Relational Systems Thinking: That’s How Change Is Going to Come, from Our Earth Mother

This article explores the notion of the need to decolonize systems thinking and awareness. Taking a specifically Indigenous approach to both knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, the authors look at awareness based systems change via a Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) two row visual code. The authors explore the sacred space between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of thinking and knowing, to identify pathways for peaceful co-existence of epistemologies. Based on conversations with Haudenosaunee elders and Western systems thinkers, along with data from a DoTS webinar, they identify cross-cultural dialogues as a doorway to healing, to transformation and to spiritual understanding. A reconnection with Mother Earth and with each other is fundamental to disrupting global patterns of trauma and mass corrosion of the spirit.