MINNESOTA WOMEN’S PRESS The Elements womenspress.com | July & August 2021 | Issue 37-7 & 8 MINNESOTA WOMEN’S PRESSPOWERFUL. EVERYDAY. WOMEN. “I allowed myself to believe that in another hundred years, there will be others standing at this same brink of beauty, grateful for all that remains PHOTO SARAH WHITING SARAH PHOTO wild and wholesome and free.” — Terry Tempest Williams What’s inside? Editor’s Letter 3 Mother Trees Tapestry 4–6 Rebeka Ndosi (l) and Signe Harriday, Page 24 Why Do You Connect With Nature? Online Learning 10 Contact Us MWP team Intergenerational Conversation BookShelf 11–13 651-646-3968 Publisher/Editor: Mikki Morrissette The Wisdom of Nature Submit a story: [email protected] Managing Editor: Sarah Whiting Fire 14–15 Subscribe: womenspress.com/subscribe Business Strategy Director: Shelle Eddy Building Wildfire Resiliency Advertise: [email protected] Digital Development: Mikki Morrissette Water 16–18 Donate: womenspress.com/donate Photography/Design: Sarah Whiting Storying the Mississippi Find a copy: womenspress.com/find-a-copy Associate Editor: Lydia Moran GoSeeDo 19 Minnesota Women’s Press has been sharing the Advertising Sales: Shelle Eddy, Ashley Findlay, Pride Festival, Minnesota Orchestra stories of women since 1985, as one of the longest Ryann Swimmer continuously published feminist platforms in the Art of Living 20–22 Financial Operations: Fariba Sanikhatam country. It is distributed free at 500+ locations. Circle of Grandmothers Our mission: Authentic community-based journalism This month’s writers: Trinity Ek, Gloria Erickson, Air 26–27 Sarah Gruidl, Ashley McFarland, Paula Neeley, that amplifies and inspires the stories, action steps, Powered by the Wind Kristy Ornelas, Erica Rivera, Aurora Vautrin, Ella and leadership of powerful, everyday women (cis and Wagner, Anna Waugh trans), nonbinary people, and trans men. Action 28–29 Copy Editor: Kelly Gryting Net Zero Our vision: We all are parts of a greater whole. Our stronger future will be built from the collective energy Proofreader: Abbie Phelps Thoughts 39 of people who shift narratives to effect change. Cooking for Hope Factchecker: Selena Moon Minnesota Women’s Press LLC Distribution Coordinator: Ashlee Moser 800 West Broadway Ave., Suite 3A Minneapolis, MN 55411 Community Engagement: Josie Burton, Specialty guides Siena Iwasaki Milbauer, Lydia Moran, Vol. 37-7 & 8 Education Guide 7–9 Denisse Santiago Ojeda, Keely Schultz ©2021 by Minnesota Women’s Press LLC Cultivating Food Sovereignty All rights reserved. ISSN #1085-2603 Cover: Zamara Cuyún, “Midwife I,” 2018, acrylic on canvas, 30”x 40.” Find her story on page 20. Health Guide 23–25 Past Publishers: Minnesota Black Land Trust Mollie Hoben & Glenda Martin (1985–2002) Follow @mnwomenspress Kathy Magnuson & Norma Smith Olson (2003–2017) Buy Local Guide 30–37 Emerging From a Pandemic Economy Classified Ads 38–39 Editor’s Letter Mother Trees by Mikki Morrissette mong the wonderful books I read for this month’s Sounds like a metaphor BookShelf (see page 11-13) was Suzanne Simard’s for the last 400 years. “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom Simard notes that our Aof the Forest.” tendency to use fertil- It is part memoir, with colorful detail, about her childhood izer, instead of culti- in a British Columbia logging family and her evolution as a vating the biodiversity naturalist detective in forestry. Simard examined starving that makes a natural seedlings that did not thrive. “There was a maddening habitat thrive, does not disconnect between the roots and the soil,” she writes. account for the fact that In her research, she discovered that "mother trees" connect collaborative relationships are key to survival. and sustain a vast underground network and signal how to Simard’s theory was originally dismissed, then popularized nourish children in naturally diverse neighborhoods. as the inspiration for the 2009 movie “Avatar,” and has since been borne out by hundreds of subsequent studies. This led Simard to recognize that the long- established system of cutting down diversity Ecofeminism to make way for plantations of single-tree When we were compiling the “35 Years of Minnesota commodities was the wrong approach. Women” book, I discovered a quote from a Mary Turck article in 1989 that ended up leading our chapter on ecofeminism: “Woman, like nature, is treated as an inferior, The intent of this approach was to clear-cut forests in an object, a ‘natural slave’ by patriarchal culture. In contrast, order to “get rid of the competition. [The expectation was ecofeminism holds that women and children and men and that] once the light, water, and nutrients were freed up by animals and plants and rivers and the earth itself are all a obliterating the native plants, the lucrative conifers [used for part of nature. Rather than being arranged in a hierarchy, paper, housing, and other materials] would suck them up they are inextricably connected to the web of life.” and grow as fast as redwood.” The people in this magazine understand why supporting, Simard continues: “Of no concern was the nitrogen healing, and respecting earth, water, and air are essential added to the soil by the leafy-green alders, now clear-cut to our ability to survive, and thrive, into the future. and burned to make way for seedlings. Or that the bunchy Failing to do that is why the long-standing experiment in pinegrass provided shade for new Douglas-fir germinants, clear-cutting the environment in order to prioritize one which otherwise ended up baking in the intense heat of wide- objective does not work. open clear-cuts. Or that the rhododendrons protected the smaller prickly-needled spruce seedlings from hard frosts that were much more severe out in the open than under a Connect With Us jigsaw canopy.” This double issue is available for the rest of the One-third of the way through the story of Simard’s summer months to read, reflect on, and use as a point of evolution in forestry, she wrote: “Helicopters were spraying connection via our womenspress.com growing channels the valleys with chemicals to kill the aspens, alders, and of communication. Join ecofeminists and healers in birches in order to grow cash crops of spruces, pines, and conversation with our statewide summer series of listening firs. I had to stop it." sessions (see back page). She says she knew decision-makers would not be happy about her findings. "I just didn’t have any idea how much.” Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | July/August 2021 | 3 Tapestry Why Do You Connect with Nature? Sarah Nassif: Under a Canopy Nicole Fernandez: The Morning Throughout my life, Nature speaks to me nature has been a way in sounds, images, and to find inspiration, seed gentle touches. conversation, and get at I am a city girl, part- truth. I grew up under time Minnesotan, and towering Douglas firs in PHOTO COURTESY native Bostonian, but Oregon. The smell of fir my family is from the PHOTO ZOE PRINDS-FLASH ZOE PHOTO needles, the stickiness Cape. I have had an of pitch, and the story enchanting relationship of how the forest mice with the ocean, and I ran into the fir cones often journal an ode to to escape fire (on a the song of the waves’ Doug fir cone, you can serenade. see their legs and tails There is something still sticking out) are about the morning indelible memories. that draws me out into My love of trees has connection with the led me to work as an natural world. I am environmental educator, urban forester, field researcher, grateful that during and now public artist. 2020 and Covid-19, People and plants have walked in tandem throughout I was able to find history, and I am fascinated by how trees hold our delight, calm, and stories. With their much longer lifespans, trees bridge satisfaction in lakes, sunsets, and meadows around my human generations. A big tree is a portal to the past, community. with its own history of why it grew in a certain spot. The quiet of the morning offers me a unique opportunity It can also be a signpost of things to come as forests for grace and renewal unlike any other time of the day: the respond to climate shifts. sun peeking through my blinds, birds singing a morning In my work as an artist, I explore trees as a way to delve melody, or the rustling of leaves blowing across my lawn into the past, present, and future. For example, trees telling me a new day has dawned. were used as markers in the 1800s' Original Public Land I have connected with nature most of my life because Survey System. In the past year, I have been following a of the wonder I have that steers me as I wander, like an trail that has shown me how our gridwork of roads, our archaeologist out for her first dig. The excitement of what real estate documents, and redlining all descend from I might find, seeking unknown places or parks; the thrill of this system. Trees have observed the engineering of our discovering a new body of water where I find beauty, scenic society all along. That gives me hope that trees can guide serenity, or an animal’s habitat. I have witnessed in the last us in correcting our paths forward, individually and year shooting stars, the joy of walking on a frozen body of collectively. water, and ducks shouting to one another while dancing. I take small groups of people on “tree walks” in Often my senses are awakened and brought to peace by Minneapolis, where we talk about what we can do to connecting with the natural world. The tranquility I find on acknowledge difficult histories and improve our collective walks alone or with another provides me a canopy of solace future.