Where are you from?

Where are you from? This question, which I am often asked and that we ask each other, can be loaded with curiosity or judgment, depending on its context.

Shall I say that I am from Corsica, the island of my ancestors? Or am I the product of 1000s of years of invasion, conquest, migration, displacement, and intercultural mix with so many civilizations?

Josh Schrei shared deep thoughts on this topic on his latest podcast, “Let Us Sing of the Syncretic Gods of Outcasts and Wanderers.” He reminded us that the flourishment of cultures, their evolution and constant transformation, often come from the wanderers and outcasts — those who have traveled and seen other lands, learned other songs, met other plants, and gathered other prayers.

Indeed, ancestral cultures have stability, wisdom, and strength because they have a deep and profound connection to local ecology and spirits. Indeed, those rooted beings bring resources of knowledge for most unrooted beings. And yet, even in those cultures, the stories, songs, and rituals come from interconnection with what we often call the “others.”

Genetic testing and the return of race science carry some great danger that leads to what is now called “scientific racism.” Historically, the ideas of races and purity of belonging to them have led humanity into its darkest times. On one side, we seem to…