On this much needed rainy day in Ontario, I just listened to this really good podcast about wealth and power and the roots of racism on colonialism. 

It’s 42 minutes but I had it in the background while sorting out fragments of my paintings. 

Long ago, I had cut up old paintings on paper and canvas into fragments. 

Today I took them out, inspired by a new group I had just joined – the Global Art Project. (more about them later, but click the link if you are curious!)

The combination of the podcast and art, allowed me to engage my ‘radical self’ with doing art

that led to a rare moment of integration of soul – art and social justice.

For those in Canada, we are in an uncomfortable moment in Canadian history when people are trying to reckon with a dark past

but it is only through sitting with that discomfort and confronting it that we can all move forward.

Thank you for your openness in receiving this email that is in lieu of a blog, which many of you signed up for.

It’s taken me more than 4 months to write another one and this doesn’t even fit that definition…it certainly is a spur of the moment email…

but many of you are friends and collectors – who will not judge me, I hope 😊

So please click this link to that powerful podcast I just HAD TO share with you.

It’s by Transnational Institute in conversation with Dr. Roger van Zwanenberg, the founder of Pluto books.

The other podcasts of Dr. Roger van Zwanenberg are here on the wealth and power website.

While I somewhat have your attention, I also want to share the Decolonial Reading List by Sundaura Alford-Purvis here

In her words about this reading list, I quote

“I’ve compiled a list of some of the teachers and resources that have helped me get started on a process of change that I expect I will be working on for the rest of my life. But the sense of moving in a direction that sooths, rather than grates against, my soul is more than worth the effort that this journey will require.

While not sufficient on their own, because we don’t truly internalize anything until we begin to practice it, the words of these authors and speakers can help trace out patterns of thinking and living that arise from living in relationship with the land, plants and other life that we rely on for our continued existence.

I’ve roughly ordered them as I would suggest reading/listening to them. Starting with authors who carefully bridge the distance between Indigenous teachings and the Colonized ways of thinking that many of us have been raised within. As you work down the list, you’ll encounter some clear eyed and unapologetic accountings of the wreckage caused by Colonial expansion over the centuries and how that wreckage became the foundation of what is often referred to as the ‘Developed World’.

Here is the link to the Decolonial Reading List by Sundaura Alford-Purvis again.