Indigenous, Climate/ Earth and Resistance Matters--December 2025
Dear Community
This will be a shorter newsletter, less complete, due to my not being well over the past weekend.
Please connect with several of these offerings!
May your December be Earth-conscious and reciprocal with Earth for all she gives us.
Bonnie
Indigenous Matters
December 4 Thurs. 6-7:30pm The Genocide of Native Hawaiians "...since 25,000 years ago. Hawaiian society developed into a highly sophisticated society over millennia and thrived in the middle of the largest ocean in the Pacific. Soon after contact, Hawaiian chiefs won recognition under international law as the Hawaiian Kingdom. The U.S. invasion on January 16, 1893, initiated a state of war that continues through the establishment of the territory in 1900 and statehood in 1959 REGISTER HERE
December 9 Tues. 6-7:30 pm Estes Valley Library in Estes Park “Moose Management and Ancient Ecology in the Southern Rockies" - a panel discussion in person and zoom.. Environmental Historian Dr. Thomas Andrews at the Center of the American West will moderate and the CU Museum of Natural History is a co-sponsor. Registration https://cuboulder.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_55fMU27Sb3blWSO
December 9 CO Gives Day: see locally housed Native organizations below to whom you can give financially.
December 9-13 third film in the Wisdom of the Ancestors series from SAND : If An Owl Calls Your Name, premiere and a 5-day live online gathering with Indigenous Elders featured in the film. Register -- donation, including free.
December 10 Wed. 7 pm Center of the American West partners with the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation and History Colorado to bring renowned author Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho) to Denver. This event is in-person only, FREE at the History Colorado Center 1200 North Broadway, Denver. Registration Appears sold out
December 11 Thurs. 2 pm The Indigenous Origins of the American Revolution with Ned Blackhawk, Zinn Education Project
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/indigenous-origins-of-the-american-revolution/ The class is in preparation for teaching about the American Revolution on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Blackhawk, in conversation with Jesse Hagopian, will draw on stories and primary documents from his book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. Register and Info.
A call for 1st responder Missing Indigenous Person Alert (MIPA) search volunteers!
Please sign-up here.
GIVING: There are many Native organizations doing good work and needing our good companion support.
Please consider financial contributions to the work of these Native organizations:
either directly or through CO Gives 2025
First Nations Development Institute here (see following info below)
Harvest of All First Nations here
NARF Native American Rights Fund
People of the Sacred Land here
Right Relationship Boulder (sign up for monthly newsletter and support their Cultural Camp
Tipi Raisers here
Or give to any other Native organizations, whose work you wish to support.
Michael E. Roberts (téix sháach tsín) (Tlingit) President & CEO First Nations Development Institute:
".. consider giving to First Nations as part of our “Seeds of Tomorrow” campaign. Each year, First Nations is able to fund only a small percentage of the grant requests we receive. That means many Native-led organizations and programs, which are poised to do great work in their communities, still need our support."
Please make your secure gift to First Nations using this link. Your gift will go directly to where support is needed most.
Film of Motus Theater’s award-winning founding performance, Rocks Karma Arrows. This performance explores the Sand Creek Massacre with a focus on how this history is woven into the founding of Boulder, Colorado, and offers an opportunity to learn our local history and reflect on how we can create a more equitable future for all. Here is a link to a FREE version of Part 1 of Rocks Karma Arrows that focuses on the Sand Creek massacre. Part II and III available here.
LOOKING AHEAD 2026:
January 16-18, 2026 First Peoples Festival Estes Park Info.
Climate/ Earth Matters
URGENT
Boulder County is preparing to deploy drones starting this week to spray Indaziflam, a highly toxic herbicide, across large areas of recently burned land. This area is home to many active regenerative agriculture operations, including Yellow Barn Farm, Elk Run Farm, Wild Nectar, Metacarbon, and others, who depend on healthy, uncontaminated soil and pollinators.
Please open this link to take immediate action to help our regenerative farmer friends!
December 4 Thurs. 11:30 am - 1:00 pm The "Biodiversity's Role in Resilient Communities: Why it Matters Now" is a digital dialogue series that offers opportunities to meet, engage with, and explore opportunities for advancing urban biodiversity as an integral ingredient in community resilience and well-being. Register Moving from Dialogue to Action: Next Steps for Communities
December 5 Fri. 6 pm Y on Earth Live Podcast interview at The Riverside, Boulder (1724 Broadway) with Don Hall, Miranda Clendening, and Henry Mitchell, discussing "Community Resilience & Disaster Preparedness."
Doors open at 6p and recording begins at 6:45p ~ come prepared to ask a great question, and to be a part of podcast history!
Admission is FREE to all people of goodwill, refreshments available via cash bar.. Please RSVP so we know you're coming.
December 17 Wed. 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm We are the Earth: Grief, Love & Climate Writing Hour. Online / Info.
SEE Boulder.Earth for more calendar listings
Regenerative and Renewable Energy:
Solar farms can bloom with life, not just energy
By planting wildflowers instead of grass, developers are creating habitat for bees, butterflies, and birds
from Elders Climate Action
Finland has just installed the largest heat battery on earth made from sand. About 42 ft tall and 50 ft wide, it is warmed by excess electricity from the grid. The heat can then be stored for months before being extracted as heat when needed. It can store enough to heat every house in an entire town for a week. Read more.
Joanna Macy reminds us that…“We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind.”
In our desire to turn towards each other and pour our resources, love, creativity and presence into the collective care for life, we are the world responding to the needs and challenges of our times. We are animated by the same powerful forces as the rushing rivers and the growing trees. from friends at Work That Reconnects Network.
Resistance Matters:
URGENT
Boulder County is preparing to deploy drones starting this week to spray Indaziflam, a highly toxic herbicide, across large areas of recently burned land. This area is home to many active regenerative agriculture operations, including Yellow Barn Farm, Elk Run Farm, Wild Nectar, Metacarbon, and others, who depend on healthy, uncontaminated soil and pollinators.
Please open this link to take immediate action to help our regenerative farmer friends!
DIVESTMENT; If you have investments, insurance or pensions: DIVEST from those companies and corporations which support fossil fuel companies, which support weapons suppliers for war and genocide, and so on.
Divesting for Palestinian Rights --Excellent Article and how to-- from American Friends Servie Committee AFSC
Who Profits from Palestinian Genocide? see this list and descriptions of what they are doing, put out by the AFSC including Amazon, Palantir and a Colorado-based company, Woodward, part of the supply chain of multiple missiles and guided bombs that Israel uses.
from a colleague's letter:
"We cannot let the word “ceasefire” hypnotize us into silence. The Israeli government—now the most openly racist, ultra-nationalist, and fanatically right-wing in its history—remains committed to a project of dispossession. Entire communities in the West Bank and Gaza are being erased, not metaphorically but physically. Bulldozed. Bombed. Displaced under the pretense of “security.” This is not defense. This is ethnic cleansing [of Palestinians]." See more
A friend's notes from a sermon relative to our times:
Refuse contempt
Refuse numbness
Refuse despair
Refuse isolation
Refuse contempt for any person. Insist on seeing the dignity of all persons. See the complex reality of everyone.
CHOOSE understanding.
Refuse numbness and disengagement . Choose Lament over numbness. Lament is how LOVE tells the truth.
Refuse despair . In real life, contend for the wellbeing of at least one person harmed in the conflict.
Get into a real relationship with someone involved in the pain, Provide steady protective presence. Choose direct connection
Refuse isolation. Explore what can be created TOGETHER to heal what is broken. Spirit has already begun the work.
CHOOSE RELATIONSHIP.
and this month:
Resist Consumerism; if you buy gifts, frequent local artists and craftspeople and their fairs.
------------QUOTE OF THE DAY-----------
“We’ve been given a warning by science and a wake-up call by nature.
It is up to us now to heed them.”
-Bill McKibben
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P E A C E -- the nature of Mother Earth is Peace, is Love and is Generosity.
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