for healing of land and body

*for mni sota makoce*

we name the dakota. the anishanabe. may their names be a rising inside us, a knowing who has always been here, tending, nurturing, staying. we name homeland.

we name land back and sovereignty. reconciliation and truth. may the words be a spell, casting our fingers in the work of making it so.

we name stolen land. we name genocide. colonization. displacement. we name the missing and murdered. we name the children brought home for burial. we name pipelines. may our lips be a tornado, one chant in the great mouth of decomposition.

we bend our ears to prophecies, to ancestors, ancient wisdom, cultural knowing, may we be trusted, may we remember how to listen. to follow. to tell all the stories. to tell the truth.

we place our hands on the earth. feel her fires and floods, her heat and melting, her deaths. her grief. her fight. may we remember how to protect our home.

may we be insatiable for liberation, our own and each other’s, for a Palestine that is free, for a world that protects and cherishes black lives, trans lives, disabled lives. For a world that protects and cherishes all of her children, and elders. For a world where it is safe to pray in all of our languages, safe to be together with our people, safe to be ourselves. may we be unstoppable. hoisting possibility into being with every tear and deep breath, with every holy step.

and each time we re-enter the work of remaking the world may it be with reverence for every sacred cell, every sacred cord of history, every reaching for comfort, rest, joy ease, for the deep glow of each other’s company, the tender light of feeling seen, and for god by any name we know to call her…