Sherri Mitchell, author of Sacred Instructions, reviews the many-layered causes of lateral violence (or the ways in which colonization turns communities against each other) as well as the flourishing “lateral kindness” that is revitalizing across Turtle Island. Join us!

To learn more about Sherri Mitchell, visit her website at www.sacredinstructions.life

We speak with Monaeka Flores of the Chamorro Indigenous Community of Guåhan (colonially known as Guam). She works with Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian and other groups working to protect water, land, sacred sites and advocate for the demilitarization of their precious island. In these transmissions, hope burgeons from shared song and protest, as affinity between Indigenous brothers and sisters is internationally contextualized to offer connection. Through our shared histories, what occupies and pollutes people, land, and waters is both acknowledged and named. Alongside this recurring narrative of both horror and caliber, we observe the beating of butterfly wings that inflect and ripple through our awareness as tranquil, powerful, and crowning as the Eight-Spot Butterfly, an endemic species found only in Guåhan. Monaeka shares with us whats working, what gives them hope, and how we can continue these challenging yet essential fights. Join us! Visit @PrutehiLitekyan on Instagram for more info.

Join us in this immersive and inspiring episode with Karen Rodriguez (Maya) as we recount her journey from the urban streets of Los Angeles as an immigrant to the sacred volcanoes and lakes of Guatemala, her homelands. In these tellings, Rodrigues un-cradles from economic capitalism to realize true power-- that of community and living in the rhythm of the natural currents. In this episode, Rodriguez shares with us the walking, the crying-- and above all the empowerment of returning to our homelands. Join us! 

Poet, Doula, Seed-keeper, and Land Defender Beata Tsosie-Peña of the Santa Clara Pueblo Indigenous Community, generously reads her poetry, venturing us into the midsts of her homelands, into grief, into seeds, and into the cosmos. Beata’s poetry-- beyond academia, beyond publishing, beyond capitalism-- is a reclamation of healing and truth-telling.

Nicolle Gonzales educates us on the topic of Indigenous midwifery within the context of Diné society.  From cradle to womanhood, Indigenous doulas reclamation of these traditional roles supports cultural kinship ties that inform land-body justice practices— an act of sovereignty and paradigm shifting.   

Jessa Calderon's first fiction publication celebrates Indigenous women in the heart of Tongva Territory, narrating their strength in the face of the settler colonial system of present-day Los Angeles. Join us as Calderon touches on the topic of  healing, and the process of bringing SisterHood  into publication. 

In honor of National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Awareness Day, we draw attention to the epidemic in Abya Yala (Latin America) of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, two-spirit, and transgender relatives. In the MMIWGTSTR movement, northerners often forget to include and think about relatives south of the imaginary, colonial border, and how they often times have EVEN LESS protection than those native people north of the imaginary, colonial border. Here to break it down for us is Dr. Lydia Huerta, a binational scholar of both Indigenous and colonial descent who has studied and presented the topic extensively.

How do you thrive with limited water? Hopi dry-land farmers have been positioning their fields at the base of small watersheds to catch the nutrients and waters that run down after monsoon rains. Ahkima Honyumptewa has carried on this tradition and shares with us how this relates to farming in an era of climate instability. We also touch on the role of the human being in the universe as well as the importance of women in society! Enjoy!

Article on Ahkima Honyumptewa: https://navajotimes.com/ae/culture/surviving-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-hopi-perspective/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_er1Cy4gCAQTH8PSsZ3QLw
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firegod_ahkima511/

How can we raise our children to be fluent speakers of our endangered languages? In this episode, we interview three people who have accomplished this task! Trisha Moquino, H@la Turning Heart, and Marcus Briggs-Cloud  present on how language fluency has been passed onto children through communal immersion rooted in Indigenous cosmologies.

In this episode,  Corrina Gould, chair and spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, unpacks the reality of Indigenous Peoples in the San Francisco Bay Area. Gould also discusses the innovation and implementation of Indigenous land trusts as a means of returning and rematriating land. 

To learn more about the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust visit https://www.sogoreate-landtrust.org/. To learn how to set up a voluntary land tax for settlers to fund Indigenous projects and #landback, visit: https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/pay-the-shuumi-land-tax/