PEGI EYERS
This year I was invited to join a group of women writers, each engaged with the impact of our colonial ancestors on lands and waters, oppression of BIPOC, capitalism and other harms. Members of the group include Louise Dunlap, the author of Inherited Silence: Listening to the Land, Healing the Colonizer Mind; Hilary Giovale, the author of Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair; Mary Watkin, the author of White Work and Reparative Genealogy: Reckoning with Ancestral Debt as a Path to Racial Reparations; and Nora Murphy, the author of White Birch, Red Hawthorn: A Memoir. Other members of Decolonial Dames include Maija Danilova West, the author of Matriarch Makeover; Caroline LeGuin, the author of Unsettled: A Reckoning with a Legacy of Settler Stories; Bette Husted, the author of Above the Clearwater: Living on Stolen Land; Cynthia Geary, the author of Ancestral Landscapes, Cynthia Winton-Henry, the author of The Art of Ensoulment, and Sara J. Wolcott, ceremonialist, educator, and writer working on a book on colonization and her Quaker ancestors, one of whom facilitated the connection between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the US Constitution. Following a unique egalitarian model, we meet every two weeks to exchange ideas, share our writing, and receive feedback.
Free access - Decolonizing the Psyche
| uncolonizing_the_psyche_pegi_eyers.pdf |
CONTRIBUTION ~ NOVEMBER 5, 2025
PEGI EYERS ~ DECOLONIAL DAMES
Today I will be revisiting an essay I wrote a few years ago, that outlines the many ways we can approach “Decolonizing the Psyche.”
My essay is not specifically about unpacking racism or white privilege, although there are linkages between our thought patterns and racism, but to identify white behaviors that hold us back from changing the humancentric worldview of our civilization. An uncolonized mind, body and soul tends to adopt an ecocentric worldview that embraces our human place in Earth Community.
The more we sink into uncolonization, the more we realize that preserving the colonial paradigm is not a rational choice, and it is only by stepping outside of the patriarchal power-program that we develop a mind and soul free of offensive conditioning. Anti-colonial work is a personal choice made by dismantling the western mind. Deeply imbedded in our psyches, the core memes of Empire have been created, spread, upheld and perpetuated over centuries, yet it is untrue (and another lie of Empire) that somehow the very structure of the human mind has pre-determined these choices. All of us hold the power and have the agency to challenge our own habitual thinking and belief systems, and to embrace new thinking, gestures and actions that reflect our responsibility to Earth Community.
This is the first action point on my list of white patterns and behaviors that we may consider decolonizing:
#1 Reject Consumer Capitalism. How much do we really need to live a comfortable life? We have strayed far beyond the boundaries of natural law that keep us in balance with the natural world, and current levels of consumption cannot be maintained. It is better to begin our decolonization process now, to give up our expectation of material wealth and accumulation, and to see our privileges and benefits as the illusions that they are. Consumerism has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, and it will take much examination to discern between the things we need, and the things we think we need. Beyond the necessities for a comfortable life, we need to give up the “greed to possess” and the desire for superficial materialism. Reject the notion that industrial civilization is the only way to live, or that those of us in the western world will continue to live this way for years to come.
*******************************
What occurs to me now, in the fall of 2025, is that the material objects that surrounded the past generations of my forebears in Orillia - a small town, now a medium-sized city in Southern Ontario - function as a stand-in for the positive values and teachings I never received from my own people. Being enamored of capitalism, and the material goods they could acquire (especially in the post-war years) to make their lives better, took precedence. Working hard, capitalism and acquiring “things” were more important than companionship, community, support, and good mentoring.
With this materialism in mind, it is ironic that the conveniences and amenities we now take for granted, have only been part of our lives for 70 years or so. As I cling to the artifacts that were passed down to me, that remind me of my grandparents and their elders, I seem to attach more meaning to these objects than they deserve. "Things are things," and in reality I feel a great sadness in the presence of these mementos, and a yearning for "what could have been."
Where was the support during my first moontime? Where were the family stories, especially the one about the Anishnaabe man who rescued my ancestor Eliza Bailey from drowning? Where was the guidance that led me to live a good life? In the great Empire-building frenzy of the 1960’s, 70’s/80’s and 90’s, I had to discover these things on my own. And if I am completely honest, I am still discovering the most important life values on my own, without any leadership whatsoever from parents, grandparents or my way-back ancestors. I gain comfort from the lovely material objects that my ancestors owned, but I think I am making a dire mistake when I create a fantasy of who my ancestors were. The pride I feel seems forced, and on shaky ground. As painful as it may be, is this kind of introspection another much-needed aspect of decolonial thinking?
#2 Reject the impact of commercialism on your identity formation.
#3 Reject the impact of commercialism on your spiritual life.
#4 Reject hierarchy, privilege and domination.
#5 Reject self-importance.
#6 Reject the notion that human beings have some kind of special “entitlement.”
#7 Reject self-Indulgence.
PEGI EYERS ~ DECOLONIAL DAMES
Today I will be revisiting an essay I wrote a few years ago, that outlines the many ways we can approach “Decolonizing the Psyche.”
My essay is not specifically about unpacking racism or white privilege, although there are linkages between our thought patterns and racism, but to identify white behaviors that hold us back from changing the humancentric worldview of our civilization. An uncolonized mind, body and soul tends to adopt an ecocentric worldview that embraces our human place in Earth Community.
The more we sink into uncolonization, the more we realize that preserving the colonial paradigm is not a rational choice, and it is only by stepping outside of the patriarchal power-program that we develop a mind and soul free of offensive conditioning. Anti-colonial work is a personal choice made by dismantling the western mind. Deeply imbedded in our psyches, the core memes of Empire have been created, spread, upheld and perpetuated over centuries, yet it is untrue (and another lie of Empire) that somehow the very structure of the human mind has pre-determined these choices. All of us hold the power and have the agency to challenge our own habitual thinking and belief systems, and to embrace new thinking, gestures and actions that reflect our responsibility to Earth Community.
This is the first action point on my list of white patterns and behaviors that we may consider decolonizing:
#1 Reject Consumer Capitalism. How much do we really need to live a comfortable life? We have strayed far beyond the boundaries of natural law that keep us in balance with the natural world, and current levels of consumption cannot be maintained. It is better to begin our decolonization process now, to give up our expectation of material wealth and accumulation, and to see our privileges and benefits as the illusions that they are. Consumerism has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, and it will take much examination to discern between the things we need, and the things we think we need. Beyond the necessities for a comfortable life, we need to give up the “greed to possess” and the desire for superficial materialism. Reject the notion that industrial civilization is the only way to live, or that those of us in the western world will continue to live this way for years to come.
*******************************
What occurs to me now, in the fall of 2025, is that the material objects that surrounded the past generations of my forebears in Orillia - a small town, now a medium-sized city in Southern Ontario - function as a stand-in for the positive values and teachings I never received from my own people. Being enamored of capitalism, and the material goods they could acquire (especially in the post-war years) to make their lives better, took precedence. Working hard, capitalism and acquiring “things” were more important than companionship, community, support, and good mentoring.
With this materialism in mind, it is ironic that the conveniences and amenities we now take for granted, have only been part of our lives for 70 years or so. As I cling to the artifacts that were passed down to me, that remind me of my grandparents and their elders, I seem to attach more meaning to these objects than they deserve. "Things are things," and in reality I feel a great sadness in the presence of these mementos, and a yearning for "what could have been."
Where was the support during my first moontime? Where were the family stories, especially the one about the Anishnaabe man who rescued my ancestor Eliza Bailey from drowning? Where was the guidance that led me to live a good life? In the great Empire-building frenzy of the 1960’s, 70’s/80’s and 90’s, I had to discover these things on my own. And if I am completely honest, I am still discovering the most important life values on my own, without any leadership whatsoever from parents, grandparents or my way-back ancestors. I gain comfort from the lovely material objects that my ancestors owned, but I think I am making a dire mistake when I create a fantasy of who my ancestors were. The pride I feel seems forced, and on shaky ground. As painful as it may be, is this kind of introspection another much-needed aspect of decolonial thinking?
#2 Reject the impact of commercialism on your identity formation.
#3 Reject the impact of commercialism on your spiritual life.
#4 Reject hierarchy, privilege and domination.
#5 Reject self-importance.
#6 Reject the notion that human beings have some kind of special “entitlement.”
#7 Reject self-Indulgence.
| Read more on social justice, ethnocultural recovery, Settler re-landing, rewilding, ancestral connections, sacred land and animism in Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community. www.stonecirclepress.com Available from Amazon >here< |
