My other home, and my favorite place on earth
And tanned, rested, and ready to go. Well, sort of - the tanned part, not so much.
It’s been a rough few weeks. People I love with medical issues (one just had surgery;another’s postponing surgery); my own medical issues; financial issues; professional issues . . . you name it. As much as I’ve wanted to write about the countless outrages in the news, by the time I’d dealt with each day, I just didn’t have anything left over for blogging - either physically or psychologically. And on the rare occasions when I was able to snag a few days at my haven (see above), all I could do was try to decompress for a few days.
But I just spent a week there (thank you, W), and - unintentionally - worked through a lot of the shit that had piled up. When I’m there, it feels like a vacation, but it’s not; I had two all-day training conferences in five days, one out of town. And their subject matter was difficult, to say the least. I do a lot of work on issues involving domestic violence and sexual assault, and a lot of what I see and hear is truly horrifying. This week’s work was horrifying in an additional way, in that it dredged up shit from my own past that I’ve been (mostly successfully) avoiding for longer than I can remember.
But you know what? It’s all good. It prodded me to begin to deal with it, which I clearly needed to do. It got me back in touch with my spiritual obligations, which have been getting short shrift. It prompted me to listen to my guides. And it answered two nagging questions and pushed me to do something about them. (And for that, thank you, W - again - for paying for the session that made that possible.)
One of those answers is Debwe. No, there’s nothing there yet - although I hope there will be later tonight. But Debwe will accomplish two things:
1. I have to write. Period. When I don’t, I get crazy. And if that means that I have to jettison other tasks, so be it. And this gives me a focal point for certain topics that don’t fit neatly here.
2. Increasingly, my work (like my life) involves tribal issues. This is especially true in the context of my domestic violence and sexual assault work - but it’s also emblematic of the turns my life has taken recently in other areas, as well. I need an outlet for those issues. However, ARA has always been largely a political blog, and I don’t want that to change. There’ll be some cross-posting between the two, but a lot of Native American issues that are not necessarily front-burner political issues will appear on Debwe instead of ARA.
Hmm? Oh, the name. "Debwe" is an Anishinaabemowin word. It loosely translates as "I speak the truth" - or, simply (and this is my usage of it), "truth."
Maybe I should’ve named it "therapy" . . . ?
Love you all -
~ L
