I apologize for this blog entry, as it may seem political, but I have never been more ashamed in my life to live in the United States. This president, in 2024, came into office with only 31% of the 245 million citizens eligible to vote. That is 77 million votes for trump and 168 million voters who did NOT vote for his corrupt regime. I think of this everyday, all those millions of citizens, plus their children, grandchildren, and great-grands…..growing up listening to a liar-baby, pedophile-protector, and his henchwomen and men. I’m deeply thinking about the resilience of those who have been generationally discriminated against in our country, and the valuable lessons they share now. We only need listen. This quote comes from a wonderful blog written by Chris LaTray at An Irritable Métis. I’ll leave the link to his latest post below. I hope there will be some enlightenment for you in the reading.
“I believe the things we learn about balance and about sharing and kinship and survival and dependence are not strictly Indigenous values and knowledge, they are human values and human knowledge, because we are all human and we share all these human experiences of grief and love and excitement and fear, but also because … here we are together. Here we are together. History and events and circumstances have put colonizers and colonized, oppressed and oppressors, and all of us together here, now, and our only future is a future together. As humans.”
– Ernestine Hayes (Kaagwaantaan Clan of the Tlingit Nation)
And here is a wonderful initiative that Robin Wall Kimmerer is presenting as a welcoming way to participate in healing ways. It’s called “Plant, Baby, Plant.” She suggests ways to: “Raise a Garden, Raise a Ruckus, Join the movement!”
Melinda West | West Gardens Basketry
Growing, gathering, and weaving with plant fibers from the Pacific Northwest
About Melinda
Forty years ago, while sitting on the beach playing with my young children, I made my first basket out of a pile of willow trimmings someone had tossed there. It looked wildly made like a crazy bird’s nest. While being together with my two sons on a beautiful Pacific Northwest shoreline, this simple experience of crafting with the natural materials at hand kindled a passion for creating forms using plant fibers. I thank my family, my community, and all my teachers for cultivating this gift in me.
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