I am enjoying listening to Dougie Mackay’s podcast, Tales for our times. I have just listened to this one. It’s easy to forget how colonisation has impacted us here in the UK. Yet, it is part of our story too, something we are all healing from when we acknowledge it’s there.
I belong to the land in Scotland. It’s just how it is, even though I don’t live there. I was born there and, in many ways, parented by the land. The attachments are strong and sing through me.
In my blood, I am a mix: half English with some Dutch and Spanish in there too, as well as Scottish. Growing up there, this felt edgy at times. I would often keep my bloodlines quiet as I learned more about what the Scottish people endured. To carry the ancestry of those who did the harm as well as those who were harmed. I grew up with sometimes derogatory comments from my family on the English side and often defensive ones, or bolstering ones, on the Scottish side.
I’ve found greater peace over the years. I have worked with themes around displacement that live through me and I have noticed how I have also inflicted this upon myself at times. The pain is still there. I still feel every part of it inside. If I turn away from it, it festers. If I turn toward it and use my voice and body, then it has a potency in which it has the potential to morph into something of beautiful in the face of great grief, shame and loss.
I don’t feel I am writing with great articulation or giving justice to this topic. My intention was to share Dougie’s podcast and a story that touched me. It appears these words want to flow. There is so so much more in this and I want to acknowledge that. This is a story we all carry, however far back we can trace it. Perhaps there was an original wound that set off all these grabs for power which have impacted so many on deeply personal and collective levels, perhaps it’s something we have always faced that was, at some point, amplified until we find ourselves where we are now… so much to turn toward in each of ourselves, so much to turn toward collectively.
Stories are powerful. Let them touch you. Thank you dear Dougie. (I am referring to Episode 2 in writing this).