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When You Visit Tapestry |
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We structured Tapestry and its programs to operate out of Indigenous worldview for very important reasons. We have learned the hard way that it's not a minor matter whether people sit on chairs arranged in rows or have a printed agenda when they meet. These are the things that bring contemporary modern worldview, expectations, and limitations into existence, whether you intended them to or not. And they are therefore the very things that create a situation where people who want to learn how to relate to the Land are unable to do so.
It's difficult to shift into another worldview, even with support, and even for a few brief hours. But it's essential you do so if you normally operate out of contemporary modern worldview and you interact with us in a professional way. We ask all those who visit us -- for a program, a research project, or any other kind of meeting -- to read, understand, and do their honest best to adhere to the following guidelines:
 Set aside your expectations
Be patient
Permit unlikely things to exist
Respect others
Share power
Refrain from claiming the tenets of contemporary, modern worldview as "universal Truth" while you visit us. (Please)
Set aside your expectations.
You may be used to meetings where there is a clear leader or chairperson, where there is a printed agenda and a formal procedure. Or, conversely, you may be used to a meeting where "anything goes" and there is no discerning assessment of people, ideas, and pieces of information. You may even assume that a meeting will go a certain direction or be "successful" or not based on things like where people sit or how they're dressed. We have learned that almost everyone who first attends one of our meetings is uncomfortable with the difference in the structure of the meetings. We have also learned that those who set aside their expectations tell us they've had an extraordinary experience when it's time to leave, and they are eager to come back. (Return to top)
Be patient.
In contemporary modern worldview, "time is money" and attention spans are seen as a unit of monetary exchange. The natural world does not operate this way. Neither do we. If we meet for an hour, things may come together in the last 10 minutes. If we meet for four days, they may come together on the last afternoon. The processes we use are different from the ones with which you may be most familiar, and they require all the "wasted" time that preceeds the "big aha" at the end. You can't anticipate where the process is going to go, or how it will get there. You can't push it. You have to be patient. (Return to top)
Permit unlikely things to exist.
We have learned that people from contemporary modern worldview have been taught to find and "resolve" things that appear to be illogical or inherently contradictory -- by getting rid of one of them in favor of the other. There is no reason to do that. On the other hand, if you can permit these things to co-exist -- pointing out their existence and articulating your discomfort if necessary -- very interesting and wonderful things can develop. If you are patient. And if you set aside your expectations about "how things should be done." (Return to top)
Respect others.
People from different worldviews sometimes make fun of one another. Ridicule can be funny, even if you disapprove of what's being said. But it destroys the kind of community we build in our meetings and events. We ask people to respect the Land and its Peoples, which includes one another. When conflict arises, it is important for you to understand that we consider it most important for the least-often-heard voice to have the floor. It's also important that, to us, respect for the Land means not assuming it has an adversarial relationship to you. Don't automatically kill the spider you might see, or tell horror stories about how "hard" cold weather or dry air may be to unprepared people. We all teach one other how to live wisely in particular Places, and we assume the Land would like to participate in this process as a friend and relation. (Return to top)
Share power.
We have learned that the dominant worldview is used to being dominant, and that sometimes it does not remember that it's been heard well and clearly for many centuries. Other voices have not been so fortunate. This is not a matter of "taking sides," but a matter of making sure that all voices are valued. We respect people in the dominant worldview but that does not mean we privilege their voice; if you speak with that voice, loss of that privilege may feel like censorship. It's not. It's learning to share. (Return to top)
Refrain from claiming the tenets of contemporary modern worldview as universal Truth while you visit us.
Tapestry structures its programs and activities within Indigenous worldview for a reason, and they only work if people enter that space to participate in them. So we ask you to tentatively or experimentally accept the basic tenets of Indigenous worldview as at least potentially "true" while you are with us, even if you are struggling to understand them. It may be that the best you can do is simply lay down some of your own assumptions about reality for a little while. It's certainly the case that if you insist on it being "a fact" that every meeting must have an agenda (for instance), your "Truth" will create a conflict with the reality we're using to help you learn how to reconnect to the land -- and then you won't be able to do it and neither will others. Ideally, we are asking you to climb inside of Indigenous worldview, so to speak, in order to experience something we think will be important to you. Then we will help you to climb out again and reflect on what you've learned from the process before you leave to go back home to the world you already know. (Return to top)
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