Remembering My First Idle No More Jan. 27, 2013

Oct 21, 2015

Once upon a time, coming up on three years ago, the global movement birthed in Canada by some amazing indigenous aunties was first sparked. As the story was told by several foundin members, it quickly went from an idea in a group meeting to action in the streets. From one then another then a third indigenous direct action, e.g. flash round dances in Canadian malls, the movement was born and replicated to eventually encircle the world.

To my disappointment, I moved from my then-home of Olympia, WA just weeks before their first Idle No More action. Fortunately, I found my new home in Huchin just in time for Idle No More to rise up here in Northern California. While, I missed the Idle No More event in Huchin (Oakland) at Oscar Grant Plaza, I was able to join the January 27th, 2013 Yelamu Ohlone Idle No More flash mob at the fancy mall in the center of San Fransisco. This action included a round dance headed by our local Ohlone relatives. My then-partner and I arrived just as the Ohlone songs were being sung. Being terminally late, we were towards the rear of the gathering. I held a cloth art piece about consent- 1) because I didn't have time to make a sign, 2) in honor of all the missing and murdered indigenous womyn that Idle No More was trying to raise awareness, and 3) indigenous sovereignty is demanding the rights of consent over the people and lands so it seemed fitting. It was an honor to join so many natives in holding space as our indigenous right to gather and sing and dance and pray.

After two or three songs were sung, we were approached by a seeming white man who asked, "Wanna get real and do something?" Of course both of us being Evergreen State College alums of a school who's motto is "Omnia extares" (let it all hang out), the answer was automatic. "Sure!! What are we doing?"

"Banner drop for a solidarity photo to send to Canada. Follow me." was his terse reply.

So we did without hesitation. In retrospect, I wish my usually acumen intuition would have spoken, but I got nothing... No warning flag, no twinge, no danger alert. This act felt like a good way to stand in solidarity with this movement and this newly adopted community as well as to say thank you to the Ohlone nation upon whose land we now occupied. The banner was large, professionally printed, and quite heavy. I was on a cane and still struggling with the effects of a disabling chronic back injury. Hefting that banner was slow, difficult, and far for surreptious. We were instantly spotted by army Sargent-rejects, the self-important white men that obviously held the position of authority over the security guards who were rapidly gathering to observe our act of civil disobedience. Fuming from the background, each security captain was barking orders into headpieces, two-way radios, and into the crowd. The three of us had just approached the edge where the banner was to be lifted then dropped when I felt a swift jerk from behind me. A disembodied hand clutched the banner near mine.

"Oh no you don't!" ordered a visibly queer, trendy, white butch security guard. Meanwhile her fellow officer, another young womyn of color paused a step behind her visibly struggling to comprehend what was going on. Meanwhile the army rejects were screaming for the guards to apprehend our banner. The butch instantly responded by altering her direction effectively pinning then-partner between a mall info board and the banner almost to the point of crushing her ribs. That was my breaking point. Shedding passive resistance and silent protest upon seeing her in distress, I verbally launched at all the officers near me with a litany of our constitutional rights (including the right to personal property on mall grounds), a list of their duties as unarmed security guards (which didn't include detainment or removal of personal property), enumerating the many ways I could sue them for their actions (intentionally placing someone in danger of physical harm), then reminding all the folx of color opposite me that the oppressors of our people were the same ones holding them all in wage slavery, being terrible bosses,and continuing the street violence against their relatives. Just as I began to entreat, "we are all relatives of a common oppression, we are doing this for your children as well..." the butch hopped over the banner, changed directions of pull, and clotheslined me with the banner we were holding. Her strategy worked. I went down hard onto the marble floor. My shillelagh went sprawling one direction, me and the banner I refused to release being dragged in another. As I was being pulled out of the mall so unceremoniously into the sunny January afternoon by the now-livid officer, I remember screaming, "This is STILL INDIGENOUS LAND and you are a COLONIZER!"

Had the cops not showed up, I'm not actually certain what would have happened. I was hurt and furious... A bad combination for me. The police immediately advised the security guard to release the banner and stop dragging me. Somewhere another officer was asking if I wanted an ambulance. (As if I had money or insurance for all that!) Never was I asked if I wanted to file assault and battery charges, even though when I approached an officer about my assualt, the officer agreed that they had no right to do anything that had just transpired. Had I not been severely hurt, I would have written down names and badge numbers for security and for police officers. Must have been dazed both from the injury as well as by not being arrested by San Francisco police department no matter how hard the mall guards tried. Believe me, they desperately tried!

Somewhere in the glare of sunlight, a man's hand thrust down to help me up. I instinctively jerked away til I looked back up to find two red braids and a medicine bag hanging from the neck of a concerned face. "Let me help you up. You ok?" he inquired as the hand hovered near my arm. With a sigh, a silent prayer, and that one interminable lone angry tear, I offered my hand out and heaved myself up.

"Still upright. Guess I'm good enough. Thanks!" I replied.

We shook hands and I lost him to the crowd as my partner rushed up to offer my recovered shillelagh and make sure I was not completely broken. We collected ourselves and our wits and rejoined the crowd now protesting, dancing, and info-sharing across the street at the public park. Other than my rescuer and my partner, I don't know to this day if any one else saw what transpired. I don't know if anyone else observed how quickly the security were willing to enact violence towards a non-violent action. I doubt anyone knew the extent of the injuries I suffered that day. Instead I put on the stoic face and tried to focus on the relatives that were gathered and sharing good words. But I hurt beyond baring.

We left when it was over and went to the emergency room. Hours of agony later, I was released with a splint on my wrist/thumb as well as a reinforced brace on my knee loaded on pain medications with scripts for more in hand. I had suffered a hyper-extension to my wrist and thumb and a dislocation of my patella. The er doctor never checked for counter-indication of the medications prescribed with those I was already on. I desperately wished they or I had.

February 2, 2013. A week after the attack, post-BAAITS powwow in Oakland, still recovering from my injuries, I suffered a severe psychotic reaction to the medication cocktail I was taking. I am fortunate that the police officers responding to the call didn't shoot me immediately on sight. Every story these days of just such an occurrence reminds me how protected I was that night. I raved. I threatened. I argued. I screamed. I cried. I fought enemies only I could see. I called for aid that never came. Like a wounded snake, I struck out at the air or anyone that came near... Or so was related to me by those who witnessed this episode of medicated meltdown.

That night, I was arrested on domestic violence charges. I was strapped to a gurney and transported by ambulance first to Highland hospital ER, then to John George psychiatric, then back to Highland for a medical clearance and finally back to John George where I spent five nights and six days not eating (gluten, it's the allergen for EVERY meal in there) and struggling to regain reality and sanity. This whole entire experience had been just too much for my stressed psyche to handle and my broken body to hold. I was just emerging towards balance and stability again (with absolutely no help from the professionals in the mental hospital) when the cops came to transfer me to Santa Rita jail to await my hearing.

The details of that tormented weekend is for another telling. Suffice it to say that in the course of those two weeks, I got a very in-depth look at layer upon layer of systemic violence, oppression, and general fuckery that is American institutions, that is American culture and status quo. It was a life-altering vantage point. Through it all, I thank Idle No More, that particular one, for changing my life, for giving me a chance to step forward; to learn deeply and grow rapidly during that experience. Had none of those events woven themselves in just that fashion, I might not be on the path for ancestors and the next seven generations the way I am now. I might not have the drive and fire that I possess had that spark never been struck so epically. Perhaps I might also lack the empathy which grew from that growing experience. Medicine is often bitter but usually necessary.

So that is the telling of my first action with Idle No More here on Ohlone lands, but is was far from my last. So long as there is need and injustices here on Turtle Island, I will continue to Idle No More! Til my last breath, I will continue to lift hands to Jessica Gordon, Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean, Nina Wilson... To Dr. Alex Wilson and Erica Violet Lee for being such inspirations! Tlazocamati Tlazocamati Tlazocamati! (Migweetch! Pilamayaye! Thank you!)

Ometeotl! All my relations! Aho!

Decolonization Praxis in Practice:

Walking Gently and Moving Forward in A Good Way

By Zephyr Elise N.

Presented at the 2015 California Indian Conference

Decolonizing Academia, Decolonizing Every Day Life:

Walking Forward in a Good Way

U.C. Berkeley, Boult Hall

Oct. 16, 2015

Cualli Tlaneci! Notoca Zephyr Elise. Tlazocamati pampa cualli intlacaquih! Niñhuñha, nizapoteca, Ninahua.

Good morning, my name is Zephyr Elise. Thank you for hearing me this day. I was born for my father's clans of Gaelic, Scottish, and Spanish Romani and born to my mother's clans of the Hñähñu , Zapotec, Nahua, Mexica (countless nameless Nican Tlaca) nations, as well as Sephardic Jewish, Irish, Italian, and French. I ask my ancestors and all the ancestors represented by us here present to watch over and guide my words today. May the elders present forgive my brashness in speaking boldly.

My Ohlone relative, Kanyon asked me a while ago to join on this panel to speak this morning on, "doing that thing you do...how you walk gently on lands not yours." Perhaps my relative sees how millennia-worth of my ancestors walking gently across lands in the four directions of Grandmother Earth has inscribed in me a way of being and moving through this world. Like so many other stories, Some of my ancestors were here when the first European invader arrived... My ancestral history is a case of colonizer- Juan Ortiz arriving with c. Columbus on his maiden voyage and eventually settling and becoming governor of Pueblo, Occupied-Mexico colonizing my indigenous or Nican Tlaca ancestors of Anahuac. Still further back, Other ancestors lived indigenously to the isles and lands which would be colonized first by Romans then later by British and other empire builders. Still others made the long voyage from Palestine over countless generation through North Africa eventually arriving in Spain.

Most of the blood running through my veins are acts of resistance by the unwanteds and others wherever empire occupied. When one has been tiptoeing across the centuries that long, it becomes natural to walk softly and leave very gentle footprints. After all these generations, the voices of my ancestors still reached across the ages to direct my indigenous grandfather, my assimilated mixed-indigenous mother, my undercover white-passing father,and me to honor spirits, ancestors, original histories, and peoples of the places we have travelled and lived. So to do my part to decolonize academia, I will speak as the blood heir of those teachings and not as one who has delved through academic texts to regurgitate static knowledge from ethnographic notes.

For me, decolonization is not just a theory to discuss in academic circles, classes, or workshops... Instead it is a living, active practice that must be exercised as often as one breathes or thinks. It is a process and not merely a destination on our course of societal evolution. But why do we need decolonization? What is colonization anyway?

To begin with, let me offer a definition of colonization given by Waziyatawin a Dakota author, activist, professor, and one of the editors of "For Indigenous Eyes Only: A decolonization Handbook" during an interview with healing the earth radio said,

"[C]olonization is... all the systems and the institutions that we bump into on a daily basis; where our children go to school, where we go to work, the economic system that we're participating in, how the government is structured, what foods we eat, what language we speak, what currency we use. All those things are examples of colonization in context of the Western Hemisphere. They were brought here and imposed on indigenous peoples by foreigners who were interested in invading our lands, taking our lands, exploiting the resources, exploiting our labor, and in some cases, killing our populations if we stood in the way. So when we talk about colonization today and how that impacts our life, we realize that there are very few things, very few activities that we engage in on a daily basis that are really free from those outside impositions, those outside systems and institutions."

Colonization for me then can also be described as the societal construction which (re-)orders hierarchies of gender/class/race/religion/culture/language/species, removes understanding of the interdependence of all beings, erases indigenous names, languages, and cultural practices of first inhabitants; and demands acquiescence from any who would seek to maintain power and privilege or merely survive in this new order of things. It is important for me to note here that Gentrification as we are witnessing here in the Bay and beyond is the latest version economic, cultural, racial, and political colonization. Causa Justa, a local Bay Area grassroots organization devoted to tenants' rights advocacy for communities of color recently mentioned that Huchin (Oakland) has displaced approximately 1000 residents each month in the last year by means of unlawful evictions! These evictions make way for multi-national developers building insanely profitable new condos and lofts for the incoming wave of neo-colonizers. So if we are to speak about colonization we must speak to gentrification, for they are both symptomatic of an overarching societal and spiritual imbalance. These processes are the polar opposite of the teaching I learned from my grandfather. He made evident how all beings are connected in a circle of life, sometimes referred to as the medicine wheel or the sacred hoop. Why does this cycle of consuming all that was in the name of progress keep repeating? Paula Gunn Allen offers us a pretty good answer.

In "Who is your Mother? Red roots of White Feminism (1986) Laguna Pueblo author, professor, literary critic, and activist Paula Gunn Allen wrote "The American idea that the best and the brightest should willingly reject and repudiate their origins leads to an allied idea—that history, like everything in the past, is of little value and should be forgotten as quickly as possible. This all too often causes us to reinvent the wheel continually. We find ourselves discovering our collective pasts over and over, having to retake ground already covered by women in the preceding decades and centuries."

I believe this last part to be true for native and non-natives alike. Ms. Allen continues stating that, " ...in the view of the traditionals, rejection of one's culture—one's traditions, language, people—is the result of colonial oppression and is hardly to be applauded. They believe that the roots of oppression are to be found in the loss of tradition and memory because that loss is always accompanied by a loss of positive sense of self. In short, [indigenous] think it is important to remember, while Americans believe it is important to forget."

There lies the paradox of our differing cultures that must be altered if we are going to move forward together in a good way. Decolonization is the act of refusing to forget any longer. It is the act of actively remembering and seeking and restoring that which has been amputated, disconnected, hidden, and buried for so many generations. It is a refusal to be complacent and complicit any longer with empire, systemic oppression, and it's required amnesia. It is rejecting the colonial lie that languages, cultures, traditions, customs, stories, spiritualities, and ancient knowledges are gone forever never to be returned if they have been consumed already by empire and "progress." My ancestors from here and places far distant still whisper to me. Yours can speak to you as well. The spirit world doesn't understand statutes of limitations or gag rules nor do they generally conform to our concepts of time or place.

Colonization has disrupted the circle of life/ the medicine wheel. This circle imbalance has fostered so many of the modern day ills we now face from environmental degradation and climate change to imperialist wars to global economic disparities to the prison industrial complex to the violent police assaults on red, black, and brown bodies across the nation. To change the course of our conjoined hyrstories, we absolutely need to regain our indigenous knowledges and remember those original instruction if we are ever to re-envision a more equitable and just society. This is the work of indigenous peoples. For those settlers here striving for solidarity the work looks slightly different. It is an act of rejoining the circle, unlearning the doctrine of white supremacy/entitlement; honoring what was and is still here. It is in becoming local to place and growing deep roots in the soils and communities with which you interact. It is in seeing all those creatures and beings from smallest to largest with whom you are cohabiting . It is in remembering and unburying one's own deep root knowledges that live in soils across oceans and continents, time and space. It is in regrowing souls long sought to be stolen by toxic governments, economies, and religions. It is in pausing the capitalist sense of progress and productivity to hear the distant whispers of ancestors and spirits of the place you reside. It is in asking the caretakers of these lands how best to move forward.

Fortunately Professor Paula gives us all some insight into that last point. She writes:
 "The traditional [Indigenous]' view can have a significant impact if it is expanded to mean that the sources of social, political, and philosophical thought in the Americas not only should be recognized and honored by Native Americans but should be embraced by American society. If American society judiciously modeled the traditions of the various Native Nations, the place of women in society would become central, the distribution of goods and power would be egalitarian, the elderly would be respected, honored, and protected as a primary social and cultural resource, the ideals of physical beauty would be considerably enlarged... Additionally, the destruction of the biota, the life sphere, and the natural resources of the planet would be curtailed, and the spiritual nature of human and nonhuman life would become a primary organizing principle of human society. And if the traditional tribal systems that are emulated included pacifist ones, war would cease to be a major method of human problem solving."

When we step back into the sacred circle, the ultimate act of decolonization, it becomes impossible to live narrowly in our own individual experience. In rejoining the hoop, we see that there is no higher or lower order of living beings. Work/labors cease to hold capitalist hierarchies in favor of honoring all our work as a contribution towards the collective whole. We are all important points on this sacred sphere. The highest CEO of the firm wouldn't get very far in a day without the persyn unlocking the doors or cleaning the toilets. And don't get me started about the labeling of who is an immigrant in these lands! Seriously can we please stop with the immigration rhetoric immediately?!

 In fact Hierarchies which lead to inequalities of racism and other prejudices of all manner begin to fall away when we move back into the medicine wheel. The meat on my plate made no greater sacrifice than the plants... Both are due honor and offering for giving life so that I might live. In driving my car, accelerating to cut off someone else seems foolish given we both have someplace to go and perhaps can get there faster by cooperating rather than competing. It is seeing that the energy I use in my home might be taking from the salmon nations so vital to indigenous relatives north and south of here. It is understanding that recycling and reducing waste as much as possible is caring for the Grandmother Earth that sustains me. It is in seeing elders and the young for the amazing resources of wisdom that they are. It is in relearning the indigenous names of the places I live and discovering, honoring the First Nations who once were there pre-contact or joining their modern day descendents in solidarity with whatever acts of sovereignty they might be undertaking.

Here in Huchin there are many to join. From Corrina Gould's Ohlone land trust project to the occupation of Gill Tract as a sovereign Ohlone land defense against corporate incursion to the defense of  knowland park from poisoning and clear cutting to make way for a zoo expansion to the repatriation of the bones of Kanyon's Ohlone ancestors and so many others held hostage unceremoniously in open wooden boxes here in the damp basements of U.C Berkeley!

For those who already are involved with decolonizing efforts and actions such as these, let me challenge you then to some advanced homework of decolonization. Learn the languages of your ancestors, learn the names of the missing branches in your family's tree, eat only or as much as possible the foods your ancestors did. Grow the foods of the ancestors of the lands on which you are living did. Try to access resources outside of capitalism. Start a resource or people based economy in your neighborhood or community. Learn the indigenous plants of your region then plant them in your yard replacing the grass and other colonizing plants. Sing and dance and pray as if only the ancestors are watching. Learn medicines and healing methods of your ancestors outside of big business pharmaceuticals. Greet every persyn you interact with in a day by actually seeing them. Dream a world beyond this current failing one. Spend time with an elder just because... And when you do, listen more than you speak.

We must do this deep healing work and we must do it now. Our families, our communities, our next seven generations demand this of us. Our grandmother earth that we walk upon demands this of us. Our ancestors demand this of us. We can and we absolutely must do better than what we have done thus.

Ometeotl! All my relations! Aho!

Works Cited


Allen, Paula Gunn. "Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism | Paula Gunn Allen (1986)." Web log post. Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism | Paula Gunn Allen (1986). N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. .

"Towards a Turtle Island Without the United States and Canada with Waziyatawin." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. .

For more information:
Unsettling Ourselves blog
Decolonization.wordpress.com
For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook
Accomplices Not Allies zine
Idle No More-Two Spirits on Ohlone Lands (Facebook page)

this phoenix finally reemerges... (Part 1)

from another almost-6 month hiatus from life, from my writing bloc, from hiding from art creation, from allowing any form of connectivity with another, from another nuclear winter of my heart and soul... Please dear reader, forgive what is bound to be an exercise in attempting to work in this medium once again.

So much has transpired in the interim from my last real post til this one. Looking back, realise that its been almost a year since have verbally thought-masturbated for the unknown virtual masses! Since last we met, have learned that growth and evolution never stop- even when you wish they would. Yet both require pain, alterations, sometimes physical altercations, neural network renovations, and other bits/fits of life. Such have I been steeped.

From the back ailment [and after intense periods of non-healing, re-injury, and subsequently more therapy and healing], am finally "stable and able for work." At least according to my doctor and the Dept. of Labor and Industries. Mind, however, that this comes AFTER being assessed as permanently partially disabled because of the herniated disks in my back and the presence of DDD and beginnings of arthritis! Another new set of medical truths to add on to my list of identities! The bright side to this is that I can now have a "park-close-I-can't-walk-far" pass for my car for the rest of my life. In some states the disability placard is even free, woot woot! Apparently this new label will even help open some doors for assistance at my school, who knew?

Watching the happenings leading to my best friend's life imploding last Dec. felt eerily as though I were watching a rerun of my 26th year of life- the trials and setbacks; the cycles; the futility and frenetic occurrences. We both became home insecure, availing ourselves of then amidst her reconstruction, my tarot revealed the tower card! Such a grand gift to receive as I turned 29...

On a clear but bitterly cold evening in March, in the middle of a double wide's kitchen [trailer replete with black mold, leaky roof, icy drafts, and mice], I sunk to the floor hearing the news that my former best friend, peer, teacher, adventurer, lover, and girlfriend had died unexpectedly on March 16, 2010. Ironically, this news arrived while I was observing the 7 year anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death. Liz had been both muse and mother, lover and critic, friend and foe. My last conversation with her had been two weeks prior... slipping back into old patterns of mistrust and animosity, we had quarreled over another mutual friend. My final words to her were not as gentle and compassionate as they ought have been. To my final day, that is something I will have to learn to endure. To say that my world stopped would be a blessing, to say that it crumbled would be misleading... For this passing is the first time that I've not been given any warning... there was no illness, no time to prepare... not even any indication from those closest to her that anything was amiss! One moment was contemplating inviting her out to visit me in Washington, then the next, she was no more. My light, my sustenance, my goddess, my hero vanished without a hug, without saying goodbye, without much explaination.

Grieving, for me, has historically been both a rough process and an extremely fucked up one. Living life emotively can be a full contact proposition... grieving thusly is next to impossible to do without exacting a grave and serious toll on one's body and mind. Over the course of the month after her passing, i grieved as best i knew how... drinking far too much to ease the rending ache, the scorching memories that kept flooding over me. Losing myself in a tide of hopelessness, booze, anti-anxiety drugs, and high-risk behaviors, I determined to follow her lead; handing her my life in some overly angsty facimile of Shakespeare's famous lovers. Thankfully, as this blog attests, I didn't succeed... but most of my spring and early summer were consumed by the planning and fantasizing of this ultimate mea culpa.

Then the cosmos turned an ear towards my suffering, just in time to alter the course of my plans. First and foremost, I returned to Olympia from the trailer life of backwoods Wa. and its solitary seclusion. [Rochester also gave me a black mold lung infection almighty to rival the worst case of pneumonia have ever had to fight!] The healing wasn't just in returning physically back to Olympia, but also in being ready to begin building friendships once again... to throw out intentions to find amazing womyn with fantastic thoughts and compassionate energies, only to find the universe answering and sending a cavalcade of beautiful friends to me. So many nights spent struggling over guilt for trying to be a friend while knowing my secret intentions of not being around beyond the end of summer. This guilt may have been a piece of my eventual salvation... Yet finding a home to really call home, to find the house that contained my new tribe, and near-perfect match of a roommate was also a giant, unexpected blessing. That I am still here is due in no small way to queertopia, to the housemates, and to the puppy love that is no longer with us. In fact in desperation for an answer to all the dichotomy I was plagued with, the cosmos even granted a mentor who showed up right to my door as requested in a midnight's cry.

And now tis time to begin an experiment in gluten free corn dogs with sweet potato fries... thus will leave with promises to fill in the blanks, and finish this narrative. til then, thanks for hanging in with me...

There is a weight to existence that grows heavier with every person we lose. I'm not sure how much more i can stand. The weight grows, the nightmares come...

"Liz" elizabeth gail byrum april 8, 1983- march 16, 2010. Now find fully your wings and soar through cosmic ages. You can't hurt anymore, be at peace, my gift.

Launching myself willingly, let me return back into the cosmic primordial soup. current configuration is not working for me. This present mortality [or is it merely the form humanity at which i balk?] appears but form and functions, those evolutions when things dissolve... Still do i acquiesce or resist?

Ever notice the tone people start using when they assume the listener is at the end of their proverbial rope? Lately, i hear it towards me often. I'm highly worried too...