issue II • Fall 2009
O f Bears, Guardians and the Wisdom of the Breakdown by cynthia travis
O
ne night a few months ago I couldn’t sleep. Since I sometimes meditate and receive insights by lying on my belly on the ground, I decided to lie belly down on my bedroom floor. The question that came was: What relationships do you tend? It has been the question that got me meditating in the morning rather than checking email first thing. It’s the question I return to whenever I am scattered or overwhelmed. It’s the question that sits on my shoulder as I learn to live as a Guardian of Future Generations.
What is it exactly about Dave that drew the bears to him? Is it his bloodline, (Blackfoot, Cree) as he believes? Or is it something else, something I could learn, perhaps? How sad that there are no wideeyed children gathered like little bears at his feet to hear this story. And no restless young men and women hungry for initiation, itching to be tested, then anointed with a purpose that will serve the community, who are learning what it is to touch the certainty of connection while reaching their hands towards a bear.
At this writing, I am at Big Bear Lake for a few days at our family’s house by the lake. My elderly neighbor, Dave, just stopped by with his dog, Freddie, an old furry slipper of a dog who takes his guardianship of Dave very seriously. Dave is frail, bitter, opinionated, and horribly lonely. He’s a wonderful storyteller, even if he does go on a bit. Today he told that bear story again. He told it three times, actually, but I hadn’t heard it in awhile and it’s one of my favorites.
Dave’s bear story helps me see that the essence of Guardianship might be the certainty of connection, reaffirmed and practiced as a way of life. Perhaps it is this experience of connection itself that is teaching us, the spirit of connectedness as an entity, a sentient being that has enlisted the natural world - those legions of creatures we are endangering and wiping out – to teach us.
Dave is in Yosemite. He sits down to rest on a small stump. Suddenly he is startled by a ranger’s voice over a bullhorn: “Hey you! Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Just then Dave notices a black bear lying at his feet. He gently strokes the bear’s head. The bear leans into him, then climbs up into his lap and begins licking Dave’s face. More bears come. Dave is unafraid. He continues stroking the first bear and talking softly to it. He tells the ranger, “Of course I know what I’m doing!” The ranger insists that Dave is in great danger. Dave tells him, “I’ve got Native blood in me. This bear could kill me or I could kill him. But I’m not gonna kill him and he knows that.” The ranger turns the bullhorn to the small, astonished crowd that has gathered and admonishes them, “Now, don’t any of you try what this guy is doing!”
We have all heard and experienced stories of unusual encounters with animals. And they have been so much a part of our journey at everyday gandhis: The elephants that came to Master General in the midst of war, signaling over 30,000 men to lay down their guns. The egrets that arrived out of season, circling the meeting hall in Voinjama at 2 a.m. where we were to gather the next morning to inaugurate the first Mourning Feast. The mixed group of snakes that streaked past our guest quarters the night of the forest and water healing ceremonies. The elephant ambassador that threw us an elephant bone in Botswana. The land shows us its endless generosity, its prodigious, dazzling regenerative prowess. Maybe what we are seeing is that the land and the animals are the Guardians of people, and it's only our vanity and our ignorance that tricks us into thinking it’s the other way around. continued on page 3…
The Palaver Hut • Issue II • Fall 2009
I
Table of Contents Of Bears, Guardians and the Wisdom of the Breakdown by cynthia travis
· 1 ·
everyday gandhis mandate
· 4 ·
What relationships do you tend?
The peacebuilder, as we understand it, is the inside-outsider who, by tending to that role, catalyzes the wisdom of an individual or community to restore its intrinsically sustainable authentic nature.
Tao of Guardianship by deena metzger
· 5 ·
Group Workshops by laura berlinger, lassana kaneh, varlee sheriff & uncle jake
· 8 ·
We have the sacred right and obligation to protect the common wealth of our lands and the common health of our people and all our relations for this generation and seven generations to come.
Women should not be to blame for any violence committed against them, and men should not be denied the credit of being capable of controlling their actions.
Dreaming of Guardianship by ki’na dark cloud
· 12 ·
Living Within a 200 Year Vision by warren brush
· 14 ·
The Bemidji Statement: 7th Generation Guardianship edited by c. raffensperger & n. myers
· 18 ·
I became a dreamer in the tradition of my people by being born dead and returning from death. At the time of my birth I was also wearing a caul on my face, which gave both the Indigenous American and the Welsh bloodlines reason to call me dreamer.
We believe that lasting ecological health and social harmony can be fostered through emphasizing the connection between people, food, shelter, energy, and water.
The first mandate …. is to ensure that our decision-making is guided by consideration of the welfare and well being of the seventh generation to come.
2 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
n this issue: The Fall Equinox is here. A time of harvest, drying stalks and falling leaves. This is the second newsletter coming at a turning of the seasons (the first being Summer Solstice). It is part of everyday gandhis’ deepening commitment to align with the rhythms of the Earth. Of course, in Liberia, the natural signs of this season are different from those we experience here in California. In Liberia, Fall brings the ending of the rains and the transition to the dry season. Crops are planted, not harvested. Alas, forests are being cleared to create new farms.
In Liberia and elsewhere, our Muslim family and colleagues have just completed the month of Ramadan, a time to ask forgiveness for past sins, pray for guidance, and to practice kindness and good deeds. In my own heritage, today is Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, and soon it will be Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These are also called the Days of Awe. In the beautiful ceremony of Tashlich, we cast bread upon the water, sending away our sorrows, our mistakes and disappointments, with the prayer that they will nourish the Great Mystery and return to us transformed into blessings. In preparation for Yom Kippur, we make amends and seek forgiveness from those we may have wronged. By atoning for our wrongdoing and making amends, we hope to be ‘inscribed in the Book of Life for one more year.” As Deena Metzger says, "May the Earth herself be inscribed in the book of life for one more year." Will we have the humility to be grateful for what we can learn from our mistakes? Will we have the courage to change? In this issue, we begin our exploration of Guardianship – more than stewardship, different from ‘living green’. Guardianship is a practice: spiritual, practical, political, and social. Modernity cares little and teaches less about what it actually means to live this way. We are beginners, bringing ‘beginner’s mind’, along with beginner’s bumbling, and a beginner’s sense of wonder. Guardianship asks us to rethink ourselves and all our most treasured relationships. What a worthy harvest! What a beautiful way to start a New Year! Cynthia Travis Founder & President everyday gandhis
Photo Credits Photos were taken by the Future Guardians of Peace unless otherwise noted. For more information about donating and purchasing please contact everday gandhis or visit FGP online at www.futureguardiansofpeace.org
…continued from cover
At the very beginning of our work in Liberia, no one was paid. The work itself was so invigorating. Later, stipends were intended to free people to do what they were already doing: pursuing their passion for peace. Over time, the stipends became like refined and packaged imported fast foods: they bore little connection to the source of the work. They starved rather than nourished inspiration and they created dependency and detachment rather than self-reliance and connection. We weren’t practicing the sustainability we preached. Confusion, suspicion, fear and silence seeped between us. Information stopped flowing. In short, all the hallmarks of an unhealthy system began to show. We convened numerous councils here in the US, and then this past August I went to Liberia and we spent 6 days in council there, over 8 hours a day. Muslim elder Mamadee Kamara guided us with parables and set the tone for the council:“If we make a fire to cook for you and the smoke drives everyone away, the fire will go out,” meaning ‘Don’t let the negative outweigh the positive.’ As part of my personal preparation, I began each day with a meditation and a divination before our meeting. Again and again the I Ching advised that the context or ‘field’ we were in was one that required being still, becoming a vessel for transformation by ‘cooking’ what was inside, looking without acting to allow everything to come into view. The divinations also indicated that our task was consistently the same: Strip away what was rotten, renovate the structure we lived in, push our central ideas beyond ordinary limits. And so we talked. And talked. Speaking from the heart, listening with respect. Together we were able to see where we had made wrong turns, where a relationship needed to be repaired, a system put in place, a communication loop completed. Difficult words were spoken. Painful information was shared. Every time I felt the exhaustion of sitting for so many hours on the cement edge of our palaver hut, I remembered that it was Ramadan. Our Muslim colleagues were getting up at 4:00 am in order to eat breakfast and prepare their evening meal before sunrise. They sat all day without food or water, listening. Never interrupting. Mamadee admonished us: “When someone comes from outside, we listen to what they have to say. We let them know we have heard it. Then we think it over. To say something meaningful cannot happen in a second.”
Nature loves detail and so must we. It is in attention to the details of our mistakes, especially our collective ones, that we can re-map our path. I am reminded of a story I heard ten years ago during the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University. Two East African peacebuilders told of a training they had conducted in Burundi. They had used a well-known team-building exercise where participants form a circle holding hands, then twist in, out, under and around each other until they are hopelessly tangled. Without releasing their hands, the group must unwind the knot. They told of how the group made rapid progress, with everyone comfortably released from the twisted ring except the last two or three people, who remained horribly contorted. For a moment the group was tempted to let this solution be ‘good enough’. After all, nearly everyone was all right. They realized of course that this was precisely the point: it clearly wasn’t good enough for the last members of the circle, whose extreme discomfort made everyone else’s comfort possible. They recognized they had to entirely re-do the tangling and untangling until everyone was OK. It took a very long time, but it was far more meaningful than if they had succeeded on the first go, or merely overlooked the last couple of uncomfortable people. And they realized that the dilemma in their group paralleled the challenges facing their county and many others like it. It is this meticulous unwinding that requires our full attention now, both at everyday gandhis and globally. The challenges of equitable and sustainable aid, of empowerment, corruption and greed are everywhere. In the words of Malidoma Somé, “Integrity is the scarcest thing in the world today.” photo by andre lambertson
This has been a tough year for everyday gandhis. Our team in Liberia lost focus and the work suffered. People became more concerned with receiving their stipends than with being peacebuilders. We stopped listening to our dreams and to each other. At everyday gandhis we often speak of the ‘Wisdom of the Breakdown.’ It has been our most relentless ally – from the Liberian civil war itself, to our own personal journeys and that of everyday gandhis as an organization. Just as the breakdown of matter is necessary to unlock and release nourishment for compost, so the breakdown of our projects and the relationships on our team has made the nourishment of insight available.
At one point well into our council when nearly everyone had spoken, several people urged that we shift our focus to solutions. Mamadee held strong: “We can’t do that until everyone has said something. Through this plenty, plenty talk, we’ll be in the center!” Nature can recover without us. But we cannot recover without Nature. Like the returning soldiers so tormented by PTSD, or the former child soldiers and other ex-combatants we are working with who must first pass through the gauntlet of their own healing, we must apprentice ourselves to Earth’s generosity, to her absolute consistency and adaptability, the cyclic ruthlessness of death and disintegration to provide nourishment for the new. Symbiosis. No waste. These are the ways of the Earth that must once again become our ways. The ferocity of connection, the practice of gratitude, and our need for each other, are our truest allies now. They can teach us - if we let them – how we can earn the proud title ‘Guardians of the Future.’ As Mamadee says, “When true love is there, you will not hurt anything.” Cynthia Travis Founder & President everyday gandhis
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 3
everyday gandhis mandate
OUR MANDATE To bring home the dead and restore the natural world. This encompasses traditional mourning, healing and community reconciliation; reforestation and sustainable agriculture for the restoration and protection of the land, the people, the animals, the water, and the ancestors. OUR ROLE The peacebuilder, as we understand it, is the inside-outsider who, by tending to that role, catalyzes the wisdom of an individual or community to restore its intrinsically sustainable authentic nature. OUR PRACTICE To recognize ourselves as the ancestors of the future. To entrust ourselves with the task of ensuring a habitable future for all beings. To dance with joy and gratitude between periphery and center, community and solitude, context and specifics, deep time and the present moment, motion and stillness. To be rigorous in meeting challenges and possibilities. To hold ourselves and each other accountable for being in alignment with these principles. To remember that healing and peacemaking are one and the same. OUR TOOLS Recognizing, tracking and cultivating constant awareness of the fields of interlocking stories; Being in dialogue with the natural world; Appreciating the wisdom of the breakdown; Seeking and trusting guidance from dreams, divinations and synchronicities; Practicing the ways of council; Experiencing unexpected encounters as signposts and sources of nourishment; Living in reciprocity with Earth’s intelligence such that our way of being is the offering we make in response. OUR PRAYER With deep gratitude, everyday gandhis offers stories of peacebuilding in the words of those who have known war and violence. Through dreams and indigenous traditions, we honor the living, the ancestors and all of Creation. May the experience of receiving these stories be as healing as the process of telling them and being heard. May they awaken and sustain the peacemaker within us all. May words and images of peace become the new reality of our time and times to come.
4 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
Tao of Guardianship by deena metzger
Nine years ago today, I was with a Shona medicine man, a nganga and a small group of North Americans at Great Zimbabwe, in Africa. We were in the shadow of a ruin of Empire. Several men were working to restore as best they could, a tower of earthen bricks that had collapsed five hundred years ago, though it would always remain a monument, that is a ruin. Two of the women, engaging in personal ritual work, became overwhelmed with grief; one had been preparing to take on the mantle of carrying community. It would become more than her life work, it would become her life. For Wilderness Sarchild, leading the Daré on Cape Cod (based on the Shona Daré tradition, a community gathering for the purpose of healing) with her husband, Chuck Madansky, was the initial focus, but it would take her far beyond any organizational forms. Some hours later, we learned about the Twin Towers falling. I had just arrived in New York City. Having a few hours, I opened the computer to begin this piece and realized that it is 9/11. What wants to be written on Guardianship on such a date? Wilderness Sarchild committed herself to the future on a day when everything was held in the balance. I wrote about it this way: “Two stories intersected in that moment: a story streaming toward destruction and a story streaming toward healing. It is this point, this intersection of stories, the cataclysm, the possibilities, that is the subject of this piece. Two stories, separated by geography but not by time, becoming one story, or shattering into a thousand broken shards. We are all in a story, this story now. What story led us to September 11th? What story can lead us away?” My book, Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing, was initiated, though I did not know it then, on that 9/11/2001 and was published [Hand to Hand] on 9/11/2002. Here I am, seven years later, contemplating Guardianship. In January of 2009, Cynthia Travis, Ed Tick, Kate Dahlstedt, Carolyn Raffensperger and I met to speak about Guardianship. Ed and Kate are the founders of Soldier’s Heart, an organization dedicated to healing PTSD in veterans. Carolyn is the founding Director of the environmental think tank, Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN). Each in our way, we were finding our work turning toward Guardianship though it was Carolyn Raffensperger of Science and Environmental Health Network who had given us the language for it through collaborating on the Bemidji Statement on Seventh Generation Guardianship issued by the Indigenous Environmental Network in the summer of 2006: • The decisions we make today shall not impair the inheritance of the Seventh Generation to come. • We have the sacred right and obligation to protect the common wealth of our lands and the common health of our people and all our relations for this generation and seven generations to come. • Therefore we will designate Guardians for the Seventh Generation.
We had hoped in January to gather materials for a text on Guardianship, but it was premature. Carolyn and her colleagues had been working very had to develop language sufficient to introduce the idea into law and public policy. Although it seemed that we had the words, we had not yet learned to live them fully, and only living them will teach us what they truly mean. Living them will change our lives entirely. Guardianship is as great a commitment as one can make in a lifetime. The Indigenous Environmental Network was able to issue the Bemidji Statement because it derives from the long-lived wisdom of the Iroquois Nation that for the span of its existence has thought and acted on behalf of seven generations in the future. This month, the eighteen year-old son of a member of our community, herself entirely devoted to peace, peacebuilding and the restoration of the natural world through alliance with traditional ways, announced that he was joining the National Guard. When he realized that he would probably be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, he changed his focus to the Marine Corp so that he could receive the training appropriate to the fate that he chooses or that awaits him. The young man wants to do something noble. Perhaps he wants to live a noble life. He is, however, not interested in higher education. Meaningfully testing himself as an individual should not depend on scoring high on one’s SATs. Had we, as a society already learned that Guardianship, not War is the noble activity for this time, and that it does not depend on formal education, but on the critical development of heart and mind, and the implicit activities that flow from these, this young man’s future, and so our future, might be entirely different. If we, as a society, initiated our children into adulthood by insisting that their education and development include noble ways and service to all beings, this young man would not have to kill in order to meet this aimless and alienated moment in his life. We have not been the wise and devoted guardians of our children and their future. Should this young man go to war and be lucky enough to return, he will eventually have to go through a process of rigorous reflection, soul searching and personal restoration, whether or not he ever has the fortune of becoming a Guardian, or making a noble contribution. Taking another’s life, or devoting years of one’s own life to increasingly skilled means of snuffing out the lives of anonymous others who have done
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 5
ian of peace and choose sides. A guardian of peace is devoted to peace for everyone. The guardian of peace fights for the manifestation of peace everywhere, for everyone, for all the beings involved, without exception. Ayelet’s fate develops from an unexpected alliance with a Palestinian woman, Vivien Sansour. They have become sisters. Each of their actions, based on true intimacy and kinship, includes the other and the other’s people and land. Ayelet’s spirit guide is a Palestinian poet, Mohammed Darwish. The process of Guardianship proceeds from re-establishing the whole, repairing the broken world, what Judaism calls tikkun olam.
one no harm, distorts reality and creates a great oozing wound that prevents one from returning to civil life. Traditional societies from the ancient Greeks to contemporary Native American tribes, know that the returning warrior has to undergo purification rites before he or she can function as a member of society. Healing from the war is a necessary step in the life of a soldier at this time in history. At our January meeting, Kate Dahlstedt recognized an essential pattern for healing: Combatant to Warrior to Guardian. Don’t skip the steps, she warned: “I have observed that many Veterans try to skip the Warrior and go right to the Guardian as a way of avoiding the truth of their lives and facing their demons. They fervently do good works in hops of washing clean. But they have not accepted their destiny. They are always in flight away from their turn instead of moving forward with it. They stay emotionally isolated and alienated and their work is always tainted by their inability to reconnect with their hearts and forgive themselves.” Each stage implies a change of mind of the highest order. The Soldier has an external enemy, real or imagined. The Warrior faces his or her own internal demons. The Guardian lives on behalf of others, of the other. The Guardian is the living manifestation of the spiritual instruction from the Lakota Sioux – Mitakye Oyasin, All My Relations, All Our Relations. But, if we heed Kate, no one of us can get through the Soldier, let alone the Warrior, without facing the reflexive and on-going internal wars that western culture imprints upon us. Ayelet Berman Cohen, an Israeli veteran, who has been wrestling, like Job with the Angel, with War for ten years through her dreams, says, repeatedly, “The War is in me.” She is in the process of becoming a Warrior instead of a Combatant. Afterwards, the Guardian will call her to unimpeded love for what she commits herself to protect, in its entirety, and in connection to all its relations. We cannot be a guard-
6 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
For the former child soldiers connected to everyday gandhis to become guardians of peace, they will have to alter and revise all the impulses, reflexes, training and thinking that allowed them to become skilled enough combatants to survive a war when so many others –– friends, comrades, family members –– didn’t. They will have to revise the pattern of choosing their own lives over others’ lives. They will have to invent and incorporate in themselves entirely new survival skills based on alliance rather than conflict. This implies an entirely different mind and ways of thinking. The young men and women of Liberia are fortunate as indigenous culture, the old old ways, are not far removed from them; living grandfathers and grandmothers still hold such wisdom ways intact. So the new way of Guardianship can easily subsume into itself again, the old old ways based upon dynamic inter-relationship of all beings to each other and the benevolent participation of the spirits in the life of the community. The young man who is considering joining the Marines because he sees no alternative is not so fortunate as he has grown up in the U.S., a country that has adamantly set itself against such indigenous knowledge – the many Indian wars and the Reservation system being two horrific examples of this. While his mother devotes herself to recovering the old old ways, her efforts are not sufficient to neutralize the culture of hostility that he—and we—are immersed in. A mother’s vision is not sufficient to undo the economic, political and cultural valorization of violence, war, individualism and power. The first activity of the Guardian is to see the net of all beings, all our relationships that comprise the little world that one has committed oneself to protect. Guardianship implies the restoration of all the parts to the whole. As we become educated about the particular needs of what is in our hands to guard, we are also called to educate ourselves about all the relationships that must be tended so that our particular concern will thrive. The welfare of relations are as important as the
photo by andre lambertson
welfare of each particular or individual. Guardianship calls us to be aware of the ecology of the field. This is what we are called to protect. Before the pragmatic actions that require analytic thinking and scientific analysis, Guardianship depends for its success on holistic thinking. We are only at the beginning of developing th capacity to conceive of the whole instead of focusing on the individual part. One of my mentees was pondering the familiar dilemma of action vs. being: What shall I do? What shall I become? I suggested she consider committing to becoming a Guardian of a particular portion of the natural world recognizing that she would be committing the rest of her life to this work. It might not engage her entire life, but it would be an ever-present concern. There is a difference between performing acts of guardianship and becoming a Guardian. As Guardians, we are being asked to live entirely on behalf of what has been put in our hands – the earth, the future, the next seven generations. Carolyn Raffensperger routinely asks people: What are you willing to be a Guardian of? Carolyn has committed to being a Guardian of Guardians. I do not remember if I volunteered or she appointed me Guardian for the 5th generation. I had been reflecting on the baobab tree that can live 2500 years. If, as a species, we have been increasingly disrespectful of the natural environment for 10,000 years, then we have this fifth lifetime to unwind the curse. How can I become such a guardian? I practice standing here like one of those strange trees who people with their fanciful and wild postures the landscape of Africa, feeding and protecting so many different creatures. I learn to stand still and survey the savannah intent on blessing, equally, the gazelle, the baboon, its companion, and the leopard who feeds upon them. What is in my power to change in my life so that their lives are in no way limited by my activities? How can I protect their territory, their waters, their territorial air streams, the climate for five generations into the future? What in my own nature and habits, no matter my seeming physical distance, impedes their lives and how can I change accordingly? Knowing that war devastates the earth and all beings, how can I intervene to protect the future?
Beside the animals who rightfully make their homes in the trees, I am aware of the poachers who use the hollowed out trees as aeries for their illegal gain and who threaten the survival of many species. Two questions: How do we contain or disperse the poachers and what knowledge, training and authority is required to assure the life cycles of the natural world? Asked to vote or act on behalf of the animals, trees or water, I think of their connected interests, as their common welfare profoundly affects my own. Whether I am one of those responsible for the future 100 years, five generations, or the full lifetime of a baobab seedling, as a Guardian, I am called to do all I can to assure that these futures will have the resources and opportunities to thrive and flourish, will have the essential elements from which the complex bounty of life flows Understanding is not sufficient. Now we have to live accordingly. Veterans trying to heal their own PTSD are called to such rigorous work. Otherwise they don’t survive. For the rest of us, an equally rigorous process of self-examination and transformation is required: Guardianship as a rite of passage. Guardianship as soul work. Guardianship as a Path, as a Way, as a Tao.
photo by andre lambertson
9/11. It is particularly important to be cautious about the choices one makes about restoration. As we learn, increasingly, of the violations of power under Robert Mugabe’s regime, the restorations he authorized of the severed Tower at Great Zimbabwe, ironically reiterate the warning in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias: “Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” I am writing this essay under the ghostly shadow of the Twin Towers where the families of those who died there are gathered while the names of the dead are being read. It will take two hours to name them all. There are plans to build new towers, but if we do not engage in the necessary rites of self-scrutiny and purification, if we do not free ourselves from the hubris of power, if we fail to build upon principles of inclusion and concern for all life, we will probably fail again to be guardians of peace and the natural world. What is being asked of us? How will we meet it? How can we live, supporting, without compromise, the future? Deena Metzger Teacher & Senior Advisor to everyday gandhis
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 7
Group Workshops
by laura berlinger, lassana kaneh, varlee sheriff & uncle jake
I
was so privileged to visit the everyday gandhis guest house in Voinjama from the 24th to the 30th of May, 2009. I was warmly welcomed by everyone in the house and everyone I encountered in the community. The house was so clean and comfortable and Mama Kanneh cooked delicious meals every day and always made sure I had hot water in my room for tea. I really enjoyed the conversations I was able to have with the boys (our Future Guardians of Peace) and Esther (our first female Future Guardian of Peace), and it was incredible to see the level of respect and open communication within the house. I was present for one meeting involving the boys, Esther, Bethelson and Uncle Jake, where some small issues (things like sharing work around the house, etc) were brought up and discussed honestly and calmly. Apologies were made and accepted and by the end, everyone was laughing. Observing the process, I thought back to similar meetings I attended when I was living in a house full of students in college, and how tempers would flare over the same kinds of issues. So, needless to say, I was impressed! By far the most meaningful part of my time in Voinjama were the two afternoons I spent co-facilitating and participating in discussion circles: the Circle of Girls on May 27th and the Circle of Girls and Boys on May 28th. For the Circle of Girls, I worked with Mama Kanneh and a young woman named Blessing. Blessing is an eleventh grader at the Voinjama Free Pentecostal School (where the eg ‘kids’ go), and did a lot of work for us spreading awareness and excitement for the event at the school. We set up desks in a large circle under some palm trees on the school grounds in preparation for a start time of 4:00, and by 3:45 girls were already arriving! In total we counted 38 attendees, which proved to be a great number for exploring many different opinions and perspectives on young women’s issues in Lofa County After the introductions, I explained the concept of Safe Space to the Circle, a concept I borrowed from a Female Sexuality course I took as an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. Creating Safe Space means making a commitment to upholding the values of the Circle; it allows for both the freedom to speak on any topic and the freedom not to speak, and requires respect for each participant, which is demonstrated by giving total attention to anyone speaking. Everyone should feel safe, welcome, and respected in the Circle. The first topic discussed was Early Pregnancy. Blessing had alerted me that this is a huge issue currently affecting school-aged girls in the area,
who may not even finish school once they have a child. All girls who spoke on this subject agreed that early pregnancy should be avoided by avoiding early sex. Reasons for engaging in early sex were cited as often economic: the desire for material goods, especially when a girl does not have nice enough clothes to feel presentable at school (the solution being to find a man with money who will expect sex in exchange for gifts), and sometimes also family pressure in the form of parents expecting school-aged girls to take an active, adult role in supporting themselves. Several girls advised that early pregnancy may lead to abandonment by parents and even by the father of the child, and Mama told a story of a woman who used to live well from sleeping with many men but who, once she got pregnant, had no support left and now must sell meat in the street. Women’s Health was discussed on many levels. We talked about the health hazards of early pregnancy as well as the dangers of abortion, as many women in the community are said to have been tricked into unsafe abortions and/or have died from complications of abortion. We discussed condom use for mature women who decide to have sex and do not want to become pregnant. One particularly exciting moment during this discussion, for me, came when some girls were complaining that men don’t want to use condoms, and one teenaged girl in the group admitted that she doesn’t like condoms, either. Mama counseled her that she used to feel the same way but that once she forced herself to use them, she got used to them. The teen responded: “Well, then I will try that, too!” The influence of one woman sharing advice in the form of experience can be so much more effective than simply sharing facts! The Circle of Girls also explored the issue of rape. When asked what causes rape, the girls overwhelmingly pointed to “the way we dress.” We discussed this at length: Do girls who dress conservatively also get raped? What about male accountability for the action of rape? Can a woman rape a man? Is it ever your fault if you are raped? Uncle Jake respectfully entered the Circle to give some insight to a few of these discussion points, including a case he knew of where a boy was taken advantage of by a woman, and a case of a woman bearing a child from rape. He also pointed out that there was nothing a girl could wear that could make him lose control of himself. The final conclusion of the Circle was that it is never your fault if you are raped. At the end of the discussion we passed out paper for the girls to write anonymous questions if they wished. We all threw our papers in the center of the circle, and then the facilitators read the questions and we all discussed them. This was a good way for potentially embarrassing questions to be answered, or at least addressed. After this, we all shared refreshments and cleaned up together. The Circle of Girls and Boys was also a success, despite the rain that came just as we were setting up. We met inside the everyday gandhis guest house and had roughly 30 attendees, including many of the same girls from the previous day’s Circle and the everyday gandhis boys and Esther. We began again with the introduction to Safe Space, and the topic of Domestic Abuse took the floor. This subject was actively debated between the men and women in the Circle; the practice of some women encouraging abuse as a demonstration of love was especially
8 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
interesting to both sides. Some of the women admitted to feeling this way at some point. We discussed the dangers of small acts of violence escalating to more dangerous forms, and Mama shared a story of a woman she knew who accidentally killed her boyfriend from hitting his head in a domestic dispute. This was sobering to the group and both sides spoke against violence. Also discussed in the Circle of Girls were the topics of safe sex and condom use, pregnancy and abortion, infidelity in relationships, sexual abuse and incest, and rape. Bethelson shared a personal story on the topic of sexual abuse that made the group both laugh and reflect seriously. During the discussion of rape, men were encouraged to take personal responsibility for their actions, and the discussion seemed to me to be empowering for both women and men. Women should not be to blame for any violence committed against them, and men should not be denied the credit of being capable of controlling their actions. The conclusion of the Circle discussion was that the discussion had only begun, and should be continued and encouraged within the community of youth. Refreshments were again shared, and those who could stay watched “Akeela and the Bee,” an inspirational American film. What really stood out to me during these Circles was just how much can be accomplished during one short discussion. Volumes were spoken and shared within the short span of these two afternoons. The discussion must continue. It doesn’t take more than a few encouraging words and a safe space to get a Circle going, and much can be gained from the simple sharing of knowledge and experience. As soon as women start talking honestly about what it means to be a woman, the issues shared by all remind us that we are not alone in our struggles, even when we disagree. When men and women start talking honestly about what it means to uphold a gender role or expectation, the issues shared by all remind us that we have more in common than we remembered. These Circles are enlightening as well as healing, and encouraging to all.
P
articipants of the workshops were former fighters who fought during our country, Liberia’s, fourteen years civil conflict. There were war affected youth as well who, together with the former combatants, participated meaningfully in the discussion. The topic of the discussion was “Healthy Relationships”. The discussion happened to focus on “self-esteem” which, I think, was the key thing people learned from the discussions we had at various schools. Self-esteem, as was explained, means believing in your self, having love for your self, having confidence in your self and so forth. It was further explained that by this, you can do or be whatever you want to be.
We, members of everyday gandhis, were to conduct five interactive discussions with the youth in Voinjama in five schools. In collaboration with Uncle Jake, we agreed that the last discussion would be held at the everyday gandhis guest house. This was done with students from various schools where we had the previous workshops. During this forum there was time for participants to use the talking stick to promise something good and many promised to put to use what they had learned from the discussions. There was time for jokes, riddles and I could see from the beginning of my short stay in Voinjama that songs from every one too. everyday gandhis is an organization well respected by the community, and the more I interacted with people, the more this was confirmed to It ended with the film, AKEELAH AND THE BEE, which I think me. It was a pleasure and a blessing to be hosted by such a generous helped build our self-esteem, the focus point of the discussions. This group, from those in Voinjama, Monrovia, and the US! I am grateful was the best moment because it helped us to get connected from difto Sam for the safe and enjoyable journey, to Bethelson for his valuable ferent schools. stories and entertainment, to Jake as always for the support, encourage- Students as well as administrators of each school congratulated us for ment, and fatherly care; to Mama Kanneh, Roberts and everyone at the the discussions and recommended more discussion on other topics. egp house for their warmth and hospitality; and, of course, to Bill and Cyndie for their generous willingness to host and support me and for Thanks to Uncle Jake for facilitating these discussion we have had and we hope for more in the future. Also, thanks to him for giving us the their involvement in such positive and inspiring community projects. task to mobilize the lectures, along with Uncle B (Bethelson). Thank you! Also, a big thanks to everyday gandhis for sponsoring such a unique Laura Berlinger program. We look forward to you for another. Colleague of Uncle Jake Varlee M. Sheriff Future Guardian of Peace
I
t was on Saturday, April 11, 2009 that a program was held in Lofa County. It was in a town called Selega, a one hour’s walk away from the county capital of Voinjama. Hundreds of citizens gathered together with traditional leaders and town elders, including the culture troop of everyday gandhis. National members were represented at the program as well.
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 9
The start of the program was a traditional drum sound playing at the back, while the youth soccer team of Selega town and Bill F.C football club, within everyday gandhis, prepared to play a friendly soccer match. A few minutes before the game, a peace drama was presented by a traditional elder known as Fabalee along with other soccer players from both teams. He disclosed that the aim and objective of everyday gandhis is to deliver peace with good messages to people. The drama was intended to shape the knowledge of soccer players in working together for peace and unity. After the drama, a friendly soccer match was played among the youth of Selega with the Bill F.C football club, which ended in a goal-less draw (0-0). Following the program in town, a big show was held with traditional dance including Mandingo dance and Lorma songs with a drama of tribalism. After the dance, a drama was played which goes like this: A M andingo woman said “Let me now go and put my tub on the line to get water because it is not easy. It is a hard time to get water.” So, the Lorma woman did too. Then the man who is in charge of the pump said the opening and closing of the pump is disturbing him and the pump has spoiled. “Anyone found drawing water will be the ones, I know, who have caused the problem of the pump” he said. Since he was a Lorma man, he always gave the Lorma woman water whenever she went there and refused the Mandingo woman water by saying the pump was spoiled. The Mandingo woman became skeptical about the situation because every time she met the Lorma woman, she had water from the pump. So, one day, she got to the pump where she saw the Lorma woman draw her water. She said, “Please, I want to draw my water, Pump Keeper”. “How can you get water when the pump is spoiled?” the Pump Keeper asked. The Mandingo woman said, “I have to draw my water today because every time I come here you tell me that the pump is spoiled, but the Lorma woman has drawn her water”. While arguing among themselves, the Mandingo woman wasted (spilled) the Lorma woman’s water that she had drawn. Then the fighting was between the Mandingo woman and the Lorma with the Pump Keeper telling the Mandingo woman, “You are wrong.” While in the conflict, the advisor of the town arrived and asked what the matter was. The Mandingo woman, being so angry, began explaining and the Lorma woman attempted to fight back saying, “The Mandingo people like too much conflict.” “Why should you waste my water?” the Lorma woman said. The advisor stopped her and tried to get what the Mandingo woman had to say. After the explanation of the Mandingo woman, the Lorma woman was asked to explain her part. She quickly bribed the Pump Keeper and asked him to say that the Mandingo woman had caused the problem.
And so the keeper of the pump was asked. After they had all explained, the advisor asked to stop tribalism and come together for peace and they all agreed and asked everyone in the town to be united. Tribalism is not good. A song was playing at the ending of the drama. After the drama, the town chief of Selega presented a message to the members of everyday gandhis. He said he was very appreciative and happy for the program in which they and the members of everyday gandhis have organized to bring peace among them. Following the appreciation of the town chief of Selega, a representative of everyday gandhis, Mr. Lassana J. Kamara, spoke to the citizens of the town. He said, “We are members here from everyday gandhis. Thank you people for the accomplishment of this program. Many thanks go to the youth of Selega for their friendly soccer match”. At the same time, Master General of everyday gandhis presented another message that Lofa County has two major problems. This concerned the Mandingo ethnic group and the Lorma ethnic group. He said unnecessary killing is caused by the Lorma ethnic group, while the criminal rate is high in the Mandingo ethnic group. So, we the people of Liberia, especially the citizens of Lofa, have to analyze the problem. Whatever the situation, both ethnic groups, Mandingo and Lorma, will have to unite under a common agenda in moving Liberia forward. Only time will tell if both ethnic groups have been settled through the work of peace. Liberians have a saying that goes, “Quarrels end, but words once spoken never die”. Meaning, one should learn to manage his or her temper when angry. From everyday gandhis this is, Lassana Kaneh Future Guardian of Peace (and aspiring journalist)
W
hat a great evening it was at Selega!! We ( Jake, Alfreda & Bethelson) arrived in Voinjama at about 4:00 PM (after a 12 hour drive from Monrovia) and did not rest. We moved straight on to Selega to join the rest of the everyday gandhis team. The soccer match started soon afterwards. It was a friendly and peaceful match that ended zero all. We joined the town’s people for the evening activities, which should have included storytelling and traditional dancing, but Heaven soon sent down the heavy rain, which to me was a kind of blessing for all. Those of us who came from Monrovia could just not continue the all night vigil. We retired to bed, but the drumming started immediately after the rain and went on until 2AM. The following morning everyone assembled in the heart of the town. The everyday gandhis cultural troupe dressed up in their attire. They performed very well under the watchful eyes of Farbalee. They danced and performed live dramas on “Tribalism” and “Peace”. What was missing though was the storytelling component, which as I observed the town’s people did not find expedient at the time of the visit. (eg staff had planned to organize traditional storytelling Fire Circles). Farming activities now dominate everything up-country. The people were, however, happy to receive us and the welcome was pleasing to the everyday gandhis team. Hopefully, we will be invited another time and there will be a full house of elders who, according to the chief of Selega, Arthur Zumo, may be available to entertain us with stories and dreams. Regards, Uncle Jake
10 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
everyday gandhis
marketpl ac e Teachings from Liberia’s Civil War
DVD: The Dead Will Guide Us
Teachings From Liberia's Civil War The story of how the dead and nature, particularly elephants, have brought the human and natural communities together for peacemaking and reconciliation.
T-Shirt
Our new T-shirt designed especially for us by renowned artist America Martin. Printed on 100% organic cotton.
Photojournal
A compilation of essays and pictures from the Future Guardians of Peace safari in Tanzania, August 2008.
Postcards
A small collection of photographs taken by the Future Guardains of Peace from their first week of photography instruction up to their present day work. Share the beauty with friends and family.
Prints
High quality framed prints of the Future Guardians of Peace photographs, some of which have been on exhibit at the Corcoran gallery in Washington D.C. These stunning photos capture the beauty of life and healing through images of people, nature and communities. Perfect for the home or office.
Coming Soon...Future Guardians of Peace DVD, our second documentary film featuring the Future Guardians of Peace and their incredible journey of healing. Please visit us online to purchase any of these items.
www.everydaygandhis.org/store
Dreaming of Guardianship by ki’na dark cloud
I
became a dreamer in the tradition of my people by being born dead and returning from death. At the time of my birth I was also wearing a caul on my face, which gave both the Indigenous American and the Welsh bloodlines reason to call me dreamer. I was also considered to be able to walk in the worlds of the living and the dead, and the teachings of the dead were important and given through dreams. In my childhood my dreams were asked about and discussed among my elders and even among tribes. Once I left the reservation, however, things changed. It was considered odd and even wrong to talk about dreams as anything more than a night of fiction.
A little more than a year and a half ago I had a dream about Guardians and it made quite an impact on my life. I did not know that a friend of mine at the time was working on guardianship issues for the planet. For some reason we were having a conversation about dreams and their importance. I mentioned that I had had a recent dream that stayed with me and she asked me what it was about. I told her that it was about Guardians of the Future. She was very still for a moment and asked me if I would email her my dream. I did, and nothing in my life has been the same since. I share it freely, and with joy. May it be so. I had the strangest dream, one of those that change your life, or at least how you view your life. I won a lottery, millions upon millions of dollars. It wasn’t a lottery where six numbers come up and someone gets a nice wardrobe, a personal trainer, and a new car (although I might have liked that). This lottery was won with words. They lined up just right and I was suddenly in control of MILLIONS, with one catch. I couldn’t use the money for myself. This money had been assigned to me by the collective soul of our planet somehow. I could use
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a small amount to cover my true personal expenses but the rest was to go to the Guardians. I had to spend all this money to protect and heal the Earth!!!! And that brought me joy, pure, simple, dance in circles, laughing joy. I was to find a Guardian for each task who would pass the guardianship on to the next generation, and the next, etc. Without financial struggle the Guardians would be able to focus on their soul assignment, or sole assignment. In the dream I couldn’t see the spelling of the word. No matter, on to the dancing. First I had to find a Guardian of agriculture. One who would keep pure seeds of all food and healing plants, all oxygen making trees, all weeds, all ocean plants the world over and only in their proper place. This Guardian would stop the destruction of food growing areas and oxygen producing areas for humankind and all our relatives, anything that has DNA. But especially for me, this Guardian would gift me in my own yard, and for intensely personal reasons, the Tropicana rose and cilantro in a beautifully scented circle around a natural stone bench. An Eden I have never had, but often dreamed of. Second I had to find a Guardian who could also be a warrior. A pacifist warrior? What?? Aaah, I understand. A Guardian to keep EVERYTHING nuclear from being used, to keep hell out of the hands of humans, to protect those living beings who have had no say in the matter of destruction. I saw them raising their hands, beautiful interesting faces intent, bringing energy from their very souls to surround and negate the evil they faced. And they DID. Praise God they DID. They reached across religious, political, ethnic, gender, socio-economical barriers and touched hands and they DID. And they gave me a single night of restful, undisturbed sleep without fear of the dark as a gift.
Third I had to find a guardian of “medicine”. A shaman, a voodoo priestess, a Jonas Salk, a wiccan, a grandmother, a Jung, all in one group, who would teach us without using poison to attack the illnesses from our bodies. Someone who could recognize that sometimes death IS the healing. Someone with an innate understanding of the plants and foods and communion that not only heal but prevent illness, who would not judge one soul as more worthy than another for healing. And they gave me a watercolor of my soul, a spiral of colors from the mango as a gift. Fourth I had to find a Guardian of religion. One who had the open mind and heart to accept and adore the differences and similarities each faith shares. One who would embrace reincarnation and the flight of a soul to its maker in the same thought. AMEN. One who would attend to the cry of a three year old wanting a cookie with the same wisdom as they would attend to the cry of a mother whose child is dying. Recognizing that all pain hurts, even if we bring it upon ourselves, it hurts. And they gave me three drops of ocean water in a tiny glass ball on a silver chain as a gift. Fifth I had to find a Guardian of the travelers of earth, water, and sky. One who could recognize the worth of a mosquito as well as the cow, the charm of a warthog as well as a puppy, the wisdom to see that although the animal’s life work may be to become food, it still deserves to be treated well, the future thinking to recognize cloning and altering as the abominations they are. And they gave me a carving of a capuchin monkey as a gift, bringing me a flood of joyful memories. Sixth I had to find a Guardian of justice. The Wisdom of Solomon with the heart of Mother Teresa, who could understand that murder can NEVER negate murder, that abuse can NEVER negate abuse, that evil can only be conquered by surrounding it with grace and love, not by letting it continue, but by containing it and treating it with dignity, grace, and love. And they gave me a deep red glass key as a gift. Seventh I had to find a guardian of politics, the most difficult task for me. One who is able to see honesty in a soul. One who is able to resist the negative side of power and revel in the good, who can recognize that the needs of the collective soul are infinitely more important than corporate greed and the hideous perversion of medical care the world over. One who can look at the homeless man clothed in filth and rags and see his needs as equal to the high placed executive, who hears the voice and ideas of the 36 year old “nothing much” woman as valuable as the voice and ideas of the 41 year old “big wheel” male CEO of a major company. One who realized that all people are the most sacred of all. And they gave me a document, signed and witnessed, legal the world over. And it read only-FREEDOM. A gift I cannot imagine but did. This dream, this gift from all ancestors, catapulted me into a world where people, even those who have been misused, care about others. I was introduced to everyday gandhis through this dream and found that within this group of people there were Guardians from every section of my dream. Even a politician, which was the most difficult task I could imagine. It has been my honor among honors to meet these people and to be allowed to find, in their presence, my own heart. I realized that the dream had been of a true and uncompromised peace building, for this planet, for all beings, for the future. In meeting the people from Liberia I have met the future of this planet and our ability to make and maintain peace. I have been humbled and forever
changed from hearing their stories. I have been healed and lifted up when hearing of their triumphs in the face of devastation. In every aspect of the journey to peace the Liberians show us the dignity and grace needed to be successful. Now I hear about uranium mining in Niger and other native lands entering into the recipe for disaster. I was exposed to uranium tailings when I was a child, played in the yellow dust, and received leukemia as my warning against pulling this sacred fire from the earth. I beg, I pray, I sing, I call to the universe to hide the uranium from us. Until the peace building expands to embrace the planet, until greed does not power the world, until we, as a unit, can stand and be Guardians, we are not ready to handle this particular spirit. Uranium demands a high price from its apprentices and humans are not yet mature enough to pay that price without disastrous results. At the meeting in September of 2008 I watched very carefully the gathering of people. I tried to remain objective and clinical. Once again I could not. These are the people who are parenting the birth of a new way, a way of peace and reconciliation, a way of respect to ALL beings, a way of breaking chains of greed and resentment. These are the people I find myself trying to emulate in my daily life. They allow me to call them family and I allow them to carry my heart with them at all times. I know it is safe there. With them I would share all dreams that I hold sacred. everyday gandhis has made this possible for me and through that possibility have come many blessings. I live in Iowa and now hear talk of peace shimmering in the air around me. The waves have reached the shores of another continent. The wisdom of elephants is being shared with many who have never seen one. The people of Liberia have given that gift, at much sacrifice, with great and inspiring intelligence. Bring all the stories, all the pain, all the healing, all the smiles, all the tears, all the wisdom, all the questions, all the radiance, all the darkness. Bring it all and welcome, welcome, to my heart. Love, Ki’na Dark Cloud
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 13
Living Within a 200-Year Vision by warren brush
S
tepping through the doorway that leads toward sustainability is no flippant task. To do so authentically, we are asked at the welcoming mat to relinquish those things that say that short-term gain, reductionalist thinking, soil eroding lifestyles, and any actions that eagerly, and often unconsciously, mine the future of its resources where the true cost must be paid for by future generations. At the door, we are asked to take our shoes off, slow down, and consider how to move in integrative ways that honor diversity, mutual interdependence, and the repercussions of our actions, both good and bad, and their effect on the future generations. This thoughtful journey toward sustainability may begin with a few well-placed and relevant steps that consider the needs of the children, and all that will sustain them, for at least 200 years into the future. This mindfulness, with its subsequent actions in our lives, is the keystone of true wealth, creating beauty in our lives and for those yet to come long into the future. For Quail Springs Permaculture farm and learning oasis, we hold dearly and genuinely a vision that extends 200 years into the future. This vision includes long-term planning for a time beyond our own. In a society where we often starve our grandchildren to feed our children, and ourselves, we have chosen to dedicate and consciously design the outcomes of our work today to benefit those children who we will never meet and those elders we will never sit with. We have chosen to do this by taking responsibility for how we live, what we teach, and how we function as a group of people striving to know and honor the origins of all that sustains us.
photo by warren brush
Our definition of sustainability hangs prominently over this doorway that leads to sustainability. We define it pragmatically in terms of sys-
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tems rather than individual elements in isolation as so much of our current economics, science and social constructs embody. Our definition simply states: "SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS produce more energy than they consume, with enough surplus to maintain and replace the system’s elements over each element’s lifetime." This directive germinates our designs at Quail Springs and guides our judgments as we observe the feedback from natural and human made systems. The land where Quail Springs flows has had over a hundred years of abuse by humans, mainly in the form of overgrazing and over pumping of groundwaters for unsustainable monoculture agricultural operations. This myopic form of landuse has led to deforestation, massive soil erosion, a crippled ground water recharge system, depleted soil structure, and the ongoing desertification of the region. Our two hundred year plan begins with us clearly and passionately holding the picture of this land once again forested in diversity, the steelhead spawning to the source of our little stream at the springs, the ground-water “sponge” functioning, soil-building processes occurring naturally, and a village of people living in an intact way with the land that sustains them. With this picture held with integrity and clarity, we have developed a land stewardship plan to move us toward these goals in tangible ways now. They include the development of a vested “stewardship council” that ensures that we are not sacrificing the future potential for immediate gain. This council balances that with seeing that our needs of today are met beautifully and sufficiently. We view ourselves, this first generation of caretakers at Quail Springs, as a “pioneer species” in a long succession process where people and landscape learn to live well together in a truly sustainable relationship.
photo by jesse smith
Our well-intentioned plans are held both by hope and pragmatism and are formulated humbly across a vast chasm of the unknown that spans 200 years into the future to the years surrounding 2200 AD and then working back to the present day in 2009. We wish to share our plans and our mission with you and welcome your good intentions in helping us seed something valuable for our communities in which we live today as well as for a time beyond our own.
• Quail Springs associated properties collectively make up a respected teaching village with a long lineage of sharing knowledge through demonstration rather than theories.
Our Mission Statement
• The non-profit organization of today will have dissolved as a nutrient into the life-giving compost of an authentic community that is intact with the land.
We believe that lasting ecological health and social harmony can be fostered through emphasizing the connection between people, food, shelter, energy, and water. Quail Springs is a working farm dedicated to demonstrating and teaching holistic ways of designing human environments, and to facilitating deeper understandings of ourselves and one another through immersive experiences in Nature.
The Year 2200:
• The land and ecology in the Quail Springs canyon is re-hydrated through reforestation of the landscape and the micro-climate of the canyon has evolved to a more humid ecology. • Stream profiles are raised back to natural levels. • Earthworks have become fully vegetated and now prevent erosion and concentrate nutrient. • The steelhead are spawning all the way to the springs. • Food forests are mature and provide food security and abundance for the people, livestock, and wildlife living on and connected to the land.
• We picture the people living in this time with a broad concentric ring of knowledge and connection to place emanating out into the world as a living statement of possibility that humans can inhabit the earth in a sustainable manner, and as an ally of all that gives life.
The Year 2060:
Our fifty-year plan will likely mark a time beyond the lifespan of many, but not all of us, who are now stewarding the land and developing the education processes here, yet it is important for us to draw our attention from our two-hundred year, seven-generation plan to that which we can accomplish in our lifespan.
We envision the following in 2060:
• We will have planted tens of thousands of trees into design systems that are stable, resilient, and diverse. Our hills are forested and nutrients are cycling through the canyon in regenerative ways. • Our educational programs for sustainable living practices, healthy life-pathways, and community building are looked to as an elder to other communities and constituencies.
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 15
• Our sustenance will consist mostly of goods and services produced onsite and nearby, utilizing a vibrant local trade economy. We will not be invested in tenuous global debt systems. • We will be recognized as a keystone for the research and gathering of performance data for sustainable systems of shelter, water, energy, food, community development and for arid land restoration processes. • Our work in the Cuyama Valley will include the broad restoration of the watershed from the source in the mountains nearby to the sink at the ocean near Santa Maria, using techniques including: carbon farming, perennial food systems, earthworks, erosion amelioration, and community integration of appropriate water harvesting, use and allocation. • Our endowment is invested in natural capital systems that are onsite and produce products that can convert to trade, economic value, or inherent ecological benefit and is secure from deep financial crisis or collapse. • We have mentors working in our midst who are the grandchildren of the youth we are mentoring today. • Many books, films, articles and websites feature our work in mentoring, sustainable community development, land and human integrative and regenerative systems, and natural education. We have also published several books that share our work.
photo by jesse smith
• All of the surrounding communities which include the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Kern, Ventura, Los Angeles, etc. will look to and support Quail Springs as a vital resource for sustainability education and demonstration.
16 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
The Year 2020:
At this point in time, we look back over the 10 years plus that have transpired and we see many formative progressions at Quail Springs in the expression of our work. The variables are many and yet the strength of our vision, the clarity of our mission and the wisdom gained from our successes and failures have allowed us to flourish in building the soils of our two-hundred year vision. The ten years that are directly ahead of us, from 2009 to 2019, are detailed below. During these crucial years we must balance our daily needs with holding a vision for the future. These years are about relationship building, with one another and with place, where we nurture and celebrate our mutual interdependence.
The Year 2017
• The stream in the Quail Springs canyon is perennial all the way to the Cuyama River. • Our food systems are thriving and we have the ability with our perennial food forests and sustainably grown annual crops to supply our significant food needs for people associated with Quail Springs, as well as the feed for our livestock and aquaculture systems. Monthly surplus will be sold at our on-site farm stand to guests, program participants, and at our regional farmer’s markets.
The Year 2016
• The Quail Springs property has no debt associated with it. • We hold our inaugural annual harvest festival that is also a fundraising and outreach event, which quickly becomes a popular and wellattended folk and bluegrass music happening that is steeped in our local food culture (if we own the land all the way to the road).
The Year 2012
The Year 2009
• We are facilitating Permaculture Design Courses in local High Schools.
• All of our education programs offer college level accreditation.
• All food needed by the people and animals living on the land are grown on the land or secured through trade with other local purveyors.
• All farm-worker housing is completed and done to quality standards that demonstrate craftsmanship, conservation and efficiency. • Our consultancies with local farmers for drought proofing, permaculture design, carbon farming, keyline systems, and holistic management are a mainstay of our income for our Quail Springs residents as well as for our organization. • We become an official International (and local) Permaculture Training Institute. • We are working as consultants and entrepreneurs with local organic farmers to create and manage systems of livestock and poultry “tractor” systems to establish natural fertilizers, integrated pest management, and weed abatement methods. This creates additional resources and income for Quail Springs through the production of food as well as the offering of services.
The Year 2010
• The spring has increased its perennial flows by 300% from 2004. • Fuel forests are planted and tended. • Sustainable Vocations program generates 50% of its income through course fees from paying/sponsored youth, and business sponsorships. • Four permanent homes for residents are completed. • Formal data gathering for restoration work is sponsored by a university or NGO that specializes in this type of work. • Products are developed for our onsite farm stand geared toward visitors and course participants. Honey, crafts from locally harvested materials, and surplus from the farm will be offered. • We work with the Cuyama School District to offer Permaculture education. • We develop a health and wellness savings account for Quail Springs residents to ensure holistic health care remains accessible to all. • 15 gabions are completed as a part of our stream restoration process and we build our first associated swale forest system that links the gabion to a water slowing, spreading and sinking system. • Partnership develops with other organizations and businesses for a roadside (hwy 33) property and development that fits within our Quail Springs mission and with the training goals for our Sustainable Vocations program. • Quail Springs’ roadside property becomes a solar training site, complete with vocational certification. • Our general expenses are covered by income from our courses, businesses, and personal donations. • We complete our 10-year business prospectus for the non-profit organization.
• Our food forest and main crop gardens are planted in soil building system design. • We work with various sites in central and southern California as venues for our program offerings • We successfully launch our Sustainable Vocations programs and build a strong and supportive network of businesses and organizations. • We receive our first funding from Federal and State monies for green job training. • We formally partner with Santa Barbara Community College to network our sustainability education programs and create a beneficial funding relationship in searching for and acquiring grant funding. • Our network relationships begin to span the globe and generate regular support. • Launch of Living Craft Project, a project of True Nature Society, harnesses 4 interns paying $6,000 a piece. This is instrumental in funding and finishing our infrastructure as well as furthering our reputation for offering world class programs in natural building. • We are an integral part of the Cuyama Valley Conservancy and are working locally to bring sustainability into the community in which we dwell. • In this transition year for Quail Springs, our general operations are designed and implemented to be highly energy efficient and cost effective. Our goal for this year is to become self-sustaining from our course fees, our consulting, and business ventures. • We create innovative incentive based resource sharing systems to support the residents and teachers who live at Quail Springs. • Our book and gift store is now offered online as well as on-site. • We gain significant income from other organizations with compatible missions who “rent” our unique venue. • We launch our monthly tour and lunch program where we charge for the service. • Our individual consulting services pays a premium back to Quail Springs as a “tithe”. • We have four formal appeals for funding to our support network. We offer two in hard-copy and two in digital form. All of our work will accommodate ongoing feedback to better inform our processes of dynamic, incremental design. All of these envisioned points of reference are only dreams until they have been nurtured, seeded, germinated, tended and harvested by the diligent efforts of many people’s hearts and hands through many generations. Thank you for your generosity in dreaming this vision to life and working with us toward building a future that is both hopeful and filled with the vitality of all that gives and nurtures life. Warren Brush Quail Springs Permaculture Farm If you wish to contribute to this vision, please contact us at 805.886.7239 or by emailing to info@quailsprings.org or by going to our donations page on our website at www.quailsprings.org/donations
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 17
The Bemidji Statement: 7th Generation Guardianship indigenous environmental health network & science and environmental health network edited by carolyn raffensperger and nancy myers
T
he first mandate …. is to ensure that our decision-making is guided by consideration of the welfare and well being of the seventh generation to come.
Who guards this web of life that nurtures and sustains us all? Who watches out for the land, the sky, the fire, and the water? Who watches out for our relatives that swim, fly, walk, or crawl? Who watches out for the plants that are rooted in our Mother Earth? Who watches out for the life-giving spirits that reside in the underworld? Who tends the languages of the people and the land? Who tends the children and the families? Who tends the peacekeepers in our communities?
Indigenous Peoples have learned over thousands of years to live in harmony with the land and the waters. It is our intent to survive and thrive on this planet for this and many generations to come. This survival depends on a living web of relationships in our communities and lands, among humans, and others. The many Indigenous Peoples and cultures from throughout the world are threatened by the disruption of these relationships.
We tend the relationships. We work to prevent harm. We create the conditions for health and wholeness. We teach the culture and we tell the stories.
The exploitation and industrialization of the land and water have altered the relationships that have sustained our Indigenous communities. These changes have accelerated in recent years. We are now experiencing the consequences of these actions with increased cancer and asthma rates, suicides, and reproductive disorders in humans, as well as increased hardships of hunting and of whaling. Places that we hold to be sacred have been repeatedly disturbed and destroyed. In animals and in nature we see changing migratory patterns, diseased fish, climate change, extinction of species, and much more.
We have the sacred right and obligation to protect the common wealth of our lands and the common health of our people and all our relations for this generation and seven generations to come. We are the Guardians for the Seventh Generation. Indigenous Environmental Network & Science and Environmental Health Network Bemidji, MN. July 2006
Government agencies and others in charge of protecting the relationships between our people, the land, air, and water have repeatedly broken treaties and promises. In doing so, they have failed in their duty to uphold the tribal and the public trust. The many changes in these relationships have been well documented, but science remains inadequate for fully understanding their origins and essence. This scientific uncertainty has been misused to carry out economic, cultural, and political exploitation of the land and resources. Failure to recognize the complexity of these relationships will further impair the future health of our people and function of the environment. We value our culture, knowledge, and skills. They are valuable and irreplaceable assets to all of humanity, and help to safe guard the world. The health and well being of our grandchildren are worth more than all the wealth that can be taken from these lands. By returning to the collective empowerment and decision making that is part of our history, we are able to envision a future that will restore and protect the inheritance of this, and future generations. Therefore, we will designate Guardians for the Seventh Generation.
18 • everyday gandhis • fall 2009
Cultivating Integrity The first step in becoming a Future Guardian of Peace.
As always our deepest gratitude and appreciation to our ongoing donors and supporters.
More Ways to Support Lasting Peace in Liberia
Announcing everyday gandhis’ New Program For Former Child Soldiers, War Affected Youth And Their Former Commanders In conflict prevention as in permaculture, borders and edges (including marginalized people at the ‘edge’ of society) are both the most vulnerable and the most potentially fertile areas to work. • 250,000 child soldiers active in the world today (UN estimates) • 53,000 Liberian ex-combatants, not counting those in exile
• Literacy school for an adult, semester . . . . . . . . . . $100
• Over 2,000 ex-combatants in Voinjama alone
• Cooking pots for a village, shared. . . . . . . . . . . . . $150
• Voinjama: within walking distance to Guinea and Sierra Leone
• Sporting equipment for a soccer team, balls, jerseys, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $300
• Former combatants are vulnerable to mercenary recruitment, crime, drug addiction, HIV-AIDS, and unresolved trauma.
• Sponsor a traditional peacemaking ceremony, livestock, rice, transportation, for 250-2,500 people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $250–500
• Female ex-combatants, many with small children, face distinct challenges of their own, including sexual trauma, STD’s, stigmatization, and lack of education or sources of income.
• Sponsor ex-combatant for school tuition, books, uniform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500 • Build a composting toilet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500 • Build a ferro-cement rainwater catchment tank, cholera prevention. . . . . . . . . . . . $750 • Build a Village Peace Hut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $750 • Sponsor Permaculture Training for a Liberian Permaculture designer. . . . . . . . . . . . . $1500 • Photography equipment for Future Guardians of Peace, digital camera, batteries, memory card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $600-2,000 • Build a School for 250 children . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5000 • Sponsor photography training for Future Guardians of Peace, training for 10 ex-combatants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7,500 • Sponsor Permaculture Training for 25 Trainers in Liberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15,000 • Host an event • Host a screening of our new documentary
The Dead Will Guide Us
teachings from liberia’s civil war
Cultivating Integrity is a new 5-year program designed to build a presence for peace in Voinjama and along the borders of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone that will prevent conflict, restore and protect the natural world, provide skills and tools for self-reliance, and radiate peace throughout the sub-region. The program will help war affected youth by: • Supporting ‘soul repair’ and trauma healing through dialogue with former commanders, former enemies and other veterans • Reconnecting with Nature, traditional culture and elder mentors • Training war-affected youth in peacebuilding, permaculture, ecological restoration, and environmental protection • Training and employing ex-combatants as nonviolent peacekeepers • Creating a cross-border, community-based early warning conflict prevention network
You are invited to become part of this story! With your support we will raise $150,000 for the first three years of the project. “Peace in Liberia depends on Lofa County, peace in Lofa county depends on Voinjama, and peace in Voinjama depends on ex-combatants.” -Col. Raza Malik, Former UN Peacekeeper, Liberia
everyday gandhis • fall 2009 • 19
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everyday gandhis ph: 805.966.9300 • fax: 805.966.9301 • www.everydaygandhis.org everyday gandhis is a California 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation. All donations are tax-deductable as provided by law. ©2009 everyday gandhis project inc. All rights reserved. Design & Layout by ABDC • www.ablacksmithdesigncompany.com • Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper •