Trailblazer: Pat McCabe
Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining) is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. She draws upon the Indigenous sciences of Thriving Life to reframe questions about sustainability and balance, and she is devoted to supporting the next generations in being functional members of the “Hoop of Life” and upholding the honor of being human.
Her primary work at the moment is:
• The reconciliation between the masculine and feminine, Men's Nation and Women's Nation
• Remembering, recreating or creating anew a narrative for the Sacred Masculine
• Addressing the Archetypal Wounding that occurred in our misunderstanding and abuse of technology in prayer, ceremony and science
Under Ecology, EcoResolution looks at Nature Connection; this means the way we interact with nature, how we live with nature, and the stories and narratives that shape how we view nature. For a long time, nature has too often been perceived as distinctly separate to culture, with a clear divide between ‘civilised’ humans, and ‘wild’ nature. The reality is, we are nature. This story of separation that has removed us from our natural identity is arguably at the root of many of our ecological, health, and societal problems.
Pat McCabe draws upon Indigenous knowledge and the Indigenous science of Thriving Life to demonstrate and educate how we can live in right relations with nature and Mother Earth. McCabe spoke to EcoResolution about how we can recognise the chasm within ‘modern-thinking’ that has further separated us from nature. So, how can we begin living in right relations with Mother Earth? First of all, we must lean into, and embrace, the mystery of not knowing. We have to be strong enough to recognise our weaknesses and gaps in knowing.
Watch our amazing interview with Pat McCabe, read the full transcript, or continue reading for an excerpt on letting go of being in control and trusting in nature…
“The modern world says: “You're always supposed to be in control. And if you ever come to the end of your own resource it's because you didn't plan well enough, where you were disciplined in some way.” Well, hopefully by now we can see that this whole system has been set up in such a way that it's been almost impossible for you to be able to meet the criteria to have food, clothing and shelter it's been very, very difficult. The vast majority of it has nothing to do with what resources are available, it's how they're being held or distributed and such.
“The modern world says: “You're always supposed to be in control. And if you ever come to the end of your own resource it's because you didn't plan well enough, where you were disciplined in some way.”
So it's not that we have failed: it's that we have been giving our consent in some way to a system that has not allowed us really to be the child of this mother, that has interfered with what this Mother Earth would give her child to live. To me that's a very deep violation of spiritual law, to interfere with what Mother Earth would give to her child to live. No one was getting that in that relationship, that's what’s wrong.
So I just want us to maybe have a little bit more ease in this unknown and mystery... that it's okay to be in that place. And so, you know, the practice of meeting that mystery again with honor, with grace, with courage, and willingness, is to go out and make offerings in the morning. I mean that's the way: to go out and face that Rising Sun. As soon as that round beautiful star disc comes up above the horizon, you know you're there to greet it.
There is clearly a whole community going on around us. With sky and earth and trees and water, birds… everybody... and we say that the human beings were the last to arrive here on earth. And that means that everybody else around us is our elder, and they're all doing their very best to teach us how to be here. But just like, you know, these uppity kids in the school classroom that always want to know better than the teacher, that's kind of how we’ve been.
But what happens if we open up to these elders who live their impeccable lives and their thriving life design with such ease and grace and beauty? What happens if we inquire from them? How do I live my life, impeccably with ease and grace and beauty? I'm open to hearing from you.
And so more shall be revealed, and we will be in alignment with the greater plan that's been going on all around us, that we've been swimming upstream against, and that we’ve been pretending didn't matter or wasn't there. But it's the plan. I keep saying all false authorities will bow to the authority of the Mother Earth because everything we get, everything that we have, that we need, comes from her, and there's a certain order in which all that takes place. So her authority is the final authority, so for us to align with her, we're at least moving, moving with the current, the current of thriving life.”
