The Evolutionary Power of Indigenous Science

While reading Mary Beth Moser’s (PhD) most excellent dissertation “The Everyday Spirituality of Women in the Italian Alps: A Trentino American Women’s Search for Spiritual Agency, Folk Wisdom, and Ancestral Values“, I came across a citation that kicked my butt.

But first let me explain that she, like me, is following the breadcrumbs as a women’s spirituality academic to research what the renowned scholar Lucia Birnbaum most profoundly described as following the path of our mothers.

Let me clarify: We are (re) looking at history through the lens of what our mothers and their mothers (our ancestors), went through and accomplished: what they thought; what they contributed to the narrative history (or were erased from); how they coped, and how they made culture, including such categories as ways of making food, making clothing, having and caring for babies, (and all that ancestral knowledge of herbs and women’s bodies, you right wing fucs); educating children, and being nurturing centers of culture and then keeping that culture alive through um…sustaining families.

If you think that ain’t important then divorce yrself from yr mother and yr favorite childhood food – mac n cheese and weenies, or fill the comfort food bill here, just fer starters.

Within these ancestral stories and within the discipline of academia (eff you who mistake method for content or who just don’t like the content after applying method) we find components of our subaltern history that we rigorously apply to what is a multidisciplinary approach to history (don’t get me started on backlash).

Now back to the citation that made my heart open as it was included in Mary Beth Moser’s dissertation, and which describes my most earnest attempts of so many pages of trying to explain my methodology and ontology. This says it all for me.

http://www.wisn.org/what-is-indigenous-science.html

What is Indigenous Science?

Apela Colorado, PhD
Frances Santiago, editor
Worldwide Indigenous Science Network: http://wisn.org

Indigenous science is a way of knowing and a way of life. The power of indigenous science lies in its ability to make connections and perceive patterns across vast cycles of space and time. This “Great Memory” belongs to the entire human species, but it is most fully active in cultural healers who develop heightened levels of consciousness. The Great Memory may also be realized more universally when the interspecies bond is honored. Like Western science, indigenous science relies upon direct observation for forecasting and generating predictions. There are cultural tests to ensure validity. Individuals are trained in various specializations—for example herbalism, weather observations, mental health and time keeping. Unlike Western science, the data from indigenous science are not used to control the forces of nature; instead, tell us the ways and the means of accommodating nature. Other critical distinctions include the following:

The indigenous scientist is an integral part of the research process and there is a defined process for ensuring this integrity.

All of nature is considered to be intelligent and alive, thus an active research partner.

The purpose of indigenous science is to maintain balance.

Compared to western time/space notions, indigenous science collapses time and space with the result that our fields of inquiry and participation extend into and overlap with past and present.

Indigenous science is concerned with relationships, we try to understand and complete our relationships with all living things.

Indigenous science is holistic, drawing on all the Sense, including the spiritual and psychic.

The end point of an indigenous scientific process is a known and recognized place. This point of balance, referred to by my own tribe as the Great Peace, is both peaceful and electrifyingly alive. In the joy of exact balance, creativity occurs, which is why we can think of our way of knowing as a life science.

When we reach the moment/place of balance we do not believe that we have transcended—we say that we are normal! Always we remain embodied in the natural world.

Humor is a critical ingredient of all truth seeking, even in the most powerful rituals. This is true because humor balances gravity.