Clare Consultation, LLCA Great Indigenous Leader Honored with a Public Award
Late yesterday, the longstanding and visionary environmental organization, Ecotrust, announced this year’s awardees for the Indigenous Leadership Award. Among the five leaders named is Roy Hunter Sampsel, my dear friend and mentor. What well-deserved recognition. This man is a giant of leadership! I had a nagging sense of incongruence when my first move to announce how thrilled I am with this news was to put it on facebook – but such is… Read More
In the Presence of a Great Gray Owl
I just sent email to children I met in North Carolina last week. They live in an enormous old house right in the middle of the Smoky Mountains. They run around the house, its sprawling porches and every inch of the generous land that surrounds it. They are learning with every step. They’re kids. Learning and running around is, most naturally, what kids do. These children have parents who are committed to… Read More
Rebuilding Native Nations – A non-Native Perspective
For the past 10 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with Tribal Leadership — elected and traditional leaders of Native American Tribes in the U.S. and Canada. This work has provided more opportunities to learn than I could have imagined or even anticipated as a woman raised non-Indian in the U.S. The way I was raised to make sense of the world has lots of overlap with the way… Read More
Fresh Water Matters
I’m sitting in a room with large windows. Outside fresh water tumbles by, higher on the banks of Rock Creek than usual for August. There’s been way more snow and rain this year than is ever expected for this arid region of Montana. Regardless of the reason and in spite of some of the local folks’ complaints, the water doesn’t miss a beat. Constancy is its nature. Today, Matt Damon did the… Read More
Gaza and the Courage to be Kind
There is so much that is difficult about circumstances in Gaza. Two Julys ago, my niece Mary spent time volunteering in Palestine, building homes there, her colleagues of all nationalities, and the promised residents all knew would be destroyed – and they were (MARY SAYS, MITT SAYS. Blog July 29, 2012). Mary met and befriended Palestinians and Israelis. She has made more friends in subsequent visits and remains dearly connected with many… Read More
Youth Leading with Music
This past Tuesday morning, I met a friend for coffee. Just a week earlier she had approached me, eyes shining especially (Soraya’s eyes about always shine) to say she hoped I’d have time to meet with her and her husband. She described Chaz as a musician and a man of activism – quiet, but profound. And not quiet when it comes to sound, because Chaz is a musician of sturdy repute. He… Read More
Leadership of People – A Follow-up on McAllen, TX
Leadership is a social phenomenon. I mean really – no leading is the least bit relevant outside of a group, outside of society. I must concede to my biologist friends that leadership arguably happens among chimpanzees, lions, ants – even amoebas and cellular mitochondria. But, right now, I’m focusing on leadership where people are concerned. And, I’m thinking it’s way too easy to forget that a leader has no credibility outside the… Read More
Stories and Specialty
I just spent four days in the company of poets and writers. Well-published storytellers like Naomi Shihab Nye, Luis Urrea, Kim Stafford, Teresa Jordan, Gary Ferguson — and hundreds more, published and not. No matter the notoriety, each one wove images into stories — tales to entertain, to instruct, to push beyond whatever bounds any of us imagines. All week these stories echoed across the wide meadow in the northeastern corner of Oregon… Read More
Children at the Border
A few updates from Scott: 7.July – Thanks Mary. I am going to be here two more weeks. It is quieter here so far today. The plane load left and the numbers are down from yesterday. I met Caesar this morning, he is by himself, 11 years old and was brought over by a coyote from Mexico. I have an app on my iPhone that helps me communicate with the kids. Since it is… Read More
High Summer & Highways – Solar Power in Action
It’s hot. It’s summer. Weather in the world has been, as we all know, weird. Some people continue to spin this weirdness as normal, of no concern — circumstances that require no response on the part of the humans who live it. My friends Jon Waterhouse and Mary Marshall spend a good deal of time with indigenous people who live climactic weirdness. The Elders among them have been noting alarming changes… Read More