Home, again?

A week from tomorrow is July 4. Where I come from [Boston, MA], that’s deep into Summer. June is wending along the same path as Spring, into memory land. Greens are deepening, as we get some rain. More types of butterflies are showing up almost daily. We’ve already more than halfway to the average number of days we reach 90℉ [9 so far, 13 is average]. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes from here. Cooler and wetter, but not too much, would be nice.

I’m noticing that spending less time checking newspapers and social media usually puts me in a better mood and gives me more time to devote to things I can actually do something about and/or things I enjoy doing. I’ve been reading more and more about Traditional Ecological Knowledge [TEK] and that’s slowly helping me to shift bits and pieces of my world view. I’m involved, as a volunteer, in a project for which I’d like to find at least one way to integrate TEK, similar to the Wakan Tipi Center at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary in St. Paul. 

Water of the Dodem Spirits

Photo by J. Harrington

I grew up learning about the American Revolution, the Minutemen, and the “shot heard round the world.” I have been much slower, as I grow older, learning about those who lived here before “settlers” arrived, before the fur trade changed the economy and the relationships among those living here. We can’t go back, but we can do a much better job of restoring not only the environment on which we depend for food, clean air and water, and our relationship to that environment plus our relationship with those who lived here before US and are still here.

Dakota Homecoming

By Gwen Nell Westerman

We are so honored that

              you are here, they said.

We know that this is

             your homeland, they said.

The admission price

             is five dollars, they said.

Here is your button

             for the event, they said.

It means so much to us that

             you are here, they said.

We want to write

             an apology letter, they said.

Tell us what to say.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.