The Original Land Wound: Addressing The Role of Colonialism in Ecological Attachment

If you haven’t already read Part 1 of this series: “At the Intersection of Animism & Attachment: Re-introducing Ecological Attachment Theory”, I ask that you please do so before diving in to this piece.

We cannot discuss the concept of Ecological Attachment Theory without addressing colonialism. Period.

But I don’t want to beat everyone over the head with blanket statements calling everyone “settlers” or “oppressors”, or put colonialism on a pedestal of power that absolves us of personal responsibility, inherently neglecting the absolute complexity of how settler colonialism impacts us and our lineages. You can disagree with my perspective, but I will mention that my approach towards these issues does not dismiss the reality of violence caused by settler colonialism, or any social complex of domination, nor seeks to invalidate rage as a natural response to it. I *personally* just don’t find the reductionist “oppressor vs. oppressed” narrative productive for relationship-based revolutionary work, nor do I find that shaming people purely based on their race or ancestral lineage a compassionate tool for repairing connections to the land - which is at the root of settler colonialism itself.

(If you’re interested in reading more about my personal approach to sacred rage, please see my Instagram post “Liberation is a Wildfire”, which is a preview for my piece in the collaborative zine, Bodies of Land: Threads of Connection Interwoven in the Earth. Paid subscribers also receive a free download of this 50+ page zine.)

“American Progress”, painting by John Gast, 1872.

The truth is that the violence of colonialism impacts all of us negatively.

And while we should acknowledge the distinct and devastating forms of violence perpetrated against people who are colonized, we must also acknowledge the forms of violence that colonialism perpetrates on the people who colonize. Colonialism is, one could say, just as much a process of violation externally as it is internally.

We can describe the proliferation of colonialism as a collective sickness that infects the minds and bodies of everyone who engages with it. And from an animist framework, colonialism is not just a pattern of relationship (which is very important to discuss and we will in this series), nor a process with precise mechanisms and methods for its production, but it is also a spirit that is alive, a manifestation fed by the energy of the collective body. We touched on this briefly in our last piece, but will expand on it in later pieces.

But, what is at the root of colonialism itself?

Ecological attachment theory, presented from an energetic ecology context, may provide us with a unique answer.

German folk art depicting Adam & Eve | “Pennsylvania German Fraktur and Manuscripts” |1840.

This image is said to be a depiction of a German goddess that pre-dates Christianity. However, she was given a new name - Walburga, after Saint Walburger who is celebrated for successfully converting a local population of Germans to Christianity, as well as having a significant impact on the extermination of “witchcraft” in the area. About this goddess: “She is a fertility goddess, a forest goddess, and a goddess of springs. She is associated with grain and the harvest, and like Berchta she has a spindle. With her she carries a unique three cornered mirror that shows the future” (Source).

Saint Walpurga, who is celebrated on holiday in her namesake, “Walpurgisnacht Night”, unironically chosen to occur on the pre-Christian Pagan holiday of “Witch’s Night” or May Day.

The Original Land Wound

Something that has helped me contextualize colonialism within an energetic ecology perspective is this concept of “original land wounds”. It is, in someways analogous to Eve’s “fall from grace and exile from the garden of Eden”, in that perhaps we can trace far back into our ancestral lines the time period and circumstances in which a fracturing occurred in our ancestors’ relationship with the Land, resulting in a seemingly irreversible change in the pattern of relationship between human + land. In analysis of our stories, we seek to identify a trauma that provoked the progression from connection to domination.

I provided the images above for a number of reasons. The first being, that much of European folk art centralizes nature or natural elements - emphasizing that even “colonizer” lineages have intimate connections with the land (through art, tradition, ritual, folklore, agriculture, and so forth). Perhaps it is not a stretch to also propose the idea that applying the label of “colonizer” to a group of people ignores the reality that all colonizing people have been colonized themselves, in some shape or form (we shall return to this idea).

Additionally, I feel that the images gives rise to the idea that disconnection from nature is at the very root of Christianity itself… a religion historically used as a tool of colonialism and domination in across Europe and the globe, and implemented as a justification for colonization itself through the concept of divine providence and manifest destiny.

Thirdly, my own German ancestry and family history has led me to question the inherent contradiction held in the idea that “original land wounds” represent a precise and identifiable turning point in human + land patterns of relating. Learning more about my lineage after my dad’s passing has allowed me to hold the complexity that indeed, original land wounds are at the root of colonialism, but do not have to exist exclusively from nature itself. In some cases, connection and domination are as dichotomous as they are dependent upon one another - energies of repair and harm can exist simultaneously within our own bodies, our own lineages. Yet again, I’ll return to this at some point.

What are “original land wounds”?

“Original land wounds” are energetic patterns of relationship that are passed down from generation to generation and are informed by land-based traumas, resulting in a variety of behaviors, many of which can be identified as functions of settler colonialism or complexes of domination itself. These energetic patterns are like a somatic and psychological blueprint held not only in our bodies, but the collective memory of our peoples or culture. Within this framework, we understand colonialism as both a product and a cause of these land-based traumas.

For example, in the case of settler colonialism, the forced or voluntary dispossession of lands causes the dispossessed to leave in search of new places to live, thus causing the displacement or assimilation of people(s) in the places they settle. It is a feedback loop of disconnection to Place.

The complexity of this conversation is limitless. There are many ways one can acquire land-based traumas, or become displaced from their homelands - both ancestral homelands and personal in the context of modern day. And it is worth noting that land-based trauma or displacement is not always the direct result of human intervention. For example, natural disasters also create land-based traumas, such as the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which resulted in the temporary displacement of 1,500,000 people, 40% of which were unable to return to their homes.

We will discuss personal & experiential land-based traumas another time, and in returning our attention back to ancestral traumas, it can be said, near universally, that many of us can trace our lineages back to “original wounds”… places in time where our ancestors, somehow, somewhere, had a rupture or severance in their sacred relationship with ancestral homelands. Perhaps for you it is when the Romans conquered the territory of the Celts, thus forcing the Celts’ nature-based, animist spiritual traditions underground. Perhaps it is when your great-grandparents crossed an ocean in the 19th or 20th centuries to escape religious persecution, like the Jews. Or when a more “developed”, imperialist civilization came to your ancestors’ territory to impose new social structures, “reforming” the animist, clan-based forms of self-governance (primarily led by women) that once proliferated, such as in Japan. Maybe you are re-learning your tribe’s language from one of the very last native speakers (of which there are 1 or 2), such as those who are Haida from the west coast of Canada; as your people’s language was taught to you by the land itself - to lose your words is to lose your connection to it. We could go on and on.

It is exclusively the deviation or forced separation from the land that are at the root of domination itself, and often the abandoning of animist, folk beliefs & spirituality is the first step. Thus it is no surprise as to why, once Adam & Eve are removed from the garden, “… the Bible states that Adam will ‘rule over you,’ placing Eve in a position of submission to her husband” (Britannica).

Is this not what we have done to the Earth herself?

“The Old Gods illustration is from Sineater! This one is of the green man, so definitely celtic influenced. You can find his work on IG under sineateruk and at www.sineater.bigcartel.com” - from reader A. Val.

It is worth mentioning here, as I do not want to lead us astray:

The assumption that displacement or disconnection from the land is purely an invention of Man reinforces a worldview that is inherently human-centric. Nature is just as violent as man, with power that is so absolute we cannot ignore who is our creator. It is the dismissal of this universal truth that is at the heart of our ecological detachment.

I will end this piece, with so much more to discuss that it is difficult to part with it, with an excerpt from the piece I mentioned earlier - “Liberation is a Wildfire: Destruction and Renewal Amidst a World on Fire” from Bodies of Land. This piece is contextualized by Shinto animist worldviews combined with my education in ecology.

A wildfire (or forest fire, if initiated by unnatural causes) in its full embodiment is undoubtedly a force that, while can be witnessed with the bare eyes, is not possible to fully wrap one’s mind around the magnitude of power. Even thousands of firefighters, the deafening sound of choppers carrying thousands of gallons of water, and the cacophony of law enforcement patrolling its edges seem meager in comparison to the unreckonable violence and destruction as the primal spirit of Fire devours the land. This insatiable spirit leaves in its wake for the years that follow an imprint that can be subtly felt and haunts those who walk through the skeletal remains of what once was a forest. And yet, it is also possible to appreciate the permeating stillness that is left behind, a sense that the land itself is in observance of the death & destruction that it has inflicted upon itself.

It seems as though, after such an event, we all can appreciate the regenerative power of the forest as it slowly and meticulously recovers. We can wonder in awe of the innocence of bracken ferns and the gentle strength it takes to push through inches of scarred earth, or how the lichens begin colonizing barren surfaces where no plant could easily survive. However, it may take a bit more reaching to acknowledge and appreciate that soft regeneration from the most elemental of foundations is made possible by the incineration of all life that inhabited it.

While we might conceive of fire as vengeful, reckless, and violent, we must remind ourselves that this is Fire’s unhealed shadow self (in the words of shadow-work baddie Cole @colethecreator). There is a wickedness, a sickness, that has corrupted Fire and hid them from themselves; it is a tortured spirit, whom’s power has been harnessed and perverted into bullets and missiles, directed at the hopelessly innocent to further the meaningless agenda of settler colonialism.

The Spirit of Fire, when embodying its true form, does not burn without a strong sense of purpose. Drawing from Carolyn’s essay for this issue, “Tending to Our Inner Fires”, it is tending to our inner flame that gives us the strength and energy to embody this living world with intention, determination, and passion. Just as fire can be weaponized as a tool of violence and Death, so too can the power of fire be channeled as a force of Life. The Sun. The Heart. The Hearth.

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