Week 8: Be Here Now

Week 8: Spirit Realm in Academia
ASA 189B
Franchesca Flores

Picture from the book Be Here Now by Ram Dass

The question being asked in the article, “Earth Song” by Frances Wyld and Bronwyn Fredericks, is whether Indigenous ways of knowledge emphasized on earth song and storytelling can find its place in the academic institution. The authors show how this is possible through two different stories that hold reasoning and meaning to their experiences and observations. Bronwyn shares her knowledge through the day she got into her car after teaching her class at the university, she chose to pause for a minute and take in what is happening around her in nature. She noticed the sun setting on the leaves, and how they were moving through the breeze, with this she chose to take a different route than usual. Making her way home on a different route, she noticed a woman that was standing on the side of the road who looked upset. Bronwyn took the time to ask her if she was okay, once they talked and she was at ease, Bronwyn realized her time and place in the universe. She was reminded through the universe and this woman that she is exactly where she needs to be and it is shown that by her being present and aware of now and the world that she was able to help someone who needed it. 

The story that Bronwyn shares are the representation of the way that the universe sings to us, and it does not always have to be shown through words, it can be shown through experiences with other people and the world. I can agree with the authors that Indigenous knowledge can be fused with the academic institution because I was given the chance here at UC Davis through the class Decolonizing Spirit (CHI148) taught by profesora Zepeda. It was a space that examined the connections between colonization and decolonization of Indigenous practices and remembering and honoring these traditions and practices and their forms of knowledge. This learning and horning were similar to the ways that Bronwyn and Frances described the ways of understanding the earth songs throughout the world. Our earth songs were shared through our own verbal experiences of happiness, learning, and trauma that people we were able to relate, understand, honor and respect. Similar to Frances, we acknowledged that we were all teachers to one another we should listen to each other because our experiences are songs that live within nature. “…I must listen to the song created by modern living and remember that modern living is still inhabited by nature that needs to be nurtured.”