Matriarchy

 I watched a show tonight on Facebook about the Orca Killer Whales of the West Coast.  I learned that the pods are led by grandmother's and knowledge is passed from the grandmothers and mothers to the pods.  I also learned that different pods have different languages.  Or different dialects.  Each pod can tell that the other pods are speaking but they cannot understand the language.

This is so like what I have learned about trees.  Trees have networks that communicate through their roots.  And it is the grandmother trees that pass their knowledge down from generation to generation.  

This seems to be true of indigenous people everywhere, as far as I can tell from my readings.  It seems to me a particular curse of white supremacy that the nuclear family is apparently worshiped, and age is not seen as a crowning achievement but as an affront to youth.  

More on these things as they develop in my mind.

Focus on a New Direction.

 

So cool! There was a webinar for old Gaelic names of Armagh, a county in Ireland....I got to listen to an older gentleman (who was definitely Irish) show his charts and talk about the history of a whole slew of names....some going back to 937AD!!!! It amazes me! I hope they remember to send me their line up of events....I will spend time on a webinar any time I can to get to listen to an Irish brogue for an hour!

4/21/2021

 

I just finished watching for the third or fourth time a documentary on indigenous people throughout the globe and the work to save nature from greed. So I realized at least two things as I watched The Condor and the Eagle.....it seems to be that it is only white settler colonial peoples who exalt independence and self sufficiency. When I look around, figuratively speaking, at the world....it seems like every people group that is not white European or white North American, which is everybody else....that all of the others that are left, which are the indigenous peoples of all nations, understand that we are better in community and in interdependence. So then the next thing that came to me is this: where in the world did white people come from? Are we (I must claim my white Northern European American identity) the only people that are not indigenous somewhere? And if so.....how did that happen? Perhaps white northern Europeans are indigenous to Scandinavia? I would say the colder the climate the whiter the skin except Alaska is cold, as are the northern stretches of Canada, and there are native populations living in both of those places....so that rather kills that argument/thought.

4/21/2021

 

5/21/2021

I am going to confess that I had no idea how long it had been since I had written on this blog.  I think that it tells me how much my pandemic life more or less fell apart.  Hope to become more consistent.  Blessings, Debbie