“connections made anew”

 

         Sepie presents the idea that for settlers to make home in a place, to find belonging, to find a sense of self, there is a melding that is necessary between learning from Indigenous people of the land, learning from the land itself, and hearing what she calls our blood memory. She invites people to not appropriate culture but accept invitations to become more connected in the spirit of the way it is done in the place they live. She says,

 

“our own connection must be made anew, so that we care for Earth because we know she is our origin, not just in some intellectual sense but in the deeply felt sense of understanding we are kin - I am she, and she is me.” (Sepie, 2021, p. 26).

 

We are not just sitting on earth, she offers, but our whole experience is generated by our place. As long as we are living in a place we are part of the story there, she says. (Rosenthal & Wolf, 2022)