Transcript: Indigenous to Life with Anne Poelina

Series 1 Episode 2

Hosts: Daniel Christian Wahl and Josie Warden

Daniel: Hello, I'm Daniel Wahl, author of Designing Regenerative Cultures and you're listening to the Regeneration Rising Podcast.

Josie: And I'm Josie Warden, head of Regenerative Design at the RSA. In this series, we explore how regenerative practice is helping people in place to collectively redesign their communities, cities, and economies and create a thriving home for all on our planet.

[promo]

Josie: Hello and welcome to episode two in our seven part series. Regeneration is often positioned as a recent development in sustainable practice, but the principles that underpin this approach — connecting with place and living in harmony with natural systems — have been woven throughout cultures and wisdom traditions since the dawn of human history. In this conversation, we are deeply honoured to be joined by Dr. Anne Paulina, a Nyikina Warrwa woman from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and traditional custodian from the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River). Anne is an active Indigenous community leader, human and earth rights advocate, filmmaker and senior researcher with the Notre Dame University. She's also on the steering committee for Regenerative Songlines, an Indigenous-led network working to develop a continent-wide framework for regeneration in Australia. Anne, welcome. It's a real pleasure to have you with us today and I believe you're gonna start us off by reading a poem that you wrote.

Anne: Thank you very much. But before I do read, because Country is alive and it's watching me, I have to acknowledge it

[Acknowledgement of Country]

So in my language I was just acknowledging the Country because it is a living system and it is always watching us and holding memory. So in my language I said "it is a good day to speak with friends and to share the story that we're sharing today and to have a good conversation, human to human, while the non-humans are listening". So I'm speaking to you from Broome, my home. I was born here. Many, many generations of my family are here, but I'm a traditional owner. And in my introduction I said I am a woman who belongs to the Fitzroy River. So the Fitzroy River, the Martuwarra, is a very special system. It is the construction of our identity, our Law, our essence of being.

So I do that. But this is a wonderful opportunity to share today. And um, starting off, I wanted to read a poem that I was asked to write called First Law: Matrix or Patrix. And it's a very interesting topic, 'cause for me it's about balance. It's not about whether or not we are man or we are woman. We need to look at this in terms of seeing how we are here as human beings.

First Law: Matrix or Patrix

Deconstructing the Patrix is not about confusing the Matrix
What has COVID19 taught us as human beings?
Where has the greed of the predatory elite taken us
Can we pause and take a deeper breath?
Can we Dream…new Dreams, in this modern Dreamtime?

Rebellion Extinctions peoples believes if the humans are so stupid…befall their own demise
Mother Earth will right size herself.
I pause only for one short moment, before I replied.
Yes, Mother Earth can heal and transform herself…but…
She will be lonely without the vibrations of Human and non-Human Beings.

2021 Chinese New Year of the Metal Ox
COVID19 what has our world taught us.
The place we work, we live, we love…we die on
We each one of us have a relational earth bond
Maybe because each and every one of us are Indigenous to Mother Earth.

We cannot continue to devour Mother Earth
To disrespect living energy systems
We cannot continue the fossil fuels graveyards across her girth
Destroying the amazing Amazon at an alarming rate
Our atmospheres are collapsing
We have gone down into the oceans burying carbon, destroying deep seabed life.
My wise women want to know for …‘whose greater good’?
Are we muted from crying out,  Sing …Sing.. the songlines that have carried our
bloodlines…..more than 7 generations to come.

“THESE EARTH SYSTEMS NEEDS TO BE VALUED, LOVED…RELATIONAL  AND RECOGNISED”! 

Love, an ethics of care, sharing in a circular economy, these are the values for reframing
reclaiming and celebrating life
One of fusion of human, social, cultural, environmental capital
Yes…some form of currency, for trade for sharing our reciprocal, economy

Feminism is not about othering Masculinism.
It’s a fusion which requires, ethics of care of love of bravery.
Being Brave is what is required to be a good and decent Human Being
The Power is within you, you are Human Being.

Dream your own actuality, be who you want to be but most importantly
Be the sacred gift of life for ALL Life.
Multispecies justice…there is no ‘othering’
Birds, fish, insects, flowers, bush bees, snakes and lizards with others amongst the grass.
Sameness in value of life between human and non-human beings
Not Matrix deconstructing Patrix
First Law, Law of the Land
A Declaration of Interdependence
Multispecies Justice of Land, Living Waters for Mother Earths’ Peoples and kin
Wholeness and Wellbeing, communityism, regionalism, pluralism, sameness not difference.
First Law…Its time to redefine who we are?

Nyikina Warrwa Yimardoowarra Marnin

Josie: Thank you so much. That was beautiful. And I like the way you ended there around it being time to rethink who we are as a species. In this series we’re exploring this idea of regeneration rising and we are seeing this emergent conversation around how we can live in better relation with the world. But of course, for you and for other Indigenous people, this is a knowledge that's existed for thousands and thousands of years and that some of us are only just learning about or relearning. I wonder, could you talk a little bit about this relationship with the land, with Country and how this comes through in the regenerative projects that you are working on?

Anne: It's an interesting thing actually. Actually, somebody said to me, um, the other day, there's no new thought.

So humans have been in a constant dialogue in thinking over time. One of the concepts we have is a word in our language called bugarragarra. Where the past, the present and the future are fused into this moment in time in which we must act and be challenged by that. So it is, you know, this thinking that sometimes we like to think ourselves as human beings, you know, ever and all knowing. But I think these conversations have been happening across the globe for many, many generations. And I guess one of the things that we are saying as Indigenous people is that what is the benefit of knowledge? Why do we have it? Why do we share it? Importantly, you talked about learning, but critically at the same time, sometimes there's a need for us to unlearn, to unlearn the way we think about the world and the way we fit in it and our obligations to it.

So from that perspective, what we are talking about is Indigenous people. And it's interesting 'cause I understand that Indigenous people in Australia are the oldest living culture in the world. So maybe with our knowledge system and the way we have coexisted with each other across such a vast continent, maybe it's time to listen to the wisdom of Indigenous people. So when we are talking about regeneration, for us it's about how do we come to a place where we understand that this wisdom, this knowledge needs to be one valued, but also how do we bring our young people into also valuing this? Because you know, I live in a very remote place in the Kimberley, not in Broome, but out on my community. And the Kimberley is a place, quite a magnificent place. And we've had 150 years of colonialism and it has not stopped these concepts of post-colonialism.

Like, we are not post anything. And so how do we look at language and regenerate the ways we see and live and be in the world? And the point I'm making is that our culture lived for, you know, tens of thousands of years without money, but with capital, social, cultural, human. A system that relied very heavily on relationships and a circular economy of reciprocity where everything has value and is valued, everything is counted and must count. So we see that this world that we're in is so much about energy systems and that everything is standing up, is alive, the rocks, the trees, you know, the way the wind comes, sometimes the wind comes and it's a strange wind. And the elders will say, I wonder where that wind comes from because it's sending a different energy system and it's possibly toxic and things are changing with climate change.

So everything is about, you know, observation, about lived experience, about sharing. Because at the end of the day, as I said, this is all about the 'we', not the 'me'. So it's a total different mindset. And what we're saying is that it really is a time to be starting to think about how do we transition from, in terms of climate change, how do we get a climate chance, how do we look at this world that we are looking at and dealing with? And what we're seeing in terms of the predatory elite is the domination of the earth where we just wanna extract it, we wanna sell it, we wanna commodify it. And much of that is an illusion because we are told as Indigenous people across the globe that we, in a way, we’re the trade off for this unjust development that is across the planet.

And what we're saying is that this really needs to stop because there is a different way to live in peace and harmony. You know, from that perspective it's really about looking at what are these systems that we are wanting to nurture, to care about, to share. And you know, when I look at what is happening in the Kimberley, in this place, you know, we really need to have a serious look at what does governance mean? What does leadership mean? How do we move away from toxic centralized governance systems that have become so contaminated? How do we start to look at those things that we had as Indigenous people? And in a world of bottom up governance where everything has a value, everything must be counted and everything must be brought into a conversation in order to right-size the planet, to have a place where we can hold onto humanity and allow that diversity.

And so it's a different way to see and be in the world and this is what we are sharing. And so rather than destroying these energy systems and, you know, creating possibly the largest manmade destruction on the planet, which is to frack the Canning Basin, which is a system that's 500,000 square kilometres onshore and a hundred thousand off — where the land is so folded and fractured and Western science does not know how these systems work, yet our people can sing the song and tell you the stories of how the water travels underground, where it connects, where it meets, where it diversifies and goes outwards. So I guess it's a time to say, look really seriously if we think that we are going to have a climate chance, we really must be bringing Indigenous wisdom into the complexity of the sciences and the systems that we're trying to decouple. So I think one of the big things, because we come from a world of we, is that we are not driven by ego, we are driven by eco and the balance of all life.

Daniel: How does it feel when your inner culture that has this bugarragarra notion of core presence of past, future and present and lives in that constant relational future potential of the present moment and has done for such a long time, that when we are now panicking about climate change and what it might mean for us again in a sort of very me, we, protect, we want to survive way, what's the long-term view on something like these deeper earth changes? That our western stupidity has actually damaged mother earth in a way that we now feel alarmed that there might not be a future for our children. But when you come from a culture of a 65,000 year lineage, these moments in time must feel different.

Anne: It is different because we have a belief because we are human being that there will be an opportunity to look at this a different way. And one of the things that we are saying is that we also have this concept of we cannot be worried about what we can't do. We must get on with what we can do. And so we see this time because it is a continuum and in a way this is what gives us hope. We learn from the past to dream about the future and we act in the now. So it is very difficult unless we hold these values to give up — to see it as fatalistic. But we hold to the view that we believe in humanity, that we believe in human beings, that we believe that there's coming a time and it seems to be coming slowly but surely.

It seems to be that people are what we call waking up the snake, that there is a consciousness or awakening where people are realizing that it can't be business as usual and that we really need to be listening and learning from Indigenous wisdom throughout the world. So I guess one of the things I hold onto is this word, this concept of bugarragarra, where the past, the present and the future is fused into this moment now is the vow that creates hope in us. Where we believe that there must come a time where humanity is saying this can't continue. So from that perspective, it is about the values and the ethics that we hold that give us this reason for hope and belief that humans are mobilizing, they are connecting globally, nationally, locally and regionally.

And one of the things that people are looking at is how do we create this eco-governance where we show that we are all connected as human beings? How do we come together and look at how we can have the cost benefit of our networking to start to enliven opportunities for people? So rather than relying on toxic governance, which is centralized power, how do we as human beings reach out through our global networks, our regional networks and go, look, if the government's not doing this, how do we as human beings come together in a moral obligation and in ethics of care and find ways that we can work with Indigenous people to support what we are doing all over the planet? Because what we are doing is for humanity. And so people are waking up, they're starting to invest in amazing projects around the world because they're realizing, as I said earlier, that we are dealing with complexity. And if we are dealing with complexity, the people who know how to do this are Indigenous people. My people have lived through an ice age! We have coexisted from the beginning of time and and seen our world change and believe that there is something that we have that we need to share and have a duty of care to share so that we can work together in a way to be able to right-size the planet.

Daniel: In your wonderful poem, there's a line that really struck me, which was that each and every one of us are indigenous to mother earth. It speaks to something that I find there's a little bit of a tension at the moment. That on the one hand we so desperately need to learn from Indigenous elders all around the globe who despite of colonialism and suppression have actually taken care of the world's diverse lands over those 500 years of oppression — and so yes, we need to go back to this deep Indigenous knowledge. But we also need to go beyond that false separation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous because otherwise we create yet another rift. And how do we remind everybody that we're all indigenous to mother earth?

Anne: This is also my view, and it may not be the view of many other Indigenous people. But what I'm saying is that as Indigenous people, we come from nature, from the land. And as a distinct and diverse species, we are an amazing living system. We are human being, we learn it is an honour to be a human being, to see the world through our ears and to listen with our eyes. It's a total different way, a different concept to think, to reason, to make judgment, to ask questions. And together we can understand that we're dealing with complexity and systems thinking. So for me, I think it starts with the fact that we are the same species, we are just diverse in terms of where we've grown up and our lived experience and where we've come from. Some of us have lived in a place that made our skin darker. Some people are lighter. So I think for me it's looking for sameness, not difference.

And you know, the fact that we are the same species and that we are connected through our human spirit — we call it our liyan, our moral compass. So we are in a coexistence with everything around us, in balance and peace and harmony. But I really want to hold the view that as human beings we are a very unique creature and that we can celebrate diversity and collective wisdom and lived experience. And so as the first people, we are the oldest living culture. And what we're saying is that we are sharing this wisdom and sharing this with the world as a gift to humanity. That when we share the values, the beliefs, and the ethics, when we come from a world of we and not me, and through this philosophy we have a worldview which learns that it is all about relationship, all about reciprocity, all about sharing, learning and unlearning and living with these living systems such as the earth and the living waters and ancestral beings and our non-human kin.

And as I said, we talked a little bit about that concept of bugarragarra. So I don't think anyone could challenge the fact that we are all human being and from that what we are wanting to do is to teach and share a different way to see and be in the world. And you know, as I said, this is my view, it may not be the view of other Indigenous leaders, but there's more about sameness than difference. And so what I'm saying is that this knowledge system, the way we live, the way we learn and unlearn and share, I think it's because, you know, we may call it an Indigenous concept. And so therefore we are Indigenous to Mother Earth from that way. And how we combine the concept as I talked about bugarragarra and where we fuse time, past, present, and future in the now, and that we must reflect and think and act, but in doing so, we then start to consider not just ourselves, but everything around us and our duty of care to love and care for everything around us.

So it's a, in a way, a bit of a land ethic, an ethics of care, of custodial stewardship. So that is a way of Indigenous thinking and being in the world. And I think that's what I'm saying: that we can all learn that way. And when we learn that way, we learn the Indigenous way. So that's what I mean about we're all Indigenous to Mother Earth. We are, if we can learn this different way of thinking where we fuse time through past, present, future, but acting in the now, reflecting on that. And as I said, when I travel the world and I go to Europe and you know, America and all these different places, I see at the end of the day that people have got this custodial ethics of care and they do care for non-human beings. And what I'm saying is that that can't just be particular to people like me, people of colour, people who are indigenous to Mother Earth, that we all come from this earth. And so therefore if the Earth has birthed us, then we are the same, not different.

Josie: Governance has come up quite a bit in this conversation, particularly in relation to that ethics of care that you mentioned. I wonder if you could speak about how Indigenous practices of self-governance or poly centrism could provide a more regenerative way of looking after our natural systems. And how does this relate to the work that you've been doing around the land rights of the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River)?

Anne: First of all, starting with my world, is that one of the things we are taught when we are born is that we are born and we are connected immediately to a creature, a non-human being. Some people may call it a totem, in my language we call it a "jadiny". So when we are born, we are connected and bonded for life to a non-human creature, which shows us that we must have a custodial ethics of care, that we are connected to a creature that we must learn so much about. But that creature can also teach us how to be fully human. So from that concept, it is a world that recognizes that everything around us is alive and that we have a duty of care to also learn from non-human creatures to teach us about that. So that starts from the bottom, that starts from being earth centred.

It starts from seeing ourselves in a world that we are totally connected to, which requires balance, peace, harmony. So for us, we have what we call First Law stories. These are the stories that the old people have told over generations and generations. And it is usually grounded in a non-human creature. So it provides a little bit of objectivity. So sometimes with the First Law stories, it can teach us those things, almost like the Brothers Grimm stories about values, about ethics, about greed, about being selfish and how to unlearn those sorts of characteristics so that we can look at the commons around us for the commoners greater good. As I said earlier, when I started, you know, we are told that our lives and our world are traded because of capitalism and because of the need to dig it up and ship it out and to create wealth.

And we are told that this wealth creation is for the greater good, but we know when we understand these systems that it is for the greater good of a few and that the rules and the way that business is done is not to protect the commons for the common good of all. So when I'm talking about polycentric governance, it's what did land teach us? What did our non-human kin teach us in terms of being fully human? And really what it is all about is about balance. It is about harmony. It is about living and creating social cohesion by having values and ethics that recognize and value other living creatures. So it's really about not othering any living system, not othering any living creature. And learning that when we do this, it can develop within us a custodial ethics of care. That why should the river be able to not only live, but why should the river not also be allowed to live and flow?

How do we bring in and challenge the way we see and be in the world so that it's not elite. That pushing the boundaries of, you know, seeing what's happening in New Zealand with the Whanganui River and everybody getting excited there and seeing how they've set up a governance system that recognizes the river as a living entity. And so giving it personhood and and having legal standing. And that's one of the things that we are saying: as human beings we have a duty of care. We live by a law of obligation to think about and to care about and to connect with everything around us. So from that perspective, what we're saying is that we need to see and be in the world in a different way. And not only not other human beings, but not other other species. And so, you know, as I said, it requires a level of being brave and learning and sharing and thinking about how we can do things together that is going to sustain the future for all of us — human and non-human.

Daniel: And I keep wondering whether we're stuck somehow in language because in many ways the complexity of this new way of being is to understand that we are both: we are individuals and we could not be an individual unless we were deeply woven into a collective that is the we that is actually allowing us to be who we are. That's just at the human level. But also at the level of life, it's the very notion that we can only be participants in this larger process that is life because we're actually it. So there is no other, the entire relational matrix of being is allowing us to participate and to heal and to make a difference and to be brave. That's the gift. And in a similar way, I feel like this notion of human versus non-human or individual versus collective — it’s just the polarity within which we take our form.

Anne: It's interesting 'cause you said about language and one of the things in my culture is most of the time we don't talk, we feel the land, we hear the land, it's part of our whole makeup. And so, you know, feeling and hearing the land to understand that the land holds memory and that we are part of that experience. So it's a different way of being in the land. So from that perspective, I think language creates a noise, it creates an othering and it, in a way, it can create a bit of an elitism. You know, I say to people in the city, you must go and sit by the river and you must talk to the river and you keep talking to it and you keep sharing with it and it will communicate with you. And so it's really a process of unlearning some of the biases we have, which also is included with language. So from that perspective, for me it is a different dimension because we live within a pluriverse. We live within a world that has got multiple variables that influence this perception of what is reality, what is real, what is unreal. So from that perspective, I would agree with you that it's very, very important to be careful how we use language and how we frame, you know, the world that we see and that we live in. So I agree with you that sometimes language is also part of the disconnect.

Daniel: Do you think that it is entirely possible for people who have grown up in cultures where this ability to really listen to the landscape and and be in deep relationship with it has maybe been driven out of them in some cases 2000 years ago, in some cases 500 years ago? I'm thinking about the nations that are normally referred to as the colonizing nations having been colonized earlier by the Romans or other people in their neck of the woods. Can we simply, by opening up to listen to the land and be in that deeper relationship again, to get out of our mental verbal heads and into our sensing, feeling, intuiting bodies — the other three ways of knowing that Jung spoke about in addition to thinking — is it possible for any person to relearn this or do you need elders and the long lineage to reconnect to in order to actually have this experience?

Anne: No, I think that it's about you having a moral contract and an obligation with the environment in which you live and there may not be Indigenous people there. So it's all about relationship, it's all about building a relationship which is place-based. It's all about seeing the world a different way. So it's about being in a place and recognizing that everywhere we are living systems are all around us. And to be able to develop your own relationship and extend yourself and reach out and touch something that is intangible, but tangible. And so for me, I'm saying that I believe anyone and everyone can do this. I don't think that in a way Indigenous people have this monopoly. And in a way that's why I'm extending the challenge to say we can think and be in the world from an Indigenous worldview and an Indigenous lived experience.

If we open our mind up to be receptive to something different, something beautiful, I mean amongst all the pain and suffering, these things still exist with us. And so it allows us to, in a way, have a healing point. And so what I'm saying is that this is definitely available for anyone who wants to be brave and non-Indigenous people and people of everywhere and every ilk can learn to do this and do do it. So I know it's very real. So this is why I am saying, that we are all Indigenous to Mother Earth, that we have a memory encoded in us, in our DNA that put us in a special place called Mother Earth. And so therefore it is innate in us and we have to in a way enliven that and reinvigorate it and go deep into our system and our own wellbeing and our own humanity and say, you know how I've been living my life, I really wanna reach out and extend it. And somebody listening today may think, well I'm gonna keep doing this and really test it as an experiment that what Anne is challenging me to do is to go somewhere and to be somewhere and to take the risk and be brave and just feel the land and to hear it.

Daniel: I'm reminded of one of your colleagues, Chels Marshall once telling me how when you really sense the land, even when you're in the centre of Sydney, in a busy intersection where there's just concrete and high rises, you can still feel the river underneath the tarmac.

Anne: Yes, 'cause it's all about energy. It's about energy systems and when you tune into this, you can feel it, you can feel you are walking on ancient land and river systems that have been covered and poured in concrete. So it definitely is exactly that. It's all about energy systems and how do we connect with that energy system and how do we feel it and nurture it and hear it and hear that, you know, we as man have changed the way that these systems have operated from the beginning of time, but we can still connect to it because it's all about energy.

Daniel: Would you say that in this connection lies the hope of us being able to get through this eye of the needle that we've created for ourselves with climate change and collapsing ecosystems? If we fully align as life with life again and let life's regenerative capacity flow through us, despite sciences beginning to tell us otherwise, that it might already be too late? Do you have a deeply held belief that if we align with life, life will align with us again and we can steer through this dark period of our species?

Anne: Yes, we can and we must, and I guess this is the point I made about what keeps me hopeful is this concept of past, present, and future in the now. So I think that's very, very important in terms of looking at that and saying what gives us the last bit, reaching down into the Pandora box and pulling up hope. What keeps us hopeful and the thing that keeps us hopeful as Indigenous people in terms of my people is what we call the Dreaming. And it's not an artificial concept, it's a real thing in terms of we have to have a dream. We have to believe that as human beings we hold onto hope and that we can right size the planet and walk together in peace and harmony. So from that perspective, it's being hopeful and connecting to other human beings who share your values, who share your ethics, who share the dream that not only do we need to dream, but it requires us to walk into that dream and make the dream happen.

So these things aren't just gonna actualize on their own. It actually will take human beings to connect, to be in dialogue, to be in a place where we wanna transform the world because we are dreaming that it can't just be business as usual. We are dreaming that we can, if we all work together through our networks globally, locally, regionally, that we can work together to create this transformative change. So that's what's so critical is that we need to be able to dream, not only dream, but to send the dream out and to find those like-minded people who wanna stand with us and transform the situations in which we are living. And I'm seeing that, I mean, some of the work that I'm doing around global water laws has really focused on the fact that water is the unifying factor in our world. That it connects us nation to nation across the oceans, that it connects us as human beings because we are mainly water.

So I can see that some of the work that I'm doing is connecting people that are saying, well, you know, our nation states are failing us, but because we are all planetary citizens, we can come together and dream about what eco governance could look like. And I guess this is one of the things that we are saying is that where I live in Australia, Indigenous people live on $14,000 a year to sustain their lives. So they live in abject poverty. But because we have looked after our place, our lands, our waters and nature, we bring into that other forms of capital — social, cultural, human, environmental, that make our lives rich and top it up with that little bit of money because we are living in a capitalist system. And all of those things brought together allows us to live and reach our full potential. But the big issue now is that these last bastions of biodiversity around the place are really where there's a targeted approach by the multinationals and corrupt governments to destroy at such a fast rate.

So we need to be able to find those people to work with us to show that there are ways of being able to create what I call the forever industries, rather than digging up and destroying where we live and fracking huge basin systems for the extraction of gas. How can we have an alternative paradigm of what the forever industries and the new economies could be, instead of destroying this beautiful place where I live, why can't we work together and create a way to regenerate and restore the carbon sinks rather than extracting them and trading them off as carbon sinks and doing all of that. Why can't we come in and heal the land? Why can't we show that there's culture, conservation, science, regenerative economies that can bring in all forms of capital so that we can look after these places so that we can have a chance and have a chance for life across the planet.

So I think what I'm saying is that all of these things are possible, but we need to be brave. We need to work together collectively and not just have dialogue, but dialogic action and transform our world through place-based governance, through looking at how do we as people, even if our governments are corrupt and there is collusion and toxic governance, how can we as people in the regions in our places work together and be able to transform our world by saying, how do we, rather than extracting from the carbon sinks, how do we come back and find those people globally who say that these last bastions of biodiversity need to be highly prized and valued. And so we can bring in economic capital to be able to develop, you know, low impact development on Country that values these songs, these stories, these words of wisdom to show that, you know, we have to stop destroying species in the land and and destroying it because we all need to be able to live together, to be able to have living systems that are going to ensure our survival as a human being and as a species, as well as non-human kin.

Josie: Thank you so much. This was a really, really rich conversation. The notion of water as the connector of life is something that is really going to stay with me.

Anne: No, thank you very much. And thank you for allowing me to talk with you and to share some of these thoughts.

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