My eyes are soaked in the beauty, sorrow, resiliency, history and power of Dinétah. Take the time to get to know what my eyes see and you will see that each day I wake in gratitude,
My heart is molded with the love, attention, strength, wisdom, patience and tenderness of my ancestors. Take the time to get to know what my heart feels and you will feel that each day I wake in gratitude.
The swirls in my fingertips and in my toes bind me to my place, to Dinétah. Take the time to get to know my connection to the land and you will know that each day I wake in gratitude.
I was home this weekend. I was in the place of my ancestors, my elders, my grandparents, my parents, my brothers and sisters. I was in the one place that will always recognize me.
Each step on my run this weekend made me more grateful for forgiveness, trust, kindness, truth, peace, joy, love and strengthened my connection/respect to the land.
I wake in gratitude,
-J
Shiprock Marathon & Half Marathon – 2014 – my hometown, my place. I finished in 2:15 yéégó!
The people of the Navajo Nation Welcome You – Shiprock Marathon & Half Marathon
Tse’Bit’ai (Rock with wings)
Posing with my medal
Cousins
Pre-race stretch
My post race binge. Trying to decide between burgers at Shiprock’s Chat & Chew
I was born between the four sacred mountains of the Navajo Nation. When I give thanks, I am forever grateful for being born Diné. There is no one on this earth that can take that from me. Like my ancestors, like my grandmothers before me I will die a Navajo woman. They will RECOGNIZE me and for that I am FOREVER thankful. The earth between the four sacred mountains is my life. It is where I get my strength and ability to live. From a young age I was taught to respect the land and care for it, always. I was taught to live by our Navajo ways and those Navajo ways are higher than any other law. The Navajo way of being for me has always been and is the natural way of being, a natural law. As I get older I better understand the environmental impacts of development on my homeland, and the health impacts on/in my body. With this understanding and knowledge I have come to realize it is my responsibility as a Navajo woman to engage and protect my place, my homeland and my family. As a Navajo woman I am responsible for not only my children but my entire family, my clan, my community, the land, the water, and our ways of being. As an act of resurgence I am learning of the struggles being fought on the ground by Navajos (daily) to reclaim, regenerate our relationships with the land and with each other. I am positioning myself to be better acquainted with the knowledge and needs of my community. I have begun to make the critical reconnections to intimately know the needs of my community and of the land and water. I am taking the steps needed to stay tied to my family, my clan, my community so tha I am present, truly present. So that I am on the land, on Dinétah until the end of my life. So lest we forget these Navajo struggles & sacrifices (There are many more. I will update this post as time permits):
There are Navajo families that continue to lack piped water and must haul their own water from other sources, most of which are unregulated wells. Many of the water sources have been significantly compromised by chemical, bacteriological and uranium contamination. The contamination of our water sources has been an issue for decades. There have been unprecedented instances of death, cancer, birth defects, and other health related problems due to decades of hap hazard mining (Addressing Uranium Contamination http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/mmd/marp/Documents/MK023ER_20081212_Marquez_NNELC-Acoma-Comments-AttachmentE-UExposureSummary.pdf also see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222290/ ) Even after the mining boom of 1948 the Navajo people live on as Indigenous people of Dinétah. We continue live by the stories told by our ancestors. We continue to obey the signs shown to us by the land and stories given to us by the land. Navajo like many other Indigenous people have a legacy of resistance. We continue to survive attempts at annihilation and just as the Niłchʼi Diyin (holy wind) we are a people that is ALIVE and we will prevail even after the celebrations of the colonial government.
As Navajo people our relationship to land is intimately reflected in the countless stories and majestic landscape of Dinétah. The land itself can summarize our long and rich experience. It is wholly capable of expressing a viewpoint, emphasizing relationable (family & community) cohesion and offers wisdom. The colonial mindset of some of our very own tribal leaders and that of the colonial government is one which continues to attempt to dismember the land from the Navajo people. Their hope is that our seperation from our homeland will result in a breakdown of spiritual values and Navajo ways of being. However, despite political, social, economic and environmental catastrophes the land and our ways of being continue to survive.
Tsoodził (Mt. Taylor) is facing threat of uranium mining by companies such as Roca Honda Resources.
Dook’o’oosłííd (San Francisco Peaks) is being desecrated by Arizona Snowbowl’s expansion and treated
sewage snowmaking.
Dibé Ntsaa (Mount Hesperus) is threatened by Wildcat Mine which is planning to mine gold, silver, and tellurium.
Dził ná’oodiłii (Huerfano Mesa) faces oil and gas drilling including fracking.
Ch’óol’í’í (Governador Knob) faces oil and gas drilling including fracking.
Dinétah: Holy Lands, place of Diné emergence into this world and where, today, multitudes of oil and gas wells extract fossil fuels from the land.
Dził yíjiin (Black Mesa) has been desecrated by Peabody since 1960s. Wells and springs have run dry due to mining related pumping of the N Aquifer.
Ch’óóshgai (Chuska Mountains) survived more than a century of unsustainable forestry practices, and near deforestation that resulted in the disappearing of springs, medicinal herbs and erosion. It is still in need
of reforestation.
Tsé’naa Na’ní’áhí (Rainbow Bridge ) Prayer offering sites have been covered by the waters of Lake Powell.
Bidaa (Grand Canyon Confluence) is threatened by the Grand Canyon Escalade which plans on building a large scale resort where the Little Colorado & Colorado
rivers meet.
The Colorado River and San Juan River have faced toxic contamination and over use.
Hwééldi (Navajo Long Walk) – Navajo concentration camp called Bosque Redondo 1863-1868
Hwééldi (Navajo Long Walk) – Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner)
Dee Brown’s Bury My HeartAt Wounded Knee provides accounts of the ruthlessness, greed and murderous policies of the United States at Bosque Redondo.
During the autumn, Navahos who had escaped from the Bosque Redondo began returning to their homeland with frightening accounts of what was happening to the people there. It was a wretched land, they said. The soldiers prodded them with bayonets and herded them into adobe-walled compounds where the soldier chiefs were always counting them and putting numbers down in little books. The soldier chiefs promised them clothing and blankets and better food, but their promises were never kept. All the cottonwood and mesquite had been cut down, so that only roots were left for firewood. To shelter themselves from rain and sun they had to dig holes in the sandy ground, and cover and line them with mats of woven grass. They lived like prairie dogs in burrows. With a few tools the soldiers gave them they broke the soil of the Pecos bottomlands and planted grain, but floods and droughts and insects killed the crops, and now everyone was on half-rations. Crowded together as they were, disease had begun to take a toll of the weaker ones. It was a bad place, and although escape was difficult and dangerous under the watchful eyes of the soldiers, many were risking their lives to get away.
And no advocate of Manifest Destiny ever phrased his support of that philosophy more unctuously than he: “The exodus of this whole people from the land of their fathers is not only an interesting but a touching sight. They have fought us gallantly for years on years; they have defended their mountains and their stupendous canyons with a heroism which any people might be proud to emulate; but when, at length, they found it was their destiny, too, as it had been that of their brethren, tribe after tribe, away back toward the rising of the sun, to give way to the insatiable progress of our race, they threw down their arms, and, as brave men entitled to our admiration and respect, have come to us with confidence in our magnanimity, and feeling that we are too powerful and too just a people to repay that confidence with meanness or neglect—feeling that having sacrificed to us their beautiful country, their homes, the associations of their lives, the scenes rendered classic in their traditions, we will not dole out to them a miser’s pittance in return for what they know to be and what we know to be a princely realm.”
When the Bosque’s grain crops failed again in the autumn of 1865, the Army issued the Navahos meal, flour, and bacon which had been condemned as unfit for soldiers to eat. Deaths began to rise again, and so did the number of attempted escapes.
Shiawéé (my baby) in Seattle a few days before she was shot & killed. -RIP- Nicole Westbrook
Forever shiawéé -RIP- Nicole Westbrook
Have you ever watched someone you love slowly slip away from your life?
I walked into your room, walked right next to your side, grabbed your hand, leaned over and whispered “Aunty is here, Baby Girl. Aunty is here,” and I gently kissed your forehead. Your hands were so soft and so warm. My lips lingered on your forehead because in that moment you gave me peace and hope. Yes, you…you gave me peace and hope. Seeing you, seeing you fighting for your life gave me hope that you were going to recover and be okay. All I wanted, all we wanted was for you to be okay. I kissed you and I looked at you and your eyes were open fluttering as if trying to tell me something. There was so much rapid eye movement and then there were tears. The nurse told me all the eye movement was due to your brain injury but to this day I know you knew I was there. Shiawéé you knew I was there and you knew mom was coming. I called your mom as I stood next to you. I put the phone to your ear and your heart rate shot up. Your eyes moved even faster as if you were searching, fighting your way back and then the tears streamed out.
Witnessing life slowly slip away from this world is really hard to explain to someone who has not lived it. The phone call at 4am on April 22, 2012 plays over and over in my head as loud and ever present as the life support machine in the hospital room. One is a sound of despair and crying in bitter grief. The other is a meditative pulse, slow and predictable, a humming of breath that resonates in the body through a comforting yet disquieting sound scape.
When someone slips away from your life, slips away with death you are jolted onto a road that will take so many twist and turns, ups and downs, that you feel like your are on the worst roller coaster of your life and the ride never ends. There is nothing you can do to make sense of the moment someone you love slips farther and farther into a world not meant for you at that time.
Wednesday morning when I arrived at the hospital I immediately went to your room and when I walked into your room and saw the doctor, mom and everybody there was no question that your time with us was coming to an end. There was no struggle. Your eyes no longer flickered. They kept you completely covered to keep you warm. The machines did all the breathing. The doctor checked your eyes one last time and made the call. We were all there and we sat with you until the end. None of us had ever witnessed death firsthand (except Aunty Charlene). We all tried to will you back to life, but it was over. Once the struggle ended, you looked so peaceful. Being there when you died was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It was also one of the most profound experiences of my life. No matter how sad, I wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to be with you, shiawéé and loving you as you left this world. You died in peace to meet dy’ in’…the creator. The Diné way is not to hang on after you are gone. They say if we hang on your spirit may attach to a place, something or someone so we are not to bind you to this earth with our grief. We must wash up, take táádidíín (corn pollen) and go on with life. I love you so much, Baby Girl.
Writing and healing with the knowledge that new stories are waiting to be written. Recovering, rebuilding, loving and living with peace and a grateful heart.
Mi’kmaq Warrior Suzanne Patles speaks at the SWN blockade site (background) just two days after a violent raid by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Even though the SWN trucks are gone, supporters keep streaming in from as far west as Vancouver.
via sub Media – Anarchist News & Resistance Updates
Video and brief description via Sub Media – Anarchist News & Resistance Updates
The “Line 9″ and “Energy East” pipelines threaten to bring tar sands “crude” from Alberta for export through ports in the Atlantic. These pipelines will traverse through many Indigenous communities and natural areas, threatening not only the health of the land but the sovereignty of these territories and their peoples. We have teamed up with Indigenous organizer Amanda Lickers to produce aKahsatstenhsera: Indigenous Resistance to Tar Sands Pipelines. This video will focuses on Indigenous resistance and seeks to build capacity in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities by providing an educational and accessible resource to build awareness across communities. Featuring stories and perspectives from land defenders in Athabasca Chipewyan, Aamjiwnaang, Six Nations of the Grand River, Kanehsatà:ke, and Elsipogtog First Nations, this video will not only educates the public on the issues being faced by pipeline construction and expansion, but showcases Indigenous resistance and provide an anti-colonial lens for understanding environmental destruction.
The Holders of the Light held several Idle No More water-related messages in front of the 2013 Indian Summer Festival’s tipi, prominently located on the State Park Island in front of the Indian Summer grounds. (Photo: Light Brigading / Flickr)
The United States and Canada are two of the wealthiest nations in the world. Much of this wealth comes from the extraction of resources on land that belongs by treaty to Native Indians. Rather than honoring these treaties, the governments of the US and Canada have a long history, which continues today, of using laws and even manipulating the process of creating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to exterminate indigenous sovereignty.
Support Actions for Elsipogtog and Mi’kmaq anti-fracking blockade here is a link/page that includes background information, list of solidarity action, easy to download leaflets, videos and other links to share in solidarity with Mi’kmaq and Elsipogtog anti-fracking blocakde. Stand in solidarity!
An anti-fracking protest by hundreds of Indigenous turned violent on Thursday when police came to break up the action. Members of the Elsipogtog and Mi’kmaq First Nations tribes blocked a highway in the province of New Brunswick to stop shale gas company SWN Resources from continuing development in the area.
Red Running Into The Water 