AHA moment, First Step

This morning, typing away and reading FACEBOOK, I realized the true reason I have not blogged. Facebook is sucking my brains out! Facebook, at the very least is eating up my time. After some intervention, I shall return to Outside the Belly.

Apologetically, Misa

October 15, BLOG ACTION DAY

My friend Marc Dadigan just blogged. Today is Blog Action Day. I am printing his piece today because it moved me and expresses what I believe is the most important
action to take today:

“Why don’t they understand what keeps the rivers clean?”

The Shasta Dam, 600 feet tall, destroyed the McCloud salmon runs when it was built during World War II

“Why don’t they understand what keeps the rivers clean?”

Caleen, the spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu, asked me this last night as she drove us back to her village outside Redding.

We were returning from Sacramento where NOAA had held a public meeting to solicit input on its salmon restoration plan for California’s Central Valley. Only about 15 people attended, and Caleen and Mark, her husband and the tribe’s headman, were the only tribal people there.

The Winnemem spoke, in part, to try to build support for their unorthodox plan to return salmon to their river, the McCloud, by importing eggs from New Zealand’s Rakaia River salmon.

But the meeting was a frustrating experience for Caleen. NOAA’s lead coordinator for the project, Brian, showed graphs that depicted how the Pacific salmon populations had precipitously plunged over the past 50 years. Of the 18 historical wild salmon populations that once existed, only three remain.

“These are the patterns,” he said of the graph, “that are consistent with species that eventually go extinct.”

He said this matter-of-factly, and Caleen clenched her jaw and her eyes started to glisten.

When Caleen saw those graphs, she didn’t just see numbers. She saw her relatives dying. In the tribe’s genesis story, it was salmon that gave the Winnemem, mute and helpless at their birth, the ability to speak.

Brian continued to talk about NOAA’s plans to conduct cost-benefit analyses to validate the economic value of saving the salmon, and he also spoke about collaborating with power companies, water districts and other stakeholders. It was only so long before Caleen had to interject.

“How long do you think the salmon are going to wait for you?” she asked him, her voice shaking. “You’ve only got three salmon runs left, and people are dragging their feet. The creator put the salmon in the rivers for a reason.”

Caleen expected NOAA to have more power to force this plan into action and was disheartened it didn’t.

Later during the drive home, Mark was sleeping in the backseat, and Caleen posed her question to me, wondering why no one valued salmon’s vital role in upturning rocks, keeping the river clean and, after it dies, seeping back into the soil as nutrients.

“To be honest,” I told her. “Before I met the Winnemem, I just figured a river was clean if we didn’t dump any crap into it.”

Every St. Patrick's Day, the Chicago River is dyed green with unknown chemicals

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, a city with a river that was reversed to send sewage toward St. Louis. Chicago also used to dye the river green every St. Patrick’s Day with fluorescein, a chemical that’s been documented to cause many health ailments including sudden death from anaphylactic shock. Today, the city uses a secret formula it claims is safe.

The Winnemem revere the water and see it as living. They were, in their creation story, born from its womb, a bubbling spring on Mt. Shasta.

On the other hand, I come from a community that shows a lot of disrespect towards its water, a disrespect that stems from ignorance.

In the schools I attended, I learned next to nothing about hydrology, the importance of a clean river to the local ecosystem or even, as Caleen knows so inherently, what a clean river is supposed to resemble.

Before I moved to the West Coast, subconsciously the idea of a clean river was nearly a foreign concept to me. All the rivers I’d known were dirty, polluted and not much different, in my mind, than a roadway, a mode of transportation that could be painted green like we might paint a billboard.

Caleen has wondered why kids aren’t taught how many rivers in their state are polluted or how many dams there are. And it’s an intriguing question. I wonder how this lack of education plays a part in our widespread abuse of water, especially in California.

There is probably no resource more valuable and paradoxically treated and used with such recklessness. We’ve sucked up underground aquifers, flooded sacred lands with dams and reduced powerful rivers to a trickle. And we are all ignorant about the damage we’re causing not only to ecosystems, but to the supply of freshwater we need to survive.

Today, Oct. 15 is Blog Action Day, and bloggers across the world are blogging about water. My hope for today, and every day after, is for all of us to spend some time educating ourselves about our local waterways. Learn about the rivers or lakes in your community. Are there dams on that river? Are the flows anywhere close to where they’re supposed to be naturally? Have invasive species disrupted the river’s ecology?

These are questions that we should all have the answers to, and yet almost nothing has been invested in teaching us about water.

By 2025, the U.N. estimates that two-thirds of the world will be facing water scarcity, and it would be dangerous to assume this won’t apply to anyone in the United States.

So take some time today to learn about your water. It’s not only the Winnemem’s womb, but the world’s.

We can no longer afford to be so ignorant about something so precious.

On Oct. 11, Caleen gave a speech at the University of Oregon’s Many Nations Longhouse about the importance of salmon, water and water education.

Listen to it here.
October 15th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | One comment

"Outside the Belly"

I haven't had the time to sit down and blog. Since my last blog we have gone through two strong ceremonies, and in between time we've had friends and family come to stay awhile. Since my last blog, I retired from one more longtime commitment -- the Rites of Passage Summer Academy for Pan Asian American students at Lane Community College -- and since my last blog we've demolished the kitchen which I found spreads throughout the whole house. No area is left untouched. I am also doing the nitty gritty paperwork involving a severely damaged car door of the Prius. I backed out without closing it. I am dealing with all my teeth and vision work and filling out all the paper I need to in order to transition from insurance to medicare through my retirement system. So I have not had time to introspect, to write. For me, I need a settled place, and settled time to write, and that is not going to happen until October.

But to those who follow "from Outside the Belly" I need to say that outside the belly has been a good place to be these two months! Out of the belly with the Winnemem people in ceremony! A short summary follows.

*Balas Chonas, or Coming of Age Ceremony, despite all the potential and risky problems, carried on smoothly. Someone in the National Forest System was doing their job and sent staff to monitor the river for safety. While Forest Supervisor Sharon Heywood turned her back and did nothing and while the NRA Ranger of the Shasta Forest Kristi Cottini continued to break ties made over decades with the Winnemem Tribe insisting that all past agreements regarding their freedom of religion disappeared with the death of the past chief, Florence Jones, and that there no longer was any ties between the Winnemem Tribe and the Forest Service, some other entity of the National Forests decided it would be foolhardy to sit by and allow racist recreational boaters and drunks run over the Winnemem youth as they swam over to join their friends and families on the fourth day of the ceremony. And they watched the river, talked with the leaders and in the end shut down the river for safe crossing.

Further, the young women and young men of the tribe really stepped up and took leadership roles. Babers who had the first Balas Chonas in 2006 with confidence and heart taught all she had learned of the traditional knowledge to the young initiates taking an important place alongside the elders. In fact, because she was the first to go through puberty ceremony since the 1920's, she knew more than her aunts' generation. Puberty ceremony was not allowed during their time. The Hoopa tribe's Kayla Brown was right there assisting and lifting spirits. The two of them, Kayla and Babers (Marine) forged the strong ties between their two families and two tribes for the next generation. The young men on both sides of the rivers fulfilled their roles as protectors and keepers of the Sacred Fire. A new team of cooks not only assisted the treasured chef of the Winnemem, RT, but they brought experience, and a strong commitment to keep coming back. The women followed the young women's example to strengthen their bonds of relationship. As the Chief said, a tribe is only as strong as their women's bond with one another.

This bond was made even stronger because all the women who could at that time bought their basket hats, and went together with the young initiates to Colchima Salwal, a sacred spring, to do ceremony, washing their hats in the waterfall which tumbled down past sugar pines and yew and thanking the waters there for the hats and making a commitment to the water, to the salmon, to the sacred places. These hats, Caleen says, will help us think better, think right. These hats, like the acorn, will bind us to these sacred lands and to the ancestors' responsibilities to nur, to mem, to all that is sacred.

There were so many allies at the Coming of Age Ceremony. Environmental Justice for Water, Winnemem Support and AIM West -- from Portland to L.A. The circle grew larger and stronger.

And when the protectors, the assistants, the fire tender and the two young women -- Jessica and Winona -- swam across the river, there was a large and emotional crowd who met them. Each young adult who was part of ceremony and swam across to join the supporters were smoked up as each one came out of the river, new, and ready to join the adult circle. I looked at them. All of them Winnemem, and most of all, all of them from the Village. I remembered when I started coming to ceremony. The fire tenders traveled to be there. And there is just a difference now that the center, the core of the tribe live together. They are stronger. It is as Granny always dreamed of. And she is there so strong in spirit with her family. This is not to trivialize the travelers because those who travel all have large commitments and even though they live far from the village, they do Winnemem work and pray and keep that Fire alive wherever they live. The heart of the tribe, the Village, is very strong, though, the main fire which has been burning for over a year, the main village where we all call Home, the leadership.

I will come back to blog sometime soon. I will blog about both ceremonies. I just want to thank you for all your support with postcards to Barb Boxer. She did respond. It just did not do any good with Krisi Cottini. And for those of you who still want to support Winnemem, so much work is happening and your support is appreciated. The tribe is doing whatever is necessary to bring the salmon home. Steps are being made. New Zealand is ready and willing. Mark and Caleen are speaking with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ) and NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) (on the salmon) as well as the DFG (Dept. of Fish and Game in CA. The lawsuit is still happening.

The United Nations Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples is being discussed for ratification. Please send your letters and ask your organizations and tribes to write or email supporting the US adoption IN FULL the UNDRIP WITHOUT ANY RESTRICTIONS OR LIMITATION OF THE ARTICLES to S/SR Global Intergovernmental Affairs, US Department of State, 2201 C Street N.W., Suite 1317, Washington D.C. 20520. Or email, declaration@state.gov

When our Chief went to the meeting regarding the UNDRIP joining representatives of federally recognized tribes (although not invited since she was chief of an unrecognized tribe -- like 300,000 tribal people of 90 percent of the tribes are in California -- this time she was allowed to speak anyway. She also was allowed to speak the second day to the Non Governmental Organizations assembled (NGO's). She even was able to talk with Obama's person, Cherokee. All of this is first time. She has asked for them to come to California and call all the tribes who were de-recognized in the 1980's together and listen.

The people assembled at the UNDRIP were complaining about the acronym and some talked about the name being changed. The Chief spoke up that UNDRIP might be the perfect name and talked about water as a central issue for indigenous nations as well as the strength of water, one drip at a time cutting through mountains, forming the land, providing a home to the nur, giving life to all beings -- one drip at a time.

The Winnemem are out of the belly people, unfazed and undigested by what the "Monster" offers -- profit and paper and the power to destroy all of life -- and watching from the outside the vulnerable belly, still following the sacred -- the waters, the salmon, the great mountains and ancestral spirits -- as all their ancestors before them did. The drip of water joining others is the image I carry with me during these difficult almost daunting times. United (UN) we can carry on and with such leadership as shown by Winnemem and side by side with the leaders among the young adults coming up after them, and with the support of the leaders of past generations who still surround them. Into the future, we shall always carry on.

WW/ From Chief Caleen Sisk Franco four days before Ceremony

This Saturday the BaLas Chonas begins! The most the US Forest Service can do is a "voluntary closure". This informs the good people to turn their boats around go somewhere else on the 375 mile shoreline of the Shasta Lake. But it also allows the 5 -10% who will barge through the voluntary closure to come up the river and they will... be the ones that perform the indignant discriminatory behavior because they have a "public right" to do so. The U.S. under the UN declaration to eliminate discrimination of any kind, finds no way to protect our young girls ceremony from the re-occurrence of what happened in 2006. The U.S. and California educational systems have failed to teach American's about the indigenous people of the U.S. and provide them understanding and respect needed to allow us to carry out our religious ways in peace.

This only goes to support why we pray that President Obama will sign the UN DRIP, because many of the Articles will allow the Winnemem, an indigenous people of the McCloud River to utilize so many of the Articles, but in particularly Article 12 states- 1.) Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to use and control of their ceremonial objects; the right to the repatriation of their human remains. 2.) States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.

We have a "right" to exist and continue our tribal ways. Our Tribe has survived much tragic discriminatory treatment in the California history, but we must have the right to continue to be Winnemem Wintu through our ways of life, customs, religion, and use of sacred places. There is no where else in the world we can go to do this, being of Winnemem bloodline is not enough to sustain our "tribal" life way!

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!!