https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/reclaiming-our-indigenous-european-roots
Month: December 2023
Water Is A Basic Right – Right?
Not so according to five of nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Read how they consider “trust” established in treaties between the Navajo Nation and the U.S.
Listen to Thirst Gap Podcast on KUNC National Public Radio, Episode 5: First in Time. This Episode features the Navajo Nation (The Dine’ People) water issues.
Patterns in Nature I
Sea of Grass on Dream Acres Farm
Meadow Grass
Laurel Family
On any random walk, the ordinary is extraordinary, if we but stop to see it.
A Different Kind of Time: Emanuel Vaughan-Lee
Photo by Susan Feathers 2023
Emergence Magazine provides profound and relevant experiences and knowledge vital to humankind’s return to kinship with all life on Earth.
The magazine is a portal to poets, writers, educators, and spiritual leaders from around the world. It is a portal of reflection and ways to heal, and love. Here for example is an amazing poem by Ross Gay, To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian.
Empower Women and Girls: COP28
Today, a special panel of high level leaders was featured on the role of women in energy transition and sectors for climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience.
A panel of leaders from countries across the world spoke to the continued general exclusion and/or low opportunities for women in implementing climate goals and contributing leadership and originality. Also, examples where countries are successfuly empowering women inspire us to meet the goals for a just transition including women and girls.
Panel starts at about 18.1 minutes.
Indigenous American Authors: Great New Books in Fiction and Nonfiction
You haven’ lived without reading a new writer of fiction, Angeline Boulley.
You haven’t lived without reading a new writer of fiction, Angeline Boulley. The Firekeeper’s Daughter, her first novel (2021), was listed on the New York Times Best Seller List and has been nominated for numerous awards, and is being produced on Netflix as an episodic story. I was drawn to read it by my local book club but also because Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning Native American novelist, raved about it. See Birchbark Books, Louise’s independent book store in Minneapolis.
In a recent interview by Louise with Angeline, Boulley describes why she wrote the book and its sequel (Warrior Girl Unearthed). Both novels are Young Adult but all adults are reading it as well because the values and knowledge Boulley emparts to readers is chicken soup for the soul, or “how things should be” among us human beings. Her Objibwe culture is generously described throughout the book in an engaging way through the main character, Daunis Fontaine. Boulley was Director of Indigenous Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Her father is a firekeeper in his tribe (a keeper of tradition and culture) and Angeline has been in leadership roles in her tribal nation. Imparting understanding of her Ojibwe traditions is purposeful.
During this interview, I learned about Marcie Rendon, another Ojibwe writer. Murder on the Red River is the first book in a mystery triology with the lead character, Cash Blackbear, a 19-year old kickass woman. Like Boulley, Rendon incorporates current and past issues for Native Women and Native Peoples in America. The issue addressed in this book through Cash is the foster home abduction era when young native children were removed from their homes by BIA officials to be “rescued” from what was considered “bad homes”. Cash has endured seven foster homes before ending up in Fargo, North Dakota. The local sheriff received Cash each time she was kicked out of a foster home for her behavior and continues to observe and intervene with compassion. Their partnership to solve a murder is endearing, gritty and funny. The book is a three part series – Sinister Graves is heading toward my mailbox with Girl Gone Missing next in line. Rendon has that clean-sentence-no-nonsense way of telling a story that allows the reader’s imagination to spark and fire. I read the book over a day. HIghly recommended for you mystery readers!
In Non-Fiction, I recommend Ned Blackhawk’s new The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. It is very well written and riveting as Dr. Blackhawk lays out the book and then shows how Native American tribal communities influenced and shaped outcomes before, during and after the Revolutionary War and Civil War. Ned is a historian whose prose is easy to read but well sourced. It won this year’s National Book Award for Nonfiction. It is a book that can be read over time and should be on every history readers’ bookcase for reference on American history that is inclusive of the great traditions and historical importance of Indigenous peoples.
See below an interview with Dr. Blackhawk at the National Constitution Center.
Susan Feathers 