Earlier this year I took part in an eight week online course called Gathering at the Gate, created and facilitated by my friend Elli Yates along with her three friends and co-conspirators - Wren (or Tamsin) Blundell, Erin Thomas and Dani Pickering. The aim of the course is to offer a kind and encouraging space for Pākehā or white assimilated folk to come together and explore the difficult questions around our legacy of colonisation and how we show up as responsible treaty partners without being paralysed by shame?

Doing Gathering at the Gate has been a foundational part of my exploration of home and belonging. Through the course we were encouraged to delve into our own family histories and discover the stories of our settler ancestors who first arrived in Aotearoa - Where did they come from? Why did they come? Where did they settle? How did they establish themselves here? We learnt about the racist policies, laws and wars through which settlers were given land and Māori were displaced and disempowered. We were challenged to identify the ways in which we have benefited personally from those historical injustices through inheriting wealth and property and taking the opportunities we’ve had due to being white.

For me, Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a generous invitation to make this land my home. But acknowledging the stories of how I came to be here uncovers a deep well of difficult feelings - shame, anger, sadness and confusion.

Elli, Wren and the other facilitators held a gentle space for us to feel these feelings and make sense of them together.

In this interview I talk to Elli and Wren about how their personal journeys have led them into this work. We explore the massive issue of shame - how it can paralyse us, but how it can also wake us up and help us move into a more compassionate and responsive state. We talk about the richness of relationships and the sense of belonging that can be found amidst the compost of past hurts.

Show notes

If you’d like to find out more about Gathering at the Gate or sign up to one of their courses just go to

https://www.gathering-at-the-gate.org/

A big thanks to Elli, Wren, Dani and Erin for their brave work in this space.

The quote Wren refers to in the interview about shame being the thin lid on top of a well of grief comes from Maegan Chandler, one of the co-creators of “Re-calling our Ancestors” - another Turtle-Island based online program akin to White Awake and Gathering at the Gate.

The other quote Wren refers to is from an amazing documentary about reckoning with slave-holding ancestry called "Traces of the Trade" directed by Katrina Browne. Here it is in full:

“In the Dagara Tribe of West Africa it is believed that the dead do not pass over into peace until the living have cried all the tears that these ancestors did not cry in their lifetimes - for that which they suffered and for the suffering they caused others. May we, the living, find tears that will bring peace to both us and the ancestors.”

Malidoma Patrice Somé

The song I played half way through the show was recorded around the campfire at the Music Nature and Storytelling camp Wren attended in Northern New Wales (Hawk's Nest) with master tracker Jon Young. The singer was Junae Rodgers and the song came to her during her sit spot practice that morning.

The song we played at the end of the show is another song from the same camp. It came to teenager Reminy Holmes during her sit spot practice.