Earth Medicine Alliance January 2014

Greetings!

As most of you know, we're dissolving the non-profit.

Last Sunday, January 12th our current and former executive director, marketing coordinator, and several founding board members offered completion prayers and songs of gratitude in the sweat and dark of a purification lodge near Mt Umunhum. And with that send off, this is the final email from the Alliance...

The Voices of the Earth archive will live on my site (as well as Youtube directly) where the full interviews will remain free to all. I've added emails from the Alliance list to my monthly newsletter as I may be adding new interviews over time with earth-honoring teachers and elders.

We have divided all of our remaining resources (about $2,500) between five worthwhile non-profit organizations, each featured briefly below for their vision and service. Our work personally as the Alliance over the past four years was reviewed in our past newsletter.

From start to finish, from me on behalf of everyone who has served with and as the Alliance; many heart-felt thank yous. The last four years were a source of tremendous blessings, many of which are still bearing fruit, and I look forward to seeing how the next stages of life and service unfold for each of us.

With gratitude,

Daniel

Founder, Executive Director

(650) 248-8917

www.ancestralmedicine.org

The Earth Medicine Alliance is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit.

California Indian Storytelling and Lifeways

Creation story of the San Francisco Bay (Part 4/7)

What is Haydutsila? (Part 5/7)

The land that is now the political entity of California has been home to a great diversity of indigenous cultures for thousands of years before European (and other) arrivals.

Although Native peoples here have endured tremendous persecution, racism, and upheaval of traditional ways in the last several centuries, living California Indian elders (and youth!) continue to share and renew the stories, rituals, and wisdom of the ancestors of this land.

One such elder is Dr. Darryl Babe Wilson of the Pit River people of N.E. California. Since our 2011 with Dr. Babe we've come to learn that he has been facing a variety of health challenges. In honor of his bright spirit and service, we have donated $500 in his name to California Indian Storytelling Association. May the traditional stories continue to be told here in California and awaken the heart of wisdom for many generations to come.

Bridging Indigenous Wisdom and Modern Western Culture

The depth of cultural change needed to reverse our deepening global, ecological meltdown is formidable.

Traditional, indigenous peoples (and those who see the world in similar ways) tend to be far more rooted in a stance of reciprocity and conscious relationship with the rest of the natural world; an attitude that leads to much better ecological outcomes.

In this way, encouraging truly reciprocal bridges between traditional peoples and modern, Western cultures is one beneficial strategy for shifting awareness and improving the global situation.

For their support of indigenous Amazonian peoples while still keeping it rooted in raising awareness here in the United States, we've donated $500 to the Pachamama Alliance. Having visited the Ecuadorian Amazon myself and seen a hint of how destructive and exploitative U.S. and European petroleum companies can be, the need for this type of service is great. Protection from "big oil" is needed here too (e.g., fracking threats, BP pollution of the Gulf) and the Rights of Nature movement, also supported by the Pachamama Alliance, is one way to get at the problem.

Earth-honoring Ceremony and Spiritual Family

Ceremonies, Sweat Lodge, & Ancestors (Part 3/7)

At nearly every annual conference of the Alliance, earth-honoring elder Hua Anwa made the trek north to support our efforts from a spirit of generosity and service. It's this same spirit that has guided her and her community in over two steady decades of earth-honoring ceremony and service.

By making a donation of $500 to Circles of Empowerment, in addition to supporting Hua and the organization in particular, we're also saying that spiritual community and family is possible, worth the effort, and even essential for the full flourishing of earth-honoring ways and traditions.

Gratitude and love to Hua and those at Circles of Empowerment for their ongoing Earth service.

Social Justice and Earth Healing are Inseparable

One recurrent criticism of both environmental activists and modern spiritual seekers is the failure to properly account for injustice in our own communities and neighborhoods.

Why "save the rainforest" when our own house is not yet in order, when historically under-served populations in the U.S. continue to bear the brunt of our often toxic way of life?

One non-profit organization here in the Bay Area putting this awareness into practice is Literacy for Environmental Justice. Based in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco, LEJ advocates for clean-up of local toxic sites and helps youth and others by offering a range of environmental education programs (inc. getting hands in the dirt, growing healthy food). They've also helped to manifest a beautiful EcoCenter at Heron's Head Park, transforming a place of historic desecration and pollution into a source of community healing and awareness raising. We're happy to led a little support to these efforts with a $500 donation from the Alliance.

Supporting Indigenous Rights, Cultures, and Peoples

It's not enough to study the teachings of indigenous peoples, to only participate in ritual and ceremony. Over time, it's also important to find ways that work for your life to proactively support the well-being of our sisters and brothers who are working to keep alive older lineages of earth wisdom. By learning how to be a true ally to indigenous peoples, we also honor and respect our own indigenous soul and shared humanity.

One organization whose work I've admired in this vein for nearly 20 years is Cultural Survival. Their work is carried out in alignment with the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a resolution adopted by the U.N. in 2007 (despite the United States being one of four votes against). With gratitude for their service and the work of organizations like them, we're donating to them the final portion of our funds (about $800).