The fourth characteristic of indigenous knowledge that Caslando describes is it's holistic nature. So what is meant by knowledge as holistic? One of the things is to understand, reality ends in it's set of relationships to one another. And what do I mean by this? If we look at western knowledge, it tends to get very specialized, and look at things more concentrated, more minutely, more in detail to understand how things work, in isolation. So the scientific experiments and knowledge often get write down to the components trying to isolate out any other variables or factors to understand the relationship between two variables. With indigenous knowledge, the concern is more about relationships of the, of the whole. How does one part of the whole relate to another part of the whole. And this is taking up, you know, in, in the Western knowledge ways as systems theory try to understand all those elements that contributing to the whole. This becomes very important in the indigenous knowledge. When we think about power, it's one of the most powerful things about participation in say a, a ceremony, is that complimentary energies are brought together. So you might see in any indigenous ceremony that the 4 elements are present. There is usually fire and water earth and air all operating at one time. The pipe ceremony is when, is the only time when the male and the female parts of the pipe are brought together. So, because it's a powerful moment of, of, of union of energies these things often only happen in those sacred times and spaces. So this is kind of understanding how those energies work with each other holistically. The medicine wheel is another kind of example of understanding holism in indigenous knowledge that the component parts of that medicine wheel are not the most important part to focus on but where they come together, where the necessity of balancing aspects of that wheel. So when we look at the wheel the, the idea is to understand how different components work together. Or how to balance them and Susan Steward will be talking a little bit about understanding indigenous health through this medicine wheel model. About the need usually, then the focus is on restoring balance. So if any part of that wheel is over emphasized, or parts are not, or there's an absence of one part, it's working to balance those, those energies, those aspects of being those relationships, bringing them into balance with one another. It's not so much about focusing in on any one of those pieces but, but how the pieces fit together. So this is an important part of the holistic understanding of knowledge. Another piece too is understanding that there is, there's an external world beyond a person but there's also an inner space as Willie Ermine talks about it. And Willie Ermine talks about the inner space being as profound and a deep and, and expansive as outer space. So bringing together that, that inner space with external reality, what we see out in the world, how we relate to that world.Is an important part of, of indigenous knowledge too. Where we bridge, the inter world and understanding that, that we get from, contemplation and meditation with. What is going on that we can see through our senses that experiential piece. So when we bring the experiential together with reflection and deduction and thought these, this is a powerful moment of holism. We bring these, these locations of knowledge together in a holistic way and this is what Caslando is trying to highlight with her fourth characteristic of holisim.
