Join the upcoming LIVE Breaking the Cycle discussion on October 27, 2022 from 8 - 9 p.m. ET REGISTER to join. Visit the www.BreakingtheCycleFilm.org for more science, film guides, and resources.
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Happy Indigenous People's Day
Greetings from Toano, Virginia, the homeland of the Powhatan peoples. Toano is Algonquin for "high ground" according to the James City County Oral History book. Except for around 500 words, the Algonquin language and Powhatan people were wiped out by colonists by around 1690. Toano is eight miles from the global tourist destination of Colonial Williamsburg. Kindred's recent interview with Raven Brightwater Custalow on her efforts to decolonize Virginia tribes and reclaim their maternal lineage (women aren't allowed on the councils) is here.
In a recent email exchange with Tyson Yunkaporta, author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, I confessed: “Your work is helping me understand why I have been frustrated by our nonprofit quest to frame a path to creating sustainable humans. During this time, Kindred's mission has evolved from: How do we support healthy children and families? To, How do we create sustainable humans? To, For anyone who's left for the 1,000 Year Recovery ahead, here's the discarded science on creating a sustainable human family.”
You can listen to Tyson’s response and insights into activism – should we or shouldn't we – in our forthcoming interview later this month. (Join the safe zone of Kindred Community on Mighty Networks to receive notifications.)
There are lots of very good reasons for this evolution of Kindred’s mission. For example, when we began 25 years ago, we did not know America was in the middle of a 50-year free fall to the bottom of all developed nations’ indicators for infant, child, and family wellness. Many of us in the Kindred Community placed our hopes in simple education and awareness programs. Fast forward a decade and the promise of social media and our capacity to find and expand our reach with one another ignited our hopes further.
Today, we talk at Kindred about stepping out of Traditional Hamster Wheel Activism, a trance-driven trap of late-stage capitalism/colonialism and into the neuroscience-based practices of shifting our inner world to a Kinship Worldview BEFORE moving to create outer change. The potential for childhood-centered, worldview-based Kindred Activism is being carefully explored in the Kindred Fellowship Program.
But as Tyson shares, the minefields awaiting amped-up “social justice warriors” and cultural change agents, are many:
“Basically, if you’re a millennial or Gen X, if you’re mid-30s or under, you’re not ever going to have any financial capital, chances are, wherever you are in the world. But the capital that is available to you is around your identity: cultural capital, social capital, all those kinds of things. And some of these things can be leveraged for a little bit of value or a little bit of position, so you can move around in a pecking order... So rather than working to change conditions, it becomes about branding oneself. Very tricky.” Read more about this quote here.
The clues that a shift of worldview was needed to re-orient our nonprofit’s efforts emerged over a decade ago at Kindred from the American research institute, IONS, founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon. In my training as a facilitator at IONS’ Worldview Literacy Project, I noticed with confusion and disappointment how, in IONS’ worldview research, human consciousness did not begin pre-conception, and did not include a robust discussion of our capacities for connection with Nature Intelligences.
What I did not know at that time was, Edgar Mitchell felt the same way. The fascinating, hard science of worldview did not tell the whole story of our worldview capacities.
“He [Mitchell] founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences to explore the relationship between worldview and the suffering that civilization has caused on the Earth. Looking back at planet Earth from outer space made him realize that the ‘great frontier wasn’t the exploration of outer space, but a deep and systematic inquiry into the nature of our inner awareness.’ After witnessing the research of his institute, he would late write that ‘Only a handful of visionaries have recognized that Indigenous wisdom can aid the transition to a sustainable world.’
“The Indigenous worldview as we describe it is not a matter of perception or conception alone, but of experiencing and being. It is more of a “world-sense” because it involves dozens of senses. Indigenous Peoples have a broad integrative understanding of body, mind, and Spirit that allows for a more holistic orientation than the narrow perspective that has led us toward extinction.”
What’s my point here, on Indigenous People’s Day?
If we do not first become aware of our own worldview – what it is, how it was created, and how to shift it – many of our efforts to “change the world” will most likely hail from our capitalist/colonist programming’s shadow side. We will find ourselves, like the proverbial hamster, congratulating ourselves on how fast we’re going, all the while going nowhere, except to maybe, as Tyson points out, accumulating social identity capital while still disconnected from ourselves and our Earth.
Kindred’s nonprofit vision of a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society has not changed in a quarter century. But our strategy, our mission for getting there, has and will continue to evolve. We are deeply grateful for the gentle guides who have shown up over the years to nudge us along.
Currently, Kindred utilizes Four Arrows' worldview chart (see below) to help us have a cheat sheet on where we are and where many of us would like to go. Darcia's work with the Evolved Nest helps us discover, through her award-winning neuroscience research, how to create sustainable humans. Below you can find more Kindred resources to use as a place to start, once you’ve stood barefoot on the ground, said hello to the sun, and marveled over the revelation of who we really are as love-based lifeforms and an originally peaceful species.
Thank you for your ongoing support of Kindred's nonprofit work. Please support us generously, as we have dedicated community of partners and volunteers ready to work together on Sharing the New Story of Our Human Family.
Kenah, (Algonquin for "thank you")
Lisa Reagan
Indigenous People’s Day Actions:
2. Do everything possible to educate parents and all adults about the vital importance of practicing the Kinship Worldview precepts from prenatal through infancy and early childhood. Enable the provision of “the evolved nest” to all children. Provide education so that people of all ages grow the capacities for authentic kinship connections with all life forms.
concentration-activated transformation (Trance-based self-learning) to bring non-dominant understandings about Fear, Authority, Words and Nature into one’s life in ways that can actually transform the practice that harmful practices.
4. Do what you can to support Indigenous Peoples efforts to gain and maintain sovereignty, save their languages and ceremonies, and maintain and implement place-based knowledge that leads to thriving eco-systems.
6. Dive deeper into the precepts of Indigenous/Kinship Worldview with the new book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview. Tyson is a contributor for this collection of essays.
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Indigenous People's Day Resources & Gift |
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About the Worldview Chart by Four Arrows |
This chart is not intended as a rigid binary, but a true dichotomy best viewed as a continuum. It is meant to encourage seeking complementarity and dialogue. Absolutism is discouraged with the realization we are all participating in DW precepts to some degree. The chart assumes that all diverse cultures, religions, and philosophies can be grouped under one of the two worldviews. “Indigenous Worldview” does not belong to a race or group of people, but Indigenous cultures who still hold on to their traditional place-based knowledge are the wisdom keepers of this original Nature-based worldview. All people are indigenous to Earth and have the right and the responsibility to practice and teach the IW precepts. All have the responsibility to support Indigenous sovereignty, dignity, and use of traditional lands.
Download your free Worldview Chart by Four Arrows i n color PDF or JPEG, as well as black and white PDF or JPEG here.
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My Dreaming Brought Me Home,
By Uncle Bob Randall
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Uncle Bob is a Yankunytjatjara elder and traditional owner of Uluru (Ayer’s Rock), explains how the connectedness of every living thing to every other living thing is not just an idea but a way of living. This way includes all beings as part of a vast family and calls us to be responsible for this family and care for the land with unconditional love and responsibility.
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The Essential Worldview Reflection Approach To
Re-Balancing Life Systems On Earth
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By Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez
We believe that original Indigenous understanding of the world offers the most crucial way to rebalance life systems. This is not a romanticized notion. It is ancestral wisdom. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ 2019 report provides concrete evidence. [1] The report had data contributions from hundreds of scientists from 50 countries and is the largest ecological analysis ever undertaken.
Although we believe it may be too late to stop many of the impending extinctions of life on earth, this is all the more reason to heed the words spoken by our selected guests. They show us how to live with the fullness of appreciating the wonder of the gift of life on Mother Earth no matter how great the challenges. For those who want to help others adjust to whatever lies ahead, our book provides an opportunity to re-embrace our original Indigenous worldview. Whether or not the Indigenous spirit somehow returns to Earth, we hope it will strengthen you in your personal journey while doing what you can for future generations.
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Understanding Pregnancy Biology Is Vital For Abortion Law Debates |
By Darcia Narvaez
There are multiple misunderstandings about pregnancies and fetuses that are driving poorly conceived anti-abortion laws. Science can guide us on several key aspects. Here are five sets of information that everyone should know.
Conception and Pregnancy
Fertilization of an egg by sperm, whereby the two mingle their genetic contents and create a zygote, takes place in one of the two fallopian tubes near the ovaries. However, that’s not enough for pregnancy to ensue. The genetic contents must mingle in the right way and then the zygote travel to the uterus and implant itself in the right place. Biological conditions (e.g., hormones) must all be appropriate for these processes to take place successfully. Over 50% of conceptions are spontaneously aborted because the conditions were not optimal. Moreover, sometimes the zygote lodges in the wrong place, in a fallopian tube, for example, which cannot bring about a successful pregnancy and left in place will kill the mother.
Bottom line: Most conceptions do not result in pregnancy.
Despite this knowledge, in Georgia the Republican Party has introduced legislation that would establish a right to child support for fetuses beginning at conception.
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National Hispanic Heritage Month |
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Meet Kindred's President: Darcia Narvaez, PhD |
In a 2020 analysis of top scientists, Narvaez emerged in the top two percent of scientists worldwide. Narvaez’s book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, was chosen for the 2017 Expanded Reason Award from among more than 360 total entries from 170 universities and 30 countries. Narvaez received the prize, including a substantial monetary award, at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City on September 27, 2017. The book also received the William James Award from the American Psychological Association in 2015.
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What Would It Mean To Live In A World Informed By A Kinship Worldview? |
In this interview with Darcia Narvaez and Four Arrows, we explore various precepts of the Kinship or indigenous worldview that are presented in their book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview. Precepts such as “Courage and Fearless Trust in the Universe”; “Nonanthropocentrism”; “Ceremony as Life Sustaining”; “Centrality of Gratitude”; and “An Emphasis on Heart Wisdom”.
We also explore the basis of what a worldview is and why our guests propose there are only two, the indigenous/kinship worldview and the dominant/Western worldview. We go in-depth on the historical rise and impact of the dominant worldview and the intergenerational cycle of trauma it propagates; the left brain / right brain dynamic and how it aligns with worldview, perception, and behavior; how generations of anthropocentrism impact our capacity to perceive our interconnection with nature and each other; a substantial dive into death, dying, grief, and ceremony; and what it means to become fully human.
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The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture |
In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health?
Darcia Narvaez's Evolved Nest work is featured as an alternative to our Myth of Normal in the book. Check out one of the interviews mentioning Darcia's work here. Gabor has written the foreword for Darcia's next book with Gay Bradshaw, The Evolved Nests: Lessons from the Animal World on Raising Our Children.
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Social Justice Advocacy and Indigenous Worldview |
We’re sharing the For the Wild interview with Tyson with gratitude for their deep dive and patience in exploring the emerging wisdom of Indigenous Worldview and Tyson’s academic work in preparation for our time together later this month.
From the recording: What happens when non-Indigenous people, especially social justice advocates, skip over connecting with the land and instead focus on accumulating social identity capital? (Mark 17:28)
“Basically, if you’re a millennial or Gen X, if you’re mid-30s or under, you’re not ever going to have any financial capital, chances are, wherever you are in the world. But the capital that is available to you is around your identity: cultural capital, social capital, all those kinds of things. And some of these things can be leveraged for a little bit of value or a little bit of position, so you can move around in a pecking order. There’s a kind of biological capital that is associated with that now. Kim Tallbear has written quite extensively about this fetishization of genealogy, inheritance, and bloodline, and the idea of this being some kind of capital that someone owns intrinsically inside themselves that they can curate and narrativize as a marker of their identities, intersectionality and the rest. So rather than living in that struggle and working to change conditions it becomes about branding one’s self. Very tricky.” – Tyson Yunkaporta
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By John Wall
What childism contributes to the conversation about children’s voting is the ability to imagine transformative possibilities. It is not just about including children as equal political agents, participants, and citizens, true that this may be. It is also and more systemically about redefining political equality itself. Only in this more radical way can democracy transcend its final major exclusion and embody its own ideal of universal suffrage.
Look for Kindred's podcast interview with John Wall on his new book, Give Children the Vote, later this month!
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Kanyini is a historical and semi-autobiographical look at what happened to the originlal inhabitants of Australia. Tjilpi (Bob Randall) describes the Aboriginal worldview and how it was destroyed in his life by colonizer culture. Randall, also known as Uncle Bob, lived beside the greatest monolith in the world, Uluru. Based on Uncle Bob’s own personal journey and the wisdom he learnt from the old people living in the bush, Bob tells the tale of why Indigenous people are now struggling in a modern world and what needs to be done for Indigenous people to move forward.
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Join Our LIVE Discussions! |
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See the Evolved Nest's Short Film - Breaking the Cycle! |
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Below is your invitation to LIVE discussion about Breaking the Cycle, the Evolved Nest's short film, with Darcia Narvaez, PhD, and Lisa Reagan.
"Breaking the Cycle" contrasts the two basic ways societies can function: the optimal approach, which most human societies through time have followed, is the Cycle of Cooperative Companionship, where children’s basic needs are met, they grow into well-functioning, cooperative community members (from neurobiology and on up), and as healthy adults, they maintain the cooperative system. Currently in the United States, the opposite pattern is in place—children’s basic needs are not met and ill-being and dysregulation ensue, creating adults who are detached and distracted and keep this Cycle of Competitive Detachment going. Not surprisingly from a transdisciplinary perspective on childhood adversity and its effects, the United Nations ranks the United States as 41st out of 41 developed countries for child and adult wellness.
See the Evolved Nest's six minute film and discover resources, including a film guide and a Spanish version of the film, at www.breakingthecyclefilm.org
JOIN MONTHLY LIVE DISCUSSIONS
October 27, 2022 from 8 - 9 p.m. ET, REGISTER
The live discussions are free, but you must register to join.
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Nature Song Collection - Includes Cord Progression and Lyrics! |
Nature Connection is one of our nine Evolved Nest components. One of the known causes for the planetary crises humanity is facing currently (e.g., global warming, climate instability, melting glaciers, toxic pollution, biodiversity loss) is the lack of caring for the rest of nature and the sense of separation from it. Our species is a creature of the earth and has evolved with the rest of the natural world, which preserves us.
Here are four nature connection songs written and sung by Darcia for our eco attachment enjoyment.
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Join the Kindred COMMUNITY |
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Join Our Mighty Networks' Community |
We are in the process of creating a safe, kind, and stimulating space to engage and connect with our Kindred Community through Mighty Networks!
This platform is ad-free, algorithm-free, and owned by us. You can download the app to the network and post and stay up-to-date with group discussions, research, and upcoming events.
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Read 89 Five-Star Reviews of Our Work and Kindred World! |
Kindred Media is an educational initiative of Kindred World, an American 501C3 nonprofit that has Served the Re-Generation Since 1996.
Learn more about what we've learned in a quarter century of exploring the creation of a wisdom-based, wellness-informed society, here.
Read our more than 88 five-star reviews here.
Our gratitude to everyone who has supported The Evolved Nest's work over these past four years.
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Kindred Media - www.KindredMedia.org |
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