misplaced anger??

It is a sad moment for Grenada when a movement like Hands Around the Carenage Candlelight Vigil, an event to remember the fallen victims of domestic violence in Grenada and a local Action Collective like Groundation Grenada who promoted and supported the event are raged against and judged by other Grenadians for being a man hating event.   

Initiatives like Hands Around the Carenage and Collectives like Groundation Grenada  are working  to create awareness and change in our society where different forms of violence are affecting all of us. How can we walk in solidarity against all forms of violence when there are many of us misinterpreting and misunderstanding the work of feminists world- wide. Yet we are the same people who hang our heads in disbelief, shame, and anger when our mothers, sisters, cousins, daughters are murdered, maimed, hit, slapped, disrespected. The problem is not the feminist movement as recently stated in two different Grenadian media forums but men and women alike who are unable to understand the severe damage and destructive effects patriarchal systems have not only on women and girls but also on men and boys.

Perhaps it is the same men who feel such hatred towards the feminist movement who know too well the destructiveness a patriarchal system has on men and boys and thus the anger is misplaced due to lack of attention in confronting the issue of this deep divide between men and women; a divide caused by a system that equates violence with masculinity, a system that discourages men from being nurturing, emotional, caring and soft, a system that teaches men and women from birth that men are superior to women. Perhaps subconsciously these same men understand more now than ever that change needs to occur to transform the destructive effects patriarchal societies have done to humanity, Mother Earth and the non-human world.   Perhaps it is these same men raging against a feminist movement who want desperately to be part of the dialogue, part of the work, part of a bigger picture that addresses gender-based violence as a global, social, community and individual problem.

 A dear friend and Elder once said “I help women by helping their men.” My friend works for a male support group, where men come together to speak about the violence they have perpetuated against women and children and who are now working together to break free from the patterns of violence they have learned throughout their lives. “Both men and women”, say the men , “are affected by gender-based violence; affectd by a patriarchal system that honours, values, and affirms violence over love, relationships, and equality for all.

 

i am a writer!

i just completed 50,043 words towards this beautiful chunk of a novel! Sending a big shout out to all those who took on national novel writing month! Wherever you reached you reached! Celebrate the writing. Give praise to the writer in you! Give thanks to words and the power they have to illuminate the worlds all around us! And for me 'i nah give up' i am going to write this soulspirit narrative to the end and i am going to follow the evolution of these characters until they tell me 'ok thats enough for now'; and i am going to continue exploring this writer's path and i am going to shout out with courage and worthiness:   "i am a writer!"

evolving yes!

i was asked yesterday by a conservative friend if i thought my paintings were evolving. i always get thrown off when people (mostly male white conservative ) ask me this and/or suggest in the same breathe that i could branch out into other styles of paintings ...

 

My email to him this morning:
 i dont think i did justice to my paintings last night when i answered 'i think so' related to your question, "Do you think your paintings are evolving?" Here is a more deserving response in regards to the spirit of my art work! Yes! these paintings are evolving, evolving into so much more then i ever expected ! Evolving into peace programs, peace murals, safe spaces where children, youth, teachers, communities can deconstruct and examine the states of peace/peacelessness within their lives and create/build non -violent strategies to address the violence. These paintings have evolved into opportunities for me to write, to evolve into a peace/community educator, to live a life that is not driven by the norm but by a path that breathes authenticity and light for others to do the same!!! these paintings continue to be a great source of courage, strength, spirit, freedom to many and i am grateful they keep dancing through my brush and onto the canvas!! 

 

On another note woke maya up this morning to Obama's victory speech!  Feeling the hope this morning! one love. one family. maureen

 

  

 

National Novel Writing Month

Dear Friends,
November is National Novel Writing Month (nanomowri) and this year I have decided to take on the challenge! I have been telling close friends around me, friends who know I have a passion for the written word; a passion to use this passion as an act of hope in a world that desperately needs hope! Today I make this announcement publicly as a means of holding myself accountable to this beautifully crazified creative goal!

I read this today on nanomowri webpage: 
“Tell everyone you know that you’re writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who’ve had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.”

Ok so here goes I am writing a novel this month! I am writing the bulk of a first draft of a novel. Where it goes or what journey it takes me on I have no idea but I know it will be a catalyst of some sort! I also know I am doing this for me, without any big illusion of becoming published and being interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel on Writers and Company, cbc radio!!

I leave you with a powerful quote from one of my favorite writers, Isabelle Allende. She breathes life and wisdom into these hands ready to give birth to 1,667 words a day! 

“I feel that writing is an act of hope, a sort of communion with our fellow beings. The writer of good will carries a lamp to illuminate the dark corners; only that, nothing more - a tiny beam of light to show some hidden aspect of reality, to help decipher and understand thus to initiate, if possible, a change in the conscience of some readers. This kind of writer is not seduced by the mermaid’s voice of celebrity or tempted by exclusive literary circles. He/She has both feet planted firmly on the ground and walks hand in hand with the people in the streets. She knows that the lamp is very small and the shadows are immense. This makes her humble.”

Blessings.

Do What You Know to be Right : Part Three

My Dear Friend and Sister, Cathy Gerrior continues to write her truth in this third powerful piece that confronts not only the United Church but all of us  to do what we know to be right and to not be complacent in researching what we know and do not know and making right decisions based on this. For example do you know where your pension plan invests your money, or where your bank banks or where your food, clothes, pharmacudical drugs comes from and at whose expense?

Blessings

One Love

One Family

maureen

 

 

To the People of the United Church

A letter from wape'k mikjikj e'pit

by Cathy Gerrior

Cathy Gerrior is calling on people to challenge the United Church on its decision to remain invested in Goldcorp. Photo: Paula Gerrior

 

 

I am called wape'k mikjikj e'pit - white turtle woman. I am the daughter of a residential school survivor and know first-hand the generational and long term effects of the abuses suffered there. It has been partly through the reconciliation work of the United Church that I have reconnected with my own heritage and culture. I recently learned, however, that the United Church's pension plan is invested in Goldcorp. I feel confused and betrayed. My teachings are that an apology is not sincere when the one who apologizes continues to do the same thing that was harmful.

My personal story is not uncommon. My mother was in a residential school in Labrador for approximately four years. She was one of the children who never went back home once she joined her brother and sister at the school. My Grandmother eventually found a way to get her kids away from the school and moved her children far from there. That provided some immediate safety for her family, but the long term was a different story. As a result of the residential schools, I was raised away from my culture. I lived most of my life apart from who and what I am.

My journey to reclaim my own culture was, in a large part, made possible by the United Church. I am not a member of the church in any way, however, I and my family have benefitted from the church's commitment to hold themselves accountable for their complicity in operating the residential schools. My very first experience with Ceremony was through the Peace and Friendship Gatherings held at the Tatamagouche Centre. The Tatamagouche Centre is one of the four education and retreat centers of the United Church of Canada. This is where I first began to confront my own demons, begin the healing process and my journey to honor who and what I am.

Recently, I was devastated by the news that the United Church; who i have considered groundbreakers, has chosen to allow the United Church Pension Plan to remain invested with Goldcorp. Goldcorp is a mining company in Guatemala that is accused of being responsible for many atrocities perpetrated against the Mayan's, their culture, and Mother Earth.
In July of this year, the United Church partly funded my trip to Guatemala to enable me to attend the Health Tribunal as a representative of the Breaking the Silence Network. My role was to stand in solidarity with the Mayan people against the mining companies who are decimating people, culture, and the environment for obscene profits. I was honored to travel there and play this role.

Goldcorp uses mining techniques that require the decimation of seven tones of mountain to produce one ounce of gold, according to Grahame Russell, our delegation leader in Guatemala. And that they have many mountains there they intend to mine. Goldcorp is directly benefitting from millions of dollars invested by the Canada Pension Fund.  Canadian mining companies, including Goldcorp, are accused of being directly involved in murders, rapes, and illegal land evictions of many communities of Mayan people.

How is it possible to, on the one hand, work hard to reconcile with the past of violations against the native people here; and then on the other, consciously and willingly profit from the violations currently being perpetrated on the native people in Guatemala? While in Guatemala, I saw very clearly that the Mayans are indeed our brothers and sisters, with their connection to Mother Earth and their life-giving ceremonies.

I don't know where this leaves me. I know that I will find ways of making my feelings known to the United Church and hold them accountable for this unthinkable choice. I ask you to do the same. I also ask you to research where your own pension plans are invested and to choose not to profit from the continuing decimation of native people, cultures, and Mother Earth. I ask for you to stand against money being the new Sacred, and to do what you know to be right. Truth, Memory, and Justice for all.
Welalio - thanks to you all.
Cathy Gerrior

celebrating community arts!

 

 















Tila Kellman expresses the magic of Antigonight:

"Once again, Antigonight brought together a sparkling array of artists in a wide variety of media representing the various cultures that make up our region to produce a magical mosaic of music, dance, sculpture, song, painting, drawing, theatre, film and this year, henna body painting!  Approximately 1300 festival-goers, including seniors from the RK MacDonald Home, braved the rain to attend the Saturday evening extravaganza.  It never ceases to amaze me how this small place produces such a wide variety of artists and art groups......"

 

let the pictures above speak for themselves!!!!

One Love

A Native Perspective: Part Two

 

The first picture of young women  above was taken outside the health tribunal as the testimonies were happening. The other two were of Oscar Morales showing our delegation the mine site that he is fighting against. The last one is of Diadora, who was shot in the eye and still standing against the mining company.

 

photos by Cathy Gerrior

 

 

 

 

Do What You Know to be Right - taken from "The Ten Indian Commandments"

 

i have working on this second article for some time now, trying to find the words to both describe and honor some of my observations and teachings from Guatemala. In all fairness, i have only seen, heard, and experienced a small amount of Mayan culture and belief systems.  i was struck many times though by how similar we are and how i immediately felt a kinship with the Mayan People. i recognized right away that we are indeed brothers and sisters.

Kwe.  i am called wape'k mikjikj e'pit - white turtle woman, and i was deeply moved by the Mayan people and their struggles.  i did not travel there as a tourist, but rather was invited by a caring group of people who belong to an organization called Breaking the Silence and we joined a delegation led by Grahame Russell of Rights Action.  

 

As a native woman, i recognized that both my motive and my role was somewhat different than the others gathered together for the teachings that were about to unfold as we visited, over the course of 8 days, four different mining harmed regions of Guatemala.  They came to witness and learn the many devastating truths that were about to be revealed around the oppression, exploitation, and attempts at genocide of the Mayan people, specifically around the issue of Canadian Mining Companies currently operating in Guatemala and other Latin American countries.

As a native woman, i already carried many generations of these truths in my whole being, almost as if it were part of my DNA.  i was not there to learn these truths - i already knew them intimately.   i was there to stand with our native brothers and sisters and to offer what i could in terms of support and Ceremony as they, like we have here for seven generations, fight for their land, their rights, their culture, their dignity, and their lives.

Still, the painful details of these truths spoken by the people left me devastated and shaken to the core.  What struck me hard was that their present struggles are our native people's histories prior to the forcing of our children into the residential schools. There was a time when our native people here lived freely and in harmony on Mother Earth.   We always recognized that we needed Mother Earth for our survival - she does not need us.  It was not possible to own Mother Earth.  Our teachings were that we were responsible for walking on her gently, with respect for all things.  In my conversations with the Mayan people, these teachings are the same among our cultures.

i witnessed in Guatemala that the bond the Mayan people have with our Mother the Earth has not been entirely broken.  Many still live off the land in balance and harmony, as our people once did.  They have not been caged into reservations. At first i felt grateful to witness this. That was quickly squashed the moment i also realized that this bond the Mayans still have with our Mother is exploited by the wealthy, as well as foreign countries to keep the Mayans in extreme poverty.

Poverty it seems, is used as a successful tool by certain cultures to keep native populations off-balance. The natives are distracted by the need to just survive, and so are unable to stand up for their rights and freedoms.  In Guatemala, extreme poverty is used to force the Mayan people to work as cheap labor ($2.00 per day minus expenses) to plant and harvest their own fields that they were forcibly and illegally evicted from, growing produce for export to Canada and the US at huge profits.  i myself, can never see items like tropical fruit and coffee the same way now that i have seen the true origins of them being provided to us at 'cheap' prices.

Like the Mayan people today, our poverty really began with the loss of our lands through 'evictions'. The land that provided all our needs and sustained us became coveted by other cultures.  At first, we tried to accommodate them.  As more Europeans arrived, massacres, rapes, and the burning of our crops, food stores, and homes immediately put us into poverty and survival mode.  Labelling us as heathens and savages seemed to legitimize the brutality used to gain access to and control of our ancestral lands.This is what is currently happening in Latin American countries including Guatemala, only there and now it is with the use of military or paramilitary men with machine guns against farmers with hoes.

Trickery, trinkets, and alcohol were also used to cheat us. Our history here also includes blankets infected with measles and small pox were distributed among the people.  Entire communities perished.  Beef infected with tuberculosis was also deemed an effective tool to free up more land.  Bounties on our Scalps was introduced and are still on the law books in Halifax to this day.  Treaties were entered into as an attempt to walk together peacefully, but were never honored by them.   Papers were produced proving to us that we never had the right to be there in the first place.Then we were put on reservations, breaking our bond with our Mother the Earth, and finally we were forced into residential schools to take the indian out of the child, breaking our bond with our children.  The laws were made to condemn, eliminate, control, and/or assimilate, rather than serve us.

ndian Reservations are where extreme poverty, inadequate housing, food, clean water, and health care have long been documented.  It was also impossible for us to continue to live in the way we were taught.  We were promised that we would be provided for and became wards of the government.  The elders here speak of their families going to the Indian Agent for their food allotment.  It was called 'Rations Day'.  Indian Agents were agents of the government and were given food and supplies to sustain the native population as well as keeping us caged.  Often these agents quickly realized they could use these supplies to create total power over the 'savages' as well as amass personal wealth by selling the goods to others.  Many of our people starved or froze to death.
Each large family was allotted exactly four cents worth of flour.  The women named the bread they made after this ration and so "Four Cents" is still made today in native communities, as the allotments are really not that much larger.

In Guatemala, the Mayans are not even afforded that.  They are neither caged in reservations nor are they free.  They are in this uneasy limbo - living off the land, in extreme poverty, surrounded by wealth, waiting and wondering if/when they will again be forced off their lands to produce profits for the next plantation of mono-crops or for a mining company, with no protection from their government, police, or the courts.  All they have are their lands and their lives, which they are being robbed of. The Mayan People do not (yet) have the history of residential schools.  i am fearful though that the dominant societies have not learned from their crimes against native peoples, leaving them more likely to repeat them.  Profit, it would seem, dictates their priorities.

In North America, all school-aged children (5-16 years old) were taken from their families in every native community and sent to residential schools to be educated and become 'functioning members of society'.  One of the devastating realities was that many of the priests and nuns who were moved from churches for 'unacceptable behaviour' were placed in institutions where those they were 'tending' to had no voices.  Orphanages, youth detention centres, and residential schools are but a few.  These places became the hunting and killing grounds for pedophiles, child predators, and sadistic people, all who claimed to be working in the name of God; therefore, with impunity.

Generations of  Native children were brutalized, violated, raped, threatened, and killed.  The days of family and community, warm embraces and loving care were gone.  Their only human touch now was when they were being punished or assaulted. They were savagely beaten for speaking their language and were taught that their parents and culture are evil.   Those who tried to escape and run away were tracked down by the RCMP and brought back to the school to be publicly punished and humiliated.

The generational impacts on the individuals, the communities, and the culture were devastating and long term.  Survivors were left with nothing - doomed to a lifetime in limbo.  Many have spoken of feeling stripped of all spirituality.  Unable to trust anyone or anything.  Feelings of guilt and shame for what happened to them as well as not being able to protect their brothers and sisters are lifelong. There are many issues of drug and alcohol abuse, but we are slowly breathing back our Ceremonies, our language, our culture, and our deep connection and responsibility to Mother Earth, in hopes of healing. And the healing is happening.

i recall a vision i had shortly after my first experience with Native Ceremony almost ten years ago.  It was during a song being sung by my teacher, brother, and friend gkisedtanamoogk.  We were in Circle, releasing the Ancestors from the Sacred Fire.  As my brother sang, i saw an eight pointed star, golden, glimmering, pulsating, and glorious as it rotated inside a circle.  i felt excited, joyful, and alive.  Then suddenly, chunks were wrenched from it at random until it became still, only a shell of its former self, and in almost total darkness.  i wept, feeling empty.  Slowly, small fragments began returning.  With each small piece came a small light and it began to slowly pulse and glow again.  Tentatively at first, like a tiny heartbeat.  As more found their way back, it became stronger and brighter, which then began to attract even more pieces.  The vision ended as abruptly as it had begun.

i like to believe i was one of those small fragments finding my way back to where i belonged.  One small piece that makes the whole more complete, alive, and stronger.  i have worked to help our people in their healing ever since that moment.  Standing in solidarity with the Mayan People is now an important a part of my work.

When i was asked at one point why i chose to go to Guatemala to stand with the Mayan People, my response was simple. "If people had stood with us 500 years ago, would our history be different today?  How can i not?"

The Mayans in Latin America are currently dying from North America's history of brutality and greed. There are several amazing organizations who are currently standing with them in solidarity.  They stand for justice, equality, and fairness.  They stand to protect culture, ancestral lands, dignity, and human lives.  They are still only a few, standing up against the powerful force that is greed.  Please don't let them stand alone while another native people becomes broken and empty.

All my Relations.

 

 

 

Today is D day! 100 thousand poets for change!

Today is D Day! i am honoured to be a part of the movement for change by participating in the yearly global event, '100 Thousand Poets and musicians for Change'. With over 700 events in 112 participating countries this event is geared towards creating conscious awareness within the context of peace and sustainability; the stimulus needed for the change we seek.

This initiative aims to promote social, environmental and economical change through poetry and music...

the Antigonish poets will be sharing their own poetry along with favorite poems from around the world today from 11am to 1pm at the antigonish farmers market!

 

this will be my contribution:

 

Why Should I?

 

Why should I

walk a straight line

and into a  box

when my heart tells me to

run,

             skip,

                         leap,

                              sprint,  

                                         and fly 

to the beat of

my own natural

earth quenching rhythms

 

Why should I bother

what others say, think, feel   

when my heart tells me

to live like its’ my final hour

like it’s the last month of

my full moon beauty

 my season to bloom

and sprout hummingbird

wings

 

Why should i

forget about those around me

the young child a day-plane  away

who sits in fear of  

ancestral grounds burnt,

mothers and fathers murdered,   

brothers kidnapped into the bush   

When my heart says to  

embrace the sorrow

as if its’ my own extended sadness

 

Why should i

move as though

the earth is not dying,

as though there is

no other generation

to come but mine,

deny the great unraveliing,

beleive in a bottomless food source

tied up in pretty packaging

When all i want to do

is cry for our Mother Earth

get on my knees

and say sorry for the millionth tme

When all i want to do

is yell from the bottom

of my ignorance

wake up me!

wake up you!

 

Why should I

get tangled in my own

thoughts,

fears,

concerns,

when my heart tells me to 

speak  the  words of alliance

tame this privileged mind  

be more then what history predicts

undo the colonial teachings

 

Why should I

ask for more and more

when what I have is enough

and my heart is begging me

to be still

and breath

gently

tenderly

softly

so the beating of my heart hurts no one

 

A Native Perspective

 

i am posting a letter my dear friend, sister, mentor wrote after returning from her journey to Guatemala. Cathy shares with us the atrocities Canadian mining companies are reaping against First Nation People and sacred earth of Guatemala. You can also find this article at  www.rightsaction.org

A NATIVE PERSPECTIVE OF GOLD MINING IN GUATEMALA AND IT'S DEVASTATING IMPACTS ON OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE MAYANS

By Cathy Gerrior, whiteturtlewoman@gmail.com, August 1, 2012

Kwe,
my spirit name is white turtle woman and i am a Mi'kmaq Elder and Ceremony Keeper from Turtle Island. i was given an opportunity to visit Guatemala by a group called Breaking the Silence. This is an organization who works towards justice and fair treatment of the Mayan People in Guatemala.

We joined a delegation in Guatemala led by Grahame Russell with the Rights Action group to learn the truth about the Canadian Mining Companies and what they are doing to our Mayan brothers and sisters in Latin America. Grahame was very thorough in his teachings around this issue. At one point i asked him if this work was his passion. He thought about it for a moment and replied, "No. It's my social responsibility."
It is majestic and deceptive to drive through the countryside of Guatemala with its volcanoes, and seemingly endless food and natural resources. It is shocking to learn that the Native people of Guatemala were forcibly evicted from their traditional lands so that all this could be produced for the sole benefit of Canada and the United States, and that the Mayan People are forced to work the fields during harvest for about $2 dollars per day.

i watched in wonder as i saw corn growing up and down the mountainsides and learned that that is the crop of the Mayan People - corn and beans. They use all their land to sustain themselves and their families. Some also have some livestock - often chickens and pigs which have free reign to move about naturally. i noticed goats and a few cows, who were more confined. The effort it must take to plant and harvest these crops on such steep terrain. i heard that they tie themselves to a sturdy tree to rock in order to navigate the steepness. i frequently saw them walking along the side of the highway carrying their hoes or hauling their firewood on their backs. Even the children were carrying their own loads of firewood.
It was both beautiful and sad to see this, especially once the realities of what is happening to the People was revealed when we reached our destinations.
***
We first visited the communities of San Jose del Golfo and San Pedro Ayumpac where they are blockading the mine entrance to Radius Gold. It was reminiscent of blockades here on Turtle Island.
The People standing together and saying NO to violations against Mother Earth, families, and communities. They take this stand at the risk of being shot (with no consequences to the shooter) because their traditional lands are all they have to support themselves and their next generations.
The mining companies trick their way into communities and then seem to stop at nothing in order to begin reaping obscene profits at the expense of the Native people and Mother Earth. i saluted the Mayan communities for their commitment to what is right in the traditional way of our People.
***
In San Rafael las Flores i listened to, (whom i saw as a natural leader), a man named Oscar Morales who said, "We are farmers. What did we know about mining? We had no idea that what they were telling us was all lies." He is educating himself now and arming himself with facts and truths about the different layers of ugliness that these mining companies create and inflict, in an attempt to protect their lands and communities. i pray often Oscar, that you are successful.
***
In El Estor, we met two sisters who are fighting a nickel mining company. The husband of one of the sisters was murdered by the company for resisting them and both have a brother in prison on trumped up charges for doing the same thing. They do what they can to help a young man in their community who was shot and paralysed by company men.
With some assistance from a friend who was also an interpreter, we were honored to perform a Healing Ceremony on these women to give them the strength to continue their fight. i understand that they are filing civil suits in Canada to try to get a measure of justice for the harms and violations inflicted on them by employees of the mining company. i promised them i'd come back and ask the people here on Turtle Island to pray for them and their cause. i ask all who read this to join me in these prayers.
***
We went to a cemetery where they are exhuming bodies from mass graves of the "Disappeared People." Often women and children, but also those who were 'detained' over different periods of time. There are so many, dating back to the seventies; perhaps beyond. They were 'detained' for different reasons, but none of them legitimately. No trials were ever held and if i understand correctly, no charges were ever even filed against them. Their pictures are plastered everywhere, both in the cemetery and in the cities, placed hopefully and lovingly by the families looking for their loved ones.
i struggled with this the most. i was moved to do Ceremony at that place, speaking to the Ancestors specifically to the issue of, Truth. Memory. Justice. Grahame used those words frequently throughout the week we were together, and i will carry those very words with me always.
***
We travelled to mining communities closer to the Goldcorp mine where a Health Tribunal was being held for the people to come together to tell their stories to 'the world' and in some measure, hold the mining companies accountable for the atrocities being inflicted on the Mayan People in the name of 'Progress' but which really boils down to obscene profits for Canadian mining companies in operation in Latin America.

San Miguel Ixtahuacan. There we met Florencio Yoc who is being forced to protect himself and his land, sometimes by even his own family, from being unlawfully sold to the mining company. His land contains a natural spring that provides life-giving water to his and several other families living near him.We met Diodora who was shot in the head by mining company employees because she refused to sell her land. She is now mostly alone and lonely due to the fear and community conflict created by Goldcorp. Still, she resists, doing what she knows to be right and living as best she can, which was once in harmony on Mother Earth. You are also in my prayers Diodora. i will never forget you.

Lastly, we attended part of the first day of the Health Tribunal. Goldcorp was found guilty of violations to both Mother Earth and to the Mayan People who are unfortunate enough to eke out their living on land rich in precious metals that mining companies covet.From my conversations with these amazing people, they too believe that the taking of these metals that belong in the Earth creates an imbalance that negatively impacts all life on earth. They are deep in Mother Earth for a reason and that ravaging the earth for these metals unleashes things that we do not understand but are all negatively impacted by.
***
Is mining for precious metals evil? That answer has not been revealed to me. i believe though that mining in the way that these Canadian gold mining companies choose to mine, with total disregard to human life, rights and responsibilities, and at the expense of Mother Earth and all who dwell on her, for mere profits is, at the very least, blind greed. You judge the rest.
Please educate yourself. Then do something. It is all very devastatingly familiar. "Do what you know to be right" (The Ten Indian Commandments).
That is all i have to say.
Um Set Nogama (spelled like it sounds rather that true spelling). It means, "All my Relations."