The RēMind, No. 017: Indigenous Reclamation
The RēMind, No. 017: Indigenous Reclamation
Upcoming From Rē / Indigenous Reclamation Through Landscape Design / Indigenous Feminism & Water Rights on the Rio Grande / A Return to Native Agriculture /Does Regenerative Ag Have a Race Problem?
In this week’s newsletter we focus on efforts to revitalize and reintegrate Indigenous knowledge, culture, presence and practices into the American landscape, agriculture, and policy. Keep reading to learn more!
Upcoming Offerings From Rē:
Nature and Belonging: Finding Connection Through Nature and the Senses
February 27, March 6 & March 13 (Live-streamed 90 minute classes)
This three-part, live-streamed course explores eco-psychology and phenomenological techniques that engage our five senses and help connect us to ourselves, each other, and our sense of place. Facilitated by Maya Galimidi, along with a special interview with Juliet Egesa, “Nature and Belonging” will help course participants find connection and build re-connection with where they are.
Registration is now open! Click here for more information and to sign up!
Only $50 for all three live sessions! Scholarships available.
Blossom Into Spring: A Restorative Retreat
March 25-27, 2022
Limited spots are available for a weekend of self-care in Fayetteville, Tennessee!
Thana Nu of Nourish Me Wellness, Caitlin Smith of Within Wellness, and Ashlei Laingof Rē : The Regenerative school will be facilitating the weekend, holding space, and helping us bloom. Consider our invitation and lean into a beautiful, practice to clear the accumulated energies that no longer serve us.
Full weekend, day pass, and scholarship registration available! For more information and registration details, click here.
Winter is a time for rest, for going inward. Spring will be our time for re-emergence, for new growth/beginnings and transformations inside of us, just as the earth its plants do. Spring is an exciting and joyous time, as the nature comes alive and warmer weather greets us. It’s a time for being restored.
At the Blossom Into Spring retreat, we will invigorate our senses and our souls as WE come alive with the awakening of Mother Earth. We will incorporate the Ayurvedic recommendation of a cleanse with each seasonal change, to clear and open physiological and psychological channels in the body and mind.
This points to Spring as an especially important time of year for reawakening from the long and heavy winter, providing us with dietary and herbal tools to cleanse and rid our bodies of excess fats and heavy proteins which keep emotional and environmental toxins bound in the body's tissues.
Spring cleanses help our bodies use up stored fat as energy, while igniting the digestive of agni, the digestive fire.
A Spring cleanse empowers us to transition mindfully from the heavy, dull winter into light, and auspicious time of renewal, while energetically opening us up to the possibilities of the new year.
Join us!
Indigenous Reclamation Through Landscape Design
Brook McIlroy and the Indigenous Design Studio are part of an ongoing movement to restore and amplify Indigenous narratives into landscape, architecture and design. With Indigenous and non-Indigenous practitioners working side-by-side, the co-designing process has unveiled an iterative approach that “integrates Indigenous knowledges, reflects upon local histories and ecologies, and facilitates cross-cultural dialogue and relationship building.” Read more about their methodology and projects in the latest online issue of Landscape Architecture in Canada Magazine.
Indigenous Feminism and Water Rights on the Rio Grande
Julia Bernal, along with the rest of the world, watched as tribal communities came together at Standing Rock to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline. The event galvanized her, forcing her to confront the fact that it was impossible to work on behalf of the Rio and the pueblos without centering the Indigenous environmental justice perspective. The time had come — for Standing Rock, for the pueblos, for all Indigenous communities — to enforce their sovereign right to lead on water policy… Indigenous water rights are intensely, often frustratingly, shaped by centuries-old colonial law.
Last week, The Counter, an independent newsroom focused on investigating how and what America eats, explored how an an intergenerational group of Pueblo women are working, advocating and organizing on behalf of nineteen pueblo nations on the Rio Grande and Indigenous water rights. For a piece on water, it is incredibly grounding and we urge you to take a look at these incredible actors. Click here for more.
A Return to Native Agriculture
There is a growing resurgence in traditional agriculture and farming amongst Native youth and Native people of all ages… We’re seeing it in the wider culture as well. A lot of young people, [Native and] non-Native alike, are getting into farming and a desire to live more sustainably… These are not new ideas of living sustainably or in harmony or farming ecologically. This is a return or continuation of what Native people have always been doing.
Civil Eats, a daily news source for critical thought on the American food system, published an article yesterday exploring the nascent movement to revitalize Indigenous agriculture and foodways. It’s a thought-provoking piece we encourage you to read this weekend. Click here to continue.
Does Regenerative Agriculture Have a Race Problem?
An astonishing 97 percent of U.S. farmland is owned by white people. Can we take regenerative agriculture seriously if its adherents don’t talk about that?
If you missed our discussion back in May of 2021 on Regenerative Agriculture’s “needed reckoning”, Civil Eats re-inspected cultural theft and appropriation in the present-day regenerative movement. To learn more about the origins of the regenerative movement and the need for inclusivity and accountability read the thorough history and analysis here.
That’s all for this week! Have any articles, podcasts, or other pieces that have inspired you lately? Respond to this newsletter and let us know!
As always, we at Rē are grateful for your attention and support. If you liked this newsletter, consider donating at https://regenerativeschool.org/redonate/
Thank you and see you soon!