Category: Ethics

Negotiating the Peace – 6

On By Susan FeathersIn Culture, Education, Ethics, Memoir, Women, Writing, Philanthropy, Nature, Wildlife ConservationLeave a comment

Chapter 6

Kateri Tekakwitha

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon in 1656 in what is now New York State.  She was the daughter of a Mohawk chief, and an Algonquin mother who followed the Catholic faith.

At age four her parents and brother died from smallpox. Kateri survived but was left nearly blind, with deep scars on her face and her body physically weakened.  Her uncle, also a Mohawk chief, took her into his family.  Kateri lived with her adoptive family among her people at the village of Ossernenon.

When Kateri turned 8 years old, her uncle, following Iroquois custom, selected a young man for her future husband. Recalling her mother’s faithful devotion to the Holy Mother and Jesus, Kateri rebelled, declaring she would remain single and devote her life to Jesus. This began a long struggle with her Uncle and members of her Iroquois village. They named her Tekakwitha which means “bumps into things.”  Tribal members did not hold back their ridicule of the poor-sighted, disfigured girl. There was deep distrust of the Black Robes—Franciscan priests who attempted to convert native people to European faith traditions.

At age ten, her village was destroyed by French soldiers with enemy tribes. They fled to the north side of the Mohawk River near present day Fonda, New York.

In her new setting, Kateri began in secret to devote herself to Jesus and to follow a Christian faith. She lived in Caughnawaga village until age 20 at which time she was baptized at the fervent protest of her uncle and Mohawk community. Eventually she was forced to flee for her life to a Catholic mission near Montreal.  Kateri made the long, arduous journey alone, terrified of reprisals.

St. Xavier Mission was formed among Christian natives. The settlement, also known as Caughnawaga or Kahnawake, became the place where Kateri devoted her life to serving people and God, taking a vow of perpetual virginity in 1679. She was noted for her deep faith and practice of self denial. Perhaps because of the aftereffects of smallpox which hastened her demise, she became seriously ill at age 24 and died shortly after. Upon her death, the deep scars on her face disappeared and her face glowed with light. Two priests bore witness to the miracle.

Kateri’s short but deeply devoted life as an aspirant continues to inspire millions of people today. Many miracles are ascribed to her intercession. She remained Blessed Kateri until 2012 when sainthood was finally bestowed by Pope Benedict XVI. The prayers of millions of native and non native Christians helped to bring her canonization. She became the first Native American to gain sainthood in both the USA and Canada.

I would later learn that Earth, my principal spiritual teacher, had devoted her life to Kateri from childhood. Her parents lived in Montreal not far from the Iroquois Confederacy seat of power. Both her mother and father had assimilated into French Canadian culture. They followed the Catholic faith. But her father’s father, her grandfather, was a traditional Mohawk elder and spiritual leader to whom Earth bonded early in her life. The Mohawk reservation in Akwasasne, where her grandfather resided, became the early spiritual center of my teacher’s life. She often played near what is today the Kateri shrine as a child and a young woman, and related to me that she’d had many encounters with Kateri’s spirit.

In the ongoing mystery of my education, Earth arrived at my trailer with a rosary and a prayer book, insisting that I learn to pray the Rosary with her. We went down on our knees in front of the little devotional altar I had constructed by then, and she taught me how to use the beads and the prayers before and after.

For the four years of my study with her I wondered why a native person embraced a Christian saint. Later when I questioned her, she answered that was my koan—a paradox about which I was to meditate.

 

           

 

 

Negotiating the Peace: 5

On By Susan FeathersIn Culture, Democracy, Ecology, Education, Ethics, Human Rights, Memoir, SpiritualLeave a comment

Chapter 5

Sitting in Silence

I am convinced that there are places where it is possible to step out of time into another reality. That is what I believe happened for me when I crossed over Earth and Sky’s threshold in that humble setting of row upon row of trailers, and among people of varying circumstances in Yuma, Arizona in the year 1990. Not until 4 years later would I return to clock time as I had perceived its passing throughout my life and my cultural window.

~~~~~~

The interior felt surprisingly cool given the near 100˚ temperature outside. Colorful Mexican blankets covered the windows, and Indian rugs of varying sizes decorated the otherwise worn carpet. A beautiful stringed instrument with a large round belly sat as a centerpiece in the room. A white leather hide hung from its long stringed neck.

Sky filled an easy chair, arranging her aquamarine cotton skirt. She nodded toward the couch on the opposite side of the room. I sat bolt upright in anticipation or perhaps ready to flee, I am not sure which. As I recall the moment, my mind went blank.

Thus the long ritual began. A darkened trailer, a teacher and student, a Benson and Hedges lit and the long in breaths and exhalations. That first day she uttered no word though we sat with each other for two hours, at the end of which I was a nervous wreck and she simply stood, and said, “I have things to do now.”

~~~~~~

Curriculum of Study

I bought the trailer across the street, in defiance of my family’s disdain for anyone who lives in a trailer park. I learned it is its own little world: young, poor families working in service and trade jobs while raising their families; well-off seniors who migrate from their homes in cooler climes; residents like Sky whose ex-wives demand alimony; non-commissioned military on meager salaries, and odd birds like me on a specific mission.

Yuma, Arizona has its own tidal rhythm. Much like the Colorado River which once flooded its banks in spring and retreated in summer, the population of the town swelled with the arrival of overwintering snowbirds and shriveled with their retreat as summer arrived. The town’s economy ebbed and flowed accordingly.  Casinos and restaurants filled to capacity in the winter. When I arrived that summer in 1990, Yuma was a ghost town.

As it should be. That first summer saw a day that reached 126˚ F. When I opened the door on the trailer at 8 a.m. to get in my truck and run errands, it was nearly 100˚. The radio announcer has warned everyone to shelter indoors by noon at the latest.

Very hot dry air feels like sharp-sided glass when it reaches the cooler soft tissue of lungs. But, strangely, it was invigorating. My body recognized potential life-threatening conditions and became vigilant and present. No mistakes could be made. There must be plenty of water and gas in the car at all times. There must be no flats or car trouble and a direct path to each destination must be known. There was simply no margin for error.

It was in this crucible of heat and threat that I began my study with Native American teachers. All these elements continuously delivered a message to me: I surely was crazy.

The 3-year curriculum of my study confirmed it.

On that fateful day when I first met Sky and Earth they had suggested we move from Denny’s to a place called The Garden. It was another restaurant known only to locals. Set near a spring, it was a lush oasis in the city limits. Palms and bamboo grew profusely around it and there was an outdoor patio covered in deep shade. It was still very hot for a beach dweller like me, and I soon got a raging headache, a sure sign of dehydration. Nausea set in later, and I ended up spending the night in their trailer on the living room couch before I woke at dawn to return to San Diego, still my place of residence.

At The Garden two actions took place, the significance of which I would realize only decades later. First, following a natural tendency, I had purchased gifts for my new teachers. When I gave them these items (a brightly colored South American sash, and a large polished mother of pearl shell), they leaned their heads together examining the items, muttering exchanges I could not hear. They thanked me with great sincerity. Then, Sky handed me a lengthy document describing my curriculum of study.

How can I explain the impact of reading that document? It came from some other reality and I clearly was mystified. It was like reading an ancient document from civilizations that existed thousands of years ago. It spoke of places I would go, things I would learn, and the guides that were given to me by White Star, a spiritual being who guided my teachers. My problem, as I understand now, is that I thought it referred to my current reality. I read it literally. But, for some reason, I decided to trust the process and just see where it might lead. For someone like me, a logical thinker who makes lists of daily tasks to accomplish each day, it was amazing to think that I would suspend my doubts so easily.

Dragonfly, White Swan, and Kateri Tekakwitha would be my guides. Since my education, Blessed Kateri has become Saint Kateri – the first Native American sainted by the Catholic Church. Here is a link to the Katerie Tekakwitha Shrine in upstate New York.

READ NEGOTIATING THE PEACE FROM THE BEGINNING.

 

IPBES Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems

On By Susan FeathersIn Citizen Action, Climate Change, Ecoliteracy, Ecology, Ethics, Global Security, Health and Wellness, Human RightsLeave a comment 
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
Summary PDF for Policy-Makers (and the public)

Biodiversity is a key driver of ecosystem health and resilience. The more variety of genes and groups of genes in a particular habitat (# and kinds of living plants and animals, invertebrates, etc) the greater is its resiliency to impacts such as climate change, and human development and habitation.

A good example can be seen in our coastal ecosystems where an abundance of grasses, landforms, certain trees, sea grasses and coral reefs, promote resiliency to storms, development, etc. Dense human habitation along coastal areas has polluted waters that kill sea grasses, result in erosion of beaches which once provided a barrier to incoming storms and sea level rise.

Read the report and chat with your local city council and with your representations. Send them this short summary report. summary_for_policymakers_ipbes_global_assessment

Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System – Robin Wall Kimmerer

On By Susan FeathersIn Community, Culture, Democracy, Ecoliteracy, Ecology, Education, Ethics, Nature, Sustainable Food Production, Women, Writing, Philanthropy, Nature, Wildlife ConservationLeave a comment

Robin Wall KimmererRobin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a botanist who explains her knowledge of an indigenous worldview about plants with that of the western worldview. In that process, Kimmerer embeds whole Earth teaching along with botanical science. Here in this beautiful essay, ” Corn tastes better on the honor system” published in Emergence Magazine, is one of the author’s best teaching contrasting indigenous ways of knowing with western perspectives about the Earth. At this ragged time in American history, return to sanity. Listen.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Replenishing the Earth – Wangari Maathai

On By Susan FeathersIn Citizen Action, Climate Change, Community, Culture, Democracy, Ecoliteracy, Ecology, Education, Environment, Ethics, Health and Wellness, Human Rights, Memoir, Politics, Spiritual, WomenLeave a comment
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004

Wangari Maathai grew up in her homeland in Kenya, living close to the earth and learning traditional Kikuyu values and practices. Her memoir, Unbound, describes her daily activities as a child, her mother’s teachings, and how her people regarded the streams and forests in a land where the balance of nature is delicate, not to be abused without serious consequences for its inhabitants.

In Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World, Maathai’s wisdom is distilled onto each page, every sentence the next drop in the flow. Wangari describes herself as working practically to solve problems she learned about in discussions with communities and among women’s groups. Their need for clean water, and for access to earn a living, were her daily concerns. Eventually, Wangari and the women she served established the Greenbelt Movement that planted over 30 million trees in Kenya.

In Replenishing, Wangari’s concerns about the destruction of the environment in Kenya are examined in light of the world’s sacred traditions. Always a practical perspective, her observations and reflections give readers much to consider often through humor. For example she writes that God in his wisdom created Adam on Friday. If he’d created him on Monday he’d have perished for lack of food!

Wangari Maathai’s clarity of thought is invaluable in this age where massive destruction of oceans, rivers, wildlands, and forests have imperiled life the world over. She and the women of Kenya remind us of the earth-shaking power of people to replenish the earth, if we choose to do so.

Listen to an interview with Wangari Maathai on OnBeing.org.

 

 

Leadership by Doris Kearns Goodwin

On By Susan FeathersIn Citizen Action, Democracy, Ethics, Family, Politics, PsychologyLeave a comment
A book for our times

The great historian and writer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, has gifted students of American history with a rare treasure. Leadership In Turbulent Times, is a masterwork by one of America’s preeminent presidential historians. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson are examined through three lenses: 1) Ambition and Recognition of Leadership; 2) Adversity and Growth; 3) The Leader and the Times: How they Led

Goodwin has written biographies of each President, and she worked in Lyndon B. Johnson’s Administration as a student fellow and later helped him organize his presidential library and archives which are extensive.

I highly recommend this book for its relevance to present turbulent times. How can we recognize a great leader? What do they share in common? How do their leadership qualities emerge over a lifetime, and how do they use their particular talents to lead the largest democracy on Earth?

Goodwin is a great storyteller. The intimate portraits she paints for us are gritty, truthful, and surprising. In the last section on Visionary Leadership Goodwin becomes a classroom professor subheading points she wants to make clear such as 1) Make a dramatic start; 2) Lead with your strengths; 3) Simplify the agenda — and so on. One critic felt this was too elementary. But I like to think that Goodwin, out of her concern for the state of leadership in Washington was giving us a primer on how to identify a true leader. And for younger men and women who are coming up in the political ranks in their counties and states, she may also be showing them how the greats managed to bring our country together in times of very dangerous challenges such as the Civil War, the Depression, WWII, Civil Rights and Vietnam.

Call it a primer on Leadership. Here is an interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin about the book.

 

 

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights

On By Susan FeathersIn Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Books, Childhood, Culture, Democracy, Ethics, Human Rights, Nonfiction, Rights of Children in the U.S.Leave a comment

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate

Hidden in Plain Sight (2008 Princeton University Press) written by Barbara Bennett Woodhouse examines past and evolving perspectives on the human rights of children. Written for both students of law and the general American public, this book offers a solid methodology for how to think about the rights of children through the science of human development. It frames the rights of children by grounding them in basic human rights values of privacy, agency, equality, individual dignity, and protections.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse is the L.Q.C. Lamar Professor of Law, and director of the Child Rights Project at Emory University. She is also the Donald H. Levin Chair Emeritus in Family Law at the University of Florida.

Woodhouse presents the stories of historical figures familiar to Americans (Louisa May Alcott, Willa Cather, Frederick Douglas, and Ben Franklin) as well as children she has known in her work as a legal representative, a law professor, and a witnessing advocate for children and families.

As the reader follows these lives, learning new insights about familiar Americans, the author describes her own journey to understanding of the problems and solutions society faces in adjudicating the rights of children in numerous situations such as living in child intolerant times, slavery, abandonment, violence, and juvenile justice institutions.

As I read each chapter, Woodhouse gave me ways to think about each child or teenager, how she thought about it and has since changed her mind or confirmed her understanding. The basic premise is that children’s rights in the U.S. are tragically wanting for just policies and deeper understanding of the ecology of child development as we understand it today. Woodhouse compares America’s policies and legal record on children’s rights to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  It is the most rapidly ratified human rights convention in the history of United Nations, yet the U.S. has not joined the international community for fear that the rights of children might infringe on parents’ individual rights and undermine adult authority and control.

Woodhouse argues that the contemporary cult of individualism often contributes to harsh sentencing of children who have committed crimes and are held responsible for their actions by courts of law without due consideration of children’s developmental ability to understand the ramifications of their actions.

Hidden in Plain Sight asks readers to consider our American values in the light of the human rights of children. She evokes the language of the U.N. Special Session for Children:

A world made fit for children is a world fit for everyone.

With little personal foundation in legal study, this book read well for me as an unfolding argument by an experienced legal expert, a mother, and a legal guardian of children. I highly recommend this book to everyone who is concerned with the protection of children, and citizens who worry about the future we adults are creating for the children in our lives and around the world.

RELATED ISSUE: Juliana vs. U.S. – Children’s Constitutional Lawsuit.

Their complaint asserts that, through the government’s affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.

 

Nature Writers for Earth Day

On By Susan FeathersIn Animal Literature and Stories, Ecology, Environment, Ethics, Nature, Women, Writing, Writing, Philanthropy, Nature, Wildlife Conservation1 Comment

My writing practice began with love for nature writers. Rachel Carson in particular seized my imagination with her ability to combine science and lyrical language. No one in my view achieved what she was able to do–immerse readers in nature. Most of us know Silent Spring as her “manifesto” on the interconnections among humans, wildlife, and the earth. But, how many of you have read Under the Sea Wind? In this small book, her first, Carson writes life stories of three particular individuals: a Black Skimmer, a Mackerel, and a Sandpiper during one season bringing each alive as characters in a novel. The Black Skimmer (Rynchops), Sanderling (Blackfoot), and a Mackerel (Scomber) live, breed, avoid predators, and follow the urgings of seasonal changes, migrating, nesting, and feeding–all within exciting adventure writing. Readers dive deep into unseen lives nevertheless connected to them by large forces in seas, winds, and landforms. Under the Sea Wind is an immersion experience much like a 3-D visual experience today. Note: Under the Sea Wind was published about the time the U.S. was drawn into WWII. It was not until a dozen years later that it seized the popular imagination. For a superb biography of Carson’s life, read Linda Lear’s Witness for Nature, and for an excellent glimpse into Rachel Carson’s writing life, read Paul Brooks’ The Writer at Work.

Watch American Experience for the latest film about Carson’s life. It chronicles her writing and features the commentary of her biographers.

http://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-rachel-carson/

For a regional writer of nature, I can think of no one better than Jack Rudloe who writes about the Gulf near his home and Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory and Education Center. Jack was inspired by Ed Rickett’s whose work and life were enshrined in the popular imagination by John Steinbeck. Jack Rudloe, the 19-year old would-be scientist and nature writer, corresponded with Steinbeck in the latter year of Steinbeck’s life. Read any of Jack’s books for a another immersion adventure in: The Living Dock, The Sea Brings Forth, and the Search for the Great Turtle Mother. Anne Rudloe, his wife and marine scientist, wrote books with Jack that are reminiscent of Carson in their deep love for and accurate science about the landscapes they love and defend. Anne Rudloe passed away in 2010, and Jack and his sons carry on as Titans for Nature–like Carson in Silent Spring.

Enjoy Jack’s video about his book, The Wilderness Coast.

If you have time to sit down to read the record of Ed Rickett’s and John Steinbeck’s travels in the Sea of Cortez–The Log of the Sea of Cortez–you will be treated to a glimpse into evolving ideas about ecology as an ethical basis for living. Then, treat yourself to the film Cannery Row with Nick Nolte, Debra Winger, and John Huston. John Steinbeck’s novel, Cannery Row, is based on Rickett’s marine supply business in Monterey, California when the coastline abound with sea life.

 

Future Home of the Living God: A Masterpiece

On By Susan FeathersIn Art and Culture, Books, Democracy, Ethics, Fiction, Spiritual, WomenLeave a comment

Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God is a masterpiece of contemporary  American literature. After 16 novels, books of poetry, and memoir, and nominations for the Pulitzer, and winner of the National Book Award, this novel is a culmination of her storytelling, use of language, and imagination.

I’ve read and studied Erdrich’s works for at least 15 years, eagerly awaiting each new novel. Some have exceeded my expectations, others have not but are still excellent reads. But this one, THIS is an achievement — not just for her as a writer and artist — but for our times.

The writing is beautiful and flows with such ease, concise yet vivid description, that reading is seamless. The plot moves with tremendous pace and at times I was so full of suspense that I had to put my hand over the next sentence to keep myself from jumping ahead. As a woman with a daughter and sisters, and nieces, I was drawn to the main character, Cedar, who writes a diary for her unborn child — a record of a time when all that people assumed would never change was upended overnight.

If you are a woman of child-bearing age or a woman concerned about protection of women’s rights, if you are a a man who values women, a person of faith, or a citizen who wishes to understand this age, this time on earth, then you need to read this book. The earth is changing, we are changing.

In the dystopian tale, so prescient for today, she manages to still uplift the reader. She is a weaver of legend, personal destinies, and her own cultural perspective. Louise Erdrich manages to show us there is still hope, still good to be cherished and brought forward in all of us. Yet, Erdrich bravely portrays a potential future that threatens all we hold as good and right in human behavior, and the fate of the earth.

Hildegard of Bingen, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, scripture from the Bible, and Ojibwe elders all find voice in this story.

Find it at Birchbark Books, Erdrich’s independent book store; Indie Bound, or other online book vendors. Read the New York Times book review.

On By Susan FeathersIn Citizen Action, Climate Change, Democracy, Environment, EthicsLeave a comment

This video of an interview with Rebecca Solnit, columnist with Harper’s Magazine, prolific author on climate change, environmental issues, and other culturally relevant issues, is a clear point for those of us who feel disoriented by the sweeping changes being made in D.C.

https://hot.dvlabs.com/democracynow/360/dn2017-0328.mp4?start=2758.0

From this interview on Democracy Now on March 28, 2017, this excerpt is most important for those of us who are engaged in resisting the dismantling of hard won environmental protections and action on climate change. I recommend listening to the whole interview at the link above. Solnit has a comprehensive perspective on “where we are” and what is the work now.

What concerns me, after 30 years of activism, is that a lot of people will think, “Well, we did something today, and we didn’t see results tomorrow.” So one of the things I’ve been writing about for The Guardian and elsewhere is just trying to remind people that this is a long process, that we may be in, you know, the early stages of really redefining what democracy is going to mean in this nation, reforming the systems that were already moribund and stagnant before—you know, Trump is a consequence of a dysfunctional system, not a cause of it. So we have enormous transformative work to do. And people are actually doing it. If we keep at it, if we’re smart, if we’re skillful, if we’re more passionate about solidarity than the kind of perfectionism of nitpicking small differences, I think that extraordinary things could happen, not that they’re guaranteed. It depends on what we do. But it’s an exciting and even exhilarating moment, as well as a heart-rending and terrifying one. And those things can coexist.