Truth, Healing, and Forgiveness as a Pathway to Peace

In this interactive storytelling session, Basil BraveHeart and Hilary Giovale share their experiences of bridging the historic and current divides of colonialism. Basil offers his Grandma Lucy’s teachings of forgiveness and compassion in relation to the Wounded Knee massacre. He shares how these teachings gave him the resilience to survive Catholic boarding school and influenced his life in subsequent decades. Hilary describes her process of learning that her ancestors had colonized and enslaved. Through her relationship with Basil, she becomes part of the first generation in her family to speak the truth of this history, forgive her ancestors, and make reparations. Together, Basil and Hilary offer practical steps and universal rituals for participants to engage in the work of truth, healing, and forgiveness as a pathway to peace.