By Shara Moscinska
Conversations with great minds are priceless, and I had such an invaluable conversation with Jon Ghahate, who is of the Laguna & Zuni Pueblos and the Museum Cultural Educator at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Jon will be the featured guest for October’s Placitas Reads: Color, Class, and Caste; The Other Social Distancing series, inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
To prepare for this interview, Jon and I “discussed our discussion” to discern how to best raise consciousness on the ways institutional oppression has operated historically and in the present, especially in Native American communities.
Jon’s mind is broad. He easily weaves together the doctrine of discovery, the resilience of the Pueblo peoples, critical race theory (what it is and what it isn’t), and the power of interpretation with cultivated brilliance.
Where Isabel Wilkerson shows us how institutional oppression is embedded in laws and policies, Jon expands the conversation to show how it is embedded in our very soul—through beliefs sanctified by religion to the very shape our consciousness uses to organize the world (here, circles promote peacemaking better than straight lines). Jon makes the invisible operating systems that support oppression visible, which then allows us to change the programming, beginning with our very own lives.
After talking with Jon, I was left with important new learning, healthy humility, and empowerment to be the change I want to see in the world. Jon, at heart, is a doctor of the soul, and I encourage everyone in our community to sign up for a dose of the wise medicine he is uniquely able to provide.
You must register in advance here to receive the zoom link for this presentation.
Shara Moscinska is a psychotherapist, Unity minister, facilitator, mother—and grateful Placitas resident.