Category Archives: Indigenous Knowledge

Inspiring Sustainability Champions

This past month we have called out on EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability, two sustainability champions.  These two indigenous leaders address sustainability, as a concept, in their presentations and are active in sharing their wisdom with us through online video.  Their guidance has been invaluable to us.

robin kimmerer

Robin Kimmerer

 

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Ilarion Merculieff

Today Earth Day, we introduce you to Ilarion (Larry) Merculieff (Aleut), Founder of the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways and Dr. Robin Kimmerer, SUNY distinguished teaching professor and Director, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

We trust you will find in their words inspiration and a better understanding of why it is the elders from all four directions of Mother Earth are calling for a “change in consciousness, a move from head to heart guided by the Laws of Nature,” a weave of nature with humankind.

These are but two of their teachings – a place to start.

Going to the Heart of Sustainability, Ilarion (Larry) Merculieff, Kalliopeia Foundation, (1 hour, 26 minutes).

Restoration of Our Relationship to Land, Robin Kimmerer, Ph.D., Center for Humans and Nature, 34 minutes.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, April 22, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

 

 

Living Sustainability

robin kimmererIn this presentation (video*) Dr. Robin Kimmerer clearly and beautifully teaches us the relationship of living The Honorable Harvest to our quest to live in balance with Mother Earth; how to save ourselves by coming into relationship with Nature. She is Distinguished Teaching Professor and Director, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York (SUNY), College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Indigenous Peoples from all four directions of our planet are calling for a change in our consciousness, a move from head to heart guided by the Laws of Nature. The Honorable Harvest is a “covenant of reciprocity” and a guide to living sustainability in all aspects of our life. Dr. Kimmerer reminds us that in the indigenous way of thinking matter and spirit are mutually reinforcing whereas in the scientific world they are mutually exclusive.

What makes her voice so important to all of us is she speaks the language of reciprocity as a scientist (botanist) and Indigenous leader (Potawatomi Nation) drawing on “the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.”
Dr. Kimmerer is a voice you may not have heard yet, but need to hear now especially if you are asking yourself, what is sustainability and how do I live it?

Her most recent book is  Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.

*This video presentation was published on YouTube on Aug 6, 2014 by the Center for Humans and Nature and recorded at their 2014 Forum on Ethics & Nature held at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The theme was A Cascade of Loss, An Ethics of Recovery. The Forum explored the topic of extinction, balancing information with ethical reflection about the possibilities of biodiversity and bio-cultural recovery.