Aaniin Friends,
I hope you are well at this time, and I wanted to share with you some of our thinking here at Winona’s Hemp and Heritage Farm, and pray that we will all work together for that future that we see
Crisis is opportunity. The Chinese characters for crisis are 危机 “wēijī,” danger and opportunity. That’s now. Take a breath, maybe look at the night sky and see stars clearly. Enjoy this moment and breathe while Mother Earth gets a rest from our closed factories.
Let’s be better when we come out of this cluster of crises. Let’s appreciate each other, localize our economy, get cleaner, healthier, and grow some victory gardens of this millennium. Let’s continue to shut down dirty industries. Indeed, that’s our dream at Winona’s Hemp. Rowen White, the Seed Saver, calls them Resilience Gardens. With allies like the Indigenous Seed Savers, we are starting seeds.
Many of them. Nationally, seed sales are rocketing and people understand that localizing is an essential part to solving these world problems.
This week, I started basil, tobacco, sunflower and Lakota squash seeds. They make me happy, they are beautiful and they offer foods for our future. I am looking at a high tunnel which we are repairing, and plan to start many more plants there, including some of my heritage potatoes. We intend to grow more food than ever, and to feed more people.
Joining with our sister organization, Anishinaabe Agriculture we will help with those Resilience Gardens, we hope to have many in our community.
Our community is facing the same crisis as the rest of the world. Most of our community is health compromised, as a hundred years of US policy has done little for our health prognosis. The Red Lake Nation closed its borders this week, and the White Earth “shelter at home” is in place.
That’s good for those of us on the farm - I am now quarantined with six youth, all of whom have become students in Winona’s Water Protector School, learning twining of hemp, maple syruping and training horses for the spring time of farming and riding. We see our work flourish.
Indeed, for someone who travels a great deal this time of year, it is a blessing to be home. My children, horses, animals and plants are pretty happy with me, and I intend to keep my agreements with them, care for them, as they will care for me. Indeed our Water Protector School is now well underway, as many of the youth from the area are drawn to the horses, and farming opportunities.
In our territory it’s the New Year now.
That’s to say for the Ojibwe, it’s the time of the Iskigamizigan, or the Maple Syrup making.
That’s our first medicine of the year, known by our ancestors to be a magical remedy for late winter ailments. We are grateful for this time. And, we are, like our ancestors, deep in the words, and bringing forth this magical medicine and food. It is a sweet time. After the sugar making season is over, we will begin to prepare our land for more food and hemp.
We have seeds from the past few years, and this year, we will continue to grow them out, and adapt them, combining them with feral local varieties to insure resilient cannabis plants . We were intending to travel to Europe to look at hemp textile processing equipment, but that will not happen until it is safe. In the meantime, we have been asked to provide last year’s hemp fibers to an innovative Dine weavers collaborative, which is interested in using our hemp for Navajo rugs, and also to look at our seeds and hemp plants as some which can be grown in the south lands, and perhaps be part of bioremediation of the mess made by American industries. We are grateful to be able to begin this collaboration, and look forward to sharing updates with you as we move ahead.
In early March, we hosted our third annual Indigenous Hemp Conference, bringing together Indigenous people and farmers from across the continent to be doulas for what we call the New Green Revolution.
It’s clear that since almost all of the hemp textiles come from China, we will want to , more than ever, rebuild a North American textile economy. Now is the time.
At our Indigenous Hemp Conference, the cross pollination of ideas, generosity and excitement for this time resonated with all of us, as we then returned home to our communities, to face uncertain times. What we know is that food is life, water is life and this plant has the potential to be the New Green Revolution. We want to be at the table.
In this time, we are working with our seeds, and planning some small test plots of various varieties to grow for textiles and the material economy. We are also investigating some food products which could be produced here on the reservation- hemp pasta and hemp milk.
We think of this as a whole plant approach.
And, then we decided to do what we do best: produce locally. We have been rebuilding a local food system for years, and during this time of quarantine, we are happy that we can trade and buy eggs and milk from local Amish and Native farmers, buffalo from another farmer, and see the need and potential for the future to strengthen this work.
Spotted Horse Coffees
Winona’s Coffees
Spotted Horse Coffees - available online - click here
We are also strengthening our own infrastructure, and are happy offer our robust tasting coffee blends: Winona’s Coffees (Spotted Horse Coffees - available online), these are all fair trade and organic, and will keep you happy during these times. And, we are also making some artisan face masks- using high tech materials intended to keep the smallest particles out, and local labor. We do have the coffees, CBD’s, apparel, gifts, books and more available to order, if you like.
Know that we are grateful to you for your interest and work. And know that we are planting seeds of hope and resilience.
Miigwech for your support.
Winona LaDuke
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