Returning to the Bones

Today, as we honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I want to invite you to return to the bones, to the memory, the grief, and the relationships that tether us back to humanity.We live in a world that rewards forgetfulness. It rewards production over presence, and busyness over belonging. But October — this Season of Descent — calls us inward. It’s a time when the earth itself invites us to slow down, shed, and listen.Across the world, this month holds space for remembrance: Hoodoo Heritage Month, Día de los Muertos, Samhain, ancestral veneration across continents. Every culture has a way of saying: “We are still here.”And that’s what returning to the bones really means.1. Remembrance Is RevolutionaryTo remember is to resist erasure.When you slow down and listen to your lineage, you’re committing a revolutionary act, refusing the forgetfulness that empire depends on.Remembrance is not nostalgia; it’s reclamation. It’s saying no to erasure, yes to existence. It’s reconnecting to the languages, practices, and ways of being that were nearly severed, not to romanticize the past, but to recognize its survival within us.This is ancestral veneration as a relationship, not worship. It’s not about deifying the past, but dialoguing with it, sitting in communion with the earth, with our elders, with the silence that still hums beneath our feet.Reflection: What am I still carrying that was never mine to hold?2. Grief Is Sacred, Not ShamefulGrief isn’t what breaks us; it’s what brings us back to wholeness.When you make space for grief, you reclaim the sacred intelligence your body already knows.To remember is to re-member — to put the pieces back together. In trauma-informed spaces, we call it somatic integration. In spiritual language, it’s restoration. Either way, grief becomes the bridge between disconnection and belonging.This is where decolonization moves from theory into embodiment.You can’t decolonize your systems while colonizing your nervous system.You have to start with the body.Reflection: Where can I honor my ancestors’ resilience without reenacting their pain?3. Liberation Is a Practice of Relationship, Not PerformanceLiberation is not about guilt or purity. It’s about accountability, the neutral truth of who we are, where we stand, and what we’re restoring.We hold multiple truths:I live on Muscogee land.I am a descendant of both the enslaved and the colonizer.I hold the tension, and I stay in relationship with all of it.When guilt dissolves, stewardship begins. Guilt keeps us stuck in the story of self; stewardship moves us into collective repair. The question is no longer “Am I bad?” but “What can I restore?”Reflection: How will I be remembered by those who come after me?Practice: Reclaiming ReverenceNext time you sit beneath a tree, remember: the land remembers too.The trees have witnessed centuries of violence, blood, and resistance.They are living witnesses — and they’re still standing.If you’re white-bodied, this isn’t about guilt. It’s about recognition.It’s about turning a picnic from a performance of leisure into an act of communion.It’s about sitting in the truth that healing is a shared, reciprocal act between body and land.Ways to Journey DeeperAwareness is only the first threshold; practice is where liberation takes root.Join the 4-week live series:Radical Self-Love Meditations for White-Bodied People Leaving White SupremacyBegins October 14th at 9:30 AM EST with myself and Royal Star Allah.A live (Zoom) cohort of 20 designed to help you meet the truths rising in your body with compassion, not collapse.→ Reserve your seatDownload the App: 31 Days of Shadow Work for LiberationStep into the Season of Descent with 31 guided prompts, somatic practices, and altar invitations for just $11 — a sacred container to support your liberation journey.Read the eBook: Dismantling Supremacy Culture: Understanding and Overcoming Its 15 Pillars — pay what you can.Healing Homestead Campaign (Tax-Deductible)This journey isn’t only inward — it’s outward, toward soil, shelter, and sanctuary.Support the “Build the Healing Homestead” campaign, bringing alive a sacred land space for rest, refuge, ceremony, and community-led healing.Every gift helps secure land that will hold us, heal us, and root our practices in place.💛 Donate or learn more: Build the Healing HomesteadMay this descent be honest.May your ancestors find you listening.May you shed what whiteness taught you to protect, and rise — not as innocent, but as whole.In solidarity and liberation,Desireé B. Stephens, CPS-PEducator | Counselor | Community BuilderFounder, Make Shi(f)t HappenNew Agreements, New Systems, Deeper ConnectionsWriter of Liberation Education — Where Reflection Meets Transformation.Thank you Susan, Kate, Jennifer Tinker, Alvin Robinson, Michelle, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit desireebstephens.substack.com/subscribe