Sacred Awakenings Series: Agnes Baker Pilgrim
Produced by The Shift Network, hosted by Stephen Dinan
Gratitude and blessings to our volunteer transcriber, Meera Censor
For the full audio, register at www.sacredawakeningseries.com
Stephen Dinan: Welcome to the Sacred awakening call. This is your host Stephen Dinan, and I am delighted to tell you that we have the third night in a row of our series featuring the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers.
Tonight is a very special night because we have Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim who often acts as the chair or the voice for the Thirteen Grandmothers, and I believe she is also the eldest as well. So I believe it should be a very special evening for us here tonight. I would like to introduce Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim. She is the oldest living female member of the Takelma Tribe in Southern Oregon, which as been in Southern Oregon for 22,000 years, so definitely a serious lineage. She has been named a treasure and a living legend of her people and has touched many around the world. She has five generations in her own family including 27 great-grandchildren. She is an alumni of Southern Oregon University and she has been a very active voice for the voiceless, trees, animals, and plants. She has worked on restoring the Sacred Salmon Ceremony on the Applegate River. She has been involved in many different initiatives to preserve the natural ecology, and all of this has really led her to an elder position to be recognized as one of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, and actually to become a spokesperson for that group.
So, Grandmother Agnes, it’s really a true delight to introduce you to our community here tonight.
Grandmother Agnes: I really thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate that.
Stephen: Well I can tell from just a few little exchanges we have had that prayer is really plays a really central role in your life, and I am wondering if you could open the call tonight with a prayer?
Grandmother Agnes: Yes of course. Dearly Beloved, Great Spirit, Creator of all created a Great Mystery, God; we thank you tonight for having our voice go out into the world, Grandfather. We count on your to give the words that need to be said. We thank you for being in our heart and our life. On a daily basis, Grandfather, we thank you for all the things and the gifts that you have given us and the life that you have given us and the breath that you give us each moment, and you gave us another day today and we thank you for that. Bless each and every one on this call and all of those who have put this together, Grandfather. We thank you, that people will be concerned throughout the world, Grandfather, that prayer works and it does not have anything to do with a religion or a church or something, it just a feeling of obligation and a responsibility that we come to you, Grandfather, for our life and for all things, and for all of the things have and are going before us tonight with the words that need to be said, and we thank you for being here with us at this moment. Aho…aho, aho.
Stephen: Thank you for that incredibly beautiful blessing. Clearly it is somebody who prays quite a lot and prays quite deeply for the planet and I have gotten that from my brief interactions with you over email. I am wondering, it’s always nice to have a bit of the personal story behind your journey into being such a respected elder and kind of a spiritual leader for your tribe and for many people now. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Grandmother Agnes: When I was young, the Spirit World spoke to me to be on the Spiritual Path, and I fought that for so many years, as I said, “I wasn’t worthy.” So I went along like that for awhile until one time a man that is a doctor said, “Maybe you better just quit and do it,” and so when I did it just really felt like a whole load fell off of me.
So I have been on the Spiritual Path for many many years, and my heart goes out to what is happening to our planet- praying to God that people are beginning to care about the ground that they walk on and their obligation for life, to be able to do things in a better way.
As you mentioned, I have restored the Sacred Salmon Ceremony here in Southern Oregon that my people have done for 22,000 years and I did that because I wanted people who live along the rivers to police the river. These rivers are not garbage dumps, there is life in those waters, and that life in those waters got a right to live just as well as the rest of us, and so I am always fighting for the water because, you know we are all water babies. All of us humans born in water in the amniotic sac and our beginning life, and even before we come out we follow a big ball of water, and now over seventy five percent of our body is water and we don’t thank the water. We don’t talk to the water. I’ve been talking for years that water could hear because it’s like a God because without it we all die. All life dies, and to me as I journey around the world it’s getting frightening because many places water is drying up. Even where I grew up water is gone, and I think our Mother Earth is angry at us and drawing it back perhaps because we are not talking to the water and telling it how precious it is to our life.
Water is getting polluted all over the world, and my people used to say, here right here in Southern Oregon, these two beautiful rivers the Applegate and the Rogue River when they sat beside them their table was set. And so now, I have been fighting now for sixteen years. I did thirteen years of the Sacred Salmon Ceremony on the Applegate River, and now I moved over three years ago on to the big Rogue River fighting for the dams to come off and for people to police the River that live on its banks. That is not a garbage dump. That we would like to have everybody be able to take care of the water and let the salmon run free. So now two of the dams are coming off, one more yet to go, and then we will have a running wild river, and we pray that it will be kept in a pristine nature that it is in that that we will take better care of it. So I do water blessings all over the world to make people aware how precious it is that we need to be taking care of it.
Even when I go in different countries they tell me the best brand to buy, which to me is a little frightening, and here people putting chloride and chloride in the water which washes away the pure chemicals and elements that all of need to oil our joints and then we have to go and buy bottled water and at my age I never thought that I would have to be able to have to buy water in a bottle, and so that is another problem because the plastic is all over the world and on the grounds everywhere you go, and to me that is wrong. There is now a big ball, an island of plastic out in the ocean that is bigger than Texas and over a mile deep that right now a company in San Francisco is out there with some big barges trying to figure out what to do or where to take it, and I hope that they figure out how to do away with all of that plastic. It’s frightening that we are creating things that are not biodegradable, and I think that every home should be sustainable and every business if we are gonna live on this planet, and that we have to be more careful of what we are causing and to our air and in our water. Because I’ve got my fifth generation little girl, I’d sure like for her to walk in the beauty and have good water and good air to grow up in and so I fight hard for these things because I want our next generation to be able to see the beauty that we have here today. So I just keep on keeping on because everything to me is sacred. Everything has its place.
I pray also for the animals all over the world without them we would die quicker than we think. So we need the animal kingdom to keep us balanced, and they have their ways of doing and we need to take care of them, and we need to pray for them because already many of them are gone. Here in the state of Oregon there is many species gone already, and you multiply that by the other states and again it’s very frightening. Again, to me all things are sacred.
Stephen: As you speak it brings it so alive that we often have a picture of what is sacred beyond this planet or kind of on a higher level, or maybe just other humans. Unless we can really connect to the really basic, the earth itself, and to the water itself we are just not going to be able to find a right relationship with it.
Grandmother Agnes: That’s right. Just like I say, too, that we are just such a throw-away society that there shouldn’t be hunger in the world. As long as there is hunger in the world there are going to be terrorists.
I also believe that coming down the pike is going to be a Water War, and I think it’s already beginning because already down in third worlds they are building containers and catching rain water and getting fined. So I think that all of us should be very concerned for our life as far as the water is concerned to try to take care of it forever we live and to thank it for our life, and stop the pollution.
There are so much things that we could do to change the emission and stuff that’s coming out of the airplanes. Nobody wants to talk about that and what is it doing to our air? What is it doing to our planet? We are putting so much cement upon our Earth Mother’s face that we are having smog in many cities throughout the world. When is enough enough? When all of the green is gone and the water is gone how do they use the money to replace the air and the water? People aren’t thinking of that they are just money crazy, and they are getting completely out of balance.
We take things for granted and this is what has happened with the water. We took it for granted, thought it would be here forever and so many places are dried up like I said. So we better start praying that we can do a better thing with our world because there is more water base than there is land base in the world and we are all connected. If we don’t get to getting along and caring about one another we will never have peace in this world. I pray that people will understand if we have respect for ourselves and love of our self we will have that for others. I just pray that people will start feeling that way and that they will care and share with one another, willing to help on another.
Stephen: It’s beautiful to listen to your wisdom, and I’m wondering if you can connect this also to the role of the Thirteen Grandmothers right now, and some of the core messages that all of you are bringing forward in this time? What do you see is the highest purpose of the group right now?
Grandmother Agnes: Well we are a little over seven years old now. We came together October 11, 2004 out of Phoenicia, New York, back inland there in a place called Menla Mountain Retreat Park where the Dali Lama and the monks and Lamas come for the retreat in a beautiful, beautiful place.
When we came together we finally got our mission statement. We all have a concern about our world, we all of us Grandmas want changes in the world. That’s why we have come together at a chaotic time and I think we are circling the globe and empowering women to stand up and for women to be able to speak out because we are the natural nurtures and Earth needs nurturing. I pray that more and more women will stand up. I pray that we Grandmas want women and children to stop being abused. It’s not an acceptable behavior. We really care about what is going on around us and around the world and beyond and to be able to let people know that we have an obligation to be able to be thankful for what we have and to be able to have peace in our world we are going to have to be able to come together just like one big family, and to care about one another. I think we’ve got this one life, and we’ve got one chance to do this. You have such a short walk through this earth here and before we go to the other place I believe that this is the Earth that we can make our mistakes in and be forgiven, and when we leave here the other world is our utopia.
So as I speak, I am talking about the Creator and about praying, but you know I’m not working everyday towards some God, it’s already in my heart and my life. My church is the Earth. The sky is my roof and the Earth is my floor, and I am to pray for everything in between, so I just hope that people that hear me tonight that we become more concerned by being more sustainable in our homes and in our life, and we need to do a better way of taking care of this earth. Right now we are not doing a very good job of it because we’ve got a hole in the ozone layer, we’ve got smog in our cities and pollution in our air and our water is getting worse.
I just got back from Australia. I’ve been over there before and I did water blessings at Perth and at Adelaide and different places all over. Sometimes I would go to both sides of a highway where there were some beautiful lakes. But now, as I drove along and looked out there are all dried up and there is just acres of white salt. Wells are coming up salty over there, so when I spoke in Parliament I told them that they are going to have to incorporate indigenous knowledge if they are going to survive. I pray that they do, that they will come together and work together because that is the most crucial thing right now.
Stephen: When you recommend really integrating the indigenous knowledge, what do you really feel are some of the key things that indigenous people have for the modern world?
Grandmother Agnes: Well just like here in Southern Oregon; you know my people used to do the cool burnings. That took care of putting nutrients back in the soil and it made new browse for the animals. And the berries- the leaves were small and the berries were big. And now there are wild berries out there but the leaves are so big, and the berries are such little tiny things. Because there have been no cool burnings. We need to bring that back because ivy and mistletoe and mosses are choking the trees down. Because there have been no cool burnings in this country until the organization called the Lomakatsi Restoration Project and they have begun to bring back the cool burnings that clean the land and the ground floor.
As I journey to different places in Oregon I see that now people are cleaning up the ground floor in the forest, piling things up and beginning to burn during the rainy season. Because if they don’t do that, then lightening strikes and it is just like gasoline to the fire. Because there is so much inpactment and so begin the beginning now in places all around to start cleaning up the ground floor, and do some of those burnings. I am glad to see some of that happening. I have toured around all over Canada and have been talking to Band people that they too up there used to have the cool burnings and they wished that people would start bringing them back.
So we have got to learn that if we want to survive together on this earth that we are going to have to work together and be able to do a better way of what is going in our rivers and streams because there not garbage dumps, and thank the water for all life and realize that prayer does do work. So we have to be concerned, okay?
Stephen: Yeah, I really hear you and the depth of your concern and caring is really touching my heart. I am wondering if there are specific practices or spiritual practices that you think are most helpful for us to stay connected with that deep compassionate concern for our world.
Grandmother Agnes: Well I think that every household should be sustainable and work towards that. People, a lot of elders have asked, “Well, what can we do?” and said, “At least you can recycle,” that is a great help to be able to do things just like that. Anyway, there is something for everybody that each person can do at any age.
I teach in the school all of this that I am talking to you about. Wherever I go I am always talking about our land and our air, and our water all over the world and how precious commodities these things are. I would say that we are all in this leaky canoe together, and if we want to keep from sinking we better start doing something to help our Mother Earth. We must be more sustainable in what we are doing.
Stephen: I would love for you to share a bit more about just the work you are doing with the Thirteen Grandmothers, maybe tell a story that really brings your work alive for people.
Grandmother Agnes: When we came together in New York, we were all chosen you know. The people here, my name went out and they watched my work for four and a half years here in the valley before I was called. All of us Grandma’s were already doing our medicine work and healing work wherever we lived.
One of my Grandma’s is a Yup’ik from Alaska and when she came she brought thirteen bundles and she told us this story; when she was nine years old her grandmother gave her these thirteen bundles and told her to take care of them- that someday when she grew up she would sit in a circle of Thirteen Grandmothers. So now she is over seventy something years old, and when she came to New York she brought them. She gave each of us one of the stones and one of the Eagle feathers. To me that is not a coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidences.
When we were in our gathering out in Santa Fe with our main Grandma Flordemayo, when we were though we got a call from a Dr. James Gerald, that he would like to have us out to his property, which is about a fifteen or twenty minute ride for us. When we got out there, he had built a huge labyrinth. The Spirit World had called him to build this huge labyrinth. Spirit told him to line it with white rock, and he put rounded river stones around the pathway into the center. Then Spirit told him to go gather six foot high, four foot wide stones and put thirteen of them around that circle, and that labyrinth and wait for the thirteen grandmothers.
So when he heard about us being in Santa Fe we went out there. So when we went in, and I was the elder and the leader of that, I went in first and when I did I touched the first big stone and it was just like vibrations went through me and I just began to cry. It was just an overwhelming feeling and so I kept going the other stones and same thing was happening and when I came through I was just kind of weak in my knees so they gave me a chair and I went and took that chair and sat down by that first stone that I had touched. When I first touched that stone and that vibration when through me, my daughter was behind me and it went to her, and it was such an overwhelming experience that I didn’t know until afterwards that each of us Grandmas when we sat down we sat down at the proper stone. The one I had was the first one, and was the oldest he said, and so again it was not a coincidence that we have come together.
When we were in New York I was staying with a friend out at Apeneck and she had a clipping and in that clipping the Dali Lama had made a statement in the New York paper that the world needed Grandmothers so that was three years before we were ever heard of, and Dr. Gerald. Had done that labyrinth over two years before we ever come around in a circle to be these thirteen international Grandmas. That’s why he wanted us out there- because Spirit told him to wait for the Thirteen Grandmothers. So it was really an overwhelming experience for all of us. It was a great thing. If you want to look at our movie for the next seven generations, in it is part of that, where we were on that labyrinth that night. So it’s not a coincidence that we have come together.
The lady of the Center for Sacred Studies way back there had a vision telling her about having these precious gems in this basket. She took that message and she was going to Africa. She went down there and met a lady by the name of Bernadette Ribienot and talked to her. Bernadette Ribienot also had a vision about Grandmothers. It’s in our book that we have, and it’s called “Grandmother’s Council the World” by Carol Schaefer, and our movie is “ For the Next Seven Generations,” done by Carole Hart of the Laughing Willow Company in New York. In that it explains about the visions and how we came together and to me it is not a coincidence for us to be chosen and to be circling the globe like we are.
We are wanting to heal our world. We come together every six months at our place and I had them in my Tribal people in Oregon out at Lincoln City for the sixth gathering, and then we went down in August to seventh gathering with our Grandma Mona Polacca - Hopi/Havasupai/Tewa – Arizona, and it was a beautiful thing with the native people down there, and so we will be going in October to Japan with our Grandma Clara Shinobu Iura - Amazonian Rainforest, Brazil and be with her over there to do some healings in Hiroshima, with the bomb and for the people and I am getting goose pimples on my body just talking about it now, and so it’s not a coincidence that us Grandma’s are circling the globe.
When we came together in Dharmasala with the Dali Lama up by his temple, before we were through there I ask him about us coming together as Grandmas and he said, “Yes the Grandmas are really needed, that we are the givers of life and the world needed us to be circling the globe, and so we are trying to do what we can, we are trying.
We went to Rome; we went over there to be able to meet with the Pope. We wanted to resend the Papal Bull that was sent out by the Sixth Pope at the Vatican in 1493. The word went out to the powers around the world to circle around the earth and if the lands were occupied, and if they were Pagan and heathen, and they were weren’t of the faith, meaning that they weren’t Roman Catholic, to kill them and take the land. So when Columbus came here he saw the land was occupied and then came the guns and it started the Trail of Tears. So then us Grandmas when to Rome because we wanted an audience with the Pope. And on that Wednesday that we were there we laid down an alter to put our sacred things on it and here come the police. They were gonna put us in jail and all of this went on, and so then our producer had the permit that we were allowed to be there because he said that were no dramatization, and we were being adulterous and all of this and then he kind of calmed down and found out that we were International Grandmothers of Medicine People and wanted to heal this world. So part of that is in our movie also.
So we’re still trying to get the ear of the Pope to rescind that because like I say he wasn’t there in 1493. He had nothing to do with it, and if he believed in justice and fairness and has some compassion he could resend that edict and give us Indigenous People justice and equality. That is why we went, and I still pray that that will happen. I would like to see it before I leave this world and to have that kind of equality- to say that men are created equal, but it is not true with us indigenous people around the globe.
So maybe us Grandmothers touring the globe like we are will make people become aware that we are need to be doing a better thing with our world to be able to survive here no matter who we are. That we need to be able to get out of the dark side and into the Light so our spirituality can grow, and to be able to have some compassion for all life, and get people to understand that. I am not talking religion, Christianity or anything like that; I am just talking about a natural way of being thankful, of being able to live on this planet with all of the things around us and to try to take care of it.
Stephen: Beautiful…when you share all of those stories I just get this image of the thirteen of you circling the globe and just going to some of the deepest wounds that we have had in relationship to the natural world- to our religious history, to battles between nations, and by being a voice for the heart of the world that you are really helping create this magnificent healing. So I so honor what you are doing it’s really….
Grandma Agnes: I always tell people, “think outside the box,” you know, get outside your head and think about what is around you and what can you do? What do you see? The beauty…our beloved Creator had a beautiful paint brush because every place I go people say, “you traveled the world, where is the nicest place?’’ and I said, “every place I put my feet down is home, and it’s all beautiful to me and I am just grateful for people that do occupy these lands and do try hard to take care of what they have, and I hope that people that hear me hear in this continent start doing a better thing with their surroundings.
You know it is not the animals polluting the air and the water and everything it’s us humans overgrazing and taking off the top of mountains and digging the coal and my God it’s poisonous and filling the waters and the streams coming down and it’s happening at a rapid rate. Over logging, you know I fought all through this Coast area into Canada to stop clear cut logging, and to get the logging companies to put the roads to bed because when the rains come and all of that rain comes down and then the roads are bare up there and all of that erosion comes down over the mountains, rivers and streams it covers the spawning ground of the fish. I fought here to get mining off the rivers. There were six thousand mines here when I brought Bruce Babbit out here years ago, from The World Wildlife Fund to show him what was happening.
So we are trying to keep up with everything and like I say, the farmer knows just how many acres it takes to raise one cow, and he knows when he is overgrazing. They know when they are shooting stuff into the cattle that goes into the feces down into the ground and the rains come and that washes into the waters, and so it’s so many things that we have to learn to share the water and to be able to take care of our water that we have and how precious it is for people to be able to get along and share it. Just like I tell people, “if you got thirty acres over here and your have some water coming up out of the ground and your neighbor comes and buys some land next to you he can drill down and take your water so you better watch out. So I am trying to tell people.
Stephen: You obviously have a lot on your heart and I really appreciate just how deeply you care about so many issues, and I am wondering if it feels okay, we would love to take some questions from the listeners right now.
Grandma Agnes: Okay.
Stephen: before we do I don’t even know if Grandma Aggie- if you have an email list, but usually we like to do a show of hands for people who would like to stay in contact in the future.
Grandmother Agnes: Well probably for the Center for Sacred studies because I am gone a lot here. [http://www.grandmotherscouncil.com/]
Participant: Hi, Grandmother Aggie, how are you?
Grandmother Agnes: I am doing fine and I am sure you are too.
Participant: Great, I love listening to you. Listen I am just becoming a teacher and the children are going to be the next caretakers or the occupants of this beautiful planet we live on. What are a few things that you think are important to share with them?
Grandmother Agnes: Well, I think that there is a lot. I teach a lot in different schools around here and everywhere, and in Universities and everything. One of the things I’d like to see happen in Colleges and Universities is that they will include in the curriculum the history of the land right here in Oregon, and before a teacher gets a credential here in Oregon that they would know the history of the land and I won’t have to be out there teaching them. One of the things that I think you can do is to tell them, watch out for the animal kingdom. Watch out with guns. Watch out with throwing garbage out the window of the car because that is our Mother Earth out there and there is a place for garbage. There is a lot young kids can do. You can teach them about being water babies and how precious water is. I think they are going to be our next generation coming up to take the places of us International Grandmas so they have to know the history of this land and how to take care of it. I used to go from these little kids in school and would say, “Where does milk come from?” And they would say, “Safeway.” And I said, “What?” And I think kids, yes we have got to teach the kids that milk comes from a cow, but there is a lot that we can teach our kids about culture and traditions and about the land and the air and all things. You know how to be able to live here in harmony. How to get along. How to respect them selves, and how to not be a bully, and what is a bully, you know and explain all of these things to little kids. They have got to learn how to be grateful just to walk around and have the freedom to go to school in this country, and so there is a lot we can teach our children.
Participant: Beautiful, now there is a new buzz word out, they are called “regenerative” and it’s outing the sustainability word in the sense that, I believe that we have to have the vision of a regenerative planet, you know because so many things are becoming extinct that we have to see possibly a bountiful kind of place or a regenerative place. So I hope to be a great teacher and I’ll pass those things on to the kids. I agree with you that the history of the land is really important so thank you.
Grandma Agnes: I think that we need to come back. I’ve been talking for a long time that we need to come back and start these Victory Gardens that they used to have during World War II. Instead of watering the lawn, water a garden. And I think that, even my great-grandkids used to buy seeds to grow something, and now they have moved to a place where it is so small they can’t but they would really like that, and I think that kids like to see something grow.
When we were in New York at the University over there the students had a huge garden that they fed us there, and they get credit for it, and there is things like that that could be done. I bless community gardens in different places around the country and I think kids like to see things grow and I think that you could grow gardens with kids.
Participant: Great, thank you so much. Blessings on your journey.
Grandma Agnes: Thank you.
Participant: Hi Grandma, this is Silver Star.
Grandmother Agnes: Where are you today?
Participant: I am down in the Ozark Mountains in the heart of the heart of Turtle Island.
Grandmother Agnes: Alright. I get your messages.
Participant: Okay, my question is that we are on alert to help knock down some of the fear that is going around about 2012. Can you share some of the teaching that the Thirteen Grandmothers are sharing around the world to keep people out of fear and understand what’s really going on as we go though this special Shift.
Grandmother Agnes: Well, I think that it is no coincidence that we women are circling the globe because I think that people are becoming more and more aware of elders being the wisdom keepers. And that we have some good medicine to be able to live this long on this planet and we have some good messages. I know that in time like the Mayan people say that there is going to be a change when the Condor meets the Eagle. I’ve been working with the Condors here in the state of Oregon for several years now because my people used to call them the Thunder Bird. So they released some from Oregon down in Arizona when we Grandmas were down there with our seventh gathering. When we were getting ready to leave the rim of Canyon I looked up and there was a big Condor. I told the people in Portland at the Zoo that released those; that probably was one of them.
So good things are beginning to happen and I think that it is truly going to happen when the Condor meets the Eagle- the prophesy of the Mayan people, I know that probably around 2011-2012 we are going to see a new shift in the way of people thinking and believing on this planet. It is happening. People are so hungry for Spirit, and it has nothing to do with church or anything, it’s just that they want to know how Spirit is. They say, “Grandma we want spirit like you’ve got,” and I said, “Look you got the same thing you have just got to go inside and find it.” So with everybody, I tell that to little kids, that they got the spirit inside of them of just wanting to live and wanting to wake up and have another day, that spirituality of believing and having, like I say, “Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is our gift and I really thank the Creator for this day that we have right at this moment for having another day.”
Participant: Thank you for that. What suggestions can you give to encourage people to pray more?
Grandma Agnes: Well you know I don’t know…I have some great-grandchildren that pray, they have been for some time and right now I think he is twelve years old, and one of them is thirteen. To teach them, I think parents have got to teach the kids that prayer works. You know there is one God and many paths to our Beloved and I don’t try to plagiarize anybody to believe like I do but you know there is a Spirit in all things, and we are gonna have to say, “Thank you for the Spirit in all things, for the food we eat, for the air we breathe, for the ground we walk on, for the freedom we have in this land. Learn to give thanks.”
When my old people left and went to the star nation they left us one duty and that duty was prayer and I thank God for that. I thank God and to be able to pray and to give thanks for my food, and give thanks for my water, give thanks just for taking up this little spot on this Earth Mother. Just to be grateful to be able to get more and more breath, and you know to wake up in the morning. I always say that I have been at deaths door so many times that I wake up in the morning and I kind of smile because gee I’ve got another day. Another day, thank God. So I think being grateful for taking up this little spot. I thank our Beloved God for that.
Participant: I am grateful you are walking this earth and I am going to take that teaching more strongly too, sharing with my grandchildren about the gratitude, starting with the gratitude.
Grandma Agnes: Right, because you know kids, like I used to tell my kids you know, “If you want love, peace, joy, contentment, happiness, smiles, laughter, and all that good stuff, and compassion and integrity, I said, “that’s it- you kids inside job. I can’t give it to you, you’ve got to create it.” And so here my kids are grandparents now and they remember me telling them that years ago. I can’t give them those smiles. I can’t give them that laughter, that is their job. If you kids want smiles, you want laughter and you want people to treat you right and be honest to you, then you better create all of that stuff inside. What you want outside you’ve got to have it inside.
Participant: Um beautiful grounded teaching thank you.
Grandma Agnes: Yeah you can do it, Silver Star, you do a lot of that anyway.
Participant: Well it’s good to hear your words because it helps us amp it up. You empower us to go at it stronger, and remember that it’s our duty. That is the word that I heard- that it is our duty.
Grandma Agnes: Yes it is our duty. You know just for being able to have this body, I don’t care if you are tall skinny, fat and striped skin or polka dot, you know you’ve got a duty just to be thankful of who you are. To be able to live on this earth and have day to day to have you do what you want from the time the sun is up to the time the suns down.
I don’t argue with the weather either if it is raining, snowing, hailing or whatever you know I just think it’s great to have it. Because when it is snowing or hailing they need the run off- the salmon need it. The green needs the rain, it touches me- the water up above hitting on my head touches the water inside of me, it makes it zing and I feel great about that. So people don’t stop to think. They always say, “The weather’s bad,” and I don’t like that word because the green has to drink and there is a lot of it out there a lot of it has to be watered, and so I don’t growl about the rain coming, or the snow coming or the hail coming, because our animal kingdom needs it. We do too.
Participant: I am thankful for your teachings. Blessings for your journey.
Grandma Agnes: Tell Chief Standing Uncle that I send my love.
Participant: All right.
Grandma Agnes: Bless you on your journey honey, happy trails.
Participant: Thank you.
Stephen: [Asks people to go into groups and pray].
Grandma Agnes: Well I’m so glad that people are praying that it is one of the duties that we have as a free people, as a free Nation, and may God bless all of those out there who are listening and you can stop and pray anywhere you are and our Creator is going to hear. You just have to believe in your prayer. If you speak Truth when you pray that’s all I ask you just speak truth and talk to the Creator and to give thanks just for being, just for being able to take another breath, that gratitude.
Stephen: Well, Grandmother Aggie, you have offered so many pearls of wisdom and your heart is just so open to the world and to people and to animals and water. It’s really inspiring. I am wondering we have a few minutes before we close here, if you could really speak to all six billion people on the world right now and just give them a message about what is most important to remember in this time that we are entering into what would you say?
Grandmother Agnes: Well I think that one of the greatest gifts we have is that duty of prayer, of giving thanks just for being, giving thanks that we live where we can pray at any moment, at anytime, you know it has nothing to do with church or religion or Christianity, it is just a duty that for being a human being and being able to use this voice to speak out and to be able to pray for everything that is around us, for the air, the land, the animal kingdom. The animal kingdom doesn’t have a voice except ours. The air doesn’t have a voice except us humans. The water doesn’t have a voice except us humans, and so all of these things that we need to pray about, you know that is why our Creator gave us this voice to be able to do that, and to give thanks and I think that is one of the greatest obligations we have is to send up a prayer.
Stephen: I would love as we close our time with you if you would offer a final prayer for the group and my invitation is that if it feels appropriate to do something in your Tribal language just so we can connect with your prayer linage perhaps.
Grandma Agnes: [says a prayer in her language, then English.]
Father God, Mother God, we thank you for this opportunity to speak to other voices Grandfather to other people and to be able to know that we are connected through water, and Grandfather help us to be more grateful for walking on this planet, stop taking things for granted and to take care of our beauty that we are walking here today so that the seventh generation, the unborn can be able to share what we have here, and Grandfather we thank you for the duty that we have to lift our voices up to you and our heart, that you could live in our hearts and our minds and in our every day life. We thank you for this opportunity to just speak to people Grandfather you can carry our message to all ears and to everyone from the elders down to the little people. It is not us adults Grandfather that own this world it is the children and I pray that we can take care of our little people in a good way and to help our givers of life Grandfather we pray. We thank you for all things that you have given today this one more day. Bless you Grandfather Aho, aho, aho.
Stephen: Thank you Grandma Aggie it has just been a blessed time with you and I feel really personally blessed and I am sure I speak for everyone on this call for your time this evening. And for the depth of your compassionate work in the world. So, thank you for that.
Grandma Agnes: Bless you, alright, thank you for having me, each and every one. Bless you…good night.
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