WW/ Please Support the Coming of Age Ceremony

http://pubertyceremony.wordpress.com/
Here is the blog site for the Coming of Age Ceremony. You will see the beautiful young women who are Coming of Age.

It's hard to fathom. We're signing postcards, signing online petitions, setting up protection just to bring our young people into their adulthood -- like people have Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs, Qincenerra, Confirmations, -- families getting together, putting together traditional finery, learning sacred text, getting the feast ready, family, friends, beauty.

Who has to think of preparing for possible tragedy set up by those in authority, the youth being run over by drunken racist speedboaters, brazen hateful women flashing their breasts, racist epithets -- all documented by the Forest Service employees who were sent to help last coming of age ceremony because they are the only ones who can order the sheriff to close the rivers. Knowing what they know, does the US Forest Service of the Trinity Forest act responsibly? Do the higher ups of the Forest Service act this time, knowing all this? Do they do the responsible thing? Do they care? Sharon Heywood! Do you really mean to set up a possibility of a disaster by doing nothing and ordering your people to do nothing? Ms. Cortini, do you have feelings?

Here's a blogsite about the Coming of Age Ceremony. May it be filled with stories of beauty, hope, and adults who love their youth.

http://pubertyceremony.wordpress.com/

Petition to go to Senator Boxer w/Over 1000 Signees~!

Thank you all of you who took the time to sign the Winnemem Wintu Petition to Senator Boxer. It's 1000 plus now. I will blog how things went. Prayers, support, great allies. My heart is full!!!

Second Wind!

We are at the point which seems to go on endlessly, the goal just in sight. We are forty four signatures away from the 1000 signature goal petitioning Senator Barbara Boxer to encourage the Forest Service to honor the Winnemem Wintu Tribe's right to Freedom of Religion. The tribe seeks to carry on a Coming of Age Ceremony for two young women, one of whom is the future Chief of the Winnemem in less than two weeks.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/protect-winnemem-wintu-tribe-puberty-ceremony

Here's the site.

So if it matters to you that the original historical traditional tribes carry on their way of life and do not become extinct

If you believe that their prayers, ceremonies and advocacy for the water, earth, for the whole circle of life is relevant and important to have at the table in these times of ecological disaster

If you want the tribes to go on for seven more generations and seven beyond that with young people learning the old ways and continuing on

If you believe tribes still deserve basic human rights of freedom of religion under the Native American Religious Freedom Act even if they are tribes who will choose responsibility to take care of sacred lands over getting on the faster path of economic development or the casino road and who will not change their original form of government for tribal council and government which mimics the US just to be federally recognized

If you care that 90 percent of California Indians, in the 1980's, were dropped from the federal recognition list, a list which exists because of machinations of a Reagan Supreme Court, a list the Federal Government unjustly relies upon as the only Native people who shall enjoy human rights, the ear of government, and the right to exist as a tribe. The huge majority of Indian people, tens of thousands, in the State of California has been disenfranchised and their language, culture are endangered!

Please, if these things concern you, take a few seconds to go to this link
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/protect-winnemem-wintu-tribe-puberty-ceremony
and sign the petition. You don't need to write anything. But we need 43 of you good people to join the 957 who have already signed so the petition can be sent to Senator Boxer. It's urgent because we have 10 days only until we go down to the ceremonial grounds for the Coming of Age Ceremony.,

Your help is needed for that second wind for a strong finish. Thank you!!