This Thanksgiving Address includes a paragraph of greetings to each of 17 aspects of the natural world. Each one ends with the words “Now our minds are one.” The 17 are The People, The Earth Mother, The Water, The Fish, The Plants, The Food Plants, The Medicine Herbs, The Animals, The Trees, The Birds, The Four Winds, The Thunderers, The Sun, The Grandmother Moon, The Stars, The Enlightened Teachers, The Creator.
Following the 17 greetings are these words:
Closing Words
We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way.
Now our minds are one.
This translation of the Mohawk version of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address was developed, published in 1993, and provided, courtesy of: Six Nations Indian Museum and the Tracking Project. All rights reserved.
Thanksgiving Address: Greetings to the Natural World English version: John Stokes and Kanawahienton (David Benedict, Turtle Clan/Mohawk) Mohawk version: Rokwaho (Dan Thompson, Wolf Clan/Mohawk) Original inspiration: Tekaronianekon (Jake Swamp, Wolf Clan/Mohawk)
This column is prepared by the BYM Working Group on Racism (WGR) and sent to the designated liaison at each local Meeting. The BYM WGR meets most months on the first Saturday, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, currently via Zoom. If you would like to attend, contact the clerk at david.etheridge@verizon.net.
It's official!! The BYM Women's Retreat will have a one-day in-person and hybrid (via Zoom) gathering this Fall. Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 8th, from 10am-6pm at Adelphi Friends Meeting. Registration address is below.
We know we would all like for Covid to be over and our regular winter weekend gathering to happen, but this is the most we feel comfortable offering at this time. Let's make the most of it together!
Thanks to BYM staff for helping to clear the date, and to Adelphi women for agreeing to be our hosts.
The day will include worship, worship sharing, chanting, perhaps a few workshops, BYO bag lunch, and hopefully a few pre-planned coffeehouse acts. We are looking for women to help with the following opportunities:
Help decide a theme and queries
Sign up for a coffeehouse act
Lead an outdoor workshop (weather permitting)
Help run technology that day, including various Zoom capabilities
Please reach out to Inga Erickson (ingaerickson@icloud.com) with your generous offers of ideas and support. The women of BYM thank you in advance for pitching in!
The Working Group on Racism of our Baltimore Yearly Meeting is offering a reading group on CASTE, the extraordinary, highly readable book by Isabelle Wilkerson. I read the book last year and plan to participate. Please join in, if you are so led!
You can learn more about the group and how to register here.
The Working Group on Racism (WGR) is asking Baltimore Yearly Meeting Friends to read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, The Lies that Divide Us by Isabel Wilkerson.
WGR members will host a Caste reading group by Zoom, available to all in the Yearly Meeting. Zoom offers the option of access to the reading group by phone.
Friends are also invited to read Caste as Monthly Meetings or as individuals. The BYM Working Group on Racism is available to support these options. Ellen Cronin can be reached at ecronin343@gmail.com.
The Caste reading group will be offered via Zoom seven Wednesday evenings, 7-8:30, beginning Wednesday September 14 and ending December 14. Many across the Yearly Meeting have been reading and working in anti-racism for years. CASTE is a somewhat difficult reading rather than a beginners’ introduction to reckoning about race and racism. Each session will feature readings, together with questions and queries, and online, opportunity for large-group discussion and small-group sharing. Friends of Color are invited to indicate a preference for an affinity group. We hope the numbers will make this possible.
The aims of the series:
Offer white Friends an opportunity for spiritual searching and growth in processing the information and perspective presented by the author, seeking to understand historical and present-day prejudice and trauma from a Black perspective.
Offer a place for participants to practice ways to approach difficult readings and conversations, aided by somatic body work and supporting each other, especially when making mistakes and taking risks.
Offer BYM Quakers an additional means to educate ourselves together, and move closer to having BYM be an anti-racist faith community.
This month’s column, with a passage from the book by Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon To White America, 2017 and 2021 was contributed by Tronette Anochie of Sandy Spring Friends meeting. She also contributed the response. “America is in trouble, and a lot of that trouble - perhaps most of it - has to do with race. Everywhere we turn, there is discord and division, death and destruction. When we survey the land, we see a country full of suffering that we cannot fully understand, and a history that we can no longer deny. Slavery casts a long shadow across our lives. The spoils we reaped from forcing people to work without wages and treating them with grievous inhumanity continue to haunt us in a racial gulf that seems impossible to overcome. Black and white people don't merely have different experiences; we seem to occupy different universes, with worldviews that are fatally opposed to one another.” Response by Tronette Anochie: Where do we go from here? The BYM Working Group on Racism, the Growing Diverse Leadership Committee, the Reparations Action Committee, and STRIDE are seeking the way forward out of darkness. But everyone is needed as we move towards the Light. A Friend who likes simple prayers asks, “What is mine to do?” Each person should be asking themselves this question and then listening to the Spirit within for direction, guidance, love, and action. This column is prepared by the BYM Working Group on Racism (WGR) and sent to the designated liaison at each local Meeting. The BYM WGR meets most months on the first Saturday, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, currently via Zoom. If you would like to attend, contact the clerk at david.etheridge@verizon.net.
The Gathering The annual Quaker weeklong retreat, The Gathering, will finally happen in person at Radford University. This Friends General Conference (FGC) event will take place July 3 - 9. Plans for the workshops and other events are coming together. More information will be available soon. In the meantime, save the first week in July for this family friendly event. A COVID working group under the care of FGC’s Executive Committee is working to create a COVID Health and Safety policy all FGC events. Our RFM Adult Spiritual Education Committee has scholarship money available to attend The Gathering. What is The Gathering? The Gathering is a week of Quaker worship, workshops, and community for all ages. Friends come together from across the US and Canada (and sometimes further) to deepen our connection to one another and the Spirit. The Gathering is typically held on a college campus in late June/early July, and location changes from year to year. Attenders range from newborns to elders in their 90s, and include both long-time Friends (mostly from the unprogrammed, liberal tradition), and those newer to Quakerism. In structure, it’s part conference and part family camp. In content, it provides an abundance of opportunities to learn about Quakerism and to foster your spiritual life – and to have fun together. The Gathering schedule at a glance is available at this link: https://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/2022- schedule-glance You can also sign up to receive email updates to the schedule and registration information on the same page. Where is The Gathering in 2022? Radford University is the location of the 2022 Gathering. Radford University is located in Radford, Virginia, a town of about 17,400 in the "heart of the New River Valley", near the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwestern Virginia. The campus is fairly level with some mild inclines in the central areas of the campus. The well-kept buildings made of red brick, the green grass and pathways are welcoming. There is a mix of air conditioned and non-air conditioned housing. The campus is relatively compact, with shade trees, benches, and pleasant quads scattered across campus. Radford is about 15 miles southwest of Blacksburg, 45 minutes from the Roanoke airport, 20 minutes from Claytor Lake State Park and about an hour from the Blue Ridge Parkway. There is Amtrak service to Roanoke. For those who are driving, it is quite close to I-81. How do I register? Early Registration starts April 4, 2022 around 10:00 am (Eastern Daylight Time.) All full-time registrations completed during this time have equal access to workshops and housing options, and priority consideration for financial aid. Early registration closes April 14, 11:59 pm EDT. Registration will temporarily close from April 15–21: Lotteries will occur for any oversubscribed workshops & housing choices. All early registrants will be informed of their workshop & housing assignments. Standard Registration starts April 22: Workshops and financial assistance will be available on a first-come, first- served basis. Beginning June 1, there is a late fee for all full-time and half-Gathering registrations. Late fees will not be charged for part-time registrations. Deadlines for younger Friends: Junior Gathering (infant - rising 9th grade) and High School program (teens in rising 10th grade to 12th grade*) participants must be registered in advance of the Gathering. Check back for the exact deadline (often May 31.) Registration is not complete until FGC receives a Parental Release Form for each registered young Friend.
