A place to pause to honor those whom we owe debts to
Every traditional Confucian school in Korea houses a shrine to the
sages and teachers who came before. It exists to remind everyone
that the learning happening in the lecture hall is downstream of
something older and larger than themselves. The architecture of my
digital academy, too, honors this tradition.
The work housed here does not begin with me. It begins with the ones
whose work I am carrying, whose hands are in mine when I work. Before
you study anything here, I offer you knowledge of whom I & this
space bow to.
The lands and waters of the Korean peninsula that taught and nourished and held my ancestors, going back thousands of years.
The great Buddhist and Confucian masters in my bloodline, including Wonhyo and Seol Chong.
My great-grandmothers and grandmothers whose magic protects me, whose clarity guides me, and whose prayers armor me daily.
The keepers of temples who guard the spiritual integrity of my homelands, independence warriors whose spilled blood nourished my freedom, and artists and poets whose craft kept the soul of our people intact.
Liberation theologians from Óscar Romero to Chung Hyun Kyung. Decolonial thinkers, Black and Indigenous teachers — some of whom I have studied from a distance, and some I’ve been fortunate to sit at the feet of. Farmers and land sovereignty stewards everywhere. Their lineages are not mine to claim, but I name them here to acknowledge the debts that I carry to them.
