I see a lot of damage to Mother Earth. I see water being taken from creeks where water belongs to animals, not to oil companies.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the environmental damage caused by corporations exploiting natural resources.
Winona Laduke's quote emphasizes the negative impact of industrial activities on the environment, particularly the extraction of water from natural habitats, which disrupts ecosystems and harms wildlife. It calls attention to the ethical considerations of resource allocation and prioritizes the rights of nature and the animals that depend on it over profit-driven motives of industries like oil companies.
In practice
During a speech at an environmental rally.
Ojibwe prophecy speaks of a time during the seventh fire when our people will have a choice between two paths. The first path is well-worn and scorched. The second path is new and green. It is our choice as communities and as individuals how we will proceed.
When I first came to Harvard, I thought to myself, 'What kind of an Indian am I?' because I did not grow up on a reservation. But being an Indian is a combination of things. It's your blood. It's your spirituality. And it's fighting for the Indian people.
What our Seventh Generation will have is a consequence of our actions today.
I think of some of my friends who have passed to the spirit world but are who here with me when I go to events and when I walk in my own community. My sisters, Ingred, my sister Marsha, and my sister Nielock. All cofounders of the Indigenous Women's Network with me. All long time women activists in the native community.
In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures.
Mother Earth needs us to keep our covenant. We will do this in courts, we will do this on our radio station, and we will commit to our descendants to work hard to protect this land and water for them. Whether you have feet, wings, fins, or roots, we are all in it together.
I don’t know, I don’t feel right unless I’ve got the sea and mountains nearby. People are mostly a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel’s always linked to the lay of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.
It's not a choice between our environment and our economy; it's a choice between prosperity and decline.
To country people Cows are mild, And flee from any stick they throw; But I’m a timid town bred child, And all the cattle seem to know.
Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
The birth and death of leaves is part of that greater cycle that moves among the stars.
I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
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