YouTube talk by Sandi L. Boucher (Red Thunderbolt, Seine River First Nation) contrasting Indigenous and mainstream views of nature. She highlights Indigenous practices and ancient wisdom—notably the Haudenosaunee "Three Sisters" companion planting and respectful harvesting rules—arguing these practices support sustainability and offer lessons for addressing climate change; she also critiques extractive, short-term mindsets (example: nuclear waste disposal) and points viewers to a TED 2020 talk by architect Julia Watson on using ancient wisdom to offset climate change.
Chapters
Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you. I hope you're having a super duper double delicious day today. I have a question for you. When you think of nature untouched by man, is it your enemy inconvenient or your partner? Let's talk about it. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And I know you're going to be surprised, but I was thinking again, I watched a video. Ted. No, I was going to say TedX, but it's not. It's Ted 2020. So the main TED event. And it got me thinking. It got me thinking about the multitude of people I get to meet in my career from many different places and many different backgrounds and many different cultures and many different worldviews and how nature is often interpreted in incredibly different ways. If there's one thing I've noticed, well, think of our elders first and foremost. In Anishinaabe culture, Ojibwe culture, our elders are revered simply because they have full life experience. They've been here for 70, 80, 90 years. That is seen as valuable content. Whereas mainstream doesn't have that same respect for its elders. Mainly mainstream indigenous lens here. But tell me I'm wrong. Look at the seniors homes. Enough said. Mainstream seems to revere innovation. New, brand new, modern. And there's no regard for ancient wisdom. It's disregarded. And to me that's not balancing the feather because yes, technology is amazing and there's innovative new things happening and that's why wonderful. But there's an incredible value in ancient wisdom as well, which is what I wanted to touch on today. I wanted to give you some examples because maybe you're going to reconsider how you think or look at nature. So the first one is called Three Sisters planting, which is a time tested practice of the Haudenosaunee people, the Iroquois people in southern Ontario, Northern us. So it is the practice of growing corn, beans and squash together because they naturally support each other. So get this. The corn we know grows tall, which provides the stalks that the beans need to support them as they grow. The beans provide new nitrogen into the soil that feeds all of them. And the squash with the big large leaves protects the soil. Now I wanted to look this up. I found a website. I'll put it in the video notes for you. It's called nativeseeds.org I went into their blog and there is a blog post called how to Grow a Three Sisters Garden I know this has been around forever. This I. Have you ever tried it? Would you be interested in trying? I would love to hear it. I just think it's amazing. According to the article, please feel free to get get your info from the article. You plant the corn first. Two to three weeks later, when the corn is a couple inches tall, you plant the beans. And then a week after that you plant the squash. And then you let them do what they're going to do. Those things are so nutritious. Thinking of my friend Sam, who's a nurse now, I wonder what she'd think of trying to live on those three. From what the article says, from what I remember, there's a lot of nutrients happening there. There's protein. So not a bad idea. That's one example. I know for Anishinaabe people like me and Jibway people, when we go out into the bush to pick our sacred medicines, we are taught and instructed very adamantly that you do not destroy the plant you pick without taking the roots to ensure that more sacred medicines will grow, that other people that need it will have access to it. There is in mainstream, we see this and not carte blanche, but that take everything you can. And that greed, that destruction mindset, that is not going to sustain you. It's a finite amount, it's eventually going to run out. Whereas if you take care of the soil, take care of the water, take care of the air, take care of the land, then we continue to have what we need. That's wisdom that's been lost on mainstream. So don't take the roots. Take only what you need. One other thing that came to mind, there's a fl. I was outside. I don't want to trigger anyone, but I ran into a spider's web, which is a thing in northern Ontario. But now my face is itchy. Anyways, digress. Much another thing, if you've been in one of my seminars or heard one of my speeches, you have heard me talk about walking softly, and I use that as a phrase to describe respectful, humble questions. So if you ask a question like, I just don't understand why indigenous people don't do this or that, Excuse me, that would be a humble, respectful question. If you come at me with why the hell don't they just. Obviously not. That's dripping in judgment. That's not walking softly. But where I got that phrase from is actually growing up in the bush. Because I grew up in a very small northern Ontario town, a small municipality of 400 people. Spent a lot of time Playing in the bush. The backyard of her house was literally the bush. And you have to walk softly in the bush. If you go running through there like a bulldozer, like you're tripping over tree trunks, you're might be stepping on a cute little frog. You walk softly, you respect the environment. So there's another ancient teaching that is just not destructive. Speaking of which, while I was watching this and thinking of all these thoughts and thinking of what I wanted to share with you, one of the things that came to my mind is the burying of nuclear waste. So for one, you don't destroy your own environment or create disastrous things, dangerous things, and then just ship it somewhere else so you don't need to think about it. That is such a selfish, self indulgent mindset. You deal with what you've done, right? Like, I mean that's pretty simple. And I hear people saying, well, Canadian shield is the strongest known material known to mankind. Not if you bore a bunch of holes into it. Yeah, idiots. I mean a child could tell you that. And then of course the one that bugs me, and of course I've mentioned this before, that the containers that the nuclear waste are going to be in is going to last like 100 years, 150 years. I forget what the number is. So my question is always. And they guarantee that's going to happen. Pretty easy to guarantee something you're not going to be around to prove, right? Like it's going to last for 500 years. Why don't you just say that? Right? Who does my grandchildren call when it doesn't? Your grandchildren? Are they going to be on the hook for this? And more importantly, when it does start leaking, how did we get down there to fix it? Or you were you just thinking we would just leave it when that happened? Or did you not even care because again, you're not going to be here. That is such a non indigenous mindset. And of course not all non indigenous people think that way, but that is that European influence, take what you can get. The, the pillaging and, and just so destructive and so dangerous. So what brought on all of this? The TED Talk? I keep wanting to say TEDx, but it's not. It's 10 talk 20 or TED 2020. And the video that I'm going to share in the video notes, it features Julia Watson and she's an architect. Now I love architecture. It blows me away. I have always said I love God or man made. So the beautiful mountains that God made, creator made, or the beautiful fountain or a building like man made. It just blows me away that someone envisioned that and made it happen. That that mind blowing. So, architect, I don't know about you, but when I hear the word, I think very modern, that this is something. And I guess I shouldn't because I mean the coliseum and all like architecture has been around forever, right? I guess as long as man has. But I think of it as a very modern practice. But Julia in this video reflects on ancient wisdom and how many examples of ancient wisdom offset climate change. So climate change is a challenge that mainstream is super struggling with and they don't know what to do. But maybe to save the future, we have to look to the past. And that's what Julia did. And I just had to share this with you because I think it's going to be amazing. I am a huge believer in ancient wisdom. I know that the stories and the teachings of my elders help me to stand strong every single day. And I know many, many people are struggling in a mainstream culture that does not revere ancient wisdom. So watch the video, let me know your thoughts. Did were you blown away? Because I know I sure was. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
