Many years ago, I met an Ojibway storyteller, in the iron range of Minnesota, 4 hours as the crow flies from my childhood and adolescent roots in upper Michigan.
I went with friends, from Colorado, for a week long process to help rebuild the house of another native woman, whose son had been brutally murdered by a local gang of Native American teens.
This off the beaten path, mostly forgotton community had already experienced the Apocalypse. I remember having a hard time even wanting to talk about my experience there for days...weeks...months...years after because of the aching heartbreaking stories I had heard. Death after death. Tragedy after tragedy. Devastatingly painful stories ...even 9 year old kids committing suicide because of the severe neglect, abuse and more.
All another story. A heavy, heavy story with its roots in genocide. And the generations produced from out of that genocide whose soul had been raped, oppressed and beaten out of submission.
Back to the storyteller. It was the year 2006. Many of the trees in that area had succumbed to some tragedy. Pine beetles or fungus. They were dying off quickly. Strangely.
Annie the storyteller told a story about the trees. And how they are the lungs of the Earth. And how when they are dying off as they were especially in the North, they are telling us something very important about the not far away future. And that we should be paying attention. Close attention. Because the ecosystem of our bodies is part of the ecosystem of the forests and of the Earth. And dying trees isnt a good sign.
She said those dying trees were messengers.
The lungs of the Earth. For whom we owe our breaths. For whom we give our breath.
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