Seeds of Wisdom: Kim Langbecker Speaks on Relationships, Interconnectedness, and Community
“The planet is my home, the Earth is my community…”
Kim Langbecker, Executive Director of Seeds of Wisdom
In the quote above, Kim Langbecker, Executive Director of Seeds of Wisdom, shares one of her many kernels of insight gathered from many years of working with Indigenous people/s about why ensuring the continuance of Indigenous wisdom traditions is at the core of what their organization does. During the August 7th, 2022 call with the Youth Visionary Collective (YVC) at Roots & Routes, she highlighted that we are all part of the Earth—diverse cultures and peoples who, together, create a global community. Building long-lasting relationships where we can learn from each other and instill our own and one another’s Ancestors’ teachings into our daily lives is something that Kim feels passionate about.
Kim’s journey first started with a career in the music industry. From there she stepped into the social sector. This transition from what could be understood as two very opposite worlds was quite untraditional. She, however, found that what bridges these worlds is "...building long-term enduring trust-based relationships." She found that if we look at life through this relational perspective, then attaining our own ideas of ‘success’ becomes more feasible and enjoyable.
Kim revealed to us that at one point in her life she felt like an island. As her adoptive mother and father, as well as her birth mother, all passed away within an eight-year span, she felt untethered from her family roots and ancestry. Even still, noting the privilege of traveling, she began to re-weave a new sense of family as she rebuilt new connections with people around the world and assembled a wider perspective of the Earth’s diversity and cultures.
During this time, when traveling through Ecuador, Kim experienced a cultural immersion with an Amazonian Shuar community that led her to found her first organization, Journey To The Heart, which was focused on creating a connected global family. She prefers to use the term "social profit" rather than "non-profit." because simply not doing things for profit doesn’t encapsulate the importance of what organizations like Seeds of Wisdom and Roots & Routes do. The social sector addresses issues that the government and businesses will not. In her own words, "We are the glue that holds everything together”.
Kim’s organizational and life approach emphasizes moving away from a consumer-based society and focusing more on (re)building relationships and connections to each other. Listening to each other’s stories and experiences in our different communities is key, she told us. In reciprocity, the YVC interns also shared our stories of what community means to us.
When sharing what was going on in our communities, some members of the YVC mentioned that they felt they did not belong to a specific community and lacked a sense of community in general. Kim encouraged us to look for people with whom we can feel a sense of connection:
“When you feel that you don’t have a community, and you are not connected, look for it, even if it is just one other person. Look for those people that you can feel that sense of connection with, and where you feel safe, and where you can share in an honest and open way.”
Kim also brought up the idea of the “divine spark of humanity”, and had us question what joy means to us, which is of course unique to everyone. Kim explained that to her, the divine spark of humanity means that we were all put on Earth, no matter where we are on the planet, because we all have a specific purpose for being here, as she talks about in this video;
Kim taught us that through our work and personal divine spark of humanity, we are able to create "a beautiful, gorgeous, and cosmic fire" that has incredible opportunities.
Kim told the YVC that "making a difference doesn’t mean you have to change the world.” Rather, as individuals and as human beings, we have the opportunity to change how we interact with the world. We can create change in our communities in simple ways through our gifts and uniqueness. Kim emphasized that such change gives off a "pebble-in-a-pond-effect” that ripples out. Although we may not see the ripples or the seeds we planted or "what beauty it brings forth" right away, or even in our lifetime, just by doing our best, we can make a difference that creates a divine spark and plants a seed for change in the future.
That’s the path that Kim embarked on long ago and is still walking it. Like us here at Roots & Routes, Kim is collaborating with people/s across the world to build a global community in relation to one another and the Earth. More specifically, as Kim talked about in the quote below, learning from Indigenous communities and their traditional ways of knowing, can help lead the way back to interconnection and greater harmony because they have been in closer relations with the living world around them all along. In other words, strengthening the roots between us all, we can create positive change in the world.
Kim shared the origin story of Seeds of Wisdom. A group of volunteers came together in 2007 to create a community specifically supporting Indigenous initiatives. They called their organization Sacred Fire Foundation. In 2022, they rebranded the organization, and it is now named Seeds of Wisdom.
Seeds of Wisdom forms part of a small but growing group of organizations that support opportunities to expand Indigenous peoples’ self-determination: advocating for themselves and creating their own opportunities on their own terms. They also serve as a bridge between Indigenous wisdom traditions and peoples and non-Indigenous people. Kim, however, believes the term "non-Indigenous people" to be limiting, as we are all Indigenous from somewhere at some point. Her words felt reassuring to us youth, that through reimagining that everyone on the planet as “Indigenous to the Earth", we can reconnect and strengthen our ties to the world around us.
Seeds of Wisdom supports Indigenous-led organizations and/or grassroots organizations that focus in different areas. Indigenous languages, agriculture, and ceremonies are some examples. Language, for example, has particular importance because the words embody cultural expressions and identities in relation to Indigenous homelands. There are 7,000 distinct languages in the world, and many are orally passed down. If an Elder in the community passes away, and there is no one else who knows that language, it disappears forever, Kim explained. This is why it is important to reweave these Earth relationships and cultural bonds—to prevent Indigenous cultures from disappearing. Kim identified these areas that Seeds of Wisdom supports as the "very threads that keep a culture together.”
Kim explained that 80% of our biodiversity—forests, rivers, lakes, and rainforests—is still being safeguarded and protected by Indigenous peoples, the original stewards of the land. This is something most people are not aware of. If Indigenous communities are healthy and thriving and have access to their languages, traditional medicines, and sacred plants, the world benefits because nature is also able to thrive. That is why the Land Back movement has been on the rise. Not only the land are original people’s ancestral territories, and they can cultivate a better sense of well being when on traditional lands, but also because it is part of Indigenous people’s original instructions to take care of their land, as they have since time immemorial. When Indigenous peoples thrive, we all do, as she describes in the quote below;
Prior to the pandemic, Seeds of Wisdom hosted Voices of Wisdom gatherings, bringing Indigenous Elders together with communities across Turtle Island, to share their knowledge and wisdom. Future plans include an online version as well as in-person as global health issues allow. They are also working collaboratively with like-minded organizations and Elders from around the world, to support and uplift upcoming events where Indigenous peoples, traditional medicine peoples, Elders, and wisdom keepers come together to share their prophecies, talk about their challenges and solutions in their home communities, and share ceremony. For many, they work in isolation and many, under threat of violence or discrimination as well as continued colonization. The opportunity to come together with other tribal nations is in some ways, a spiritual jump charge.
These gatherings are essential because they offer people the opportunity to discuss how global issues are affecting their communities. Through questions, teachings, and stories, Indigenous peoples can share with one another and with non-Indigenous people who want to learn. YVC intern from Indonesia, Luna Pamadiken, expressed, "Life isn’t set; life can go in many directions,” and therefore, she said, through building relationships with one another, we can achieve great things. And we would add that relationships are especially valuable when they are intergenerational.
Through older generations planting seeds of wisdom for tomorrow, the future generations would be able to see them come to fruition, and the Elders Council would help guide them through this journey. By having Indigenous Grandmothers and Grandfathers, and an Elders Council from whom to seek guidance, Seeds of Wisdom has created a value system of reciprocity, inter-connectedness, and respect, which highlights that we are all a part of Mother Earth and she is a part of us.
The YVC learned that the Indigenous peoples with whom Kim works and learn holistically approach problems and life. In general, Indigenous cultures tend to be community-minded, with a foundation based on sharing what they have through “give and take." Kim believes that our ways of living in non-Indigenous communities are almost directly opposite to how we are meant to live. Therefore, ideally we would learn to live "...not against one another, but instead, with one another."
One way Kim does this is through the Seeds of Wisdom podcast, which is about connecting people to the Indigenous communities and their ways of knowing which enables them to see things through other perspectives. Having the privilege of being able to access social media and other platforms for information is another way we can learn from one another, see other perspectives different from our own, and keep ourselves better informed.
The Youth Visionary Collective interns are grateful to Roots & Routes and to Seeds of Wisdom for the opportunity to learn from Kim and to strive to embody and spread her wonderful messages to the world. In the same spirit of highlighting something that you can do, we would like to emphasize the importance of spreading the word about why more monies should be allocated to Indigenous philanthropy. In this video, Kim shares how, despite dominant perspectives that Indigenous peoples have already received compensation for historical wrongdoings and have access to many opportunities, they actually have very little philanthropic donations available to them.
We ask you to join us in continuing this awesome conversation by following Seeds of Wisdom on Instagram at @seedsofwisdom.earth and sign up for their newsletter at the Seeds of Wisdom website. We leave you with these questions: What is your community? And, how can you plant “seeds of wisdom” that have a positive ripple effects in that community?