Forest Walk Invitations

This series of forest walk invitations offers 10 exercises based on excerpts from texts by Indigenous authors, aimed at supporting participants to confront colonialism in our ways of thinking, feeling, relating, sensing, and imagining. Each walk includes:

1. An Introductory Excerpt: Sourced from an article by Indigenous authors, it provides a context for the walk and highlights the impact of coloniality on land, Indigenous Peoples, and our collective existence. These excerpts are selected to encourage alternative ways of thinking, sensing, and imagining.
2. A Step-by-Step Invitation: A guided approach to engage with the text and the environment during the walk.
3. Reflection Questions: Designed to deepen understanding and provoke thoughtful engagement with the themes discussed.

The objectives of these walks are to expand our collective capacity to:

• Face and navigate complexity and uncertainty.
• Sit with difficult and uncomfortable issues without becoming overwhelmed or immobilized.
• Recognize our entanglement with the land as a living, bio-intelligent entity, and connect with it beyond its beauty and elation.
• Hold space for the good, the bad, the ugly, the broken, and the seriously messed up within and around us.

This recalibration work demands practice, discipline, and stamina. We begin with more familiar invitations and gradually introduce elements that may increase discomfort. Rewiring our thinking and neurophysiology can be challenging, but it is a crucial part of the (un)learning process.

These invitations were crafted through and on the lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, specifically the Stolen, Unceded, and Ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Snuneymuxw Nations. The walks draw direct inspiration from the waters, trees, stones, and histories of these territories. As uninvited guests on these unceded lands, we recognize our complicity in the ongoing genocide and ecocide perpetuated by the colonial project, and acknowledge our responsibility to actively work towards dismantling colonial structures within and around us.

We extend our gratitude to the UBC Faculty of Education for the initial funding that enabled the inception of this project, and to the Climate and Nature Emergency Catalyst Program of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies for their support in its completion. This project is a collaborative effort involving Azul Carolina Duque, Kyra Royo Fay, Nakoda Hunter, with the guidance of mentors, Elders, Lands, Winds, and Waters, building upon the work of the GTDF collective.