00:13:50.700droves, you know, we need to practice patience, common sense. We need to be teachers in a time
00:13:56.960when really, I'm tired. I get very tired of having to share and teach. But right now,
00:14:05.840it is more critical than ever that we as Indigenous people are willing to share and
00:14:12.020demand that other people share and practice common sense and critical thinking and all of that. But
00:14:18.300there's been a real push over the last few years where my non-Native friends, I'll say it, my white
00:14:25.560friends have stepped forward for me when people will try to argue with me or say, for example,
00:14:33.000that this isn't all native land. You guys lost some war or something. Well, I have this amazing
00:14:39.100group of non-native friends who step up and don't make me try to explain to people why what they're0.96
00:14:47.740saying is ridiculous. And I really value my friends for doing that because it gives me energy to
00:14:52.660continue. And it gives me energy for times of crisis like this, so that I can step up and
00:14:59.520protect my plant relatives, make sure that people are sharing, make sure that people are following
00:15:05.960proper protocols, demanding that of them. And it makes a difference. And beyond that,
00:15:12.060there's really not a whole lot I can do. I can explain, I can teach, and I can encourage,
00:15:17.500and I can demand. And beyond that, there's just not a lot that I can do. I do not want to be
00:15:23.200within touching distance of someone who's trying to over-harvest sage right now. So all I can do
00:15:28.460is hope that if I give them the right information, they'll take it and do good things with it.
00:15:34.240Wow, Linda, your patience and bravery and love, just so much love that you have for this earth
00:15:45.480And for all the creatures, including the humans roaming around is unbelievable. Just that you've been able to put yourself on the front lines, your body on the front lines for what was happening at Standing Rock with the pipeline and also have patience for those who have been doing things that are harmful and still see the good in people.
00:16:09.320I mean, that is such a practice that, yeah, so challenging. And it's really inspiring to hear
00:16:17.260you speak to these things with so much care and love. And I don't know, just a feeling of abundance
00:16:24.180that you are sharing with us is really beautiful. And well, and you know, I think it's important to
00:16:30.660also for me to say that it doesn't mean I'm not fearful. You know, I am placing a great amount
00:16:37.520of trust in people that I have actually been taught to not trust. One of my friends, her name
00:16:43.360is Valerie. She's another plant person. She made a very good point that she was saying to me as I0.89
00:16:51.060was making videos and I was on webinars talking about various plant medicines for boosting
00:16:57.300immunity and fighting infection. She said, don't ever forget that most of the witch hunts that have
00:17:04.760taken place have occurred after pandemics and that was very striking to me because it's true
00:17:10.840it's historically accurate a lot of times it's the healers after a pandemic who are hunted down
00:17:17.060and seen as the enemy because of course we provide a service largely for free and we take funds money
00:17:25.720away from people who are trying to make lots of it and take advantage of people who don't have
00:17:31.440very much. And so that means a lot of times after big illnesses like this, we receive a lot of
00:17:39.340ire, I suppose, in the eyes, particularly of big business and big medicine, big pharma. So I just
00:17:47.160wanted to make sure to say that it's not that I'm not fearful in a way for myself and my family and
00:17:53.160my friends and other healers. It's that I know that providing healing for people is more important
00:17:59.220than my fear. My goodness, Linda. Wow. Thank you so much for adding that piece. And I didn't know
00:18:06.280that historical, I'm like slurring because I'm just kind of shocked by that. Maybe shocked isn't
00:18:14.500the right word, but that was really kind of perked me up to think about that. And it makes a lot of
00:18:21.060sense, although it's horrible. And I appreciate you saying that. It's important for us to understand
00:18:27.120and the history of other pandemics as we look to the one that we're in so that we can protect
00:18:32.560ourselves while protecting others. And as we're talking about all of these things and honorable
00:18:38.520harvesting and growing with reverence and working with the plants and giving and sharing, I can't
00:18:45.300help but draw upon your work with restoration ecology and the importance of, for example,
00:18:51.020the life-giving prairies and grasslands. As many of us awaken or reawaken to the value of personal
00:18:58.800and communal gardening, I want to remind listeners of the importance of cultivating care beyond our
00:19:04.380immediate place. So I'm wondering if you could talk about the importance of restoration ecology
00:19:09.400as we make plans for living well, and how is this an act of reciprocity?
00:19:14.280wonderful question restoration is really in my heart because I look at lands that are sacred
00:19:24.240and I look at the ways that various practices usually as a result of unbridled capitalism
00:19:32.360have destroyed soil have destroyed plant life animal life have destroyed air quality and water
00:19:41.400quality. And I do not lose hope when I see that because I have seen restoration take place. I've
00:19:51.080seen the rebuilding of soil and I've seen water that I thought would forever be undrinkable.
00:19:59.520I've seen that cleaned and, you know, purified. And, you know, I've seen the same thing happen
00:20:04.980with the air that we breathe in places. And it's really encouraging to me. And, you know,
00:20:10.540I think the reason I'm able to see that, the reason I'm always able to have hope when I see
00:20:16.140polluted areas is because I know that I have a connection with the plant nations and the
00:20:24.660animal nations, the other animals that will grow and thrive there. Because the first step to
00:20:30.700understanding restoration ecology is to develop a relationship with the land. That's absolutely
00:20:35.900be the most important first step. I think there's this mythology when it comes to restoration
00:20:41.400that we have to take the land back to some indefinable time, maybe back to the 1500s,
00:20:49.660but oh no, we were already here as Indigenous people for eons, millennia before that. So where
00:20:55.840do we take it back to? I think that it's unrealistic to think that we need to restore
00:21:01.880land back to this immemorial time, and that that can actually cause more harm to plant and animal
00:21:09.040life, cause more harm than good. So what I like to do is to take the approach of communicating with
00:21:16.240the land. And as an indigenous person, I always hesitate to talk that way because people call me
00:21:21.920a big hippie when I do, but talking to plants, finding out what they need and where they want
00:21:27.340to grow and how best to grow them, experimenting with them, listening to them, understanding them,
00:21:32.540that is restoration ecology. You cannot restore land without listening to the land. You do have
00:21:39.700to think about, you know, this is something I absolutely know. We have to think about rebuilding
00:21:44.600soil, restoring soil, air, water, wildlife, so that we can be better future partners to help
00:21:51.760sustain all life on this planet. We can't just be superficial and plant some trees and walk away
00:21:57.900and expect things to take care of themselves. We have to consider soil biota first and below
00:22:03.980ground relationships that sustain everything that's above ground. We have to show respect
00:22:09.880and consideration for all organisms. I know everyone always tries to think on the macro
00:22:15.220level. Let's look at these huge, beautiful trees and let's look at restoring bison to an area,
00:22:20.760but not many people are thinking about the microscopic organisms. And perhaps, I mean,
00:22:27.240I hate to say it this way, but maybe if we'd shown greater respect for the micro,
00:22:31.540we wouldn't be dealing with a pandemic virus right now. So I think that restoration ecology
00:22:38.240can sort of be a guide for how we relate to the planet, how we relate to our mother earth
00:22:47.000in the future, first listening and understanding and developing a relationship,
00:22:52.320and then looking at ways that we can actually rebuild and restore and experiment.
00:23:01.780It answered the heart of the question completely. And I really agree with you, Linda. I've been
00:23:08.820involved with restoration ecology for the past six, seven years now. And I've been really
00:23:15.460disenchanted with the way academic restoration ecology is playing out or this restoration
00:23:22.800industrial complex. Like you were saying earlier with these visions of restoring back to a certain
00:23:29.920timeframe 200 years ago, 300 years ago, it doesn't really make sense. We're not looking at what the
00:23:36.520land is saying right now and building those relationships and listening and trying things
00:23:42.140out and experimenting and being small and looking at the micro. And I agree, people are much more
00:23:48.560obsessed with the grandeur of the large trees or they want things to happen really quickly.
00:23:55.900But I think that's also something that stops us from being in relationship or having consent or
00:24:01.640trust building. If we want things to be fast and urgent and we just want something that looks
00:24:06.400degraded to be somehow looking like old growth status within our lifetimes, that's not going
00:24:11.840to happen. We can't create old growth in a short span of time. It's old growth. I mean, these
00:24:18.480ecosystems, these lands take so long. And I think for me, getting comfortable with releasing the
00:24:24.960urgency, not in the sense of releasing care and passion, but just putting things in perspective
00:24:31.980and putting things in relational perspective is so important for me in my own learning.
00:24:38.340And so to hear you say what you've said so eloquently, it really helps me personally just stay on this path. And I'm sure so many others will resonate with what you're saying, because I think that what we have been doing in this industrial academic lens or format or way of doing is just not really working.
00:25:00.200And we're not seeing the earth respond, I don't think, especially when we're just plugging trees into poisoned lands in a monocropped fashion, not really thinking about the whole system like the biota, like the microorganisms in the soil.
00:25:23.820You know, it helps when we think truly of the planet as our mother, as Mother Earth, and realize that these degraded or polluted areas are wounds. They are literal wounds on our mother. And they are trauma. The healing of trauma is never easy. The healing of wounds is never easy. And sometimes it's a painful process, right?
00:25:46.420You know, sometimes medicine, when you apply it to a wound, it hurts and it takes time
00:26:09.580You know, I work to heal my mother and, you know, that takes a certain amount of patience
00:26:14.140And it takes a certain amount of tending to these wounds and being patient and, you know, always trying to comfort her and let her know that it's healing.
00:26:25.240You know, there's a lot of trauma, just like, you know, we have trauma, historic trauma and more recent trauma.
00:27:43.440now outside of our individual and immediate experience with this global pandemic
00:27:54.660we're also grappling with how to make meaning of this message it's common to hear this crisis
00:28:01.920framed as a spiritual one or an ecological message sent from the animal queendom and
00:28:07.720It's also just as common to be reminded that historically, global crises actually cause modern economies to push themselves even further to make up for the lost gains.
00:28:19.080So it's a critical time that requires isolation, handwashing, and medicine, of course, but it also requires prayer, contemplation, and courage.
00:28:28.940And I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share any of your own framing or reflections on this time.
00:28:34.740Yeah, I mean, this is a time of great lessons.
00:28:37.900It's a time when I believe that we are being reminded that we have to rely on each other.
00:28:43.640You know, I know my elders are relying on me, even though it's very difficult to self-isolate, to not do the work that I love to do over at United Tribes Technical College.
00:28:58.060my elders are depending on me to not go near them at this time, but to still make sure that
00:29:04.820they're taken care of. And so I think that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from a global
00:29:10.800pandemic, but I think that they are internal and everyone has their own lessons. They're learning
00:29:18.180their own ways of doing this. And I guess for me, it's about learning to appreciate the silence,
00:29:24.880learning to appreciate the alone time, learning to appreciate the downtime. I'm someone who
00:29:30.340constantly keeps myself very busy. And I've had to stop doing a lot of activities that I really
00:29:38.760love and enjoy. And so I suppose if I were to frame it in a larger context, it would be
00:29:44.580that we're all learning, you know, how to look within, or we should all be learning how to look
00:29:51.060within. And then we're all learning how to apply what we find there to the outside world and do it
00:29:58.640without necessarily being right in front of each other. I think one of the most frustrating things
00:30:04.760about social media is that because we are not face-to-face, we feel like we have permission
00:30:13.140to be cruel. When someone, when you can't feel their emotions, when you can't see their facial
00:30:19.760expressions, when you can't see them hurting, you almost feel justified in being very purposefully
00:30:25.840cruel. You know, I think that was the rise of internet trolls is such an interesting research
00:30:31.300project. And right now, I'm seeing less of that. I'm seeing people learning to be kind to each
00:30:39.140other and learning to try to read emotions from a distance, learning to try to read into feelings
00:30:45.380from text messages and emails and, you know, learning to read people from over a webinar,
00:30:51.260you know, and just from looking at them over, you know, through a camera lens. And maybe that's a
00:30:56.500good thing, you know, maybe because we are in the internet age, maybe we're learning to be a little
00:31:01.760kinder to each other, hopefully. Yeah, I hope so too. Now, I'd like to focus on some of the very
00:31:09.720delicate areas of the popular narratives going around COVID-19. In the environmental realm,
00:31:15.940the dominant narrative is one that highlights declining carbon emissions,
00:31:20.340a halt in many forms of transportation, the reappearance of animal kin throughout heavily
00:31:25.480populated human areas, and the reminder that we don't need as much oil as big companies are
00:31:31.820telling us we need, or that actually there is a surplus of oil. But often, these conversations
00:31:38.180either romanticize or oversimplify the true expense of this disease in terms of the human
00:31:44.300lives it will cost. Indeed, it feels like we are veering into dangerous patterns of disposability,
00:31:51.720and we must make no mistake that narratives of disposability are part of the colonial project.
00:31:58.660Economies are slowing, yes, but at the expense of entire swaths of our global population.
00:32:04.600So I wonder if you could speak to the complexity, but more important, the care that needs to
00:32:10.040be exercised in processing global pandemics.
00:32:13.420Yeah, I've been seeing that a lot too, people talking about how skies are clearing over
00:32:18.040Hong Kong and dolphins are swimming in waterways in various parts of Europe for the first time.0.99
00:32:25.180Excuse my language, but it's bullshit.0.97
00:32:27.100It's the poor and the vulnerable who are dying.0.99
00:32:30.120The destruction of our planet is not a poor and vulnerable people issue.
00:32:33.960In fact, you know, the poor have probably caused the least amount of pollution on our planet.
00:32:38.300This is an elitist issue. It's the rich, it's major corporations and large industries.
00:32:44.500They're the ones causing the destruction of our water and our soil and our air.
00:32:48.880And we need to see how that ideology, you know, the idea that human lives are the cost for cleaner air, that serves the 1%.
00:32:57.000That serves the rich. It takes the blame and the focus off of them.
00:33:01.080and it's highly destructive. And if anything is making me angry during this time, it is that.
00:33:08.440Yeah. I mean, going back to social media and just media in general, there's so much coming at us
00:33:14.360from all angles. And there are a lot of dangerous narratives that we need to
00:33:20.660understand. And I think that if we don't really look at them with a critical lens,
00:33:27.440that we will repeat the same destructive issues over and over again and really hurt each other.
00:33:34.040I think that the fact that carbon emissions are lower is a lesson to look at. Let's look at that,
00:33:42.660but you can't just put it on a meme and then one sentence later, wrap it up and then everybody go,
00:33:48.800hooray. It's so much more complex than that. So I really appreciate you speaking to that.
00:33:54.900And yeah, this pandemic is showing us the extremes of our lived experience. We're becoming, again, acutely aware that a different world is in fact possible. I think of the prisoners who were mandated to remain incarcerated for decades, now released early to be with their families.
00:34:12.760workers at grocery stores whose value was estimated to be below the minimum wage now
00:34:18.020recognized as essential and cities across the country finding housing for the homeless so
00:34:24.000after telling us for years that there weren't the funds or the space to do so but i also wonder
00:34:30.740what happens to this power when the virus weakens or when life resumes to some sort of normal what
00:34:38.220will endure? How do you think we can hold onto this momentum as so many are awakening to
00:34:44.260anti-capitalism? And how can we ensure that we don't allow global powers to divert our attention
00:34:50.260amidst a public health crisis and a likely global recession? What does recovery from this pandemic
00:34:56.440look like? It's a great question. My hope is that we will not forget that the only people who are
00:35:03.620keeping the world running at this time are the people, as you said, who have been deemed
00:35:08.920sort of at the bottom of the economic ladder. My own son, he's 18 and he works at a grocery store
00:35:17.960and he's actually high risk because he's asthmatic. And I was finally able to get him to take some0.98
00:35:24.340time off of work because I was so concerned. I actually posted about how concerned I was on
00:35:30.120Facebook. And I was shocked that people's reaction were, oh, isn't he so brave to be putting himself
00:35:36.640at risk to bag people's groceries. And, you know, I just, I was so angry at people who were talking
00:35:43.500that way because it's like, he should not be the one putting himself at risk. And if that is an
00:35:50.160essential service, if my son bagging groceries for his high school job, if that is an essential
00:35:55.640service, then why are the 1% not recognizing that? Why is he making minimum wage if he is so
00:36:04.780essential? You know, and so as we watch how like these stock markets plunge, when actually no real
00:36:11.580infrastructure has been destroyed, you know, and no natural resources, you know, we still, as you
00:36:17.260said, have oil and all of that. If the stock markets plunge through all of that, and our
00:36:21.920economy is crashing, what does that actually say about the labor of people like my son?
00:36:28.820You know, what does that actually mean about the importance of people who are doing these
00:36:34.660jobs, fulfilling these essential services, as they're called?
00:36:38.380And how do we make sure that the people who are in these sort of upper economic echelons,
00:36:45.580if we want to talk about it that way, you know, what will they do after all of this
00:36:50.760will they still recognize that importance? Well, I think that that's going to have to be up to us.
00:36:56.440I think that we are going to have to constantly remind them and not ever let them forget.
00:37:01.080I have seen a lot of people having this discussion, but with no plan about how to constantly remind0.82
00:37:07.600the 1% of this. What happens? Maybe in the future, it's just going to mean that we have to0.76
00:37:14.400stop working for them. Maybe it means that we have to stop pumping their gas and we have to
00:37:20.360stop bagging their groceries and we have to stop cleaning their hotel rooms and their hospital
00:37:25.600rooms in order to make them see how essential and how important people's labor is.
00:37:33.100Yeah, I'm with you. I think that, yeah, as you were speaking, I just couldn't help but
00:37:40.360look back to some of my own reflections, especially the importance of using this time
00:37:45.580to organize and potentially stop doing the grunt work, the labor, the, yeah, what people have deemed0.87
00:37:55.440as this less worthy work for the 1%. And I think looking in this country, there are a lot of us
00:38:03.780who are really safe in comparison to what is going on elsewhere. Of course, there's struggle,
00:38:08.940But I was just reading this article in India of this mass exodus, and it was horrifying seeing these images. But I think instead of just talking about it or sharing memes through social media, I really feel like we need to use this fleeting moment to demand Medicare for all and participate in rent strikes, for example.
00:38:31.480And so I wonder if you could speak to the importance of taking action now, organizing to ensure that we do, in fact, see measurable change at the end of this pandemic.
00:38:42.620Absolutely. Now is the time to demand that infrastructural change, Medicare for all, and talking to people about a living wage, demanding a living wage, realizing that people who are working in these labor jobs, these labor positions, them struggling actually has a negative impact on the entire economy and on sort of our emotions.
00:39:12.620wellness as well, the emotional wellness of the entire country. And that has much more of a
00:39:19.460trickle down and trickle up effect than actual cash does. So we have to demand this. We have to
00:39:26.500be voting. It's coming up soon. And we have to vote that way. We have to vote for the person
00:39:33.220and the people who are going to make sure that those lessons, these lessons that we've learned
00:39:39.660from COVID-19 are never forgotten. I can't stress it enough. Voting is what's going to be essential.
00:39:47.340Demanding that change from the people that we put into office is going to be critical and making
00:39:52.720sure that the people who are denying that to us are thrown out. Yes, absolutely. And I do think
00:40:01.280that we are in such a unique time because this country, the government of the United States and
00:40:10.460all over the world, there's a lot of chaos. There's a lot of lack of stability. So I think
00:40:18.120if we do organize, if we really do take this time when we're at home, when we don't have our
00:40:23.700schedules full to the brim, that we actually can make a lot of change with voting and otherwise
00:40:29.360because we're in a place where things are fragile. There is a lot of opportunity to say no or to say
00:40:39.260yes, whatever demands that we're speaking to. I could imagine them really taking hold. Like if
00:40:45.460enough people striked for rent freeze, what could they do about it at this point? You know, it's
00:40:50.760kind of like, wow, we have a lot at our fingertips if we really get together through the internet
00:40:58.080or in other ways to make a big change. And so I am holding on to that. And
00:41:03.320you know, it's just such a strange time though. I also wanted to speak to that,
00:41:09.920and you spoke to this a bit in your last response, that we are also being reminded that it's really
00:41:15.380easy to capitalize on our fear, particularly to enact draconian and authoritarian measures.
00:41:22.040And once these measures are passed, there's no telling if they'll be rescinded once the virus
00:41:26.060slows. For example, just last week, the EPA announced a freeze on enforcing environmental
00:41:31.420regulations for an indefinite amount of time due to the coronavirus, explaining that they will not
00:41:38.260seek penalties when major polluters fail to follow legal requirements on hazardous waste management
00:41:43.580and air and water pollution. So with that in mind, I'd like to turn towards the importance of
00:41:49.980creating resilience and freedom where we can, because it's not enough to be acutely aware
00:41:56.040of what might be taken away. We have to proactively engage with what we can create for
00:42:02.060ourselves. So I'd love if you could speak to your work with cultivating food sovereignty
00:42:07.460and stopping the exploitation of body, land and water. So yeah, I think that all of these
00:42:14.760lightening of environmental regulations, along with what the EPA did in suspending those laws.
00:42:21.980Trump was weakening fuel economy standards and different states were passing laws to
00:42:28.420criminalize fossil fuel protests and things like that, you know, right under our noses. And
00:42:33.420that's really, in my opinion, the sign of a tyrannical government, you know, people who are
00:42:38.220exploiting and this government who's so opportunistic, right, that they're exploiting
00:42:43.460us at our weakest time, a time when we are supposed to be in quarantine, you know, a time
00:42:48.240when we're scared about getting sick and seeing our relatives or people dying around us. The
00:42:53.640government and their rich allies are selling off their stocks and lining their pockets with our
00:43:00.120suffering and a lot of cash. So it's really a time for us to stand up and say, okay, how can we
00:43:07.920not be part of that system how can we help to dismantle that system that is oppressing us
00:43:15.740and one of the best ways in my opinion that we can do that is by growing our own food
00:43:20.060we can grow our own food if you live in an area where you only have a balcony or a porch you can
00:43:28.340grow food in containers i'm always amazed at the amount of usable space that is around apartment
00:43:36.220buildings that is filled with rocks and gravel. Demand that those rocks and that gravel be taken
00:43:42.740out and throw some topsoil on there and start growing your own food. Even if you have to start
00:43:47.840small the first year and you're only growing lettuce, growing lettuce, growing small things
00:43:52.800that start, that is an act of resistance. And it will just expand and grow year after year after
00:43:58.780year. Because once you get that feeling of being independent, of growing your own food, of feeding
00:44:04.840yourself and your family and your community. Once you get that feeling, it spreads and you
00:44:10.380almost become dependent on it. And you know that next year you're going to go bigger, you're going
00:44:15.000to plant more, you're going to expand your gardens. And you see that garden bed in the median in the
00:44:21.660middle of the street and you're like, hey, some apple trees would grow perfectly there. You know,
00:44:27.000that feeling is going to spread. It only takes a couple of people to start it in a particular
00:44:32.140neighborhood. And then the rest of the neighborhood will join in. And especially when you tell them
00:44:36.880about why it's important. So along with actually growing our own food and planting our own food
00:44:42.720and saving seeds, it's important to share why we're doing that. A lot of people will get so
00:44:49.300frustrated because they'll have their own garden and, you know, they'll have neighbors and other
00:44:54.760people coming and saying, Hey, do you want to share some of those cucumbers with me? Can you
00:44:59.220spara squash, things like that. But they're not actually saying to their neighbors, well, here's
00:45:04.900a squash, make sure to save the seeds from that so that you and I can plant them next year. I'll
00:45:10.460teach you how to grow this. The education behind that's so important. And it's not just the
00:45:15.580education in growing food. You know, we have to teach people how to grow their own food. We have
00:45:21.000to encourage them to grow their own food. But we do not just live in food deserts. We have to
00:45:27.220understand that. We don't just live in food deserts. We live in culinary deserts where people
00:45:32.480have forgotten how to cook good food. And a lot of people are embarrassed by that. You hand them
00:45:39.080a kohlrabi, for example, or something even more common than that. Hand them a squash and ask them
00:45:45.620if they know how to cook it. And there's going to be a lot of people, even in indigenous communities,
00:45:50.440who do not know how to cook a squash. And so we have to teach people how to cook these items.
00:45:56.380and then we also need to encourage them to change their palates to appreciate traditional foods to
00:46:02.540appreciate good foods over time it's not going to happen overnight people aren't going to give
00:46:07.340up fry bread overnight i've tried but we need to encourage them okay i'm not asking you to give up
00:46:14.020fried bread but just try adding this squash into your diet a couple of times a week or adding
00:46:18.560a salad into your repertoire a few times a week and here's how you make it and this is what
00:46:24.380benefits it has. And this is how you make it taste amazing. You know, it requires just a passion for
00:46:31.160food, it requires a passion for the plants, and it requires a passion for our planet and a passion
00:46:38.980for our community, a love of our community, wanting them to be healthier, not just physically
00:46:45.020healthier, but more spiritually and emotionally healthy. Yes, I love hearing that. And I never
00:46:52.400thought about the culinary desert, but I completely see that. I think a few years ago before I grew
00:46:58.700squash, I probably wouldn't have known what to do with a lot of them. I don't think I did. And
00:47:04.040also some of them are so hard to cut that I think I probably gave up as soon as I couldn't get like
00:47:08.740a dull knife through one and realize like, I don't know what I'm doing with this big, hard thing.
00:47:13.420And, you know, it's really, it's just when you were talking about how it could be,
00:47:17.520well, I guess the word came up contagious in a positive way, like getting your hands in the
00:47:23.820soil and growing food, it gets you. Working with plants, the plants get you. I've experienced this
00:47:31.500with myself and so many others. There's that resistance wall that feels like we could be so
00:47:36.860distant from the plants, but then once we welcome them in and we smell them, we feel them, we touch
00:47:41.660the seeds, we feel the soil in our fingertips. Something magical really happens. And I think
00:47:48.180that you're right. If people just start small and it can grow within the community and there's an
00:47:53.520excitement around it, and then you have a potluck when we can have those again, and we're sharing
00:47:58.060the food from our gardens, no matter if it's a container garden on our balcony or otherwise,
00:48:03.100there's something so connective and primordial that all of our ancestors did at one point.
00:48:10.080And so I think there's a lot of healing that comes with food sovereignty on so many levels, physical, spiritual. There's a lot of purpose in it. And so I love hearing you talk about this because it feels really good.
00:48:24.900And I think that, like you were saying at the beginning of our conversation about laughter, we do need to feel good at times right now. Of course, we need to be taking in the truths and the hard truths. But if we don't have time where we're having a connection to joy and laughter and just that reverence, that feeling of reverence, I think it'll be really detrimental to us.
00:48:48.400And I know that there's a lot of grief and panic and anxiety in the whole global sphere at the moment because of the internet and social media and just 24-7 hour news streams, which I do not think us humans have been evolved to deal with this type of global news 24 hours, seven days a week.
00:49:07.320And we hear how many frontline responders are testing positive in New York. And we're aware of the increase in cases across Navajo Nation. And we're witnessing the spraying of migrant workers in India and just the atrocities of the position that the refugees are in in Syria.
00:49:25.400I mean, stranded in camps without soap or water, and I think this is causing both collective grief and an anticipatory grief, rightfully so.0.83
00:49:34.760So amidst a time when we need to be nourishing our immune systems and we can't help but weaken them through our overpowering emotions, and like I said, rightly so, because we just can't turn away from the state of the world,
00:49:47.980I'm wondering if you could speak to how we can calm ourselves and how these tools will
00:49:53.300also be necessary in recovering from this pandemic over the long term, because we know
00:49:57.480it's not going away overnight or even in April.
00:54:35.980But, you know, I called my mother yesterday and I cried to her. I cried like a baby, I suppose, you know, and cried to my mom just about how stressed I am and about how difficult things are. And I felt so much better afterward.
00:54:51.820And I then talked to my partner and I talked to my kids and we watched a movie together
00:54:57.500and we took a walk and doing these things are just so important and so vital.
00:55:02.860And, you know, showing love and appreciation for the plant nations, for the food that we're
00:55:08.620eating, you know, even if they're animals, showing love and appreciation for the people
00:55:13.240around us, not forgetting to have gratitude.
00:56:06.380I feel so much better just from you saying all those things.
00:56:22.240I was so riled up in my question and I was feeling like I didn't even realize it until
00:56:28.800you said breathe and I was realizing that I was actually holding my breath and I had
00:56:33.360all this tension in my chest and in my throat. And when you were explaining breathing, I actually
00:56:40.360did that. And the amount of release I felt, as simple as that sounds, it almost is silly how
00:56:45.480simple it is and how I know that I forget doing that. And when I'm holding my breath, the anxiety
00:56:51.400that builds, it's really interesting somatically to experience that. And I just did it right now.
00:56:56.440So that is really important for us to remember. And yeah, thank you also for speaking to the
00:57:02.360plant medicine. I never thought about burning rosemary, but that's such a good idea. And it
00:57:06.720reminded me of thyme or arugano. I know rosemary glow. Yeah. And I love that. And yeah, I am so
00:57:16.440with you. We do not need to be using, especially for those of us who are not native to this land,
00:57:22.560to Turtle Island, we don't need to be using sage. It's not necessary at all. There are
00:57:26.740so many beautiful plants that are waiting for us to give them attention and to smell them rosemary
00:57:33.960thyme oregano oh my gosh they're they're incredible i love culinary herbs like those and so many
00:57:40.920others and yeah thank you for speaking to that because i think it's important for us to know
00:57:45.300there are so many other plants available for us to interact with and you know it's not just no
00:57:52.640to sage it's like but there's yes to all these other beautiful creatures that are wanting
00:57:56.980our relationships so it's yeah it's like i wish i had a little rosemary with me right now so yeah
00:58:04.880i really love those herbs and linda this has been so wonderful and i just i don't want to start
00:58:10.780closing this conversation but i do want to make sure we talk about the survival meal kits that
00:58:17.480you're preparing i was reading on facebook that you and your partner are preparing survival meal
00:58:22.240kits for elders on Standing Rock and the Cheyenne River reservations. And so I mentioned this to
00:58:28.080find out if listeners can support this cause, and if so, how? Thank you so much for mentioning that.
00:58:34.040That's really kind of you. Yeah. So my partner and I are getting as many traditional ingredients
00:58:40.140together as possible. So for example, wild rice and maple sugar, maple syrup, real dried hominy,
00:58:48.880traditional beans things like that and we're even getting you know a lot of dried vegetables
00:58:55.300together like dried vegetable mixes dried fruit traditional berries such as dried strawberries
00:59:01.440blueberries raspberries things like that but we're also getting some non-traditional ingredients
00:59:06.560together foods such as coffee and white flour and what else did our elders requests you know
00:59:15.620It's things like that, that were very comforting to them.
00:59:18.560Oh, oil, of course, for them to cook with.
00:59:21.980And so we've been getting all of these items together and we're putting them into these kits.
00:59:28.920We're using these 18 gallon totes and we're trying to put a month's worth, 30 days worth of food into each tote to give to elders on Standing Rock and Shine River and within our local communities.
00:59:43.340our elders are petrified. They are so scared. And some of them are so frightened to go to the
00:59:49.900grocery store that they're just not doing it. And there's no one else to bring them food. And so a
00:59:55.040lot of them are going hungry, but they're too scared to go to the store right now because
00:59:59.720they've been told that that's a hugely risky area for them. And of course they are at a higher risk
01:00:05.980than most young people, or they tend to be at a higher risk. And so there are some of them I've
01:00:10.720been seeing and I've been hearing stories about elders sitting in the parking lot of the Walmart
01:00:15.340asking people to go in and buy groceries for them and bring them out and then wiping them down with
01:00:20.720Clorox wipes once they get outside you know and it's especially on areas like Standing Rock and
01:00:26.340Cheyenne River that are so remote some of our elders live two and a half hours from the nearest
01:00:31.620Walmart two and a half hours from the nearest major grocery store so it's you know a very
01:00:36.900difficult time for them. So we're putting these kits together, these 18 gallon totes,
01:00:41.540and we'll be handing them out to as many elders as possible. We've actually received enough funds
01:00:47.000to make more than 50. We had originally planned on 50. It's just my partner and I, and we don't
01:00:52.320want to expose anyone or ourselves to other people right now because we're supposed to be in
01:00:58.680quarantine. So it's just the two of us having these items delivered to our very tiny home.
01:01:04.180And, you know, so it's a challenge, but we're getting it together and then we're going to hand them out. And with any of the funds that we have left over after these 50, we are going to make more kits that are the same with a lot of these beautiful, healthy foods and some other less traditional stuff.
01:01:22.260And we are going to hand them out to displaced students, displaced families who may have, for instance, on the United Tribes campus, we have students who live in student housing and have nowhere else to go.
01:01:36.740And so they've been sort of left without any options besides trying to run over to McDonald's and things like that.
01:01:44.080So we'll start trying to make kits for them as well.
01:01:47.140But we want to keep feeding elders as much as possible.
01:01:49.620And we're using a lot of non-perishable foods.
01:01:52.900Luckily, traditional indigenous foods, of course, tend to be very non-perishable.
01:01:57.300So we're even including dried canned meat in these kits as well.
01:02:02.560And if anyone wants to contribute to that, they can PayPal me at lynda.black.elk at gmail.com.
01:02:20.840And I was imagining these kits that you were creating and what a gift of not only physical
01:02:27.980nourishment, but just the relief that these elders and other folks will know that they're
01:02:33.320being cared for, that they're being thought of, that they're being acknowledged, that
01:02:37.380they know that somebody is looking out for them.
01:02:39.700I think just that alone, that care is so relieving and tender, and it reminds me of other things we've talked about in this conversation, just how to be patient and how to really care for people and plants and the earth, not just in this time, but especially in this time, and maybe this time is an awakening for even more people to start being in relationship in these ways.
01:03:07.080And yeah, I love hearing what you're doing. And it's really inspirational. And maybe folks can not only donate, but also start doing something similar in their neighborhoods for their communities and mutual aid. And it's, yeah.
01:03:22.100It's so important. And I also wanted to say we're including seed packets in all of these kits because we want to encourage people to grow their own food after this.
01:03:33.640You know, it's really apparent that if we are growing our own food, we wouldn't be having this problem right now.
01:03:40.580And I know it sounds strange, but elders have, you know, especially our elders, indigenous elders around here, they grew up gardening.
01:03:48.760And so a lot of them already know how to do it. They just lack the resources such as the seeds to do it. So we're including these seed packets and we're of course going to include directions for each of those plants and offering to come and till a garden for them.
01:04:06.180So I think, you know, we're not just trying to think 30 days ahead, but we're trying to
01:04:10.140think much further ahead into the future with these kids as well.