When women like Pauline Whitesinger, an elder at Big Mountain, and Carrie Dann, a Western Shoshone land rights activist, speak of preserving the land for future generations, they are not just talking about future generations of humans. Protecting the environment is not an intellectual exercise it is a sacred duty. They remain close to the land, not only in the way they live, but in their hearts and in the way they view the world. The difference is that indigenous people have the benefit of being regularly reminded of their responsibilities to the land by stories and ceremonies. There are many thousands of people from different ethnic groups who care deeply about the environment and fight every day to protect the earth. Indigenous people are not the only people who understand the interconnectedness of all living things. Indeed, we call the earth Etenoha, our mother from whence all life springs.” We are as familiar with the lands, rivers, and great seas that surround us as we are with the faces of our mothers. It comes from watching the sun rise in the east and set in the west from the same place over great sections of time. Onondaga Faith Keeper Oren Lyons once said, “Our knowledge is profound and comes from living in one place for untold generations. Despite these differences, Indigenous Peoples across the globe share some common values derived in part from an understanding that their lives are part of and inseparable from the natural world. There is enormous diversity among communities of Indigenous Peoples, each of which has its own distinct culture, language, history, and unique way of life. In the words of Wen Stephenson, “What We’re Fighting For Now is Each Other.There are more than 300 million indigenous people, in virtually every region of the world, including the Sámi peoples of Scandinavia, the Maya of Guatemala, numerous tribal groups in the Amazonian rainforest, the Dalits in the mountains of Southern India, the San and Kwei of Southern Africa, Aboriginal people in Australia, and, of course the hundreds of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico, Central and South America, as well as here in what is now known as North America. I look forward to reading the poems and prayers that you find solace in, and the songs that renew your spirit. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.Īt this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. We make men at it, we make women.Īt this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers. It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table.

She writes that ‘perhaps the world ends here’ but perhaps it is there, at kitchen tables everywhere, that it begins anew. Her poem calls us to come together, at every kitchen table, in every house of worship, in every corner of the world – in circles of care and resilience.

And lastly, a very favorite is the poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by the inimitable Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States and member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation.

Remind me next century