The Irish get it. They remember and understand relationship and reciprocity. More than 170 years ago, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma responded to word about the Irish potato famine by digging scarce money from their individual pockets to send to the Irish. This happened in 1847, at the very beginning of what would be Read More
Posts by dawn
Anthem for a Time of Challenge
The Land that’s literally the ground of our existence can support us and give us strength as we grow weary of a crisis that begins to seem endless. Almost a month ago, I pointed out that the title number at the end of “Oklahoma!” speaks with an Indigenous voice, expressing the inherent power of the Read More
The Real Time Context of COVID-19
We have heard many leaders say they “are deciding” when their people will come out of quarantine or self-isolation, when businesses will reopen, or when children will return to school. Social media is filled with people lamenting their restlessness, insisting they cannot possibly bear another day cooped up with family or isolated from friends, describing Read More
You know you belong to the Land
Indigenous understandings of the world and of life are woven deeply into the American experience in ways you simply don’t notice. Here’s an example, one that should give you a lift of powerful joy. It’s from the very end of the main number for which the movie “Oklahoma!”(1) is named. The scene takes place at Read More
Together We Are a Strong People
Today, Sunday the 29th of March, we finally saw the projected numbers for possible deaths that I have long known* were the reality we face. I expect these numbers gripped many Americans in a physiological shock response. Here is how to know if that’s what happened to you. In a shock response, you feel all Read More