The Grandmothers Council

This is the highest level summit meeting possible!

--ryan

AlterNet: Grandmothers Unite
By Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, AlterNet. Posted November 8,
2004.

In original tribal cultures, the Grandmothers' Council
was honored as the final authority on most tribal
matters, including the waging of war. Now, wise voices
converge to strengthen their message.

On October 11, 13 grandmothers from around all the
world - the Arctic Circle, North, South, and Central
America, Africa, and Asia, arrived at Tibet House's
Menla Mountain retreat in Phoenicia, New York for the
first Global Grandmothers' Council. They came to
discuss the fate of the earth, and how to revive the
traditions, rituals and medicines that can save it.
Their teachings represent the universal morality
against which we measure our actions, and it provided
an example of bringing together the most ancient and
modern ways in which women can organize, both
personally and politically, to preserve their cultures
and take care of the future.

For three days these grandmothers, who are trained
shamans and medicine women, came together in a private
meeting, to talk about ways to share their most secret
and sacred ways with people who have been their
oppressors. They included Tsering Dolma Gyalthong, a
Tibetan refuge and founding member of The Tibetan
Women's Association, which has more than 30 branches
worldwide; Flordemayo, a Mayan elder and traditional
healer; and Juliette Casimiro, a Mazatec elder who
carries the tradition of healing with sacred plants.
They spoke of their relations and their ways of
healing. They participated in each other's prayers,
rituals and ceremonies. Through meeting with lawyers
who specialize in the areas of American law that
pertain to indigenous people and non-profit
organizations, they worked on coming together to find
a unified voice, and to find a way to make a more
permanent alliance among themselves. To bring power
and volume to their individual voice, they concluded
that they would become a permanent alliance called the
Council of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers.
During a prayer offering to the group , Rita Pitka
Bleumenstein, a Yupik grandmother who teaches about
Native American culture world wide, broke down into
tears. She talked about a vision she had when she was
nine years old that if she doesn't pass her traditions
down to young people and teach them to save the earth,
"We're going to suffer." she said.

"I don't cry very often," she continued. "I didn't cry
when my husband passed away and I didn't cry when my
mother passed away, but when something like this
council happens I cry. I think we were put on this
earth to do it because the grandmothers told us that
when you start something you don't stop. You carry it
on. You finish it."

After the three-day summit, the Global Women's
Gathering continued over the next four days. An
audience of three hundred people joined the original
13. In that unified voice, the grandmothers opened up
for the first time to an assembly of western women
elders - political activists such as Ambassador Carole
Mosley Braun, Gloria Steinem and Alice Walker - to
begin a discussion about how to work to save their
families, their communities, and their lives on this
planet.


The Roots of the Movement

Bernadette Rebienot, a Bwiti elder and grandmother of
23 had a vision for a Grandmothers' Council. She said
that the women of Gabon regularly gather together in
the forest to share their visions and to pray for
world peace and the well being of their people. "In
Gabon, when the grandmothers speak, the president
listens," she said.

When Jyoti, an American spiritual teacher who holds a
PhD in clinical psychology, came to Gabon to study
with Rebienot, the two women found that they shared a
vision of the Grandmothers' Council, and they decided
to work together to manifest it in the west.

Jyoti mobilized her organization, the Center for
Sacred Studies, to sponsor a council for indigenous
grandmothers. She hooked up with Lynn Schauwecker, a
former fashion model and fundraising expert, Ann
Rosenkranz, who is also a spiritual counselor and a
program director at the Center for Sacred Studies, and
Carole Hart, an award winning television and film
writer and producer, best known for "Free to Be You
and Me." They organized both the 3-day Grandmother's
Council and the Global Women's Gathering.


Restoring Our Voice

The Global Women's Gathering began with an opening
talk from Wilma Mankiller, a former principal chief of
the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She was the first
female in history to lead a major American tribe - the
second largest in the United States, with an enrolled
population of over 140,000, an annual budget of more
than $75 million, and more than 1,200 employees spread
over 7,000 square miles. It was there that the
grandmothers introduced themselves by making an
announcement about their alliance.

The beginning and the end of each day was marked by a
prayer from one of the grandmothers. They spoke of
their prophecies, they spoke about how this was the
time to make a choice about how to live and stay alive
on the planet. In smaller break-out sessions, the
Grandmothers and western women collaborated in
facilitating discussions of plans for renewable
resources, preservations of cultures and species,
cooperative ventures to prevent global warming and
eliminate nuclear weapons, new medicine models that
integrate traditional and western medicine. In
original tribal cultures, the Grandmothers' Council
was honored as the final authority on most tribal
matters, including the waging of war.

"The women of this conference believe that through
this gathering, we are restoring that voice," said
Carole Hart. "Their way of holding life in all its
manifestations can show us how to sustain ourselves,
our children, and our planet through our tumultuous
times. Their values are truly the global test against
which we can measure all our actions, personal and
political, so that we can be sure they will create
justice, peace, and abundance around the world. In a
time where most political dialogue is harsh and
vituperative, the new, wise voice of the indigenous
grandmothers will elevate our political discourse."
In a speech on the final morning of the gathering,
Carole Mosley Braun remarked that "Dr. Martin Luther
King has said that the arc of the moral universe is
long but it bends towards justice. Because you are
here you will make it more likely that the moral arc
of the universe will bend towards justice and that
this world at war with itself, will have to meet the
resistance and the fight you have engaged to save it
from itself. You are the embodiment of a great new
spirit and the wisdom of the ages."

At the end of the conference, the grandmothers created
a statement of intent of their new global alliance.
"We come together to nurture, educate and train our
children. We come together to uphold the practice of
our ceremonies and to affirm the right to use our
plant medicines free of legal restrictions. We come
together to protect the lands where our peoples live
and upon which our cultures depend, to safeguard the
collective heritage of traditional medicines, and to
defend the Earth herself. We believe that the
teachings of our ancestors will light our way through
an uncertain future."

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