A Mexican actor and activist for various causes, including indigenous peoples groups in Mexico, said something that stays with me.
She said, in order for her to manage all the poverty and injustice she sees, she must meditate, otherwise she would not be able to stay sane and cope with it. She said in meditation, she gives thanks for her pain and sensitivity and for realizing what goes on. And that if she didn't feel the pain it would mean she didn't care, and that she was beginning to harden.
Her words guide me. I'd much rather feel pain, sorrow and worry than to be indifferent.
I can't always do as much as I'd like to bring forth change in the world, but I am aware, deeply aware, and I care.
Now, every day I take a few quiet minutes and I give thanks for my awareness.
We Who Walk the Seven Ways is Terra Trevor’s memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After she endured a difficult loss, a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided Trevor (mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, and German) through the seven cycles of life in Indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty.
With tender honesty, Trevor explores how every ending is always a beginning. Her reflections on the deep power of women’s friendship, losing a child, reconciling complicated roots, and finding richness in every stage of life show that being an American Indian with a complex lineage is not about being part something, but about being part of something.
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“Terra Trevor’s memoir is a gentle invitation to journey with her across decades, an invitation to notice with her as she seeks healing and finds belonging. There were phrases and sentences I underlined, places where I wept, passages that will remain with me as they drew me to insights I’d previously struggled to name. I closed the final pages and knew that in reading this book, I had been the recipient of a generous and much-needed gift. While I can certainly finish a book in a day, I chose to move slowly through this one, letting each idea, each paragraph, each reflection gently spill over me, allowing the pages to alter me in some way.” —Patrice Gopo, author of Autumn Song: Essays on Absence
