Who feels that they belong at Grand Canyon -- and that the Canyon in turn belongs to them? An investigation into the patterns of privilege present in green spaces and public lands across the United States, with specific attention to the NPS. Our guests explore what it means to feel truly welcome in the natural world and give recommendations for how Grand Canyon National Park can help more people discover and own their sense of belonging at Grand Canyon.
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TRANSCRIPT:
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I. GUEST INTRO SNIPPETS
AUDREY And so, then I said, “Well, what the heck is a National Park?” Because I never knew before.
STEVE The demographics of the National Parks versus the demographics of the nation – they don’t match.
NAIRUTI And I think at the Grand Canyon when it comes to, you know, who feels welcome and who’s belonging, historically, there’s been a really narrow vision of who that person is.
AILEMA And if it’s calling you, you will get there.
MUSIC TRANSITION
II. HOST INTRO
DOUG So, let me turn it up a little bit, test test test.
LESLIE Turn it up, Doug!
-Beep-
BECCA How would you describe yourself? Have you ever- blah di blah di blah… blah. -Laughs-
LESLIE Cut.
-Laughs-
BECCA Okay! We’re trying again.
-Beep-
LESLIE Hi, I’m Leslie.
DOUG I’m Doug.
BECCA And I’m Becca. We are Park Rangers on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
LESLIE You’re listening to a Behind the Scenery podcast. Today, we’re exploring the themes of Longing and Belonging at Grand Canyon and discussing the question: “Who feels welcome in National Parks?”
DOUG That’s right. Now let’s start with the question: “Who feels welcome?”
BECCA Yes! Let’s start with that question. So, maybe it would be helpful to give our listeners context first. Why we’re creating a podcast, why we’re asking who feels welcome at National Parks, so… Gosh, we showed up here as Park Rangers on the North Rim of Grand Canyon and – laughs – what happened?
DOUG Well, it was kind of touch-and-go whether or not we would even open the Visitor Center this year. And then we got word late spring that Grand Canyon was canceling all Ranger programs.
LESLIE And regardless, there was a huge fire that kind of blew through the area pretty soon after the season went under way.
BECCA Yeah, we were closed because of COVID-19 to the public and simultaneous to COVID-19, we were closed because – as I told my mom semi-emotionally on the phone – we were surrounded by fire on our isolated peninsula.
DOUG What are we gonna do as interpretive rangers on the North Rim if we’re not gonna answer questions in the Visitor Center, we’re not gonna be doing nature walks, evening programs? So, somebody came up with the idea that maybe the rangers can still be productive and work on a podcast for the Park.
LESLIE It’s very 2020.
BECCA Yeah, I think so. And, honestly, I think the idea of doing podcasts was appropriate not only for our special, but unifying circumstances with the entire globe, but also, it kinda ties into the theme of what we’re exploring here: who feels welcome at National Parks? Who has access to National Parks? Because creating a podcast can hopefully manifest an experience that doesn’t require being at Grand Canyon or being at the North Rim in order to be in community with us. Why do you feel like asking “Who feels welcome at National Parks?” matters to you?
DOUG Well, because I’m a National Park nerd! I love my National Parks. I’m so proud to work for the National Park Service that tells, tries to tell, all of the stories: the good and bad, ugly, and everything in between. From my perspective being in the Park profession for my whole adult life, I can’t imagine somebody not feeling welcome in a National Park. So that’s something that needs to be corrected… that there is a segment of people that don’t feel welcome in the National Parks – that’s shameful. That should never be. And we all need to feel welcome in the National Parks to get that “good vibe” that is available to all of us, to recharge our emotional and our spiritual batteries.
LESLIE We have young folks across the country who either do not know about the Park Service and what it has to offer them, or who have ventured out into green spaces and have been made to feel that – either directly or indirectly – that they do not belong there. And at the same time, this same group of young people is almost expected to solve the nation’s problems in terms of the environment and the climate crisis. There’s this huge disconnect between the expectations of these spaces and the realities of these spaces.
BECCA Mmm.
LESLIE How are we going to create a better world for those who come after us if we are not being inclusive and welcoming of the current generation?
BECCA (Breath) I think it’s important that we interrogate this question, “Who feels welcome in National Parks?”, not because we don’t know elements of the answer. To me, if feels very clear that not everyone feels welcome at Grand Canyon, not everyone feels welcome on the North Rim, and beyond. And so, asking the question, “Who feels welcome?” serves as a window to do better and identify that systems of inequity and power that exist in our larger societies, perpetuate themselves in our little community here on the North Rim and also in the Park Service, I think. I see this podcast as one tiny, little opening for progress.
When people listen to this podcast, I’d like them to… No. No, no, no. I don’t want to tell them what to do. But I do want to communicate: “Hey, these individuals that we interviewed, these amazing people, speak for themselves. They don’t speak for entire communities or entire demographics of people.”
DOUG When you listen to the guests, keep in mind they are speaking for themselves.
LESLIE And just as I don’t speak for every American or every woman out there, our guests do not speak for the entire communities that they hail from. Everyone has their own individual voice that’s based on their own personal experiences.
DOUG And boy, did we get some great interviewees, some guests, to lend their voices to this podcast.
BECCA Incredible human beings! We lucked out!
DOUG Yeah, definitely.
LESLIE No kidding!
Our four guests are as follows: - Audrey Peterman (in her own voice) - Ailema Benally (in her own voice) - Stephen Arnold (in his own voice) - Nairuti Shastry (in her own voice)
BECCA Our guests’ individual stories shed some light on the questions we were exploring.
DOUG I think that’s the best part of the whole podcast, is not the ranger voices, but the four guests that brought all these different perspectives to the table. So, I think the listener’s really gonna be wowed when they get introduced to our four guests and hear to the profound things that they had to share.
MUSIC TRANSITION
III. ALL GUESTS THEME 1
LESLIE So, in chatting with these folks, we discovered what it means for these four individuals to feel at home in the natural world. For you personally, when was a moment when you felt connected with the world? Here’s what our guests said, referencing poignant experiences at Grand Canyon.
AUDREY Here we were looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon, which I describe as the Grande Dame, the Crown Jewel, of all the crown jewels. You know? We were… we were not disappointed. In fact, we could not, in our wildest dreams, have imagined anything so wonderful and beautiful.
You know, we felt like, we felt a very strong energy and it was just very soothing and at the same time, very inspiring. And the view of the Canyon, spreading out across all of those acres – with the spires and the temples and the chasms and the colors. Ah! Wow. It’s mind-boggling, breathtaking, awesome, astonishing, no word can describe the Grand Canyon. Every word pales in comparison.
AILEMA And it’s good to see it in all its different moods, you know, if that’s the word for it. By moonlight, by sunrise, sunset, in the wind, in the rain, in snow, fogged in, hot days, cold nights. There's a lot to experience there.
And then you begin to see how big this this entity is. In our world. And it is. It’s a – it has a grand presence. And we just can’t see all of it to know how big it is. We can’t see or know its power because it’s so incredibly silent.
STEVE I felt very small. Well, practically, you’re just this little speck on the edge of this vast abyss.
And that’s the interesting thing about Grand Canyon you’re on the edge looking down in. And so, for an individual like myself in a wheelchair, I feel like I’m getting the experience that 90% of the visitors are getting: I’m on the edge looking down in.
It’s just one of those places, it’s so special. Not just in our nation, but in the world, greeting people from all over the world coming to see it, that love for the Park grows over time.
NAIRUTI I remember feeling very, very – there was a deep feeling of anticipation. I was feeling unprepared and feeling like, you know, is this a place that I can really engage with in a safe and healthy way? You know, what kinds of materials do I need in order to do this in a safe way? Kind of, what are sort of the norms and cultural norms and social norms and expectations of this space? So I think I was overthinking it a bit. And all of those thoughts and worries and anxieties sort of melted away the first time I saw the Canyon.
MUSIC TRANSITION
IV. AUDREY PETERMAN BIO + THEMES 2/3
BECCA How would you describe yourself? Have you ever felt like an outsider, or uncomfortable in a space, or othered? Where do you feel at home, and does this intersect with your experience of the natural world? It’s time to meet our four guests in full, and hear what they have to say.
LESLIE Our first guest is Audrey Peterman, conservationist and author. She and her husband Frank are celebrated for their work in encouraging Americans of Color to discover and love their National Parks.
AUDREY My name is Audrey Peterman.
I am a very happy Jamaican-born woman who became a citizen of the United States in the 1980s after experiencing America’s wondrous National Parks. I had actually been in America for fifteen years and had not really thought to become a citizen. But when I went out and saw places like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite, I was eager to become a part of such a great country. And I’ve made it my life’s mission and work over the last 25 years, I’d say, to convey that great love to as many of the American and world public as possible.
It makes my life so worthwhile. You know, I’ve heard people say that they’re looking to find their purpose – my purpose found me. And it’s just been more and more wonderful. And because my background is in journalism and my husband Frank’s background is in business, we set up a consulting company called Earthwise Productions. We got our information into the Black Press, into the New York Times, into NPC Magazine… So, we did a lot of writing and publishing.
When I found out that there was such a thing as National Parks and saw these beautiful places, and then saw that they were devoid of Black and Brown people, who in my estimation, needed the freedom and the respite and the inspiration and the joy and the glory more than any other, you know, segment of society… I got really offended.
I called my best friend since high school and I was telling her about all these amazing places that we had seen and how beautiful and she was like, “What are you talking about? What are you? What are you talking about?” Nobody knew! Our… our friends who were… college president, our friends who were in network anchors, our friends who were newspaper publishers – none of them knew that there was such a thing as a National Park system and that it belonged to all Americans.
And then as we got involved with the conservation movement and we were invited to serve on several boards, I realized that the people who were operating those non-governmental organizations needed as much of an education as the Black and Brown people who did not know that there was such a thing as National Parks.
So, we’d be sitting at board tables, and we’d be talking about the subject of more inclusion and people would be saying, “Well, we all know and love and support the Parks.” And I’m like, “Excuse me! No, we don’t all know and love and support the Parks. Half of the population doesn’t know that there’s such a thing as a National Park, or National Park system. I didn’t know until I actually stumbled upon it myself.” You know? So, that was part of the frustrating part. Because people stuck to what they knew. They presumed; they extrapolated that experience to all Americans. And, you know, I’m being kind when I say that because they must have noticed that there weren’t any Black or Brown people out there. So, clearly, you know, the experience could not be true for everyone!
And I would talk and I would pour my little heart out and then, many times, people would listen to me very, very patiently – and then, when I stopped speaking, the conversation would just pick up right where it had left off before I started speaking. And, you know, a lot of Americans of Color report that that is their experience in many situations, where they’re the only one at the table, where there’s not an equal diversity of voices or representation, you know.
Based upon race, people in America have completely different experiences with almost everything. It’s like parallel worlds. And so, when I came to America in 1978, immediately I started looking around for: well, where are the natural places that I can go, to be, you know, happy and comfortable?
Once you’re in Grand Canyon, it’s like your face, your visage, your countenance changes. There’s a light that comes up on you. There’s a freedom and a radiance – radiance! That’s the word! – it gives you a radiance.
Every human being, every living creature, everything that has breath, should feel at home in the Grand Canyon.
Now personally, as a Black woman, I know that there are times when, you know, people like myself don’t necessarily feel comfortable or safe in some places that are way off the beaten track. But I reserve the right to be at home anywhere in the world. I belong in the world. So, I belong at the Grand Canyon just as much as I belong at Denali or in the Everglades or any place else.
MUSIC TRANSITION
V. STEVE ARNOLD BIO + THEMES 2/3
DOUG Our second guest is Steve Arnold. Dr. Arnold works in education year-round: he a university professor and a summertime interpretive ranger.
In the context of this podcast, interpretation does not mean language interpretation. Rather, National Park Service interpretive rangers support Park visitors in creating their own meaning and personal connections to cultural and natural resources.
STEVE My name is Stephen Arnold. I’m a Park Ranger sometimes and a professor other times.
I am an Associate Professor at a university, in instructional technology, and that’s my primary job. And then in the summertime, I work in interpretation in the National Parks.
I grew up in northern Idaho, a very rural community. For part of the time, going to a school, an elementary school, that as two rooms, kindergarten through 8th grade. So, that might give you some sense of how small of a community it was – two classrooms.
I was one of six, with a single mom. We didn’t really get out and go to a Park, even though I grew up four and a half hours’ driving to Glacier, about seven hours to Yellowstone. Cost is a big inhibitor to visiting Parks. You know, traveling and that sort of thing at that point wasn’t really on the table, but we were in the mountains and it was a nice place to live and grow up.
Fast forward, I went into the military at 17 years old after I graduated. Got hurt. Sustained an injury there. And then I spent a few years adjusting. I don’t know, I’m a pretty resilient person.
Being a wheelchair user, when I go to a National Park, including Grand Canyon, you know, I notice if there are others like me or if there are not. But it often strikes me when I am going into Parks, whether I’m going there as a visitor or working, that I don’t really encounter as many individuals with disabilities as I’d expect or possibly hope to see.
And I think the longer I’ve been in a wheelchair, the more that I notice this… There are individuals that just won’t make eye contact or acknowledge my, “Hello.” And I’ve had that happen. I’ve been out, roving with colleagues before, and I have visitors who will totally look over me to talk to the other individual who is not in a wheelchair. And so, it certainly makes me do a lot of thinking about that, that there’s no way I can really separate that out. You know, I try to analyze: well, maybe it isn’t because I’m in a wheelchair, maybe… you know, there’s some other reason.
And I think about the National Park Service mission, to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. It’s kind of a lot to wrap the brain around, and I like how – if you’ve ever gone into Yellowstone, the Roosevelt Arch – Teddy Roosevelt pared it down to “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” And what I go to is, it doesn’t say “some of the people.” It says the people. And, if you’re a wheelchair user, or if you’re able-bodied, whichever it may be, you’re all the people.
MUSIC TRANSITION
VI. NAIRUTI SHASTRY BIO + THEMES 2/3
BECCA Up next is Nairuti Shastry, who describes herself as an “avid outdoorswoman,” “educator,” “strategist,” and “engaged scholar.”
NAIRUTI My name is Nairuti Shastry. I’m calling in right now from Virginia where I grew up, so, I am an immigrant of the one point five generation. I was born in India in a city called Ahmedabad and moved to the states when I was about six years old. I have two younger sisters. I identify as a woman of color; I use she/her/hers pronouns, and in my kind of working life, professional life, I serve as an educator and as a sociologist. I’ve worked at a few different institutions of higher education over the years in sort of the first iteration of this thing we call “career,” and have really worked to advance place-based community engagement and racial justice and restorative justice. In general I’m really passionate about transracial solidarity movements, anticolonial resistance, all of that good stuff.
When I was little, my parents took me to Shenandoah, um a national park in the state of Virginia, and once we got there, even from something as small as the looks that you get when you’re on a trail, to feeling like you’re constantly being watched and almost policed when you’re interacting with spaces, it just – I think that was the moment that I began to feel really uncomfortable um in green spaces and natural spaces.
And one of the things that I think has been contested and complicated for centuries, or at least since the United States was quote-unquote “founded,” is – is belonging in natural spaces. I think it’s been really a battleground um for a lot of folks of color. We see a lot of um policing and criminalization and just a sense that you know there’s one “right” quote-unquote way to employ, be with, be alongside, use, nature and natural spaces.
To me the perspective shift about the Grand Canyon didn’t really happen until we had the opportunity to visit the park’s museum collection. The woman who was speaking with us brought out this bowl – hundreds of years ago these bowls were made in fire. And she kind of turned the bowl inwards, and we looked right into it, and you actually see the fingerprints of this woman who had made this bowl. And that just felt like such a poignant moment, and I think really linked in to when I began to feel belonging in a space as vast as the Grand Canyon and feeling like natural and human history are these inextricably connected entities.
You know, for a lot of folks of color and especially for me, nature provides this space of healing and restoration. Nature is really, really helpful for me to be in green spaces outdoors, and feel like connected to something that is much larger than myself. Um and I really – I’m so grateful to all these folks who have encouraged me to um – to just re- participate, and re-introduce myself um to something that was once lost, and is now found.
And it wasn’t until I took the time to reflect and think about these you know micro-experiences or moments in my lifetime that I really understood, like, “Wow, so much of that sense of belongingness really came from more positive experiences of my racial identity in natural spaces.” You know, when you see people who look like you who are doing things you didn’t think were possible for you to do, it’s a transformative experience.
MUSIC TRANSITION
VII. AILEMA BENALLY BIO + THEMES 2/3
LESLIE Our fourth and final guest is Ailema Benally. She is a retired park ranger who’s worked at both Hubbell Trading Post and Canyon de Chelly, two National Park units located on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.
Ailema is a founding member of the Council for American Indian Interpretation, a subgroup of the NAI, or the National Association for Interpretation.
AILEMA My name is Ailema Benally.
I've lived on the reservation most of my life -- on the Navajo reservation. I am Navajo, full blood. I have two children: a daughter and a son. I am currently a caregiver to my mom and her sister, my aunt. We have a great time. [Laughs] That's what I've been doing since I retired; I’ve been caring for both of them. And, um, we have we have a very good time being together here.
In the summer of 1973, I was 16 years old. And we had just gotten out of school for the summer. And a neighbor came by – she lived behind us across the alley – and came by one evening and she said there was a job opening for students. And, um, she said come to Hubbell tomorrow and just let them interview you; you'll fill out your application while you're there. So, I thought, “Okay.” So, I went there, applied, and I was immediately hired. And by the end of summer I was doing a tour every hour. [Laughs]
I became a permanent employee in 1986 and just stayed in interpretation all the way to retirement. Yeah, and I spent most half my life maybe um working with the National Park Service and the other half of was being a kid. [Laughs]
… We were, we were not in uniform. We were wearing traditional Navajo dress -- and I didn't like that because people, they would try to speak loud to us. They’d speak slowly. And so, I didn't like being in traditional Navajo dress. I wanted so bad to be in park uniform so I can be treated differently. And, uh, I was so happy when I went into uniform. It was a very, very different kind of attitude and respect when - when I went into uniform.
From then on, I spent a lot of personal time paying attention to how people would speak: How they wanted to be spoken to, how - how they reacted to speakers, and how they responded to certain words. I was very attentive to that. And I realized that and as I would speak about Hubbell and Navajo people there seemed to be a gold ticket to ask any kind of question of me about American Indian cultures: tradition, history, like anything, anything they wanted to know.
And when I answered, I was answering from my own little experience with my family and they took it as an all-out answer for all Indian cultures in the United States. And it was an incredible, incredible “whoops” kind of responsibility. It’s, like, “No, no, I didn't mean that.” Didn't know how to take it back, because I didn't have the right words to say, “This is my own experiences.” And so, as I go on, the questions become more challenging, and and deeper, and sometimes very personal.
And there's a friend a very close friend now who was down the road I was at Hubbell… Wilson Hunter was at Canyon de Chelly, and we had both heard about each other through park visitors. But it would be years later before we would meet. And when we did, it was kind of funny, because we both said, “So, you're Wilson Hunter;” “So, you're Ailema Benally.” And, um, from there, we we began to talk about the questions we were getting from visitors and oh my gosh it was so incredible we couldn't stop talking about the challenges it brought to have people ask us of cultures of other people.
And so, we started talking together, and we reached out to other parks that we knew that had uh American Indian interpreters. And they were going “Yes! What you said! It’s true! Help! What do we do?” So, we started to meet. We had a visitor from the NAI Southwest regional representative and he goes, “You know what, you guys should go big. You're not the only one with this this discussion. This needs to go nationwide.” We named ourselves the council for American Indian interpretation.
We were… we were just so happy to share what we have and and realize we were not the only ones with that challenge, that we were able to call on each other, and and share the experiences we were having. So, we really had a great support of people around us and we were better cultural interpreters because of our support.
MUSIC TRANSITION
VIII. ALL GUESTS THEME 4
BECCA What is next? Where do we go from here? How do we move beyond explicitly naming challenges, to collaboratively addressing them? All four voices - Steve, Nairuti, Audrey, and Ailema, in their own words, bring us home.
DOUG Once again, this is Steve Arnold:
STEVE Figure out a way to let the Parks represent Americans.
If you look at anything from ability or disability to cultural diversity, there’s so many different subgroups of people that the Parks are lagging. And they’ve kind of lagged, I think, initially when the Parks were created, the visitor was… tended to be more of a middle-class – or higher, financially speaking – predominantly white visitor, most likely not too many individuals with disabilities. And we’ve made some headway but not as far as we need to, especially if you look at the demographics of the nation, they are substantially different.
I think from a Park Service standpoint, they need to gather data, and not… There’s this tendency for us to try to do what we think somebody else needs. And with my personal experience with that, that’s not the right way to do it. Somebody else can’t begin to understand what somebody in a wheelchair needs if they’re not in a wheelchair. They can start, they can get some good ideas, but oftentimes they miss the mark. You know, I’m talking with you - I use a wheelchair - but I can’t begin to understand the needs of everybody else.
And so, I think, to get enough data gathering from folks that have needs: get them involved in the decision-making, and then a renewed investment in making these adaptations.
You know, if you’re looking at the accessibility side of things, once you’ve done research – and whether you have somebody to go with or not – just the bottom line is to go, to experience it and see these natural wonders.
PAUSE
BECCA Once again, here is Nairuti Shastry:
NAIRUTI There’s a movement to feel like belonging is more expansive and imaginative than it has been. And you know even with this podcast right like there’s still work to be done, and I think so much about feeling welcome is beyond diversity. I think we really have to start with the conversation around inclusion, right. Folks can’t feel like they belong in a space, if that space isn’t constructed to be inclusive in the first place.
I think that exposure really needs to begin from a young age. I think if young people don’t feel like they can access the national parks, we’ve already lost the battle. I can imagine, you know, for someone who is my parents’ age, if they’ve had time and time again these micro-aggressive or just straight up plain aggressive interactions with natural spaces, it’s going to make them much less likely to: one, participate in land and natural spaces themselves, and two, advocate for others to be able to have access to that space as well. So, I think we have to acknowledge this like ripple effect that doing diversity and inclusion work has, and equity work has, on entire communities of people.
If I were superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, I think one of the centerpieces I would hope I could work on as well as, you know, as other staff and really encourage folks to center, is this idea of reckoning with history. To me, that reckoning isn’t just – it needs to go beyond, you know, simple land acknowledgements. It actually looks like moving land and resources and redistributing that ownership in a way that is equitable. And the land goes back to folks that rightfully own it.
PAUSE
LESLIE Once again, this is Audrey Peterman:
AUDREY Everybody’s gonna have to be a little bit uncomfortable if we’re gonna move forward together, you know? Because right now, it’s a painful place we’re in. We can no longer have this separation of who is considered to be worthwhile to be in the Parks, or who is considered, you know, to have the “sensibility,” the “sensitivity” towards Parks. You know, and that always excludes non-white people. We can’t have that anymore!
I would say, “Look here. Freedom cannot be given – it must be taken, okay?” I am not going to wait around on somebody to make me feel comfortable somewhere that I want to go. And I say, it is the responsibility of the National Park Service, and a lot of these organizations that get a good deal of money, to send out the message to non-white Americans that they are invited and welcome.
But, since that is not happening to the extent it should be, thankfully there are thousands of grassroots organizations of Color around the country that are doing this work in our communities and bringing the message of what we actually have in the National Parks and the public lands system to our peers in communities of Color. And so, I heartily encourage people to find one of these affinity groups. I find that one of the key desires or requirements that people have is that they should see themselves reflected in the visitor group.
In summation… you know what I would do? I would invite a group of these people to invite their friends to come to the Grand Canyon. I would work on the media to get some PSAs done, showing these people at the Grand Canyon and the wonderful time that they were having. I would invite them to do their social media campaigns. We would light up the world with images of People of Color at Grand Canyon having a wonderful time. That’s all that needs to happen, that people need to see that it’s accessible and welcoming to others like ourselves.
But I’d just stay to people: “Take your freedom in America, okay? Take your freedom because, you know, nobody is waiting around to give it to you.
PAUSE
DOUG And our final guest – Ailema Benally:
AILEMA Change how the National Park Service communicates the Canyon experience. Prime the visitors so they know what is here, and how to be a guest in this place that welcomes every living thing. The natural world is for every living thing to find own niche -- to survive and thrive. There are some places in every culture, there are places there, that have different levels of significance for accommodation, for medicine, for, well – life-sustaining, life, life life- giving resources. And so, people regard these in different ways and they use them for their own survival.
These places are accepted as a gift of life and greatly appreciated. These places have their own song, because they have their own special kind of life force. So they must be approached with reverence and humility. So you approach, just like when you're trying to introduce yourself to a dog, to a horse: you reach out gently and you let them know you mean no harm.
So when you come to these places you come with offerings, with blessings, with Thanksgiving. People will have a song, a prayer, they may have done some fasting before they arrived. And then that trade is made. You make your offering, whatever it is, and then you take what you need. And then there is that mutual exchange. There is respect, protection, there's life, there's food, there's medicine… that is given and taken. And so, there's like a mutual protection that is given from the canyon, the river, the mountain, for, for the people, for the family, for the individual.
Once you're there you've already - you've already been invited. What drew you there, what brought you there, are different circumstances, different people, different times. But in the natural world, in the spirit world, you are called to be there. There is a reason for you to be there.
Every now and then, I long to go back. And there was the medicine man that told us one time, “If you have a longing, you don't know why, maybe you've been there once or maybe haven't even been here before, but you have a longing to go to the mountain, to go to the river, to go to maybe a certain particular place, you have a longing.” He says, “Because before we were human, before we were flesh and bone, we were spirit people, and these were the places that we belonged to at one time. And we long to go back. It's our spirit that draws us back that way.” And so I think these places call us back, because we are a child of the earth, of a certain time we don't know of, as the spirit. And so, we go back to these places to renew our spirit, to renew ourselves, for however long that needs to be.
So I go back to the Grand Canyon every now and then. And stand at the edge, and just let my presence be known: I'm here to be acknowledged as a child of the earth. And that I'm here to recognize the majesty of the ocean, the mountain, the canyon, the rivers, the desert, whatever those places may be.
MUSIC TRANSITION lasting longer than the others to signify the end
IX. HOST OUTRO
LESLIE We want to extend a full-hearted thank you to all of our guests. We are so grateful for all that you shared, the grace you showed us, and your openness.
BECCA Here at Grand Canyon, we also gratefully acknowledge the Native Peoples on whose ancestral homeland we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.
DOUG Let’s keep this conversation going. Who feels welcome in your own community? And what’s next in your own scope of influence?
LESLIE For more information on accessibility in parks, affinity groups and natural spaces, and much more, please reference the show notes attached to this podcast.
BECCA And one more thank you to all who added their voice to this project. We are blown away.
DOUG I don’t know how we did it as a team, but man, we got some really, really great voices to agree to participate in this podcast.
BECCA Ailema synthesizes it best:
AILEMA Oh my gosh, wow. Wow! [Laughs]
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