Notable Blogs: 2/18/2011

Today the temperature is in the low 50’s. Most of the day has been dominated by bright sunshine, now dimming behind increasing clouds. Earlier this afternoon I went for my first snowshoe of the winter. Beautiful!

Periodically, I post about blogs I find particularly meaningful. This week’s Notable Blogs  opens with an invitation to visit a lovely and inspiring site: Shuswap Watershed Project.

Diana Rico is also concerned about water.

On the Winter Solstice 2010, I received a strong message that I was to unveil and share, in public, my ongoing explorations of the sacredness of water. HOLY WATERS is my answer to that call. It is also the founding project of MoonScribe Studios, my center for deep creative work in service to a more compassionate and ecstatic world.

UBCindigenous addresses a Canadian project that seeks to heal deep running wounds, those left from the Indian residential schools in Canada. Similar harm was done to First Nations peoples in the US, but we have no apologies from the Federal government, nor do we have a truth and reconciliation process.

TRC Commissioners Chair Justice Murray Sinclair, Chief Wilton Littlechild and MarieWilson will hear from experts from truth commissions from around the globe. These experts have been invited to share their ideas and strategies for the development of theNational Research Centre on Residential Schools. Stakeholders attending this forum willinclude representatives from international, federal and provincial governments, academia,archivists and institutes. Residential School survivors, Aboriginal organizations and parties to the Residential School Settlement Agreement will also be invited.

This Forum provides a unique opportunity for stakeholders to witness the beginning of what will become Canada’s largest permanent collection of oral history of its kind.

Historical trauma leaves many traces. Skiskorean recently wrote about the long term effects of alcohol on her family. For the longest time I thought my parents abstained because of church teachings. Only recently, have I realized that their abstinence, which I sometimes found irritating, was an active resistance.

One thing that really got to me was the uncle saying alcohol was a weapon of mass destruction to Indians… a very successful one. The historical trauma in this community… my Fond Du Lac auntie traced the alcoholism in her family to 6 generations. Now we’re not trying to excuse ourselves but there is truth. They got many of us to sign that treaties by giving us fire-water. They broke up families with alcohol and ripped our culture away.

Denverabc wrte about the continuing O’odham resistance to the border wall and the division of their traditional lands.

In a previous release O’odham Solidarity Across Borders and O’odham elders stated, ”The development of the border wall has lead to desecration of Tohono O’odham ancestors graves, it has divided communities and prevents O’odham from accessing sacred places.

Troops and paramilitary law enforcement, detention camps, check points, and citizenship verification are not a solution to “issues” of migration. Indigenous Peoples have existed here long before these imposed borders, elders inform us that we always honored freedom of movement. Why are Indigenous communities and the daily deaths at the border ignored? The impacts of border militarization are constantly made invisible in the media, the popular culture of this country and even the mainstream immigrants rights movement which has often pushed for “reform” that means further militarization of the border, which means increased suffering for Indigenous communities. Border militarization destroys Indigenous communities.”

Drannehilty reminds us that not ancient ritual traditions are under duress. She spoke to the contemporary use of ritual by the people of Jeju Island. The people of Jeju have a remarkably complex ritual practice.

Jeju Island, off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula and now my home, is often called the “Island of 18,000 Gods”. Its indigenous religion is animistic, inherited from Eastern Siberia and Mongolia with its own South Pacific cultural nuances, a dash of Buddhism, and marginal Confucian influence.

Finally, The journal of Ancient Divination is a new blog, dedicated divination in shamanism.

In shamanism, there is another kind of time, not linear or sequential but a time which is one single moment. This vast ever moving moment has no boundaries which separate the past, present and future. This is a time in which anything which has ever happened to anybody anywhere, somewhere it is still happening. The shaman travels ‘outside’ of linear time into this vast unending ever-moving moment to seek the information at the place where this event is happening.

As always, I hope you will find these blogs and websites informative and inspiring. If you do, please remember to leave each author a note expressing your appreciation of their hard work.