Instructions to decolonize (me)

To decolonize you need to tap into three different times at the same time, yet at variable speeds.

Begin by the middle without thinking you will reach the end. 

Start in a slow tempo connecting with past, present and future, counter clockwise and counter intuitively. 

Tilt your head downwards, chin towards your chest, and make sure head, heart and spirit are aligned in humbleness. 

Keep your hands parallel to your body. 

Let them shake until they don’t. 

If needed you can blow some air into them and rub one against the other… 

Warm them up and let them fall down besides your hips.

Control the impulse they might have to act right away, to grab, to manipulate.

Doubt yourself and listen deeply. Who is telling you to do what you think you want to do? Who will benefit from it? 

If it is clear for you,

Notice how your chin is leaning forward and upwards…

And how you are looking slightly down with raised eyebrows.

You have missed the point. Go back to the beginning of the instructions and start all over again. 

If it is fuzzy, 

You are on the right time — somewhere between present and past. 

In some languages this time is called pretérito imperfecto.

Imperfect tense: “an ongoing or regularly recurring past action”

In some other languages this time is called resistance to hegemonic power.

Don’t worry if you are not fluent,

So are many rivers in dry season and they still carry life. 

We do fail to understand them but that is our flaw, not the river’s. 

We must get better at listening to other languages, specially to the more than human golden threads 🧵.

The fact that we start between present and past doesn’t mean that we aren’t already in the future. 

After all, to decolonize we need to look around in multiple ways; hundreds of years to the right and hundreds of years to the left, amongst hundred of years in other directions. 

So don’t try to follow this instructions linearly. 

Follow them in expansion and in collapse. 

There will be times when you will be angry,     furious,        in rage. 

If you can name your feeling and you are starting to understand why it is so strong,

Continue. 

If you are trying to tame your anger and hide it away under the guilt sheets 💩, 

please revisit where you are at, and where you come from.

You clearly don’t know where you are going. 

Fear no tears, as this will tear you apart. 

If tears seem impossible allow for your voice to shake. 

Be mindful of who you are looking at,

Preferably start with yourself. 

You know this is a process and it will be difficult,

But you don’t understand how other ways of knowing, feels.

It is highly recommended to explore this path accompanied, yet it will feel lonely.

Loneliness is an impermanent state that will change as you figure out how to be 

in right relationship

With yourself,

And with others, particularly those that you tend to 

Other. 

Bring to present, and as a present your creative self. 

Welcome your unarticulated thoughts and feelings.

You won’t believe how healthy that would be for your gut and collective digestion. 

When right relationships weave, they create safe tejido social.

Honor them and remember that you can still get tangled. 

First you will be lost, then

You will be able to ground some thoughts in metaphor

In powerful metaphors that will change your scales of interpretation of systems, narratives and behaviours 

From self seeing eyes to proclorococo. 

Third you will make sense in conversation and then, with time (with more time) 

You will embody through lived experience.

Fifth, will be the month when you realize this is about to start.

once more from a different beginning in time. 

When you are able to close your eyes and 

See colonial patterns within yourself moving past feeling

Defensive

I think you might be following this instructions appropriately. 

Same if you listen to the salty taste of the Atlantic sea evaporating,

Or if you touch the volume of a flood across artificial sweet borders,

While you buy some bananas in the Nordic comfort. 

By now you must have accelerated the tempo at which you play, 

You have not been dancing alone,

But every partner* with which you engage alters the rhythm you brought. 

Do not attempt to create synchrony, 

To mark the steps  and discipline movement

Do not consent to only move in one direction,

Do not invite collective stillness until everyone has agreed at which beat to move,

Do not dance to white noise. 

Do push and pull between trust and boundaries,

As you continue to explore polarization within your local context.

Usually you think that at the end, there is death, but here 

It is at the beginning,

Epistemicide and ethnocide

But how to call them when it is your outnumber knowledge you are killing with your own hands? 

The suicide of culture?

Do not be afraid 

If worldviews fall out of your values.

By Adriana Santamaría
08/2023