Entangled Roots: Challenging Colonial Isolation with Multidisciplinary Experiments in Eco-Spiritual Belonging
Publication information:
Abstract
We are of the earth, and that belonging is in every breath. Yet colonial projects of severance have corroded this interbeing, producing accelerating eco-spiritual crises. This workshop responds through four interconnected modalities: eco-mystic poetry that recalibrates perception; decolonial design practice that interrogates how the shape of information imposes or dissolves enclosure; ancestral meditation that reactivates kinship across generations; and somatic reclamation that grounds belonging in the body through the grateful hugging of trees. Guided by four facilitators, this sixty-minute journey equips participants with embodied interdisciplinary practices for recognizing and reclaiming earthly belonging as spiritual ground and ethical commitment.
Presenter Biographies
Orus Mateo Castaño-Suárez, M.A., is a Research Coordinator & Fellow with the Abundant Intelligences international Indigenous AI research network and an award-winning artist, designer, and researcher. An arrivant member of the HDS PES Indigenous Talking Circle, their work investigates decolonial visuospatial epistemology and how the form of data integrates or disrupts belonging across knowledge systems. orusmateo.com
Ricky Ray is a poet, essayist and eco-mystic who lives with his wife and his old brown dogs in the old green hills of New England. He is the author of four books of poetry and a book of criticism, and he serves on the advisory board at PES.
Jenellen Good, Ph.D. (Cornell University) is an associate professor in the department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University (Ontario, Canada). She researches, writes and teaches at intersections of screens, materialism, an earth in crisis and spirituality. The revolutionary power of interconnection and gratitude are integral to her work.