Black History Month

Meredith Stravers  |   a founder of The Truth & Titus Collective

In celebration of Black History Month, we are highlighting Meredith Stravers, one of the founders of The Truth & Titus Collective, located in Kalamazoo, MI. Meredith’s organization is facilitating an anti-racist learning series with KNC’s leadership and staff. Meredith describes her connection to nature in 3 phases of her life:

As a child, I spent most of my time outdoors with my peers in my neighborhood. It was rare that we played indoors and those relationships were cemented in our time in nature. In my teen and early adult years, nature was not something I appreciated. I was very turned off by nature and felt very uncomfortable being outdoors. A couple of years before my 40th birthday, I began developing a different relationship with nature. As I began my own healing and self-discovery journey, nature became a part of the process. I learned how grounding in the earth is beneficial for mental and physical health. Taking walks on trails helped to center and root my energy when I needed it and as I seek connection with my ancestors, I feel closest to them when I’m in nature. Some of my most spiritual experiences have occurred in the woods or sitting still on my patio as a specific bird visits regularly. Nature has been a major tool in shifting my connection to self, earth, ancestors, and future.

A book that was helpful for me in connecting to nature as a Black woman is the book, “The Healing Wisdom of Africa” by Malidoma Patrice Somé. This book started me on my path of understanding how important nature is for my wholeness and fullness as a Black woman. In my experience, connection to nature through my Black heritage came through stories and tales and lore that surrounded us as we grew up through childhood. With the western push of formal education, primarily from dominant culture, the wisdom and healing of nature from my community was lost and/or deemed not as valuable or worthy as western science. As our culture is drawing back into the wisdom of our ancestors and reconnecting with earth, we are finding our way back to this wisdom without the glare of western culture overshadowing our inherent knowledge and validity.

One thing that has become deeply important to me as I’ve moved through reconnecting to nature is my own orientation to the earth. I very quickly realized that connection to earth had to be a reciprocal relationship rather than a relationship where I just extract resources. The earth and I are in a relationship and our connection and consumption of one another must reflect that. I hope that we begin to see the earth as a living being, one that sustains us and cares for us, just as much as we see other humans in that way. I hope that we begin to really understand that the earth is more than just science; that it has spirits and energy and is deeply affected by our relationship with it, and not just from an environmental aspect. The Environment is critical and crucial, but it is only part of it.

Brent Harris  |  Local artist and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts instructor

Dr. Khalid el-Hakim  |   founder and curator of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum