Why ‘Claiming’?

Why ‘Claiming’ Each Other? Doesn’t ‘Claiming’ Each Other evoke a sense of ownership over one another?? Of belonging to someone?

When indigenous author and scholar Kim Tallbear said, ‘It’s not just a matter of what you claim, but it’s a matter of who claims you’, she was talking about indigenous tribal belonging. Many people will claim indigeneity. Many people will claim they are 1/16 ‘Indian’ or ‘Native’ or that their great-great-great-great whoever was native.  But indigenous identity or tribal belonging cannot be confirmed with genetics, blood quantum or one-way claiming alone. From an indigenous perspective, a person’s claim of tribal belonging can only be validated by that tribe’s reciprocal claiming of that person. 

Similarly, when we talk about ‘Claiming’ Each Other, we are not talking about ownership.  We’re not talking about belonging to each other, but rather with each other. We are talking about the necessity of reciprocity in resilient relationships. 

Humans have formed much of our belonging based on various aspects of identity and culture like one’s religion, ethnicity, value system, economic status, politics or nationality. As much as people need and want to belong, many in modern western society seem to resist, sabotage or cannot reconcile the paradox of their own tribal belonging with their need to have their own unique identity or individuality. Many indigenous elders and leaders perceive this paradox as a symptom of unhealthy, isolated individualism, where a person feels they must often choose either themselves or their belonging. In this tension, people sometimes feel they cannot fully be or explore their authentic selves at the risk of losing belonging, safety, love or dignity.

But many indigenous elders, stories and spiritual traditions teach us that true tribal or relational belonging is not at all about losing one’s individuality. Within a resilient, shared commitment to one another, there is always an innate diversity of individuality. Authenticity, and space to grow and change is necessary for a resilient social ecosystem. And the recognition of and support for individual differences of mind, body, and expression is key for a system which is healthy, safe and overall adaptable to change. 

These days, we humans are perhaps more tribally-mixed than ever. Cross-cultural and inter-racial and relationships are increasingly common, for example. From the Civil Rights Movement to Indigenous Sovereignty Movements to Black Lives Matter, we have learned a lot about what it might mean to be in more kind, empathetic and loving relationships with people while actually acknowledging and including our racial and cultural differences rather than denying or bypassing them. We have also come to better understand our edges- what we struggle to understand or tolerate; where we close ourselves off from learning and care. 

With great thanks to the Disability Justice and LGBTQ+ Movements, many of us are more aware of the unique gifts and struggles of people in our own families and communities with neurodivergence, chronic illness, disability and those who embody the brilliance of the spectrum of human sexuality. Here too, we have perhaps met our edges in recent years when challenged by different needs and responses regarding the pandemic and the embodiments of sex and gender. 

These movements have also taught many of us about the potential of our own expansivity… including the ways society, institutions, families and our own beliefs may have reinforced suppression and repression of our more authentic selves.

There has perhaps always been the human tendency to put ‘us’ against ‘them’. But as we step into greater authenticity with the people we love and care about, including family, friends, neighbors and colleagues, we may come to understand that there is a greater diversity within our ‘we’ than we are prepared to handle. ‘We’ are perhaps not as homogenous politically, religiously, sexually, ideologically or physiologically as we once thought, as we once were or as we’d like us to be. Is our love, care and respect dependent on someone’s choice around masking or being vaccinated? What about their voting choices, relationship configurations, or ideas on climate change, Zionism, Marxism or mental health?  Can we really Claim Each Other when suddenly one of ‘us’ starts to look and sounds more like one of ‘them’? 

And what of the everyday stresses and traumas of illness, depression, chronic anxiety and even death? What of the uncertainty of the economy and the instability of secure housing? How do we Claim Each Other when life’s merciless challenges seem to unleash the more unlovable faces of our human nature? When we are angry, sad and frustrated with one another’s vulnerabilities and self-protective responses?

I don’t claim that Claiming Each Other is easy. Nor do I suggest that it’s something that anyone specifically should do. I can’t exactly recommend Claiming Each Other, because I do not presume to know what is good or right for anyone else. Sometimes things fall apart. Sometimes they get burned to the ground. Sometimes we just have to walk away or cut ties with someone for good. If it reduces harm, maybe that is Claiming Each Other. Maybe it is a mutual act of love and care. No matter what you decide, Claiming Each Other is not a prescription, a quick fix solution or a suggestion that you should stay in toxic or trauma-bound relationships in the hopes that someone will change. Claiming Each Other is a calling. It is for people who know we can do better with each other and want to learn to love each other more kindly in the complexity and messiness of our unfinished humanness… especially when things get really tough. 

I hope you’ll join us for a training soon. I intend that in the three months we spend together you feel acknowledged, supported, and respected in all that you bring to your relationships. And, that you leave with a deeper sense of affirmation that your inner knowing is valuable, wise and worthy of guiding your journey. 

Until next time, 

Lorie 

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” -Abe Lincoln