Today a circle gathered to sit with something heavy: the massacre at Battle Creek, here in the valley we call home. It was deep work, staying present to grief this old and this raw.
There were moments I looked up from reading and saw everyone’s eyes swollen, and knew I couldn’t meet them or I would stop. So I kept reading. I could feel us holding it together, and that shared strength is what let me continue.
The Timpanogos people once numbered around seventy thousand. Within a lifetime they were reduced to a few hundred. It matters that we say it out loud, that we let ourselves feel the rage and the sorrow of it.
Somewhere in all of our ancestry there are moments when someone was the one who caused harm, and someone was the one who was harmed. We each carry the capacity for both. Naming that, together, is how we begin to break the spells of silence.
