April 5, 2022 • 52 mins
This week in an episode from the HER archives, I talked with Potawatomi author and speaker Kaitlin Curtice about her new book Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God. Listen in as Kaitlin shares her journey of decolonization and reconnecting with her identity as an Indigenous woman. To find out more about Kaitlin Curtice, visit https://kaitlincurtice.com/.
To get transcripts, links, and details from each episode, check out the show notes. To continue your support of the podcast and my work, become a member of my Patreon community where you can get access to archived episodes, bonus episodes, and behind the scenes content. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter, for podcast clips, poetry quotes and random quips. For information on how to book me to speak or perform at an event, visit amenabrown.com. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hey, everybody. This week, check out this episode from her archives,
where I talked with Potawatamy author and speaker Caitlyn Curtis.
Can y'all believe it's been two years of the pandemic.
This episode was recorded in May. Caitlin and I had
planned for our conversation to be a part of her
book tour for her book Native Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God.
(00:52):
The book tour was supposed to be in person. We're
supposed to have this conversation in front of an audience,
but we had to pivot to Instagram Live during the
alter in place listening as we discuss Caitlin's journey of
decolonization and reconnecting with her identity as an Indigenous woman.
Check it out. Are you there? Did m to Graham Live?
(01:16):
Oh my gosh, I think you might be my first
person that I ever like done this type of thing,
So thank you, Thank you for joining everyone welcome. Prior
to COVID nineteen, Caitlyn and I were supposed to be
doing this live in full effect in Atlanta. There's gonna
(01:36):
be a reading that we were gonna talk. We were
going to your hands, We're gonna do all sorts of
things that we can't do now. So I'm gonna hold
up Caitlin's book even though I know it will be
backwards for you all, but this get right here. See
(01:57):
need to do this. So if you don't have a
copy already, please please please get your copy and get
maybe like four more copies I think you should get.
I think you should buy five copies of Kalin's book,
is what I'm telling you. So get this. You can
get this from your favorite bookseller. We are recommending that
(02:17):
that is an indie bookseller, if you can do it.
We want to make sure we can help our indie
booksellers during this time. So if you have any favorites
of those, do that. Caitlin. We have so much to
talk about, you know, a thousand things, but I would
love for you to maybe pick a poem from your book.
Would you do that and do a bitever reading for us.
(02:38):
Caitlin's book is a mix of poetry and nonfiction, but
you will get a chance to hear a little bit
of the poetry tonight, So can you share with us. Okay,
I'm gonna read um. This is the poem from the
very beginning of the book. So from part one called Beginnings,
and this is the poem. So the book is put
into five sections, and each section starts with a poem,
(03:00):
because I just wanted to give people like sort of
a breath before you get into the hard stuff. So
this is the phone at the very beginning of the book.
Before there was everything, there was nothing. But before there
was nothing, there was something, something other, unbound beyond above mystery.
(03:20):
No one could grasp it then and no one can
grasp it now, not even with these realities coming among
us and creating something new day in and day out,
despite our dry and weary bones. Because before us there
was everything, and before everything, nothing was something, and something
(03:41):
was the beginning, and we are just dust from its
long flowing robe, y'all. I have to do all the
clapping like we would, So I just loved getting to
hear more of that. We got to hear a little
bit of your poetry and lyrical writing and your first
(04:03):
foot glory happening, which you all are also welcome to
go and buy that too. You know, you can go
and buy five copies of that if you'd like to
as well. But it's wonderful to have that in each section. Yes,
there's like a poem that corresponds every Every essay has
like a prayer that's basically a poem behind it. So yeah, yeah,
(04:24):
I just okay, I have a thousand things I'm trying
to talk to you about, Caitlin, So let me let
me try to think about even where to begin. I
guess the place, but one place where I want to
start is. Decolonization and deconstruction are two big things, uh
in this book, right, and I love that as a
(04:45):
part of your own journey and story. It was really
beautiful for me to see that it's not just about
decolonizing and deconstructing. It's about what we are rebuilding as well.
It's about what we decide, we reclaim, we return into
what we make, what we create. You also have this
wonderful quote in the book where you say decolonization is
(05:06):
always an invitation. Can you tell us more what has
the process been like for you decolonizing in general, decolonizing
your spirituality? What has that been like? And how do
you get from the decolonizing and deconstructing to what you
will build what will be? Yeah? You know, so for
those who don't know, you know, de decolonization is sort
(05:29):
of the very um academic term, you know. So it's
like it can literally be like like nations breaking down
their systems of colonization, um. But I'm taking it on
more of a personal level of let's examine what systems
we participate in, and let's figure out if we can
take the colonization out of those things or step away
(05:49):
from from colonization. So within Christianity, I'm asking, like, can
we be Christian and get to it Jesus, that's not
a colonizer, that's not white like we've been taught, um.
And what I'm learning and understanding is that, you know,
deconstruction and decolonization for me have gone sort of hand
in hand, and that like it's not just like you
flip on a switch and you're done. It's not like
(06:11):
I'm decolonized now, like it's all good, you know, or
I've I've deconstructed now, Like these are very long processes
that I think our lifetime. I mean, this is this
is what being human is is. If we're born into
a world that's a colonized world, it's going to take
our whole lives to to continue breaking that down. But
I think that's also really beautiful because we get to
(06:33):
do it together, like this is what it means to
be human? And you know, I think for me, it's
just you know, when you become an adult, you begin
to ask questions of the systems you grew up in,
and so it's it's a natural process to ask these
questions and to go on that journey of really considering,
like am I the only one who does this? Like
for other people doing it? Finding your people like that? Um,
(06:55):
there are so many people who are on this journey.
There's so many people who are asking within Christianity, can
this thing be decolonized or not? And I think that
we just we have to find new ways to talk
about it and we have to journey together through it.
And but I mean through this. This book was hard
to write. It was hard to write because decolonizing is
(07:15):
it's painful, like you're you're examining and you're looking and
you're facing truth and then you're digging out what you
can get rid of and you're keeping some of Like
it's hard, you know, Um, but it's beautiful, Like it's
it's a beautiful journey too. I want to know, can
you think of And I'm sure this came up in
some book chapters too, But can you describe to us
(07:38):
was there like a moment or a catalyst that you
felt was a tipping point on you beginning that decolonization journey.
I mean in your book you talk about your your
time like growing up closer to Native community, talked about
your time growing up being in this totally different environment
that was very like Southern Baptist and right, and what
(08:00):
what was a moment or maybe some key moments where
you felt like there was this tipping point in you
of saying there is decolonization work I want to do. Um.
I think, uh, Standing Rock was one. Standing Rock was
one of the first kind of spaces that kind of
just like broke me wide open to like, okay, like
this is this is the Indigenous story and I'm part
(08:22):
of it, and like something has to like something has
to be done. And so that kind of breaking open
like just coinciding with my own journey of listening to
myself and honoring my ancestors in a way that I
hadn't been taught to do before, you know, coming back
to myself in a way. And then that coincided with
me with you know, becoming a worship leader in a
(08:45):
church that's progressive. And then realizing that they don't actually
want the native parts of me really like that they're
uncomfortable with those parts. Then it's like, well, what do
I do? You know, It's like literally like what am
I supposed to do? Right now? Do I stay here,
I stay with only parts of me in this building
and with these people? Do I choose to leave? And
And in that moment, I chose to leave. And then
(09:08):
it just kind of like when I realized that church
really might not be a safe place for me anymore.
I think that that was like, Okay, um, if this
system I've grown up in isn't safe like I thought
it was and able to deal with my change and transformation,
like then I don't know how to be a part
of it. And so I had to start asking those questions.
(09:28):
Oh so I did I participated in these missions? Like
I participated in purity culture. I participated in the way
that these people are treating me. I probably participated in
that towards someone else. And you know, it's just like
then you just start going back in time and like
recognizing all these things that you did, Like I want to,
like I want to send emails to all of the
people in high school that I witnessed to until them
(09:50):
I'm sorry all, Like, I just want to be like,
I'm I'm really sorry about that. Yeah. Like I think
about some of the places that I went growing up
on mission trips and just want to be like, if
there was a way to somehow have a translator in
this you know, particular community where we were and be
like other people here in their language that um, I'm
(10:14):
sorry for his bull right here, and I'm sorry about
that please. Oh gosh, yeah, it's such a real thing.
It makes me think to Caitlin, you know, just as
I was reading through your book, and you know, in
my own process of decolonization and deconstruction and how and
how both things can be very scary, especially as they
(10:37):
are connected to your spirituality and as they might be
connected to your personal identity, because then you're starting to
be like, well, if I start decolonizing and pulling out
the books I was told to read and the people's
voices I was told to believe are the truth tellers,
and then I realized, well, they're not telling the truth,
and that starts pulling out from under you, like all
these things and started feeling like you're out, they're floating
(11:01):
now at me. I remember having this moment when I
was in college and I graduated from Spellman College and
Spellman um For our people watching that aren't familiar with it,
Spellman is one of two all black, all women universities
and colleges in America. And I was coming from black
Pentecostal church background, right, And I remember the first class
(11:25):
I was in where one of um my classmates was
doing a presentation and she poured libations for her ancestors
before she started her presentation. And I had no like
theological framework for that, so I was like, the deathl
people your Bible, we will have to rebuke, rebuke hands.
(11:48):
Oh no, I didn't even know have to process any
of that, Kaitlin, Right. And then years later, especially as
I sort of feel like came in to my own
more as a poet, as a performer, as a speaker,
you know, then it wasn't as odd to me to
think about how the women before me are present with me,
(12:11):
you know, in my work, as I write, as I'm
on stage, and you and I just in our friendship
talk a lot about that, how you know the women
sort of the women that we know in our family line.
But even the women ancestors, we don't know how they
are informing our process and how we become who we become.
Can you tell me how how you think about that?
(12:34):
How how does sort of your connection to your remembrance
of your honor, of your ancestors in particular, uh, those
women ancestors. How do you find that sort of entering
your space as an author as a writer. Yeah, you know.
The so the the name of our tribe, the Patagatomy tribe,
means the people of the place of fire. And that's
(12:56):
like the fire metaphor is always I've always loved fire anyway,
and so fire metaphor has always meant a lot to
me of like keeping that fire burning. And um, and
what is beautiful about what you said is like the
women that we never knew who or names we might
not even know who are still the ones who came
before us. And um, you know, like my grandma, who's potowatomy,
(13:18):
So my my potopotomy Grandma like has visited me in
dreams before. And um. There I write in the book
about at our last house that we lived in, there
was a tree in the background. They reminded me of
her and I don't know why, it just did, you know.
So like when I visited that tree, I felt like
I was close to her. And and it's strange because
she died when I was in high school, and um,
we never talked about being potowatomy. Like it wasn't something
(13:41):
we talked about at all. It's just even if even
if she didn't talk about it, she still held she's
still potowatomy, and like that's still who I am. And um,
you know, for me, I think everything started happening in
me like this shift when I had children, because I
realized what am I going to give them? Like are
they they deserve to get more than I got, and
(14:02):
I want them to have that. I don't. I don't
want to be ashamed of who I am or bet
or not know how to talk about it. And along
the way, um, when it has been hard, like what
I've remembered is like the women who walked the trail
of death, So the women who marched from Indiana to
Kansas and this forced removal, who carried their babies and
who didn't give up, and who knew that they knew
(14:25):
that along the way that they might lose parts of
their culture and they were holding on as hard as
they could and this way that like assimilation just takes
from us. And it's just like we hold on for
dear life and we like claim resilience when and where
we can. And I just, um, I feel like those
women are constantly reminding me of who I am in
(14:46):
ways that i've They are probably not even like conscious
to me, you know, like they're just They're just there.
And that is very scary to Christianity, like that the
whole idea, Like it's there's so much of it that
is scary to people. Um, but so much of the
world lives like that. Like we learned listen and learn
from our ancestors, and we learned from ancestors mistakes, Like
(15:07):
I have native and non native ancestors. I have ancestors
who did things that were atrocious that I have to like,
I need to learn from that and be better, you know,
Like I am aware of the full spectrum of my
ancestors and I have to be available to that, to
those lessons and make sense of that for my life
and do what I need to do. And that's also
why de colonizing is so important, because I decolonized for
(15:30):
all of them. You know, So that's so powerful, that's
so powerful to think about. I want to ask the question,
but I got to tell like a little bit of
a story. And I'm more so telling the story for
our people that are watching and listening, as you and
I have talked quite a bit about it when we
were not recording for the public. But I took the
(15:51):
trip to Rewanda, actually my last trip to Rwanda, I
took with a team of black leaders and they were
leaders in different capacity, used on business, some theology, some
you know, pastors, like there was a lot of different
roles each of us had. And we were taking this
trip through Orwanda um to this particular area and we
(16:12):
were riding past this village and in the village, as
we're passing by, it just looks like it looks like
all the people in this community are working construction, is
what it looks like. And so as we're driving past,
it's like, you know, most of us in the van
that we're in, our black from America and then our
guide she is Rwandan and black. And then there was
(16:35):
one white man um from the organization on the American
side that we were working with, and so we stopped
in this village, and while we're there, we're asking, well,
what's happening here, because you're just walking by seeing like
all these people doing construction that you wouldn't think would
be doing that kind of building. And so our guide
(16:56):
was explaining to us. She said, you know, there are
people in the commun unity that are elderly that need
better homes, that need access to water. So the community
is building these homes for them. And so then someone
else on the bus said, well, where are they getting
the money, and she said, oh, the government. The government
gives them this money to like do this building. So
(17:16):
for some of us in our Black American context, it
just conjured up images of the projects, right, and like
when the government gives money to sort of shuttle people
to this one area, tell them this is where they
have to be, tell them how what materials it has
to be built out of. And our guys had to
tell us, oh, no, that's not what I mean, she said.
(17:37):
Our government works in more of a communal way. And
so she was like, the leaders of the village go
to the government and say, here's what our village needs.
Our village needs these homes for these elderly people, and
the government says here are the resources you need for that,
and everyone in the community comes together to accomplish it.
(17:57):
And she had to explain to us to the difference
between Rwandan history and American And as she's talking, I'm
also trying to translate, not in a language way, but
just translate, like what she's saying, how would that apply
in America? And of course in the story of Rwanda,
you know, we are seeing these two sort of tribal
groups of people, one that committed you know, egregious acts
(18:21):
of violence against the other. But the party that had
been oppressed, like the people that had been oppressed, came
into power in Rwanda and that changed a lot of
how the country was led. And so I said to
our rest of our people in the bus. They said,
it's kind of like if he would imagine what would
have happened to America if black and indigenous people had
(18:41):
come into power and had been sort of what we
are calling like the four Parents, the forefathers and four
mothers of the country. Like, imagine if we were looking
back to that and instead of you know, Thomas Jefferson
and George Washington and whoever those other names would have been,
that those would have been black and indigenous. I always
wanted to ask you and would love to just hear
(19:04):
you riff on this for a minute. If you could
reimagine America, if black and indigenous people had come into
leadership here, if black and indigenous people had built what
we are now calling America, what do you imagine this
country would have been? Like, you know, what's so sad
and hard about this is that we are so like
(19:25):
colonized and are thinking that it's hard to even figure
it out, Like it's so hard to even imagine it
because we've never seen it, and like it's like it's
like so hard to even conceptualize, you know, And like
that's so sad to me that like I have to
even think hard to get there, you know. But what
I think about is these ideas of which is ideas
(19:47):
of indigenous people all over the world, these ideas of
kinship and belonging and community. It's a communal way, like
COVID or a pandemic wouldn't be dealt with with these
individualists who are like rising up and like it would
have been dealt in a communal way, like dealt with
in that way. These ideas of like how do we
take care of each other as a whole, and how
(20:08):
do we you know, act in relationship to one another
in the earth. Like that's that's what I imagine, is
like these partnerships and collaborations that come together over caring
for the earth and caring for each other. Because that's
that's what I see today and small, these small collaborations
and these you know, like that's what I see is
(20:29):
black and Indigenous people coming together to say, like what
what needs to be better about this? And what does
de colonizing look like? Well, it looks like that we
we hold each other up and we hold space with
each other. And for natives, like we um pay attention
to anti blackness in the Native community, like and we
talk about that. And I'm a white passing Native, so
(20:50):
I talk about black and brown Natives and how they
face oppression very differently than I do. And like all,
you know, like we just have these honest conversations. But
they're rooted and kinship and they're rooted in belonging. And
that is just not the way that America has been
built by whiteness. It's not built that way. It is
built by you know, manifest destiny and pull yourself up
(21:12):
by footstraps, like all of this empire Christianity like mixed,
you know, and how would we have how would we
have grown together in honoring our ancestors? Then, you know,
even that like that that comes back, that would be
that would be such a different space in our life
than it is when we've grown up colonized and within
(21:34):
these systems of whiteness, you know. Yeah, like you referenced
in your book, Um Black Panther and sort of this
idea of of a place like kind that had not
been affected by colonization, you know. And so when I
think about this question, you know, even I was working
on a writing project recently where in the beginning of
(21:56):
what I had to write, I really wanted to honor,
you know, the Muskogee people because I was writing about
something like Atlanta related and I can't write about this
land without writing about that. And as I was sort
of digging into some research there, just made my brain
reimagine the nations that we're here are still here, and
(22:18):
like what it would be like sort of if what
conduct could you know, if we could have that experience
to get to reimagine that, and like what would it
be like to be here in Georgia and Atlanta where
we are, and to see what the people who were
on this land, what they were like and what they
were doing, and how we have found ways to participate
(22:41):
in some things together and honor the differences. They're like
I it's like, it's like I get really excited about it.
And I remember as we were talking about it the
bus we were in, it brought this like deep lament
in the bus. I remember as we were talking about it,
we all got really quiet and had to really we
have a moment of prayer right there and just lamenting that. Unfortunately,
(23:03):
that's not what happened. But one of the things I
have loved, not only about being your friend but also
just learning from you, is this constant reminder that Indigenous
people are here, that we when we talk about Native
and Indigenous people, we're not talking about some long time ago.
We are also talking about today. And I'd love to
(23:24):
hear from you who are the indigenous leaders I think
we think about, you know, what would have happened in
black in indigenous people had been sort of like the
founding government right of America. And thankfully we have so
many black and Indigenous leaders who are who are organizing
today who are reimagining America right? Who are are maybe
(23:45):
some of those people with just some of the work
that is really inspiring you right now? Ya um. I
love that because even in Native like I, I mostly
try to cite indigenous authors because just because I want
people to like if if my book is the first
book that anyone reads by an Indigenous person, that first
(24:05):
makes me sad because I don't want it to be
my book that's the first one, like I wanted to
be someone better than me. But but just like I
hope that this they go to the back and see
this list of all these possibilities and and they're not.
It's not like I'm citing all Christian Natives like it's
people all I mean, it's like socialists like what whatever,
(24:26):
like whatever kind of native like just read about us,
like learn something different, you know, um learn the truth
about our history. Um oh gosh, okay. I have. I
have so many leaders that I love, but um Tara
Huska who's a like climate activist, um Winona La Duke
(24:46):
who runs UM Honor the Earth, which they're just incredible.
I buy wild rice from them and so they um
harvest pipeline free wild Rice, so just like reconnecting back
to the land. Um Dallas Gold too, and my friend
Nick says both help with organizations that are just doing
incredible work. And and I just love it because we
(25:08):
all we all might imagine things a little differently in
the way that we decolonize. Like right now, all that
I can quite get to is like I need to
decolonize my Christianity. And they're they're like talking about the systems,
and they're talking about like governments, and they're talking to
indigenous people all over the world, and you know, so
it's like we're all um having this conversation in our
different context. You know. Some of us are academics, some
(25:31):
of us are not academics, like some of us are artists,
and we're just trying to like create what we can
where we can. And I think that that's really powerful
and important. But so sad to me as I see
(25:54):
these incredible people and I know that they, like in
the general audience of America, they're not going to be
heard and I'm not going to be heard because the
Indigenous story is so much in the past, like two people,
And I hope that books like mine like help wake
people up to that reality that we're just we're here
and we're creating things, you know, and we're we are leading,
(26:15):
whether you recognize it or not, like we're leading things
you know. Yes, yes, this is my reminder to you all.
If you are a late conversation. This is Caitlin's new
book Native, just out this week. Go as soon as
you finished listening to us and by by by five
(26:35):
copies of our books. I was imagine number. Okay. I
want to ask you also about ritual and ceremony. Um.
You talk about this in your book. We talked about
it too, Um, but you write about this in your
book and the importance of that in your heritage and
in how you are uh reincorporating certain things into your
(26:58):
Christian spirituality as well. And I would love to know
specifically what are the rituals or the ceremony, the honoring
that became a part of your writing process in this book.
Did you find yourself returning to certain certain things are
certain ways of being? I mean, you talked about this
(27:18):
tree that you had at one of the places where
you lived, Like, what are some of the things you
found yourself returning to as you were in the writing
process on this book. Yeah, So this book was, um
was really at times like painful to write. Like a
lot of times for me, writing is self care and
it's it's good to process. The writing parts of this
book were like I'm going to have to write about
(27:39):
this really traumatic thing and I really don't want to,
but I know it's important. And there are moments where
I had to smudge before I was writing side burned
stage or I would um do some of my Potowatomy
online lessons just because it's like just like grounding myself
in our language. Because learning to pray in Potowatomy was
one of the first things that like made it so
(28:00):
to me that like we have this beautiful, rich heritage
and story that I was never aware of until adulthood.
And like I I just like it was like I
was so thirsty and hungry for something and I didn't
didn't know what it was until I knew what it was.
And um, so praying and Pottawa to me has been
just um like such a balm to me and like
(28:22):
met good medicine to me. It's funny, um because I
I've always been weirdly ritualistic, so I'll like be like
I want to wear this ring every time I do
this thing, or you know, like I would like do
weird stuff like that. So like for this tour, I'm
wearing the same lipstick for every event because I don't
know why, I just damned, but for some reason it's
(28:43):
important to me. Um. So when I was traveling and speaking,
I would take There was a I had a braid
of sweet grass that a friend gave to me, and
I would take it everywhere I went to speak. And
I have earrings that have like sacred medicine in them
that a friend gave me, and I would wear those
when I spoke. So it's like, um, just these things
that are just like good energy and protection that a
(29:05):
lot of people probably wouldn't understand. There's a song by
Frank Wall that's called good Way, and I would listen
to it before certain talks, like if I was really stressed,
because it's it's a song about just like living in
a good way and honoring yourself an honoring creator, and
it's just a beautiful song by an indigenous person. So
it would ground me and like what I was about
(29:26):
to do, you know. And it's you know, because I
go and speak in predominantly white spaces and I speak
at places where I don't know how I'm going to
be received. It's been really important for me to ground
myself in my reality, like this is who I am,
that fire is in me, this is why I'm called
to do this work, this is why I won't give up.
(29:47):
And um, and when the certain events are especially hard,
like I have to just like have the music and
the earrings and the sweet grass, like just I need
these like things to hold me because um, I just
need to remember, you know, yeah, yeah saying saying same like,
I mean, I miss it terribly right now that I'm
(30:08):
not able to do like stage work. But when I
was doing all this stage work, you know, even though
you know you're you know, imagining eighteen year old me,
that was like libations in the name no, you know.
And then all these years later, I feel like one
of the times in life that I feel sort of
that presence of my grandmother or my great grandmother's or
(30:30):
even the women before me that I didn't know, is
like that a few moments right before I have to
go on stage, you know. And I mean that's just
always a time of fayer for me and always a
time of calling upon their courage, the courage that it
takes to stand in what was their moment and experienced
(30:52):
those parts. And I think having rituals to remind us
of that, I think is so beautiful. And I have
a request because one of my favorite poems in here
was one that you wrote to your ancestors. Would you
read that for us? Yeah? Let me let me get
my book. My my phone's dying, so I'm like, no,
(31:13):
oh my god, guys, doing technology is hard. Okay, hold on,
let me from where it won't fall. So I set
a rock on the cord so that it is a
place I got it down. Don't worry, Okay, let me
find it. Okay. Yeah, So this is that chapter. The
chapter is called Ancestors, and this is a poem that
(31:36):
I kind of wrote to my ancestors, passed on one.
I see they're not your skin and bones, nor the
frame that once held you. I see your aura, your spirit,
your essence. I see the glow of who you once
were and who you are today. I see, somehow the
imprint of what you've left me here. It's not a
(31:58):
thumb print, but some other form of spirit code. Somehow
the shape of you carves lines into the essence of
who I am. Somehow I am enough because you were enough. Ancestor,
your name will always be the sound of breath in
my lungs. Ancestor, your face will always look like the
face of my own children. Ancestor, your essence will always
(32:22):
feel like the wind when it slips through the tree branches,
singing a song. You dear one, lead me Still. I
feel the gifts you've left me, and I wonder how
much more is waiting. I learned my own way as
I reckon with your mistakes and realize that you were
human once like I am human now. I wonder how
much you notice from the other side? What does God
(32:45):
feel like? I'll wait and one day you'll show me.
Ah Oh, I love that so much. That question of
what does God feel like? So powerful? Caitlin, Okay, I
have one more quote I want to read. Y'all, Caitlin
and I are just gonna be talking until installment broum
(33:06):
be Like, y'all can't talk no more. So we're just
gonna keep talking to let's say, because but I have
one other question I wanted to ask, and it was
just this powerful section you had. This is from the
chapter self examined, and you have this quote here that
says for black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.
(33:28):
It is especially difficult to approach the topic of self
care because the system of self care is often so
unreachable for those who do not have the money to
take care of themselves. There are many layers of privilege
in the conversations, and self care is often commodified, becoming
yet another product of capitalism. When this happens, it also
(33:48):
becomes harder for many of us to care for ourselves.
We must consider all of this, and we must consider
how our oppressive systems keep so many from getting the
care they need. Self care is for everyone to help
us be more healthy humans. But to get there, we
all need to be honest about how the system of
self care works for all of us. I I loved
(34:14):
that you took some time to excavate this because I
think I think self care is a question I want
to ask every woman of color that I ever in.
I always want to know how how are you taking
care of yourself in the midst of, you know, resisting empire,
in the midst of decolonizing, in the midst of the deconstruction,
(34:36):
How in the midst of facing white supremacy every day,
how do you take care of yourself? Right? Um? And
then sometimes in some shallow ways, it's sort of like
what's being put upon us is this idea that like
it's getting your nails done, you know, like and I'm
not saying those things the self care, but you examining
(34:58):
here the system of self care was so powerful, and
I think it gives us a more holistic idea of
what that actually means. And I would love to hear
you talk more about how you find yourself finding a
process of what holistic self care looks like, beyond the capitalism,
(35:20):
beyond how com modified it's become. What are your thoughts?
It's funny, so when I started therapy, I couldn't afford it.
So the therapist I started seeing already knocked it down
a lot. And then one of my followers on Twitter
was like, I'll pay for your first six months of therapy.
Just tell me how much it is, just like like
PayPal me uh an amount and I'll pay for your sessions.
(35:40):
And so, um, that's how I got to go to therapy,
Like otherwise I never would have been able to afford it.
And but at the same time, like I know the
privilege that I have to even have the resources or
access to even get to a therapist that's a good one,
like I you know. So that's what I'm saying, Like
it's so layer and it's not a straight conversationation, but
when you know, when you have women I'm not trying
(36:03):
to judge when you have women who are like I
had a self care day. I went to the spot,
and then I had lunch with my best friend, and
then I went shopping, and then I had dinner with
my other best friend, and then I when I saw
a movie like that's amazing and I love that you
get to do that. Most of us can't do that.
And and at the end of the day, like, um,
(36:23):
I have to ask what self like For me getting
my nails done. It doesn't do anything, But for a
long time I felt like that was what I was
supposed to do for self care because I was told that, like,
go get your nails done, that's what women do for
self care. And then I'd be like, oh, you're right,
and I'd go do it. And then I spent a
lot of money and I didn't like it. And then
they chipped after two days and I was like what
(36:44):
am I doing? I didn't I didn't enjoy this, And
so like I've had to be honest about what self
care is for me, like and and it's things like
learning my language. Um, it's it literally is things like
um smudging and like burning stage to cleanse my anxiety. UM,
deep breathing which is free. Like that's something that I
(37:07):
like deep breathing people, which is free, like doing breathing exercises.
This helps so much with my anxiety. And then these
systems of like self care for me is like learning
to break down these systems of like people pleasing and
saying yes to things that I've had to do that
(37:27):
I have to start being honest about. And that's like
the hard self care. And that's not like the I'm
going to spend an afternoon with the magazines and just
like chill out and watch a movie, which is also
self care for me, Like that hard self care of
like I'm gonna like look at these systems that I've
been taught to participate in as a woman, and I'm
going to choose not to have to smile all the time,
(37:49):
and I'm going to choose to say no to things
and I'm going to choose and like that for me
has been some real self care. That's hard self care
because self care is and always like fun either, you know,
but we I think we package it like it's supposed
to be fun, like shopping is fun. I definitely walk
around good Will while I used to when it was open,
(38:10):
I would walk around good Will. For self care, I'll
just walk walk around and shopping which is cheap, so
off care, I did an expensive people a jam. I mean,
I'm back in therapy now, you know. We we we
celebrate those who are able to access therapy or access
(38:31):
those things, whether that can be books or podcast whatever
you can access that can help you begin to do
that healing. But I was in a place where I
was like, I need to save up this money and
see a professional. So I've had one of my first
sessions with her and she was like, I think you
need to do some journaling and I'm gonna send you
some prompts. And I was like, do what now She's like, no,
(38:55):
want you. She was like every day, I want you
to journal on one of these prompts and then I
want to talk about it next time you me. And
it was one of those moments where I was like, I'm, oh,
I'm sorry you want me to work, you know, I like,
we don't think about that to self care. Like I
feel like that's what you're saying. Yes, Like healing and
growing can be hard sometimes it will not always be relaxing,
(39:19):
but it will lead us to peace. Yeah, And these
you know, are built for us to not get self care,
Like these systems don't want us. They don't want me
to consider my identity, they don't want me to learn
about all that I am. They don't want me to
write write this book like you know, like I'm at
the I'm at the number one near released in a
(39:40):
Christian Spiritual Growth still and it just makes me laugh
because all the other books are just these very evangelical,
mostly white books and like I'm they're hanging out at
the top. And it's so ironic because I speak against
so much of the Christian growth, like the kind of
stuff we talk about right now, I'm I'm saying other things,
(40:02):
but these are things that I think will actually make
us grow is by doing this really hard stuff and
it will, you know, like it is a form of
collective self care if you want to think of it
that way, Like decolonizing is is self care too, and
it's so true. It doesn't feel like the definition we have.
But I love that. I love that you went to
that point in your book and and are giving us
(40:24):
You're giving us a broader definition of that. And I
think there's so much of your book that's calling us
back not just to our individual you know, thoughts and feelings,
but also how does our individual healing and growth connect
to the collective, to the community, you know, as as
you are processing, how does that connect to your how
(40:45):
to want to be heritage? I mean that's one of
the things that really meant a lot to me reading
this that it's very it's reminding us to be communal, yes,
and to be to be indigenous. To honor Indigenous people
is to be reminded did that we we are communal
people who are not individualistic people, right, So they haven't
(41:05):
kicked us off yet, Caitlin. I mean, I don't know
if anybody has any questions. If they have questions, they
better be right questions or not asking her. I do
want to ask you this though. Um, the book is
out now and there are all these phases to book writing, right,
there's like the initial moment where you're like, I think
(41:28):
this is the book I need to write. And then
there's when you do the actual writing, and then there
for those of you that have not written books yet,
you have written your book, and then there's almost like
this pause, this sort of like before the story experience,
before the book comes out, where you are in a
(41:48):
way you're almost like able to ignore this and act
like these vulnerable things you have written are not about
to turn out into the public. And then it's time
for your book to come out, which this is book
released week for you, Like, how does it feel seeing
the words be out there? I mean, I'm assuming you're
(42:10):
already getting responses from people as they're eating, Like, how
does this phase of this particular book feel now that
it's out there? You know, I've had so much anxiety
about this book because it's a book that like a
lot of people won't like for a lot of reasons,
you know, And and and that's okay, Like it's a
(42:31):
very personal book. It's a you know, it's really like
digging into a lot of my own stuff. But like
what I realized this week when the book came out
and people started like speaking back to me, what I
wrote and talking about it. I was able to like
finally tell people with the books about because I feel
like I had interviews in that lull where people would
be like, so, what's your book about, and I'd be like, um,
(42:52):
and then it would take me like twenty minutes to
figure out how to tell people. And now I like,
I know what to say, you know, like I know
what the book about because someone read it and they
told me, like they told me what it's about, and
that reflected what I hoped it was about. And so
we're good now, you know, Like, but it was a
it was a weird space in there, and I don't know,
people on the internet have been really amazing, like so far,
(43:15):
just like so supportive, and it's so scary to release
a book in a pandemic, like what in the world,
Like what do we even like I have no there's
no way to know how it's gonna go, and so
to have this support has been awesome, Like it's been
really beautiful. I'm really surprised by it. I I talked
to Caitlin on the phone earlier today all and I
(43:35):
told her, like it was just making me so happy,
like seeing everyone sharing your book and supporting you because
your your voice is so needed and I we we
actually for those of you that are new to the conversation,
Caitlyn and I put out our last books on the
same day actually, so we were kind of like walking
(43:56):
together through that whole like, oh my god, what did
we feeling? Um, so I got to have that experience
with you with your first book, which was also so wonderful.
So it was just it just did my heart a
lot of good to see how much people are supporting
this and the people all here gonna support it. They
don't be buying five of these books at the time,
can buy them for yourself. The thing a good thing
(44:18):
about buying five books people is when people are like, oh, man,
like I would love a copy of Kitless book, you
can be like, oh my god, it you know, I'm
just goope, okay. We do have one question. Oh, it's
just asked. How do you respond when someone claims that
you aren't a believer because of how they perceive your
(44:40):
theology to be something that's unconventional. Well, we can just
talk about what happened at Baylor a few months ago.
That's what's um, you know, because there they you know,
they were like she's, oh when they call me a
pagan sympathizer, which is funny to me because I'm like,
I would rather just be called taken. I don't really
(45:01):
know what what your point is, you know. Um, what
I'm what I'm learning is that the more that I
pushed back on Christianity and what what people think Christianity is,
the more that I received this kind of negative pushback.
And I'm learning to kind of take it as a
m h not medal of honor. But I'm like, I'm
(45:21):
okay with it. Um, you know, I think it would
be harder to receive it from like from close friends
or from friends that like have known need for a
long time and are like what are you doing? You know,
like who just don't understand. Like, of course that's harder
when you get it from your personal like people. Um.
But like when the Baylor thing happened, it was really hard.
(45:43):
But then there was this again on Twitter, like all
these people were like, go by Caitlin's book, like this
is why her work matters, and I just was so
overwhelmed by that. And so I just have to like
look to my ancestors, look to why we have gone
through this and then look to the people, whether the
Christian or not, who have always supported me, and I like, no,
(46:05):
and I know that they will. And there are people
who who, because my book is with Christian Publishing House,
won't buy it because they think I'm writing a book
like every other Christian. And it's kind of one of
those things where you just have to read it and
see what you think, because it's not I'm not gonna
be what you think it is either way, like I
am in the Christian world, but it's also very much
(46:27):
it would bother a lot of Christians what I've written,
you know, And so but I'm okay with that. Look
I'm trying to tell you, and I think it's I
think even as we've been talking about which is so
present here in your book, as we've been talking about
what you know, deconstruction and decolonization. Look like you know,
I was just talking to my husband about how, you know,
as I was growing up, I sort of I had
(46:49):
a very binary faith and it worked for me for
a long time until I was like, well, well, well
life is getting really not so binary. What does that mean?
You know? And I think, um, there were so many
things I was taught to believe in various not just
(47:10):
like my upbringing as a child, but my upbringing in
different like faith environment. You know. That made me feel
like if I start asking more questions, if I start
feeling like some definitions, I used to have a broadening
that that's the slippery slope that you know, I mean,
that was the actual term, Like you're gonna get down there,
(47:32):
it's gonna be a slippery slope. My husband, My husband,
I always joke, there's always this phrase, people would say,
be careful, like five these careful You'll be like, I'm
just trying to learn a few things, not like um oh,
(47:54):
literal ice sliding down, ice broken, we're just metaphorical ice. Yeah,
it is. It's really scary. It's scary, and I know,
I know we scare people, but it's okay, Like it's okay,
it's okay to be challenged, Like that's that's how we grow.
(48:16):
Like you read a thing and you're like, I don't
know if I am I like that, and then you
think about it for five days and you decide more
whether it might be something to consider, Like that's that's
what we do as humans, and that's okay. Okay, we
got two more questions, Caitlin, you have time, yeah, two
more is good and then okay, So first question is
(48:39):
what's your favorite coffee that you're drinking right now? Oh? Gosh,
we buy um. We buy our coffee from a local
international market here in Atlanta. They roast their beans. There.
Have you bought their coffee at the cab Farmers Market? Girl?
Did you know they roast beans? I don't know. I
don't know. It's really good. Anyway. We buy a like
(49:00):
a light roast um being coffee bean bag bag of
coffee beans at the at the market and then we
bring it home and grind it and it's our favorite. Um.
I like South American blends, if that's the kind of
thing you're wanting to know. I don't like African blends
as much. They're more acidic for me, and they're heard
my stomach a little. So I like South American, like
(49:22):
Brazil and Columbian. Wow. Um, I just may have learned
more about coffee than anticipated. Thank you. Um. Someone also
asked what did you learn about yourself while writing this book?
Oh gosh, I learned so much. Um. There's this quote
by E. Cummings. I said it to Glenn in the
(49:42):
other night too. But it's like, be courageous enough to
grow up and become who you really are. And I
think that this book was just that next step for
me to grow up and become who I am, you know,
like to look at my own story, Hi, tiff, oh,
my sisters here, um, to look at my own story
from my perspective, like just to to take it from
(50:04):
myself and go through my childhood and go through you know,
and like just say, who was I at these phases
of life? And what what am I learning? What am
I learning about myself now? And just to kind of
have that conversation with myself and then let everyone listen
in on it, so you know, and it it I
learned so much, so much. Yeah, uh, that's so good, y'all.
(50:27):
I could talk to Caitlin all night long, and thankfully
Instagram must have gave us a few extra minutes because
Caitlin is amazing. So I want to remind you to
do this. This book right here. You can get this
wherever you like. To buy your books, five of them,
(50:48):
that would be the best thing. Caitlin Curtis, do you
have any closing words you want to share with the people?
Do you have any upcoming things you want to tell
the people, and of course the people are not following you,
they need to do that too. Yeah, there's a whole
bunch of podcasts that are coming out soon. I did
one with The Liturgist yesterday, and um, just a bunch
(51:10):
of podcasts. And so please read the book and review
it online and tell people about it because I'm yeah,
I've just been so encouraged by the conversations that are
already being started because of it. So please buy it
and read it. I would love that. Caitlin, thank you
for letting me be a part of your virtual book tour.
Thank you all for joining us and listening. This will
be available on my i G for the next twenty
(51:32):
four hours and you don't know, Okaylin and I might
get back together and talk about all sorts of things,
you know, to make sure you do this. You're gonna
get this for yourself, okay K, thank you so much.
Thank you. I love talking to Caitlin. I hope you
(51:53):
enjoyed listening in on our conversation and I'm hoping to
have her back on the podcast very soon to find
out more about out Caitlin. Visit Caitlin Curtis dot com.
That's k I T L I n c U R
T I c e dot com. And don't worry if
you do not get this spelling correct. You can get
(52:13):
the correct spelling and other tidbits links things from the
show in the show notes. You can check out the
show notes at Amina Brown dot com. Slash her with Amina,
see you all next week. Her What Amina Brown is
(52:39):
produced by Matt Owen for slobar Fiti Productions as a
part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with
I Heart Radio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate,
and review the podcast.
Hey, everybody. This week, check out this episode from her archives,
where I talked with Potawatamy author and speaker Caitlyn Curtis.
Can y'all believe it's been two years of the pandemic.
This episode was recorded in May. Caitlin and I had
planned for our conversation to be a part of her
book tour for her book Native Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God.
(00:52):
The book tour was supposed to be in person. We're
supposed to have this conversation in front of an audience,
but we had to pivot to Instagram Live during the
alter in place listening as we discuss Caitlin's journey of
decolonization and reconnecting with her identity as an Indigenous woman.
Check it out. Are you there? Did m to Graham Live?
(01:16):
Oh my gosh, I think you might be my first
person that I ever like done this type of thing,
So thank you, Thank you for joining everyone welcome. Prior
to COVID nineteen, Caitlyn and I were supposed to be
doing this live in full effect in Atlanta. There's gonna
(01:36):
be a reading that we were gonna talk. We were
going to your hands, We're gonna do all sorts of
things that we can't do now. So I'm gonna hold
up Caitlin's book even though I know it will be
backwards for you all, but this get right here. See
(01:57):
need to do this. So if you don't have a
copy already, please please please get your copy and get
maybe like four more copies I think you should get.
I think you should buy five copies of Kalin's book,
is what I'm telling you. So get this. You can
get this from your favorite bookseller. We are recommending that
(02:17):
that is an indie bookseller, if you can do it.
We want to make sure we can help our indie
booksellers during this time. So if you have any favorites
of those, do that. Caitlin. We have so much to
talk about, you know, a thousand things, but I would
love for you to maybe pick a poem from your book.
Would you do that and do a bitever reading for us.
(02:38):
Caitlin's book is a mix of poetry and nonfiction, but
you will get a chance to hear a little bit
of the poetry tonight, So can you share with us. Okay,
I'm gonna read um. This is the poem from the
very beginning of the book. So from part one called Beginnings,
and this is the poem. So the book is put
into five sections, and each section starts with a poem,
(03:00):
because I just wanted to give people like sort of
a breath before you get into the hard stuff. So
this is the phone at the very beginning of the book.
Before there was everything, there was nothing. But before there
was nothing, there was something, something other, unbound beyond above mystery.
(03:20):
No one could grasp it then and no one can
grasp it now, not even with these realities coming among
us and creating something new day in and day out,
despite our dry and weary bones. Because before us there
was everything, and before everything, nothing was something, and something
(03:41):
was the beginning, and we are just dust from its
long flowing robe, y'all. I have to do all the
clapping like we would, So I just loved getting to
hear more of that. We got to hear a little
bit of your poetry and lyrical writing and your first
(04:03):
foot glory happening, which you all are also welcome to
go and buy that too. You know, you can go
and buy five copies of that if you'd like to
as well. But it's wonderful to have that in each section. Yes,
there's like a poem that corresponds every Every essay has
like a prayer that's basically a poem behind it. So yeah, yeah,
(04:24):
I just okay, I have a thousand things I'm trying
to talk to you about, Caitlin, So let me let
me try to think about even where to begin. I
guess the place, but one place where I want to
start is. Decolonization and deconstruction are two big things, uh
in this book, right, and I love that as a
(04:45):
part of your own journey and story. It was really
beautiful for me to see that it's not just about
decolonizing and deconstructing. It's about what we are rebuilding as well.
It's about what we decide, we reclaim, we return into
what we make, what we create. You also have this
wonderful quote in the book where you say decolonization is
(05:06):
always an invitation. Can you tell us more what has
the process been like for you decolonizing in general, decolonizing
your spirituality? What has that been like? And how do
you get from the decolonizing and deconstructing to what you
will build what will be? Yeah? You know, so for
those who don't know, you know, de decolonization is sort
(05:29):
of the very um academic term, you know. So it's
like it can literally be like like nations breaking down
their systems of colonization, um. But I'm taking it on
more of a personal level of let's examine what systems
we participate in, and let's figure out if we can
take the colonization out of those things or step away
(05:49):
from from colonization. So within Christianity, I'm asking, like, can
we be Christian and get to it Jesus, that's not
a colonizer, that's not white like we've been taught, um.
And what I'm learning and understanding is that, you know,
deconstruction and decolonization for me have gone sort of hand
in hand, and that like it's not just like you
flip on a switch and you're done. It's not like
(06:11):
I'm decolonized now, like it's all good, you know, or
I've I've deconstructed now, Like these are very long processes
that I think our lifetime. I mean, this is this
is what being human is is. If we're born into
a world that's a colonized world, it's going to take
our whole lives to to continue breaking that down. But
I think that's also really beautiful because we get to
(06:33):
do it together, like this is what it means to
be human? And you know, I think for me, it's
just you know, when you become an adult, you begin
to ask questions of the systems you grew up in,
and so it's it's a natural process to ask these
questions and to go on that journey of really considering,
like am I the only one who does this? Like
for other people doing it? Finding your people like that? Um,
(06:55):
there are so many people who are on this journey.
There's so many people who are asking within Christianity, can
this thing be decolonized or not? And I think that
we just we have to find new ways to talk
about it and we have to journey together through it.
And but I mean through this. This book was hard
to write. It was hard to write because decolonizing is
(07:15):
it's painful, like you're you're examining and you're looking and
you're facing truth and then you're digging out what you
can get rid of and you're keeping some of Like
it's hard, you know, Um, but it's beautiful, Like it's
it's a beautiful journey too. I want to know, can
you think of And I'm sure this came up in
some book chapters too, But can you describe to us
(07:38):
was there like a moment or a catalyst that you
felt was a tipping point on you beginning that decolonization journey.
I mean in your book you talk about your your
time like growing up closer to Native community, talked about
your time growing up being in this totally different environment
that was very like Southern Baptist and right, and what
(08:00):
what was a moment or maybe some key moments where
you felt like there was this tipping point in you
of saying there is decolonization work I want to do. Um.
I think, uh, Standing Rock was one. Standing Rock was
one of the first kind of spaces that kind of
just like broke me wide open to like, okay, like
this is this is the Indigenous story and I'm part
(08:22):
of it, and like something has to like something has
to be done. And so that kind of breaking open
like just coinciding with my own journey of listening to
myself and honoring my ancestors in a way that I
hadn't been taught to do before, you know, coming back
to myself in a way. And then that coincided with
me with you know, becoming a worship leader in a
(08:45):
church that's progressive. And then realizing that they don't actually
want the native parts of me really like that they're
uncomfortable with those parts. Then it's like, well, what do
I do? You know, It's like literally like what am
I supposed to do? Right now? Do I stay here,
I stay with only parts of me in this building
and with these people? Do I choose to leave? And
And in that moment, I chose to leave. And then
(09:08):
it just kind of like when I realized that church
really might not be a safe place for me anymore.
I think that that was like, Okay, um, if this
system I've grown up in isn't safe like I thought
it was and able to deal with my change and transformation,
like then I don't know how to be a part
of it. And so I had to start asking those questions.
(09:28):
Oh so I did I participated in these missions? Like
I participated in purity culture. I participated in the way
that these people are treating me. I probably participated in
that towards someone else. And you know, it's just like
then you just start going back in time and like
recognizing all these things that you did, Like I want to,
like I want to send emails to all of the
people in high school that I witnessed to until them
(09:50):
I'm sorry all, Like, I just want to be like,
I'm I'm really sorry about that. Yeah. Like I think
about some of the places that I went growing up
on mission trips and just want to be like, if
there was a way to somehow have a translator in
this you know, particular community where we were and be
like other people here in their language that um, I'm
(10:14):
sorry for his bull right here, and I'm sorry about
that please. Oh gosh, yeah, it's such a real thing.
It makes me think to Caitlin, you know, just as
I was reading through your book, and you know, in
my own process of decolonization and deconstruction and how and
how both things can be very scary, especially as they
(10:37):
are connected to your spirituality and as they might be
connected to your personal identity, because then you're starting to
be like, well, if I start decolonizing and pulling out
the books I was told to read and the people's
voices I was told to believe are the truth tellers,
and then I realized, well, they're not telling the truth,
and that starts pulling out from under you, like all
these things and started feeling like you're out, they're floating
(11:01):
now at me. I remember having this moment when I
was in college and I graduated from Spellman College and
Spellman um For our people watching that aren't familiar with it,
Spellman is one of two all black, all women universities
and colleges in America. And I was coming from black
Pentecostal church background, right, And I remember the first class
(11:25):
I was in where one of um my classmates was
doing a presentation and she poured libations for her ancestors
before she started her presentation. And I had no like
theological framework for that, so I was like, the deathl
people your Bible, we will have to rebuke, rebuke hands.
(11:48):
Oh no, I didn't even know have to process any
of that, Kaitlin, Right. And then years later, especially as
I sort of feel like came in to my own
more as a poet, as a performer, as a speaker,
you know, then it wasn't as odd to me to
think about how the women before me are present with me,
(12:11):
you know, in my work, as I write, as I'm
on stage, and you and I just in our friendship
talk a lot about that, how you know the women
sort of the women that we know in our family line.
But even the women ancestors, we don't know how they
are informing our process and how we become who we become.
Can you tell me how how you think about that?
(12:34):
How how does sort of your connection to your remembrance
of your honor, of your ancestors in particular, uh, those
women ancestors. How do you find that sort of entering
your space as an author as a writer. Yeah, you know.
The so the the name of our tribe, the Patagatomy tribe,
means the people of the place of fire. And that's
(12:56):
like the fire metaphor is always I've always loved fire anyway,
and so fire metaphor has always meant a lot to
me of like keeping that fire burning. And um, and
what is beautiful about what you said is like the
women that we never knew who or names we might
not even know who are still the ones who came
before us. And um, you know, like my grandma, who's potowatomy,
(13:18):
So my my potopotomy Grandma like has visited me in
dreams before. And um. There I write in the book
about at our last house that we lived in, there
was a tree in the background. They reminded me of
her and I don't know why, it just did, you know.
So like when I visited that tree, I felt like
I was close to her. And and it's strange because
she died when I was in high school, and um,
we never talked about being potowatomy. Like it wasn't something
(13:41):
we talked about at all. It's just even if even
if she didn't talk about it, she still held she's
still potowatomy, and like that's still who I am. And um,
you know, for me, I think everything started happening in
me like this shift when I had children, because I
realized what am I going to give them? Like are
they they deserve to get more than I got, and
(14:02):
I want them to have that. I don't. I don't
want to be ashamed of who I am or bet
or not know how to talk about it. And along
the way, um, when it has been hard, like what
I've remembered is like the women who walked the trail
of death, So the women who marched from Indiana to
Kansas and this forced removal, who carried their babies and
who didn't give up, and who knew that they knew
(14:25):
that along the way that they might lose parts of
their culture and they were holding on as hard as
they could and this way that like assimilation just takes
from us. And it's just like we hold on for
dear life and we like claim resilience when and where
we can. And I just, um, I feel like those
women are constantly reminding me of who I am in
(14:46):
ways that i've They are probably not even like conscious
to me, you know, like they're just They're just there.
And that is very scary to Christianity, like that the
whole idea, Like it's there's so much of it that
is scary to people. Um, but so much of the
world lives like that. Like we learned listen and learn
from our ancestors, and we learned from ancestors mistakes, Like
(15:07):
I have native and non native ancestors. I have ancestors
who did things that were atrocious that I have to like,
I need to learn from that and be better, you know,
Like I am aware of the full spectrum of my
ancestors and I have to be available to that, to
those lessons and make sense of that for my life
and do what I need to do. And that's also
why de colonizing is so important, because I decolonized for
(15:30):
all of them. You know, So that's so powerful, that's
so powerful to think about. I want to ask the question,
but I got to tell like a little bit of
a story. And I'm more so telling the story for
our people that are watching and listening, as you and
I have talked quite a bit about it when we
were not recording for the public. But I took the
(15:51):
trip to Rewanda, actually my last trip to Rwanda, I
took with a team of black leaders and they were
leaders in different capacity, used on business, some theology, some
you know, pastors, like there was a lot of different
roles each of us had. And we were taking this
trip through Orwanda um to this particular area and we
(16:12):
were riding past this village and in the village, as
we're passing by, it just looks like it looks like
all the people in this community are working construction, is
what it looks like. And so as we're driving past,
it's like, you know, most of us in the van
that we're in, our black from America and then our
guide she is Rwandan and black. And then there was
(16:35):
one white man um from the organization on the American
side that we were working with, and so we stopped
in this village, and while we're there, we're asking, well,
what's happening here, because you're just walking by seeing like
all these people doing construction that you wouldn't think would
be doing that kind of building. And so our guide
(16:56):
was explaining to us. She said, you know, there are
people in the commun unity that are elderly that need
better homes, that need access to water. So the community
is building these homes for them. And so then someone
else on the bus said, well, where are they getting
the money, and she said, oh, the government. The government
gives them this money to like do this building. So
(17:16):
for some of us in our Black American context, it
just conjured up images of the projects, right, and like
when the government gives money to sort of shuttle people
to this one area, tell them this is where they
have to be, tell them how what materials it has
to be built out of. And our guys had to
tell us, oh, no, that's not what I mean, she said.
(17:37):
Our government works in more of a communal way. And
so she was like, the leaders of the village go
to the government and say, here's what our village needs.
Our village needs these homes for these elderly people, and
the government says here are the resources you need for that,
and everyone in the community comes together to accomplish it.
(17:57):
And she had to explain to us to the difference
between Rwandan history and American And as she's talking, I'm
also trying to translate, not in a language way, but
just translate, like what she's saying, how would that apply
in America? And of course in the story of Rwanda,
you know, we are seeing these two sort of tribal
groups of people, one that committed you know, egregious acts
(18:21):
of violence against the other. But the party that had
been oppressed, like the people that had been oppressed, came
into power in Rwanda and that changed a lot of
how the country was led. And so I said to
our rest of our people in the bus. They said,
it's kind of like if he would imagine what would
have happened to America if black and indigenous people had
(18:41):
come into power and had been sort of what we
are calling like the four Parents, the forefathers and four
mothers of the country. Like, imagine if we were looking
back to that and instead of you know, Thomas Jefferson
and George Washington and whoever those other names would have been,
that those would have been black and indigenous. I always
wanted to ask you and would love to just hear
(19:04):
you riff on this for a minute. If you could
reimagine America, if black and indigenous people had come into
leadership here, if black and indigenous people had built what
we are now calling America, what do you imagine this
country would have been? Like, you know, what's so sad
and hard about this is that we are so like
(19:25):
colonized and are thinking that it's hard to even figure
it out, Like it's so hard to even imagine it
because we've never seen it, and like it's like it's
like so hard to even conceptualize, you know, And like
that's so sad to me that like I have to
even think hard to get there, you know. But what
I think about is these ideas of which is ideas
(19:47):
of indigenous people all over the world, these ideas of
kinship and belonging and community. It's a communal way, like
COVID or a pandemic wouldn't be dealt with with these
individualists who are like rising up and like it would
have been dealt in a communal way, like dealt with
in that way. These ideas of like how do we
take care of each other as a whole, and how
(20:08):
do we you know, act in relationship to one another
in the earth. Like that's that's what I imagine, is
like these partnerships and collaborations that come together over caring
for the earth and caring for each other. Because that's
that's what I see today and small, these small collaborations
and these you know, like that's what I see is
(20:29):
black and Indigenous people coming together to say, like what
what needs to be better about this? And what does
de colonizing look like? Well, it looks like that we
we hold each other up and we hold space with
each other. And for natives, like we um pay attention
to anti blackness in the Native community, like and we
talk about that. And I'm a white passing Native, so
(20:50):
I talk about black and brown Natives and how they
face oppression very differently than I do. And like all,
you know, like we just have these honest conversations. But
they're rooted and kinship and they're rooted in belonging. And
that is just not the way that America has been
built by whiteness. It's not built that way. It is
built by you know, manifest destiny and pull yourself up
(21:12):
by footstraps, like all of this empire Christianity like mixed,
you know, and how would we have how would we
have grown together in honoring our ancestors? Then, you know,
even that like that that comes back, that would be
that would be such a different space in our life
than it is when we've grown up colonized and within
(21:34):
these systems of whiteness, you know. Yeah, like you referenced
in your book, Um Black Panther and sort of this
idea of of a place like kind that had not
been affected by colonization, you know. And so when I
think about this question, you know, even I was working
on a writing project recently where in the beginning of
(21:56):
what I had to write, I really wanted to honor,
you know, the Muskogee people because I was writing about
something like Atlanta related and I can't write about this
land without writing about that. And as I was sort
of digging into some research there, just made my brain
reimagine the nations that we're here are still here, and
(22:18):
like what it would be like sort of if what
conduct could you know, if we could have that experience
to get to reimagine that, and like what would it
be like to be here in Georgia and Atlanta where
we are, and to see what the people who were
on this land, what they were like and what they
were doing, and how we have found ways to participate
(22:41):
in some things together and honor the differences. They're like
I it's like, it's like I get really excited about it.
And I remember as we were talking about it the
bus we were in, it brought this like deep lament
in the bus. I remember as we were talking about it,
we all got really quiet and had to really we
have a moment of prayer right there and just lamenting that. Unfortunately,
(23:03):
that's not what happened. But one of the things I
have loved, not only about being your friend but also
just learning from you, is this constant reminder that Indigenous
people are here, that we when we talk about Native
and Indigenous people, we're not talking about some long time ago.
We are also talking about today. And I'd love to
(23:24):
hear from you who are the indigenous leaders I think
we think about, you know, what would have happened in
black in indigenous people had been sort of like the
founding government right of America. And thankfully we have so
many black and Indigenous leaders who are who are organizing
today who are reimagining America right? Who are are maybe
(23:45):
some of those people with just some of the work
that is really inspiring you right now? Ya um. I
love that because even in Native like I, I mostly
try to cite indigenous authors because just because I want
people to like if if my book is the first
book that anyone reads by an Indigenous person, that first
(24:05):
makes me sad because I don't want it to be
my book that's the first one, like I wanted to
be someone better than me. But but just like I
hope that this they go to the back and see
this list of all these possibilities and and they're not.
It's not like I'm citing all Christian Natives like it's
people all I mean, it's like socialists like what whatever,
(24:26):
like whatever kind of native like just read about us,
like learn something different, you know, um learn the truth
about our history. Um oh gosh, okay. I have. I
have so many leaders that I love, but um Tara
Huska who's a like climate activist, um Winona La Duke
(24:46):
who runs UM Honor the Earth, which they're just incredible.
I buy wild rice from them and so they um
harvest pipeline free wild Rice, so just like reconnecting back
to the land. Um Dallas Gold too, and my friend
Nick says both help with organizations that are just doing
incredible work. And and I just love it because we
(25:08):
all we all might imagine things a little differently in
the way that we decolonize. Like right now, all that
I can quite get to is like I need to
decolonize my Christianity. And they're they're like talking about the systems,
and they're talking about like governments, and they're talking to
indigenous people all over the world, and you know, so
it's like we're all um having this conversation in our
different context. You know. Some of us are academics, some
(25:31):
of us are not academics, like some of us are artists,
and we're just trying to like create what we can
where we can. And I think that that's really powerful
and important. But so sad to me as I see
(25:54):
these incredible people and I know that they, like in
the general audience of America, they're not going to be
heard and I'm not going to be heard because the
Indigenous story is so much in the past, like two people,
And I hope that books like mine like help wake
people up to that reality that we're just we're here
and we're creating things, you know, and we're we are leading,
(26:15):
whether you recognize it or not, like we're leading things
you know. Yes, yes, this is my reminder to you all.
If you are a late conversation. This is Caitlin's new
book Native, just out this week. Go as soon as
you finished listening to us and by by by five
(26:35):
copies of our books. I was imagine number. Okay. I
want to ask you also about ritual and ceremony. Um.
You talk about this in your book. We talked about
it too, Um, but you write about this in your
book and the importance of that in your heritage and
in how you are uh reincorporating certain things into your
(26:58):
Christian spirituality as well. And I would love to know
specifically what are the rituals or the ceremony, the honoring
that became a part of your writing process in this book.
Did you find yourself returning to certain certain things are
certain ways of being? I mean, you talked about this
(27:18):
tree that you had at one of the places where
you lived, Like, what are some of the things you
found yourself returning to as you were in the writing
process on this book. Yeah, So this book was, um
was really at times like painful to write. Like a
lot of times for me, writing is self care and
it's it's good to process. The writing parts of this
book were like I'm going to have to write about
(27:39):
this really traumatic thing and I really don't want to,
but I know it's important. And there are moments where
I had to smudge before I was writing side burned
stage or I would um do some of my Potowatomy
online lessons just because it's like just like grounding myself
in our language. Because learning to pray in Potowatomy was
one of the first things that like made it so
(28:00):
to me that like we have this beautiful, rich heritage
and story that I was never aware of until adulthood.
And like I I just like it was like I
was so thirsty and hungry for something and I didn't
didn't know what it was until I knew what it was.
And um, so praying and Pottawa to me has been
just um like such a balm to me and like
(28:22):
met good medicine to me. It's funny, um because I
I've always been weirdly ritualistic, so I'll like be like
I want to wear this ring every time I do
this thing, or you know, like I would like do
weird stuff like that. So like for this tour, I'm
wearing the same lipstick for every event because I don't
know why, I just damned, but for some reason it's
(28:43):
important to me. Um. So when I was traveling and speaking,
I would take There was a I had a braid
of sweet grass that a friend gave to me, and
I would take it everywhere I went to speak. And
I have earrings that have like sacred medicine in them
that a friend gave me, and I would wear those
when I spoke. So it's like, um, just these things
that are just like good energy and protection that a
(29:05):
lot of people probably wouldn't understand. There's a song by
Frank Wall that's called good Way, and I would listen
to it before certain talks, like if I was really stressed,
because it's it's a song about just like living in
a good way and honoring yourself an honoring creator, and
it's just a beautiful song by an indigenous person. So
it would ground me and like what I was about
(29:26):
to do, you know. And it's you know, because I
go and speak in predominantly white spaces and I speak
at places where I don't know how I'm going to
be received. It's been really important for me to ground
myself in my reality, like this is who I am,
that fire is in me, this is why I'm called
to do this work, this is why I won't give up.
(29:47):
And um, and when the certain events are especially hard,
like I have to just like have the music and
the earrings and the sweet grass, like just I need
these like things to hold me because um, I just
need to remember, you know, yeah, yeah saying saying same like,
I mean, I miss it terribly right now that I'm
(30:08):
not able to do like stage work. But when I
was doing all this stage work, you know, even though
you know you're you know, imagining eighteen year old me,
that was like libations in the name no, you know.
And then all these years later, I feel like one
of the times in life that I feel sort of
that presence of my grandmother or my great grandmother's or
(30:30):
even the women before me that I didn't know, is
like that a few moments right before I have to
go on stage, you know. And I mean that's just
always a time of fayer for me and always a
time of calling upon their courage, the courage that it
takes to stand in what was their moment and experienced
(30:52):
those parts. And I think having rituals to remind us
of that, I think is so beautiful. And I have
a request because one of my favorite poems in here
was one that you wrote to your ancestors. Would you
read that for us? Yeah? Let me let me get
my book. My my phone's dying, so I'm like, no,
(31:13):
oh my god, guys, doing technology is hard. Okay, hold on,
let me from where it won't fall. So I set
a rock on the cord so that it is a
place I got it down. Don't worry, Okay, let me
find it. Okay. Yeah, So this is that chapter. The
chapter is called Ancestors, and this is a poem that
(31:36):
I kind of wrote to my ancestors, passed on one.
I see they're not your skin and bones, nor the
frame that once held you. I see your aura, your spirit,
your essence. I see the glow of who you once
were and who you are today. I see, somehow the
imprint of what you've left me here. It's not a
(31:58):
thumb print, but some other form of spirit code. Somehow
the shape of you carves lines into the essence of
who I am. Somehow I am enough because you were enough. Ancestor,
your name will always be the sound of breath in
my lungs. Ancestor, your face will always look like the
face of my own children. Ancestor, your essence will always
(32:22):
feel like the wind when it slips through the tree branches,
singing a song. You dear one, lead me Still. I
feel the gifts you've left me, and I wonder how
much more is waiting. I learned my own way as
I reckon with your mistakes and realize that you were
human once like I am human now. I wonder how
much you notice from the other side? What does God
(32:45):
feel like? I'll wait and one day you'll show me.
Ah Oh, I love that so much. That question of
what does God feel like? So powerful? Caitlin, Okay, I
have one more quote I want to read. Y'all, Caitlin
and I are just gonna be talking until installment broum
(33:06):
be Like, y'all can't talk no more. So we're just
gonna keep talking to let's say, because but I have
one other question I wanted to ask, and it was
just this powerful section you had. This is from the
chapter self examined, and you have this quote here that
says for black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.
(33:28):
It is especially difficult to approach the topic of self
care because the system of self care is often so
unreachable for those who do not have the money to
take care of themselves. There are many layers of privilege
in the conversations, and self care is often commodified, becoming
yet another product of capitalism. When this happens, it also
(33:48):
becomes harder for many of us to care for ourselves.
We must consider all of this, and we must consider
how our oppressive systems keep so many from getting the
care they need. Self care is for everyone to help
us be more healthy humans. But to get there, we
all need to be honest about how the system of
self care works for all of us. I I loved
(34:14):
that you took some time to excavate this because I
think I think self care is a question I want
to ask every woman of color that I ever in.
I always want to know how how are you taking
care of yourself in the midst of, you know, resisting empire,
in the midst of decolonizing, in the midst of the deconstruction,
(34:36):
How in the midst of facing white supremacy every day,
how do you take care of yourself? Right? Um? And
then sometimes in some shallow ways, it's sort of like
what's being put upon us is this idea that like
it's getting your nails done, you know, like and I'm
not saying those things the self care, but you examining
(34:58):
here the system of self care was so powerful, and
I think it gives us a more holistic idea of
what that actually means. And I would love to hear
you talk more about how you find yourself finding a
process of what holistic self care looks like, beyond the capitalism,
(35:20):
beyond how com modified it's become. What are your thoughts?
It's funny, so when I started therapy, I couldn't afford it.
So the therapist I started seeing already knocked it down
a lot. And then one of my followers on Twitter
was like, I'll pay for your first six months of therapy.
Just tell me how much it is, just like like
PayPal me uh an amount and I'll pay for your sessions.
(35:40):
And so, um, that's how I got to go to therapy,
Like otherwise I never would have been able to afford it.
And but at the same time, like I know the
privilege that I have to even have the resources or
access to even get to a therapist that's a good one,
like I you know. So that's what I'm saying, Like
it's so layer and it's not a straight conversationation, but
when you know, when you have women I'm not trying
(36:03):
to judge when you have women who are like I
had a self care day. I went to the spot,
and then I had lunch with my best friend, and
then I went shopping, and then I had dinner with
my other best friend, and then I when I saw
a movie like that's amazing and I love that you
get to do that. Most of us can't do that.
And and at the end of the day, like, um,
(36:23):
I have to ask what self like For me getting
my nails done. It doesn't do anything, But for a
long time I felt like that was what I was
supposed to do for self care because I was told that, like,
go get your nails done, that's what women do for
self care. And then I'd be like, oh, you're right,
and I'd go do it. And then I spent a
lot of money and I didn't like it. And then
they chipped after two days and I was like what
(36:44):
am I doing? I didn't I didn't enjoy this, And
so like I've had to be honest about what self
care is for me, like and and it's things like
learning my language. Um, it's it literally is things like
um smudging and like burning stage to cleanse my anxiety. UM,
deep breathing which is free. Like that's something that I
(37:07):
like deep breathing people, which is free, like doing breathing exercises.
This helps so much with my anxiety. And then these
systems of like self care for me is like learning
to break down these systems of like people pleasing and
saying yes to things that I've had to do that
(37:27):
I have to start being honest about. And that's like
the hard self care. And that's not like the I'm
going to spend an afternoon with the magazines and just
like chill out and watch a movie, which is also
self care for me, Like that hard self care of
like I'm gonna like look at these systems that I've
been taught to participate in as a woman, and I'm
going to choose not to have to smile all the time,
(37:49):
and I'm going to choose to say no to things
and I'm going to choose and like that for me
has been some real self care. That's hard self care
because self care is and always like fun either, you know,
but we I think we package it like it's supposed
to be fun, like shopping is fun. I definitely walk
around good Will while I used to when it was open,
(38:10):
I would walk around good Will. For self care, I'll
just walk walk around and shopping which is cheap, so
off care, I did an expensive people a jam. I mean,
I'm back in therapy now, you know. We we we
celebrate those who are able to access therapy or access
(38:31):
those things, whether that can be books or podcast whatever
you can access that can help you begin to do
that healing. But I was in a place where I
was like, I need to save up this money and
see a professional. So I've had one of my first
sessions with her and she was like, I think you
need to do some journaling and I'm gonna send you
some prompts. And I was like, do what now She's like, no,
(38:55):
want you. She was like every day, I want you
to journal on one of these prompts and then I
want to talk about it next time you me. And
it was one of those moments where I was like, I'm, oh,
I'm sorry you want me to work, you know, I like,
we don't think about that to self care. Like I
feel like that's what you're saying. Yes, Like healing and
growing can be hard sometimes it will not always be relaxing,
(39:19):
but it will lead us to peace. Yeah, And these
you know, are built for us to not get self care,
Like these systems don't want us. They don't want me
to consider my identity, they don't want me to learn
about all that I am. They don't want me to
write write this book like you know, like I'm at
the I'm at the number one near released in a
(39:40):
Christian Spiritual Growth still and it just makes me laugh
because all the other books are just these very evangelical,
mostly white books and like I'm they're hanging out at
the top. And it's so ironic because I speak against
so much of the Christian growth, like the kind of
stuff we talk about right now, I'm I'm saying other things,
(40:02):
but these are things that I think will actually make
us grow is by doing this really hard stuff and
it will, you know, like it is a form of
collective self care if you want to think of it
that way, Like decolonizing is is self care too, and
it's so true. It doesn't feel like the definition we have.
But I love that. I love that you went to
that point in your book and and are giving us
(40:24):
You're giving us a broader definition of that. And I
think there's so much of your book that's calling us
back not just to our individual you know, thoughts and feelings,
but also how does our individual healing and growth connect
to the collective, to the community, you know, as as
you are processing, how does that connect to your how
(40:45):
to want to be heritage? I mean that's one of
the things that really meant a lot to me reading
this that it's very it's reminding us to be communal, yes,
and to be to be indigenous. To honor Indigenous people
is to be reminded did that we we are communal
people who are not individualistic people, right, So they haven't
(41:05):
kicked us off yet, Caitlin. I mean, I don't know
if anybody has any questions. If they have questions, they
better be right questions or not asking her. I do
want to ask you this though. Um, the book is
out now and there are all these phases to book writing, right,
there's like the initial moment where you're like, I think
(41:28):
this is the book I need to write. And then
there's when you do the actual writing, and then there
for those of you that have not written books yet,
you have written your book, and then there's almost like
this pause, this sort of like before the story experience,
before the book comes out, where you are in a
(41:48):
way you're almost like able to ignore this and act
like these vulnerable things you have written are not about
to turn out into the public. And then it's time
for your book to come out, which this is book
released week for you, Like, how does it feel seeing
the words be out there? I mean, I'm assuming you're
(42:10):
already getting responses from people as they're eating, Like, how
does this phase of this particular book feel now that
it's out there? You know, I've had so much anxiety
about this book because it's a book that like a
lot of people won't like for a lot of reasons,
you know, And and and that's okay, Like it's a
(42:31):
very personal book. It's a you know, it's really like
digging into a lot of my own stuff. But like
what I realized this week when the book came out
and people started like speaking back to me, what I
wrote and talking about it. I was able to like
finally tell people with the books about because I feel
like I had interviews in that lull where people would
be like, so, what's your book about, and I'd be like, um,
(42:52):
and then it would take me like twenty minutes to
figure out how to tell people. And now I like,
I know what to say, you know, like I know
what the book about because someone read it and they
told me, like they told me what it's about, and
that reflected what I hoped it was about. And so
we're good now, you know, Like, but it was a
it was a weird space in there, and I don't know,
people on the internet have been really amazing, like so far,
(43:15):
just like so supportive, and it's so scary to release
a book in a pandemic, like what in the world,
Like what do we even like I have no there's
no way to know how it's gonna go, and so
to have this support has been awesome, Like it's been
really beautiful. I'm really surprised by it. I I talked
to Caitlin on the phone earlier today all and I
(43:35):
told her, like it was just making me so happy,
like seeing everyone sharing your book and supporting you because
your your voice is so needed and I we we
actually for those of you that are new to the conversation,
Caitlyn and I put out our last books on the
same day actually, so we were kind of like walking
(43:56):
together through that whole like, oh my god, what did
we feeling? Um, so I got to have that experience
with you with your first book, which was also so wonderful.
So it was just it just did my heart a
lot of good to see how much people are supporting
this and the people all here gonna support it. They
don't be buying five of these books at the time,
can buy them for yourself. The thing a good thing
(44:18):
about buying five books people is when people are like, oh, man,
like I would love a copy of Kitless book, you
can be like, oh my god, it you know, I'm
just goope, okay. We do have one question. Oh, it's
just asked. How do you respond when someone claims that
you aren't a believer because of how they perceive your
(44:40):
theology to be something that's unconventional. Well, we can just
talk about what happened at Baylor a few months ago.
That's what's um, you know, because there they you know,
they were like she's, oh when they call me a
pagan sympathizer, which is funny to me because I'm like,
I would rather just be called taken. I don't really
(45:01):
know what what your point is, you know. Um, what
I'm what I'm learning is that the more that I
pushed back on Christianity and what what people think Christianity is,
the more that I received this kind of negative pushback.
And I'm learning to kind of take it as a
m h not medal of honor. But I'm like, I'm
(45:21):
okay with it. Um, you know, I think it would
be harder to receive it from like from close friends
or from friends that like have known need for a
long time and are like what are you doing? You know,
like who just don't understand. Like, of course that's harder
when you get it from your personal like people. Um.
But like when the Baylor thing happened, it was really hard.
(45:43):
But then there was this again on Twitter, like all
these people were like, go by Caitlin's book, like this
is why her work matters, and I just was so
overwhelmed by that. And so I just have to like
look to my ancestors, look to why we have gone
through this and then look to the people, whether the
Christian or not, who have always supported me, and I like, no,
(46:05):
and I know that they will. And there are people
who who, because my book is with Christian Publishing House,
won't buy it because they think I'm writing a book
like every other Christian. And it's kind of one of
those things where you just have to read it and
see what you think, because it's not I'm not gonna
be what you think it is either way, like I
am in the Christian world, but it's also very much
(46:27):
it would bother a lot of Christians what I've written,
you know, And so but I'm okay with that. Look
I'm trying to tell you, and I think it's I
think even as we've been talking about which is so
present here in your book, as we've been talking about
what you know, deconstruction and decolonization. Look like you know,
I was just talking to my husband about how, you know,
as I was growing up, I sort of I had
(46:49):
a very binary faith and it worked for me for
a long time until I was like, well, well, well
life is getting really not so binary. What does that mean?
You know? And I think, um, there were so many
things I was taught to believe in various not just
(47:10):
like my upbringing as a child, but my upbringing in
different like faith environment. You know. That made me feel
like if I start asking more questions, if I start
feeling like some definitions, I used to have a broadening
that that's the slippery slope that you know, I mean,
that was the actual term, Like you're gonna get down there,
(47:32):
it's gonna be a slippery slope. My husband, My husband,
I always joke, there's always this phrase, people would say,
be careful, like five these careful You'll be like, I'm
just trying to learn a few things, not like um oh,
(47:54):
literal ice sliding down, ice broken, we're just metaphorical ice. Yeah,
it is. It's really scary. It's scary, and I know,
I know we scare people, but it's okay, Like it's okay,
it's okay to be challenged, Like that's that's how we grow.
(48:16):
Like you read a thing and you're like, I don't
know if I am I like that, and then you
think about it for five days and you decide more
whether it might be something to consider, Like that's that's
what we do as humans, and that's okay. Okay, we
got two more questions, Caitlin, you have time, yeah, two
more is good and then okay, So first question is
(48:39):
what's your favorite coffee that you're drinking right now? Oh? Gosh,
we buy um. We buy our coffee from a local
international market here in Atlanta. They roast their beans. There.
Have you bought their coffee at the cab Farmers Market? Girl?
Did you know they roast beans? I don't know. I
don't know. It's really good. Anyway. We buy a like
(49:00):
a light roast um being coffee bean bag bag of
coffee beans at the at the market and then we
bring it home and grind it and it's our favorite. Um.
I like South American blends, if that's the kind of
thing you're wanting to know. I don't like African blends
as much. They're more acidic for me, and they're heard
my stomach a little. So I like South American, like
(49:22):
Brazil and Columbian. Wow. Um, I just may have learned
more about coffee than anticipated. Thank you. Um. Someone also
asked what did you learn about yourself while writing this book?
Oh gosh, I learned so much. Um. There's this quote
by E. Cummings. I said it to Glenn in the
(49:42):
other night too. But it's like, be courageous enough to
grow up and become who you really are. And I
think that this book was just that next step for
me to grow up and become who I am, you know,
like to look at my own story, Hi, tiff, oh,
my sisters here, um, to look at my own story
from my perspective, like just to to take it from
(50:04):
myself and go through my childhood and go through you know,
and like just say, who was I at these phases
of life? And what what am I learning? What am
I learning about myself now? And just to kind of
have that conversation with myself and then let everyone listen
in on it, so you know, and it it I
learned so much, so much. Yeah, uh, that's so good, y'all.
(50:27):
I could talk to Caitlin all night long, and thankfully
Instagram must have gave us a few extra minutes because
Caitlin is amazing. So I want to remind you to
do this. This book right here. You can get this
wherever you like. To buy your books, five of them,
(50:48):
that would be the best thing. Caitlin Curtis, do you
have any closing words you want to share with the people?
Do you have any upcoming things you want to tell
the people, and of course the people are not following you,
they need to do that too. Yeah, there's a whole
bunch of podcasts that are coming out soon. I did
one with The Liturgist yesterday, and um, just a bunch
(51:10):
of podcasts. And so please read the book and review
it online and tell people about it because I'm yeah,
I've just been so encouraged by the conversations that are
already being started because of it. So please buy it
and read it. I would love that. Caitlin, thank you
for letting me be a part of your virtual book tour.
Thank you all for joining us and listening. This will
be available on my i G for the next twenty
(51:32):
four hours and you don't know, Okaylin and I might
get back together and talk about all sorts of things,
you know, to make sure you do this. You're gonna
get this for yourself, okay K, thank you so much.
Thank you. I love talking to Caitlin. I hope you
(51:53):
enjoyed listening in on our conversation and I'm hoping to
have her back on the podcast very soon to find
out more about out Caitlin. Visit Caitlin Curtis dot com.
That's k I T L I n c U R
T I c e dot com. And don't worry if
you do not get this spelling correct. You can get
(52:13):
the correct spelling and other tidbits links things from the
show in the show notes. You can check out the
show notes at Amina Brown dot com. Slash her with Amina,
see you all next week. Her What Amina Brown is
(52:39):
produced by Matt Owen for slobar Fiti Productions as a
part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with
I Heart Radio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate,
and review the podcast.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com