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RITES OF PASSAGE BACKSTORY
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That retreat in 1989 and all my fasting times on the wild land since: they DO feel like coming home.  As does the notion that has deeply settled within me to heal, to stand, to aim and act towards elderhood in service of all who come next.

I'm guessing it's ancestral tendrils of the indigenous ways of my old-World peoples in the Celtic Isles before they were colonized.  But I have no conscious memories, no threads of story, only the loss of them.  I am incredibly grateful for the gift-- by way of Sun Bear-- from the indigenous ones here that my people turned around to colonize and oppress.

In 1989, I was more ignorant than I am now of genocide, of cultural appropriation, of unacknowledged settler history dating back 400+ years.

In 2021, I am awkward and learning.  These times call for the righting of old wrongs, actively understanding tangled histories and lineages, reparation, personal responsibility.  My gratitude and acknowledgment are a part of this.

So I risk offering my whole humanity in service to the world.  To continue to step forward, rather than waiting to be even better prepared, in the work that Life and Love call me to.
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What if we join together to create a just transition from an extractive capitalism to a whole "economy" that supports the thriving of all people, of all living systems?
  With regeneration, cooperation, caring, and interdependence as core values.​
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©2015 Phoenixes Rising, All Rights Reserved, Missoula, MT  59801
email: info@phoenixesrising.org
All photos & art on website are by Carol "Kate" Wilburn except for those Creative Commons banners otherwise credited.
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