Stories of Hope and Adversity
Stories of hope and adversity have echoed through the livelihoods of Indigenous voices for time immemorial. There are times for humilIty during a storm and times for resilience. Those stories show us when to have humility and when to have resilience.
“We must shift our thinking away from short-term gain toward long-term investment and sustainability, and always have the next generation in mind with every decision we make.”
— Deb Haaland, United States Secretary of the Interior
Today , I am sharing stories from the ancestral homelands of Jemez Pueblo, Santo Domingo Pueblo, Cochiti Pueblo, Santa Ana Pueblo, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. From riparian areas to alpine zones there are projects that protect and allow accessibility for traditional harvesting. In the mountains near Santa Fe National Forest, youth crews who are from surrounding pueblo tribes along with the Ancestral Land Conservation Corp are planting ponderosa pine and douglas fir trees where forest fires have touched the land, managing resources and protecting watersheds, and carrying traditions through their work. Among those youth crews is resilience. Resilience for a storm that had started four generations ago. During the planting season, crews shared stories of persistent hunts and trail hiking that took place just over a ridge while knowing that their ancestors shared that same experience. Yet here we are, as descendants of our ancestors stewarding the land so that the next generation can have that same experience.
A friend of mine once told me “Why did our people choose to live in these environments? Because it keeps us awake, it keeps us aware of our surroundings. If it gets too comfortable, we will fall asleep.” The land we choose to call our home will take care of us, that is if we take care of the land. An abused parking lot can be transformed into a food forest filled with animals and a neglected gravel filled hillside can be tended into a healing oasis for all walks of life. At Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute and Tewa Women United interconnectedness, traditional ecological knowledge, healing, sustainability, and Indigenous values are some key factors that hold a presence in the people, in the community, and on the land. Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute hosts workshops designated to living a sustainable, land conscious, and independent life. Along with preserving and teaching methods of cultural knowledge to create sustainable homesteads. Tewa Women United provides a communal healing oasis on their ancestral homelands, where the town of Espanola, New Mexico sits. The garden grows native and non-native plants that are used for numerous applications of healing, nutrition, and traditional educational value. You can find families picking fruits off of trees, locals tending and caring for the garden, a high school student learning or teaching about harvesting, and elders using medicinal plants for healing. Land and community hold a relation, if one is hurting and neglected then the other will feel the same in return. Listen and heal one, then the other will follow.
The four corners region in the southwest has been home to many Indigenous tribes and has been a life force for transcending culture and tradition among tribes. Mountain ranges, peaks, rivers, and stars are not named by those who have conquered them, instead they have named themselves before we could name ourselves. Indigenous peoples have this knowledge in common. To this day, those names are still spoken when anything is done to the land. Every footprint we leave behind, we hope that it is recognized by the next generation as a gift of humility and resilience.
