when you understand “time is colonial” you really start to think about life and death differently

the west distances itself from its forefathers and moves toward an unknown futuristic frontier. these stepping stones (years) insist the past is behind, present is here, and the future is beyond.

when a person dies, their tombstone marks years born and died. we insist they began, they ended. their existence is fully and legibly separate from ours.

those of us who call upon the strength and energy of our ancestors can’t section off and remove them from our own presence. thus we cant believe in the same linear progression of time.

thinking specifically of Cherokee sacred places, we come to understand that being in our homelands means we are in the presence of our ancestors and the unborn.

although we recognize the annual—watching the seasons change, celebrating harvest—we don’t count the years since the beginning, we don’t progress towards the “end of time”

we also belive humanity is in a reciprocal relationship with the earth—and not placed here to destroy it. christian cultures are destructive. so destructive, they understand their presence marks the progression to end the world and all forms of life.

side note: 2020 is arbitrary. the world is way.... way older than that.

i think it’s powerful to deconstruct what Christian ideals of time we learn. colonized people never believed in birth certificates, death certificates, tombstones with beginning/ ends.

colonial time—linear progression of years; separate past/present/futures—makes us believe we belong to their fate.

when you deny people their own* future, that is oppression!

counting down years and counting forward can make us feel like we’re running out of time. individualism coupled with the inevitable “end” of life makes you feel like you’re on earth to change/ create—or even colonize—something new and groundbreaking.

what if we looked at time as cyclical? endless cycles of sun and moon and harvest. what if we even looked at time as reversible? reverting towards a time where humans, animals and the land exist in harmony.

i belive, and i think a lot of indigenous people belive, that the “future” is the past. we aren’t looking towards a new frontier, but longing for a reserse in time, where life isn’t branded by numbers, but is determined by the flow and perpituity of the Land.