It’s hard to write about something that I am continuing to process 7 weeks later, which is one of the reasons it took me so long to write this. 7 weeks ago I got to take a trip to Pine Ridge, South Dakota with my cultural psychology class at Warren Wilson College. Pine Ridge is a Native American Reservation in the United States and it is one of the most statistically impoverished places within this country. Before we went on this trip we took half a semester (8 weeks) to learn all about cultural psychology, a discipline that takes apart our Western views on what we think psychology is universally. We learned about how people aren’t all the same, but they actually differ quite a bit cross culturally and what we expect from each other could be very different from what another culture expects from each other.

People keep asking me if my experience on Pine Ridge was life changing. And yes, it was, but it was also more “normal” than I thought it was going to be. One of the reasons I decided to go on the trip was because I had heard so much about it from friends who had gone previously. They had described it as shocking, spiritually draining, and extremely life changing. They arrived back at Warren Wilson needing space from friends and the culture surrounding them that was so different from the one they had just come from. Naturally, I expected to have similar experiences after going to a place so different from my own culture.

            Although parts of the trip were different from what I had experienced in my own culture, I didn’t feel extremely shocked by them. This could be because of the timing, the particular people we saw, or just who I am as an individual. I’m not saying I didn’t learn an incredible amount, because I did, I just wasn’t as culturally shocked as I first suspected I would be.

           

            Part of my realization about this happened after one of the first days we were there. One of our incredible leaders told us to ignore all of the education we had gone there with and instead be ourselves. It was fine if we ended up making mistakes, he said, we all make mistakes. This advice sent me down a path of conflicting ideas. How could we go into a place being culturally aware, but still be ourselves completely? How could we hold onto our cultural backgrounds (who we are) and be aware of other cultural backgrounds at the same time?

           

            It’s hard to explain the circular thoughts that continued and still continue in my head today about this phenomenon, but I found myself coming to a better conclusion when I ignored what I was thinking and simply was myself. I found that I was reminded of how I am uncomfortable at first in any situation and then I begin to warm up. As I remembered this I realized I was letting who I was shine through more and more as the days of our trip went by. And I was letting myself really learn from the people who were surrounding me because I wasn’t so focused on making a cultural mistake.

            As I let this happen I began to gain more awareness about how people try to connect and about the Lakota people in general. I could let my guard down and really experience what was going on around me while still feeling culturally sensitive. Of course, I didn’t know what was going on in any of the Lakota people’s heads as I interacted with them, but I found they would smile at me when I would smile at them, some of them seemed shyer than others and some of them were very direct. I don’t know if these terms are what they were necessarily feeling because some cultures might not really even have those things, but what I wasn’t expecting was to see such great similarities. I am aware that those similarities could be because I just put my own cultural lens over what I experienced.

            One of the cultural differences we learned about the Lakota people before we went there was that sustained eye contact was considered disrespectful. This was something I was pretty worried about failing at when I first arrived on Pine Ridge because it is something so ingrained within our culture as a sign of respect. At first, I tried really hard to look at the person I was talking to and then look away quickly. However, once I was being more myself, I got to really observe the people around me (like I said earlier). I noticed that people made longer eye contact than I first thought they would. Upon realizing this, I remembered how you can’t really know how people are by reading textbooks and listening to other people’s experiences, you have to experience people yourself to really begin to know who they are.

            I guess what I’m trying to say is that getting to know people in any culture is pretty similar; there are awkward parts and comfortable parts. However, the way in which you get to know the people you are meeting might be very different than what you usually do to get to know someone. They might have different values and ideas about how to interact than you would first expect. Also, it takes time to begin to understand people and you can never really understand people fully without being completely immersed within their own personal culture, which would mean getting inside of their heads. And we all know that is pretty impossible.

In The “Ending” of One Story There Is The Beginning of Another

Every time I leave Pine Ridge and say doksha (see you later) to my family there, I am humbled and shed tears that seem to come from so many directions.  I cry because I will miss the meaningful connections, the supportive learning environment, and the real and natural way of “being” felt within the Pine Ridge Community I have shared time with.  I am constantly in awe of the openness, love, and teachings so freely shared by our hosts.  It sometimes seems beautiful and strange as I pass slowly farther away from the familiar sage smells, brown rolling hills and buttes, and the soul opening painted sunsets.

There has always been a spiritual nature, fluidly interwoven throughout all of my exchange experiences with this community.  Even my dreams seem to shift and change throughout the week.  It feels that every waking and non-waking moment is an opportunity to “see” in a different way and be shown the path I need to follow.  These experiences, even so far away from my home in North Carolina, bring me into a new connection and gratitude for my family and community back home.  It prompts me to pause and reflect on the important pieces in my life and the people I love. Throughout these experiences I ask the questions: What is my purpose? And how am I actively living in this way? These feelings help me to review my usual routine and inspire a need to share and give back more to my community.  It brings me to “be” more fully myself and to love in a more powerful way. 

One of the pieces this trip allowed me to further integrate and appreciate is the importance of human connection.  I observed in my interactions and other’s how meaningful and significant it can be to simply listen and witness someone else’s development and story.  Holding this intentional space has the power to strengthen a community.  I have come to believe that it can be a mutually beneficial and a powerful healing modality.  

In the “ending” of one story there is the beginning of another.  I feel that so many of the lessons learned through the WWC and Pine Ridge Reservation exchange can be transferred to other communities.  Through my experiences with this exchange, I have found that it is important to understand one’s cultural identity, language, and history.  With this knowledge and understanding, there is a clear need for the continual personal development of cultural awareness and sensitivity.  I have observed through service projects the potential community and generational benefit from emphasizing the importance of supporting the youth and fostering their empowerment. In addition, I have been inspired by the practice and connection between the self, nature, and spirit.  And through all of these lessons, I have and continue to feel the responsibility to give back to community.

I look forward to supporting the development of future WWC/Pine Ridge exchange programs.  And in turn, I am excited to follow the stories of future participants and the ways in which they develop through their engagement in this exchange, inspiration from their guides, and their motivation in continuing this meaningful work.

- Julia Lehr

A Reflection on What I Felt on Pine Ridge

Before going to South Dakota I expected that I would see a community in peril, that I would hear the voices of those no one listened to and that I would taste bitterness of my own past. I told others that I had no real expectations of Pine Ridge. Yet inside, privately, I expected to experience something important, something intangible, that would shift the way I saw myself and others around me. The very real expectation that I would find some underlying truth in my own life experiences did not go unfulfilled; however, I recognized something more important. I realized that the friendships I cherish, those whose love and whose advice I listen to will always present challenges to me. Those challenges force me to reevaluate what I think is true, what I hold as important and what I decide to judge.

When I listened to others speak about challenges they faced with family, friends and life I thought about my own situation and relationships.  Talking with residents on the reservation opened my mind to understanding the real and close connections of what community and friendships truly mean. Speaking and laughing through the painful experiences is something I learned on the reservation. To go from serious, and often sad conversations, to a light jokes and good humor was something that caught me off guard. It helped me break the spiral of thought that comes with attempting to intellectually define and understand life. To laugh at a corny joke and to not be sarcastic are things I recognized as essential to the healing of my own relationships and friendships.

Those people, that we all have in our life, the people who understand us sometimes better than we understand ourselves at times, are necessary for more than a healthy life. They become essential for a vibrant community that is built on compassion, support and struggle. We can never be free of struggle or pain, but we can always find solace in the words and embrace of the people who value us for the people we are.

Natalie Hand was one of the community partners we worked with while on Pine Ridge.  I learned more about resilience, support, and constitution from her actions than from other experiences I have had. She taught me the non-verbal lessons I needed to experience. More than most other people I have met, Natalie showed me the true value of being in a community. It does not simply mean giving back or helping. It means living and breathing, eating and laughing, crying and singing with the people you love (and even those who you don't like not so much). It is an action and way of healing. While others have taught me through their words, not many have taught me through their actions or character.

All in all, I believe that my experiences on Pine Ridge taught me to reevaluate myself. Not so much as looking within, but rather to take what I already have and look at it in another way. To look at myself not in the eyes of my own reflection but through my heart, to hear my own intuition instead of my fears, to taste sweetness of moments we share with others.

Post Experience: Why I am Grateful We Didn't Just Send Money

One week before leaving for Pine Ridge, South Dakota I wrote a blog post addressing the question of “why not just send money?” It’s funny looking back on this post and realizing regardless of how connected I thought I was with the bigger picture, i.e.- it’s more than money, it took living it and experiencing it to actually understand. Upon returning from Pine Ridge I feel that my life has been turned on top of itself. I have exposed pieces of myself that I didn’t know, or had forgotten, existed. I have made scary choices and I remain unsure of whether I am making a mistake or whether I am moving forward. So, only 12 days later, I offer this post to demonstrate the radical shift I feel within myself and the experience that I most definitely would not have had, and continue to have, if I had just sent money.

Human connection is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking experiences to live. You can connect with a spirit, with an idea, a practice, a song, a piece of art, a dance, a movement, a moment, and, most importantly to me, another human. The scariest thing about connection is the impermanence in the permanence. You will never ever have that moment again, only the memory of that moment.

For many individuals you can never forget the experience of deep connection, it touches you beyond the surface level, it moves you beyond skin deep. Every connection we open ourselves to become experiences that change us, shape us, and leave us at least little bit different. Human connections carve out a piece of you, a sliver of you “owned” by another soul, object, or experience. That is to say you loose part of yourself in connection. But in this loss you also gain something. It is symbiotic, to an extent. You gain insight, understanding, and empathy. You learn how to be compassionate. You simultaneously selflessly and selfishly experience.

This last week of my life is making me stop and think about connections. It has me questioning love, love of myself and love of others. It has me wondering what is wrong and what is right. In a very real way it has turned my own worldview on its head. I am thankful that I am open to connections, open to listening to the world around me, but also recognize the hurt and pain that comes with these experiences. Life is duplicitous in the way it teaches us and as students of life we are forced to face this duplicity. Today, and everyday, I strive to not rationalize, validate, or order the duplicitous feelings inside of me but to instead let them come and go and recognize them in the moment. If you do not feel contradictions or hardship I would question whether you were living life to it’s fullest.

Anyone who is open to experiencing is in a constant state of gratitude and mourning. No moment can ever be recreated, no matter how much we try. Technology has made it so that you can stay in constant contact, you can recreate some semblance of connecting, but you still will never feel it in the same way again. Time moves on, life moves on, and who you are is in constant flux.

There is a moment, or many moments, in the human life where you feel like two bodies may actually be one. You feel like two minds are on the same page, churning from different perspectives and life experiences but united in a single moment to feel together. This is the power of human connection.

I am grateful that I was reminded of this power in this last week when I was living outside of my comfort zone. I am grateful to remember how much growth comes with the feelings of vulnerability and openness to anything. In this moment I am grateful to mourn.

I believe that human nature is fragile in its resilience. What a single individual, or a group of individuals, can experience and move beyond is amazing to me. There is so much hurt and trauma in this world that the fact that we all move forward is truly incredible.

Growth comes with anger, pain, suffering, grief, and sorrow. It also is how we add something better to our lives, how we pursue happiness, contentedness, joy, exuberance, love, and compassion.

We all are where we are, in this exact moment, though it is constantly changing and transitioning. Living life means we are along for the ride. Some of us hold on to comfort and close ourselves to the harsh reality at times, in order to protect ourselves, but each of us has moments when we cannot ignore what is happening around us and how that changes the way our hearts beat.

I was changed through my experiences.

I traveled to South Dakota armed with a sturdy base of theory and intellect, naively believing that this was enough. I arrived with expectations, the biggest being that I would be able to understand everything I saw as long as I listened.

I left South Dakota, and the big bad west in general, with a realization that I will never understand but I can always feel. I can never shut myself off from feeling, from loving, or from connecting. Some connections last a lifetime and others are only there for a brief moment, a moment to remind you that you are human. I am grateful for those reminders.

As I transition back into the everyday routine, into paying bills and turning in assignments and serving people their dinner I am faced with a great sense of mourning. I am mourning for the people who hurt, everyday, and who I can forget about because of the nature of this fucked up world. I am mourning for those eyes I will never again gaze deeply into. I am mourning for the lack of smiling children in my life. I am mourning for the feeling of a single purpose when I wake up everyday. I am mourning for paths that I have decided to turn my back to. I am mourning for moments of love that cannot withstand the reality of life.

I am grateful for the mourning. The mourning means it matters, the mourning means I care. The mourning means that I will always be striving for connection. The mourning is provocative.

It provokes me to greet everyday thankfully. It provokes me to never forget, but to gracefully move forward. It provokes me to give instead of take. It provokes me to always be thankful.

Human connection motivates me to love and listen with my whole heart, body, and mind.

In this moment of gratitude and mourning I could not be happier that we did not just send the money.

-Wendell Robinson, Warren Wilson College Senior

Why We Aren't Just Sending Money

There is a question that has been on all of our minds all semester: why not just send the money? As a Cultural Psychology college break trip we are spending quite a bit of money, time, and energy to travel to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Home of the Lakota Native Americans, it is estimated that 50% of Pine Ridge residents live below the Federal Poverty Line and the average life expectancy for those individuals on the reservation is thirty years below the rest of the nation. Statistically, the reservation experiences twice the amount of suicides compared to the United States at large, and over 80% of the reservation is unemployed. From the green lawns of a private liberal arts college, we travel westward to this reservation, and it isn't without questions.

Who are we to travel to Pine Ridge and impose ourselves, our culture, and our outward whiteness in a place where that may just bring pain, frustration, and anger? Pain for what has been lost and not yet returned. Frustration at the money that is continuously offered but the land that remains disrespected. And anger. Anger for the injustice that has happened, is happening, and may continue to happen. We have searched for answers in our textbooks, in stories shared, and in the way we reason with ourselves. The internal debate, the guilt that is felt but catches in our throat as we try to utter our thoughts. Thoughts that tangle in our head as we try to understand pain that we did not feel, cannot feel. How does our being their mean anything to them? Is it a selfish desire for "experience"? 

These questions are meant to reflect the nature of discussion that have been circulating as our Cultural Psychology class prepares to venture forward to Pine Ridge, South Dakota. We have spent the semester studying ideas of culture, of cultural difference, and of the consequences. We have learned that we are immersed in a discipline that has, in many ways, blinders up in regards to practices that stray away from western ideology. As a class, we have struggled back and forth to understand what it means to have culture, to be a culture, and to shape a culture. 

We have learned to question the meaning of child development as there are 8-month old children of the Aka nomadic tribe (Western Congo Region) who wield machetes safely in order to help contribute to the welfare of the family. We have learned to question the ways in which we test our children and the ideas of intelligence if intelligence testing is full of cultural bias. We have introspectively turned to look at ourselves and our family culture-- the roots of who were are. We have asked ourselves time and time again, what is culture?

I realize these are a lot of questions to pose without offering any answers. I do not want you to think I have any answers, or that there are answers to these questions. These questions are square and intellectual in nature, instead of circular and open. Culture is fluid and constantly changing and cannot be summarized easily to fit in a box. 

Culture is more than skin deep. It is more than the country in which you were born or the languages you speak or the kind of food that your parents cooked for you. Culture isn't simply your religion, your politics, or the way you view the world. Culture is everything. Every piece of you that has been shaped, constructed, or maybe extinguished. Every emotion, thought, and perception you have had, are having or will have: that's culture. Culture is your experience as an individual and the shared experiences of individuals around you. Culture is the common ground, but it can also divide. 

It is here we find our answers, however rough and incomplete. 

We do not travel to Pine Ridge to study and experience the novel-- the unknown culture-- but rather, we travel to experience human connection. We travel to learn what it means to connect to another person. We travel to feel those connections, not by feeling for but for feeling with individuals. We go to admit that we know very little and what we do know is shaped by our own individual culture. There is both Culture and culture. The big and the little, the collective and the individual.

We travel to the Lakota to learn about ourselves, to admire and respect difference between and among individuals. To understand that money is a cultural practice and to understand the sending money doesn’t make connections.

Our hosts on Pine Ridge cannot share their experiences with money or make a personal connection. Money is part of culture, but culture can exist without money.

We travel to Pine Ridge attempting to empathize and to listen.

We travel to Pine Ridge to connect.