Dear Audrey,

Dear Audrey,

You would not believe where I am. Honestly I don’t even know where I am. Wow that’s freeing to say. I’ve tried writing this letter to you in a couple different places but they just did not feel right. In my condo it didn’t feel sincere, I felt disconnected with sirens in the background, a TV right in front of me, and a phone with that notification’s ring right beside me. I then thought I would go to the park by my place. There I felt weird, that’s the only word I could use to describe that feeling. Everything felt artificial and perfectly planned or should I say planted. Again, I just felt weird. A couple days later my partner asked “Does your work require the internet?”. Next thing I know we are packing the car and leaving the city behind. Where are we going? We are not quite sure, but let me tell you writing this letter for you out here has never felt so right. Breaking our normative narrative mindset, Eurocentric ways and especially the plague of convenience every step of the way.

You know that feeling you get when practicing stillness? Everybody probably feels it in different ways but it’s that feeling of being aware. Aware of the wind moving around your body, aware of the bird’s conversations, the leaves on the trees dancing, the fish splashing and the water hitting the shore. I’ve had a lot of that awareness out here. I had a moment of panic earlier because it felt too quiet, but that is what being succumbed to the city does to you. It makes you afraid of the silence of the world. I was grateful for that sense of panic because it made me aware of how disconnected from that stillness I truly was. My eco-literacy understanding became clear to me out here. Eco-literacy to me is that awareness, to be aware of the environmental issues without letting it make you develop a fear of the world, instead, choosing to make conscious decisions in your life to then spread awareness to those around you. It’s being aware of who you are, where you come from and where you are headed. To me the most important awareness is the awareness that we are equal to the earth and all its creatures. We do not own the land and the land does not own us. Writing the letter to my life partner and this letter to you is just the beginning of this understanding of eco-literacy, my understandings will continue to grow and change.

The word reciprocity used so often by Robin Wall Kimmerer has created a whole new understanding to environmental education for me. Disrupting those anthropocentric thoughts and having an understanding of our shared relationship with the land. As I read the line “But it is not mine to give, or yours to take”, I reflected on societies anthropocentric mindsets of wanting to own and/or save everything in sight. I have reflected on the questions that you ask regarding the topic of disrupting our normative narrative thoughts, like “what message are we portraying when we say ‘Save the Earth’”. Asking these important questions and having time to think about them out here with a clear mind truly shows just how selfish human beings truly are. Before this class and all your critical thinking questions I would have called this place on the North Saskatchewan River the “wilderness”. But as I sit here with a clear mind reflecting on every word that flows through my head I think back on our conversation in the past. This place is not ours to name. Just as the Cree believe nothing can be owned or given the title “mine”. I believe we must learn from these Cree understandings. Thank you for continually provoking these thoughts.

As I wrote in my blog, in order for us to understand to respect the world around us, the first step as Kimmerer writes is a “braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with world”. Reading and writing a braided story shows respect in a whole new light. You may not have the same ideas or understandings as someone but you can still braid together your stories to show they can still be their own thing and complement one another at the same time, showing respect from all sides. We must allow everyone to inquire their own thoughts, ideas and questions.

As I wrote above, the words, thoughts and reflections for this letter are at a constant flow and I have this river and all that surrounds it to thank for that. Everyone should experience at least one trip to the outdoors where you can’t hear or see anyone for miles, no cell service, no power and the only running water is the flow of the river. Do you agree? The land teaches us so many things about ourselves. As a white settler Canadian I recognize just how valuable the land is to the indigenous peoples. Colonialism and all its effects have taken away that importance. We must recognize this and begin learning from and with the indigenous peoples on how white settler Canadians like myself can begin to learn from the land in a form of reciprocity and begin to teach it the generations that come after us.

While being up here I have thought a bit about David Orr’s quote from What is Education for, you know the one I’m talking about? He states, “All education is environmental education”. This has helped shape my educational philosophy, I have taken his words, Kimmerer’s and your words throughout the last six weeks and without realizing I have had a shift in my understandings of education. I see myself know as a facilitator for my students, letting their curious minds guide them through the classroom and beyond. While letting their curious minds inquire about the many things around them we can ask them those critical questions to assist in guiding them into deeper thoughts. As Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote in Sound of Silverbells “Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. My job was to just lead them into the presence and ready them to hear” (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 222). I believe we must teach our students to look up and take in what surrounds them, provoke them to get curious and to just listen for a while.

Audrey, thank you for pushing me into and beyond the point of discomfort. I am grateful that we could spend time together sharing our understandings. I have learned so much in the past 6 weeks and will continue on this journey of education with all of the critical thinking philosophies that you have taught me.

Sincerely,

Madison F