Matriarchy, Please.

My father texts me asking “Do you know what red clothing hanging in the trees mean?” I respond “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women who were never found” and my eyes well with tears and my stomach tightens because of this truth in our world and because he isn’t aware what it means and it probably won’t turn his stomach or bring tears to his eyes because he is able to disassociate with such a concept while such a concept triggers disgust and hurt within so many like myself. I am privileged because I am white. I am able to walk through this world with more ease than many can, yet I’m not void of worry and fear because I am a woman and we are not yet able to let our guard down at all. Even in the small community where I live I have been hollered at, catcalled, followed, pursued disrespectfully, pushed beyond my firm “No”, been sent uninvited sexual messages, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I’m walking home alone and I see any dark figure down the street. Oh to be a grown white male raised in an era that told you how you are a king where it is common sense to glance around your local neighbourhood and rank everyone else’s lives based on your perception of their success. Oh to walk through any corner of your society and feel safety. I am allotted more freedoms than most because I have incarnated amongst a European family, but I am a woman, and what I feel runs deep. I allow it to. I have stopped numbing, and blurring, and detaching, because I remembered that fuzziness helps no one but myself yet I am horrified to use this voice of mine in lieu of the abundant criticism and naysayers ready to leap on any weakness I show or they may perceive through their lense but stifling what I feel is almost as bad as numbing it is just about the same as numbing it so do I dare speak up and say there seems to be no escape, no real safe haven if you are anyone other than a white male. And I am grateful for this life I’ve been granted feel grateful every day but simultaneously exhausted every day because ease never arrives for humanity as a whole and although I cannot commiserate first handedly with the horrors alive behind each red dress hanging in the trees, I have seen the reverberations and through seeing have felt them and through feeling have experienced, to the extent of my ability to do so, the infinite hollow of loss and unknowing left in the wake of this continual cycle and it sickens me, stops me, brings me to my knees with full bodied sobs at the most unexpected of times when I open up and give myself over to the empathy that courses through me as I exist amongst these heavy and black tar truths. This is the world that a hierarchical society has created where ranks stack those with grand titles higher than heaven and worst of all, leads them to believe they belong there. How much longer must we exist here? What will it take before we unanimously remember the power and accessible equality available when women are respected and the matriarchy is acknowledged as not only important, but essential. I’m a 29 year old white girl and all these red dresses hanging in all these trees shakes me to my innermost core. Leaves me hopeless, and horrified, and unsure where to search for a glimmer of optimism. Can we begin where we are? Here, on a “country” of unceded Indigenous land, can we offer up (rightful) space for the traditional Indigenous ways of knowing under sacred Matrilineal guidance and leadership, to please, PLEASE, show us another way forward? What is it going to take, for our women to feel safe to simply exist and to be allotted the respect they’ve always deserved. How much longer must we plod along following “leaders” with no real connection to this land, no real depth nor diversity to their perspectives. When is the general population going to understand that their cushy society is not extended to those who are most deserving of food security and health care and clean drinking water. Before white people showed up here there was a powerful and thriving human presence that kept these territories lush with abundance for thousands of years, we’ve been here for a couple hundred, and look at the brink we have pushed these lands to. The last of the old growth forests have been approved for demolition the “landfills” are overflowing so much so that your average sidewalk or shoreline looks like an open ended trash can fish are depleting, rivers drying up, any untouched expanse is destined to have a pipeline full of toxins forced through it without consent, any day now the north will catch fire and burn until autumn, again. LOOK WHAT WE’VE DONE in such a short amount of time, and folks still feel like following the current system is a good idea? Check your perspective. Then check your lense. If you didn’t already know: disrespecting Indigenous people is equal to disrespecting Indigenous land. Within their culture, the two are intrinsically tied. If you dropped in unexpectedly at someone’s house and they opened their door and invited you in would you light the place on fire? Because whether you’re aware or not, you are participating in an equivalent action every time you turn a blind eye to Indigenous rights or continue to live on this land unaware of its history or take your clean tap water for granted. Those of us lucky enough to be living comfortably on stolen land should be using our cushy existence, our full cups, to wonder how we can return the leadership of this “country” to a more inclusive, respectful, evenly distributed, and loving place. A way of existing that prioritizes the well-being of the First Peoples of this land and thus, the land itself. How dare we prioritize settlers. How dare we give power to a structure that excludes everyone other than uninvited guests with arrogant privilege. It’s embarrassing, and shameful. Within your community, raise up the women, hold your personal matriarchs high, then let’s gather them together and watch what they can do. If we can be the wind for their wings maybe they too will remember their power, their magic, their abundant abilities, and lead us forward

on the winds of change.