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
Blog
COVID-19 in the Context of Sacred Commemorations
This week, of all weeks — and this week of this particular year, of all years — is one that should stir into waking life a visceral understanding of Indigenous values, deep within the hearts of people of the dominant culture. For this week commemorates events during which individuals set aside their own personal fears Read More
Connection
“Sit here on the ground with me,” I encouraged the hesitant woman. She was an older beginner rider who had contacted me because she was afraid of riding her horses. She wanted to ride but didn’t know how to get past her fear. As we stood in her dusty, New Mexico arena, I told her Read More
Hunkering Down with the Horses
The wind came rolling down the canyon, rustling the pines and then spreading out along the flattened area where the horses would normally be grazing. We had been told a big snow storm was coming, perhaps even a blizzard. I had put hay in the two barns, hoping to encourage the horses to seek shelter 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