever evolving. We need to also let decolonization be a yes and. Yes, decolonization is of, by, and for indigenous people. And

Ruthann (11:25)

Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (11:42)

The only way, I shouldn't say only, but one of the core ways that we humans are going to get into systems change is going to be a returning of our bodies to the land. This is why at the start of all of our podcasts we're offering land acknowledgement.

Ruthann (11:46)

Hahaha!

Yoli Maya Yeh (12:08)

And you don't need to know what a land acknowledgement is, an embodied land acknowledgement, to practice it.

Ruthann (12:16)

Yeah, I think that that's something that, yeah. Yeah. I, you know.

Yoli Maya Yeh (12:16)

see what it is for yourself, follow it and feel it in your bones. So I just, I just want to finish this, this thought if you, if you may.

Ruthann (12:25)

Yeah, yeah, please.

Yoli Maya Yeh (12:29)

Decolonization for those of us that are not directly connected to Indigenous communities at this time, meaning our ancestry, you know, we're not raised in these communities. There is something called Indigeneity. Indigeneity is the identity of being Indigenous to this earth that lives within us all.

And I believe that indigeneity can be a uniting factor as we build systems of solidarity in order to break chains, bring about systems change while simultaneously dreaming new worlds.

Ruthann (13:06)

Yes.

Mmm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (13:20)

And so you will find scholars that are like, nope, uh-uh, this is indigenous space only. And I'm okay with their views. I'm gonna share with you a view that is of a global concept and whose intention is to heal the wound of separation with nature and that we are of this land. So.

In essence, we must return our bodies to the land. And for me, that's land back.

Ruthann (13:57)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, thank you for, you know, I think that term land back, you know, I appreciate you unpacking that even further and sharing that. And I know one of the things that I've really gained from and really received from the embodied land acknowledgement you know, that you give and share is, you know.

those are decolonizing moments for myself around how hyper intellectualized many land acknowledgements have been and how much that stays from the neck up. You know, and we cannot fully decolonize without the body. We cannot stay up here. And those are the things that come up for me when I think about the various gifts that I've received through

Yoli Maya Yeh (14:24)

Mm-hmm.

Ruthann (14:50)

the decolonization framework and paradigm and really trying to process that relationship with the unlearnings and the, where we are leaning into this head space that really takes us away from nature. And you were talking, land back, you were talking about nature, this isolation, this separation from nature.

Yoli Maya Yeh (15:15)

But then we also have to name. Land back for Indigenous people means the honoring of treaties. Means that let's face it, friends, Indigenous people were much better stewards of land than the current jokers that are in power, that have no regard for non-renewable resources, have no idea how to do forest stewardship and forest ecology, and are going to have us out here with collapsed food systems.

Ruthann (15:22)

Yeah, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (15:44)

in a real short minute y'all. So I want to just you know be very clear for any indigenous friends that are listening to this podcast. First and foremost, land back is a really good idea because these idiots are going to drive us into famine.

Ruthann (15:57)

Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. End.

Yoli Maya Yeh (16:03)

So just to say, like when I'm saying this, you know, sort of meta level land back, land back of the body. Yeah, I'm talking on a real like spiritual level and spiritual domain. It's a yes and, but I will always put indigenous view in the primary, in the front seat, in the holding of the wisdom and the knowledge.

Ruthann (16:25)

Well, and when you were just talking about stewarding of actual land, of practices, of taking care of earth, I mean, again, this entire framework around, this colonized framework of keeping us in this intellectual hyper mind space is part of what is driving us to famine of the actual literal physical body.

You know, and that's something else that just, you know, came up for me as you were talking. I was like, you know, this is, this is, this is why embody, you know, returning to the body and why we talk so much about that being such a missing piece from so much DEI design work and the work that we do and why we've opted to incorporate what can seem to some people like completely new approaches, but they're really not. They're, you know.

Yoli Maya Yeh (17:19)

Not at all, but it's the missing piece. And for us, as we go and we talk with people in organizations and we're getting this feedback, people are doing really good diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-oppression, anti-racism work, policy, institution, culture change, but there's something missing, but they don't know what it is. And then we get in a conversation with them and we're able to have a restorative conversation that invites in, oh, wow. So our body's literally

Ruthann (17:22)

It's the missing piece.

Yeah, exactly.

Yoli Maya Yeh (17:48)

land is what's been missing. And it's the special sauce. It's the juice. It's the glue. Or like what we did in the land acknowledgement, it's the space in between. There has to be the space for rest and repair that isn't us talking or shouting. It's us taking a breath in between. You know, it has to be the spaces that are generative where we're dreaming, where we're visioning.

Ruthann (17:53)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah. And one of the other things that regularly comes up for me when we talk about decolonization, when we talk about how we fold that into, you fold that into embodied land acknowledgement is, this keeps me up at night sometimes, when I think about how imperative the decolonization framework is now and into the future.

for our dreaming into new ways. And one of...

Yoli Maya Yeh (18:51)

Oh yeah, don't let these authors dissuade you that decolonization isn't relevant.

Ruthann (18:58)

And I also sometimes see the ways that people will try to limit the decolonization framework in a very colonized fashion, like trying to limit, you know, like creativity being one of them. I, you know, I know we, Yolanda, have had these conversations with others and with, you know, when we started to really pull through the domains for, you know, DEI Cypher.

Yoli Maya Yeh (19:11)

Oh yeah!

Ruthann (19:24)

I can tell you right now, there are some folks that absolutely were like, oh, I get why decolonization and creativity are two of your four domains. Other people were like, wait, what? And I'm like, no, because there is such a deep component around so many layers of liberation with decolonization. And one of them to me is creative liberation. And there are many others that come along the space, along this world too,

Yoli Maya Yeh (19:50)

Mmm.

Well, we know this, this.

Ruthann (19:56)

You made me think about that with dreaming into the future.

Yoli Maya Yeh (20:00)

you've been naming the over-analytical nature, that's all part of the imposition of scientific reasoning. Scientific reasoning pushes us, which is the belief at the heart of the Big E Enlightenment, right? And that is the era, the civilizational, sort of micro-civilizational era that we've been living in right now, that I believe we're seeing the end of. I believe the Big E Enlightenment experiment

Ruthann (20:26)

Agree. Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (20:29)

is finding its conclusion because of science. Science just answered all the questions for us. We literally built the James Webb telescope, pointed it into space, and was like, let's see our origins. We built a telescope that allows us to travel back in time, because such is the structure of time space. And we went back and we saw our origins, and we saw the star nurseries.

Ruthann (20:29)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (20:59)

And we saw how it all unfolds. And we saw that, again, the triple proof that we're just recycled atoms. We answered the big questions. And so what else did we get? A shitload of baggage in the form of absolute thinking, the penchant towards reason, that there can only ever be one truth. Truth works in absolutes.

Ruthann (21:07)

Thank you.

Yoli Maya Yeh (21:27)

perfectionism is birthed in this space. And then of course, we, you know, with the factual, every day fact, proof, belief, seeing is believing. When the indigenous worldview is the exact opposite, believing is seeing. The unseen world is the world to get into. The space in between is where everything lives. We think it's the four elements. It all, all the fun stuff lives in the space. It's holding all the four elements.

Ruthann (21:30)

the factualism, you know, I think of that as its own religion, you know, proof.

Mm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (21:56)

That's the structure of nature and the whole universe itself. So here we are, we need a tool. We need a tool that helps us, like I said, reclaim our stories, take back our truths. Our truths have been mythified, have been dissected for the gratification of Western scholars, if only to continue to catalog and divide the world into un-

reasonable binaries. Then pit those binaries against each other so that we're constantly spinning our heels in endless cycles of violence. There is a way out of this, and it will take such a rebellion that we need to be rested enough for it.

Ruthann (22:30)

Mmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, just processing, thinking about this collision, this collision sort of wheel spinning model that you're naming here that like, I just, that keeps everyone in such a state of static confusion, which is basically chaos. It's basically what we would call chaos, whether it feels like a little CH, a big CH.

Yoli Maya Yeh (23:20)

Yep.

I think you're hitting it at collision, but it's a collision within a tightly defined, let's say, square. So not only is it colliding, but then it's colliding with the walls.

Ruthann (23:32)

Yeah, oof, yayayam.

And that ricochet of additional momentum, it's just, there is so much out in the world to keep folks so frozen in confusion or unsure and really encouraged to stay away from inner knowing.

Yoli Maya Yeh (23:39)

Exactly.

Ruthann (24:04)

you know, coming back to another component of decolonization, you know, I think about, you know, as someone who even as a younger person started to understand the kind of, understand the concept of intuition, you know, and I think about that as a, as a, as a, perhaps, you know, a first story to think about in terms of like the amount of intuitive moments that,

Yoli Maya Yeh (24:04)

Mm-hmm.

Ruthann (24:32)

I had, or think about other little kids too. And then how much that was discredited, you know, and how much that was sort of, you were told, and this can be especially true for femme identifying individuals, but it certainly goes across the board. But I, you know, I was reflecting, you know, in preparing for this conversation, I was reflecting on some of those first moments around decolonization and colonization for myself, and intuition was a big one. And,

Yoli Maya Yeh (24:40)

Mm.

Ruthann (25:02)

that kind of non-empirical data, that cosmic data we get to have, and we get to have access to, that I remember getting in trouble for, Yoly. I mean, I can tell you, I can tell you, I had moments where I would have, you know, a like, you know, something would come out of my mouth, you know, and it would be true, or it would be something that happened, and it was the, how did you know that? Why did you say that?

Yoli Maya Yeh (25:15)

What?

Ugh.

Ruthann (25:33)

You know, I mean, it was very much feared. And you know, and I think about that now. I mean, if you feel in touch with an intuitive component of yourself, which we all possess, by the way, despite whatever you have been told, some of us have certainly, perhaps are a little more inclined in that area. Some of us develop some of those skills and really lean on them in different ways. But regardless of any of that,

I think about that kind of knowing and that kind of science, this other kind of knowing and data and information that is very colonized and coming back to, and silenced, as you were talking, it's mythified. That is woo woo. Yeah, yeah, you suffer consequences for it. You might even suffer full on, yes. Like,

Yoli Maya Yeh (26:14)

silenced on purpose.

Yeah, dissociated from, like disconnected from on purpose. Because we, and that was the lesson. That was what was taught to you that like, oh, if you wanna come from this thing, you're gonna be punished because that's not status quo. Status quo is reason, analytics, logic, performative and competitive, right? And the thing is that we have

Ruthann (26:29)

Shut your mouth.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yoli Maya Yeh (26:47)

an expanded set of sense faculties. Science will just tell us about the physical sense faculties. And then this funny thing, you know, like the thing when your hairs on your arms stand up. We don't know what that is, because we can't, you know, it's not associated with the sense organ, but yeah, we'll acknowledge it. There's some sort of spidey sense kind of thing, but we'll leave it off. Or just associate with feeling, like touch sensation of the body. The fact is,

Ruthann (26:51)

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (27:16)

know, we possess a huge gift endowment of subtle sense faculties. We perceive our existence through far more than the gross sense faculties. And so by keeping people disconnected from their bodies, by keeping people disconnected from land, by keeping people disconnected from the super powers that live within them and by keeping people in an economic framework of scarcity.

We are so weak, we're so docile, we are default herd animals. We will default to safety in numbers, tribalism, and the protective violence of ownership. It does. So I was just in a workshop the other day and we were doing world building. This is like, this is...

Ruthann (27:51)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (28:12)

interacting in communities that are doing this kind of exploratory work together. This is new. I'm just coming into this world building is not new. I've been doing that since I was a kid. And, but it's really enriching. It's super duper cool. And, you know, some of the things we were exploring as we were building a world. So what does the economy look like in that world? And one of the things I was thinking about.

Ruthann (28:20)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (28:41)

was like a system of non-ownership of land where you were punished if you weren't stewarding it properly.

Ruthann (28:57)

You're like, let's full on reverse engineer this. Like exactly where you're like, actually, there's gonna be consequences on the other side of this situation of like, hey, like you lose your land if you don't take care of it. Like, holy shit, right? What would that be? You know, I mean, many things that my head's going in a mill. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (28:57)

I mean, some people envision worlds that are like, totally, so. Yeah.

Like you'll lose your land, but you don't get to own it. Uh-huh. We would be wildly different people. You know, and it's just thinking about like, I've taught these economics classes. I've taught the classes about currency and money and micro economics and, and the indigenous people of old, of, of Polynesia.

Ruthann (29:23)

Yum.

Yum.

Yoli Maya Yeh (29:33)

whose wealth were these giant limestone rings that they would go to this particular island and collect, I'm forgetting the name of these people, and they would go and collect them, and that was the proof of their wealth. And then one day there was a storm and the boat that they were floating, this giant limestone slab, it's like circles, they're disks. It sunk. And that family was like, yeah, but our money's still good because everybody knows where our ring is. It's right, it's like, you know, 50 feet out offshore.

Ruthann (29:40)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It's just in the ocean. Yeah, yeah. They're like, we got it.

Yoli Maya Yeh (30:03)

and a little to the right. So I'm just like, yeah, so we can trace all the stories that led us to paper money, like the IOUs of the Venetian traders to the coins of the Chinese traders, you know, all the way to crypto. Like it's all a connected storyline.

Ruthann (30:17)

Yeah, yeah.

Yep, yep.

Yoli Maya Yeh (30:31)

But what would economics look like in a world that doesn't have money? Okay, well, it'll still be trade-based, though. Because we have different environments that provide different things, we will still need lots of communication, lots of willingness to collaborate and play. You know, decolonization is a, it's a praxis. This is a lens that we can put on to help us.

Ruthann (30:41)

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yoli Maya Yeh (31:02)

Clear out what is outdated, assess what we do have, and dream into what do we need to be taking with us because what is that world going to look like? What could it be? But we need almost daily practice of world building right now. And we need myth, and we need storytelling, and we need acts of futurism.

Ruthann (31:14)

I know, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, well, and I wanna call in, for those of you who may really have very little relationship or exposure to concepts of decolonization, I also wanna name, having some fear and having some discomfort around being like, whoa, like having the moment around being like, whoa, maybe all these things I've learned don't,

are not aligned, are not in tune with nature, are not the way things are supposed to be. I just wanna say, that is a very normal, healthy response. And I also wanna name, Yoli, you were just talking about all these things we need into the future, right? We also, with everything that you named, having community, having these practices, having these conversations in community.

with others is so vital. Coming back to another component of colonization, rugged individualism. Like, oh, I'm scared, so I need to figure this out myself and work through this myself. That hero's journey, that whole, all that stuff here. And so I think a lot about how deeply important it is to keep reminding ourselves, however we do that.

Yoli Maya Yeh (32:35)

Yeah.

Ruthann (32:56)

is that we can't do it alone and that we have to do it with other. You know, you were talking about this economy, talking about the trade, talking about the futurism. How could we possibly be building into amazing new worlds on our own that would actually be this amazing new world that we could all live together in abundance with the land, with our bodies?

Yoli Maya Yeh (33:21)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And we're social beings.

Ruthann (33:26)

Yeah, like we are not meant to do this alone.

Yoli Maya Yeh (33:27)

humans have no humans two-legged we have come up with all of our stuff in social interaction. We intrinsically define ourselves through our interaction with the cultural other. These systems that we're living under, these oppressive systems that we're living under,

Ruthann (33:48)

Yes.

Yoli Maya Yeh (33:57)

birthed in a social setting, and we will have to birth the next worlds also in social setting and social interaction. We won't be able to circumvent that. That's not to dismiss introspective work, the necessity for rest and rejuvenation in alone spaces. I think about the medicine of the Western direction and the medicine wheel.

Ruthann (34:06)

Yes.

No!

Yoli Maya Yeh (34:25)

going within to find the answers that we speak. I never thought I would be such a champion of meditation practice, but I'm out here being like, y'all, we're not gonna get there without meditation. It's not possible because we are so untrained right now. Enough generations have passed within this oppressive enlightenment age that, nope, we've got some major healing work.

Ruthann (34:26)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (34:54)

that will have to be done in the quiet internal spaces that can also be in community. We can be in quiet internal spaces together. And we also have the digital landscape, you know? But I heard this in a lecture the other day with Aisha Schillingford of Intelligent Mischief. And she reminded us, we're living right now in the imaginations of

Ruthann (34:55)

Hmm.

Yep, yep, we sure can.

Mm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (35:24)

like George Washington and Queen Victoria and Adam Smith and Hobbes, you know, that's whose imaginations we're living in right now. And it's wildly outdated. Who's going to be our next? Like we need the imaginations to come forward, frankly speaking. You know, I think we've had a good dose of white cultural imagination.

Ruthann (35:28)

Mmm.

Yup.

Oh man. Yeah.

Yeah!

Yoli Maya Yeh (35:54)

and it would be really nice for the center space to clear out of it and for us to be enriched by other imaginations. And that's what I mean when I'm calling in acts of futurism. We, many people think because of the academic nature of decolonization that decolonization is all about reaching into the past. And what we're calling for is there is the telling of the history, the telling of the stories.

Ruthann (36:15)

Right.

Yoli Maya Yeh (36:21)

the telling of the evolution of how we got here. We are also calling in the presencing of the body in present moment consciousness, each in and out breath and the spaces in between. And we are also saying that decolonization includes acts of futurism, Black, Brown, Indigenous, people of color, leadership, expertise. If you want...

to invite yourself into this framework of decolonization. You will have to read beyond white authorship. You will have to stretch yourself a bit and find the resources, find the speakers, find the experts, they're there. They're not given the center stage. They're not given the platforms you've got to put in the extra labor. This is something that I'm fiercely committed to in all of my teaching spaces. If I can come up

Ruthann (36:59)

us.

Yoli Maya Yeh (37:19)

with a hundred percent BIPOC reading lists, I feel the win on that every time. There are other people talking about the presencing of the body. Knapp Bishop speaks to it and rest is resistance. Sonia Renee Taylor speaks to it in the body is not an apology. There are folks that are in a chorus with the ideas that we are sharing here with you all.

Ruthann (37:27)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yoli Maya Yeh (37:48)

We're crystal clear on what our expertise is. We're defining our lane and it's our joy to do that. That's why we're sharing our domains with you in detail. And we know we're part of a chorus, a polyrhythmic, harmonious, sometimes cacophonous chorus of folks that are seeing the same things. And that is a beautiful thing because the future

Ruthann (38:15)

Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (38:16)

must be non-competitive, it must be celebratory in our chorus of ideas and ways of being.

Ruthann (38:24)

And we, to your point of this chorus, we can't hear these messages enough right now and into the future. I think you're naming something so important around this notion of, what is this? It's a rest competition, a decolonization competition. That's all colonized. That's, just to give a real A to B example of,

Yoli Maya Yeh (38:46)

Hehehehe

Ruthann (38:52)

what can be tempting out there, because it is, we are social creatures. This is, you know, those kinds of competitive frameworks and things are, have been part of our social landscape, you know, that is normal. And what we do know is how crucial it is to continue to unlearn and feel forward in that space. And...

be comfortable with the fear. You know, we are, episode two of the Seasons podcast was about the importance of discomfort, you know? And this is absolutely one of those areas I think about, especially, you know, the word decolonization can suddenly provoke a certain kind of reaction, and especially with the way that it's being used right now. So, ooh.

Yoli Maya Yeh (39:51)

So let's follow the lead of indigenous people. Indigenous people are out here right now leading with the most beauty and integrity. Follow their lead. They're showing you the way they always have. And let us uplift indigenous voice, indigenous sovereignty, the right of self-determination as we turn our gaze towards democracies.

Ruthann (39:52)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (40:25)

which is like dot dot. I'll come for you democracy. I'll come for you. I'm formulating an essay. I got a whole like Thanksgiving essay that's coming out. We go for the jugular next week. Gobble, gobble motherfucker. Okay, sorry, that's probably not good.

Ruthann (40:28)

Hmm

I know, I'm excited for your next essay, Yoly, yeah. Ha ha ha.

Oh, we like the jokes. We got some jokes.

Yoli Maya Yeh (40:54)

I do like the jokes and like I'm actually a total scoundrel like I'm like a like a pirate kind of thing. People think I'm like good. I'm really not good.

Ruthann (41:06)

Well, you know, that's debatable, but yes, you know, it's not all love and light around here. Like that's a whole nother form of colonization that we can talk about another day. Yeah, because that's real. Oh my God, yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (41:14)

Nah, it is not all love and light around here. But we do try to clean it up for the podcast. We do try to clean up. Oh, that's for real though. But Ruthanne, I've really enjoyed this conversation today. It's really enriching. And like, we want to hear from you all, you know, like folks listening to the podcast, you know, what are you thinking about decolonization? How are you engaging? What?

Ruthann (41:27)

Oh man, Yoli. Yeah, thank you so much. Me too.

Yum.

Yoli Maya Yeh (41:41)

what's resonating for you and you need to be brave. You need to like form some thoughts and share them, you know, and like, let's be building this community. We know what we're repping on in our teaching spaces. It will always be embodied. It will always be deeply rooted in Indigenous principle and this remembering of the body.

Ruthann (41:45)

For real.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, absolutely, yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (42:06)

whole being. We're going to repair this sacred hoop within. And then we're going to go dream some new worlds.

Ruthann (42:11)

Yeah, and we would, yeah, and we'd be, yeah, so excited to hear what comes up for you. It's so important. And I'm sure this will be not the last of our decolonization conversations, because it affects, because it affects everything, you know, and it's just...

Yoli Maya Yeh (42:28)

Probably not.

It's a key touch point, yeah.

Ruthann (42:39)

I don't know, maybe one of these, you know, we've been talking very like, you know, about each of our domains in kind of a more specific focused fashion. And then like, maybe one of these days too, we'll start to do some really deep cross pollination between them as some of our talks too. And it'll be, I think that'll be some really fun juice. You know, we touched on it a bit today when we talk about grass, we talk about creativity, you know, all these other pieces, but yeah. Well, thank you, Yoli, appreciate you so much. Yeah.

Yoli Maya Yeh (43:02)

Mm-hmm.

Thank you. You want to take us out? I have a little just centering.

Ruthann (43:09)

Yeah, yeah. Little bit of centering here. If you are in a place that you'd like to close eyes again, please feel free to do so.

and just coming back to the breath.

No need to change breath, though the minute we start to talk about not changing is when we start to perhaps change. Where's the breath going right now?

a breath going in the body.

Are there other places and spaces where the breath could pause and nourish?

Are there places and spaces in the body that are feeling a little less interested in that breath and that's okay too.

There are places and spaces that feel just so nourished with breath, maybe those spaces can help inspire the rest of the body over time to just continue with its aliveness, continue with our missions here while we're here on earth.

You're welcome to open eyes when you're ready. Thank you so much.

Yoly, I will be talking to you soon. And we will be talking to all of you soon again. Thank you so much for listening today. Be well.

Yoli Maya Yeh (44:56)

Always, always. Thank you.


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