Beautiful column and photos as always. I 'batch up' (haha) your writings so when I have some nice interrupted time, I can read and absorb them without the rest of 'life' getting in the way. THANK YOU!
Antonia, thank you so much for this post. I spend a lot of time thinking about property law - especially its capacity to recognize and embrace Indigenous laws through alternative forms of ownership and land tenure. I wrote this paper last year on personhood and urban parks in the Canadian context, in case it's of interest - https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol50/iss1/1/. Any interest in a reading group??
Sometimes when people feel strongly about something, hopelessness can creep in. A while back I participated in a class of great value. Rather than focusing on the world that is, one aspect of the program was TO REALIZE THAT EVERYTHING THAT IS started out as simply one thought by one person. It remains the currency of change in our world even if it does not always feel that way. Keep writing Antonia. Always great to check in.
Sorry that the legalities aren't in nature's favour. Here in the UK the license for an open cast mine expired last year and the miners... kept mining. Enter confusion about the void of enforcement. More positively, elsewhere in the world rivers have been given legal rights.
“Law, as I’ve written before, is a reflection of the dominant society’s values at any given time.” And a reflection of the masses of the dominant society’s willingness to fucking pay attention … which is a value of sorts too, I suppose. Understandable, given the mighty weight of capital directed toward distraction and obfuscation, but still, it pisses me off. It’s all going on right in front of our noses!
I was at a discussion in Missoula re: the leases years ago in the fading days when the Obama administration was still running the show and there was talk then of assigning the Badger Two national monument status. Tribal representatives were vehemently opposed then and I hope they continue to hold the line. The only answer is #landback. As for people wringing their hands over access when the tribe is returned what is and has always been rightfully theirs (even if via a concept utterly foreign to most of our ideas of what “theirs” even means), I pay $100/year to buy a conservation license from the CSKT to access their lands for recreational purposes, including the tribal wilderness. Hard to imagine the Blackfeet doing anything differently. Some sites might be off limits (Chief Mountain, in GNP, comes to mind, which they should also absolutely have back and limit access to) but that isn’t up to us, as you say.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your love for this place, Antonia. It is inspiring. ❤️
The tagline for this post was right on point for me this morning. I'm older now (58) at the end of this month, not in the best of physical health. And I'm someone with a lot of academic letters behind their name to which I never truly "lived up" according to the standard Western secular script. I should have a book to my credit! Now's the time!
I had another Big Project Idea the other day, and it would involve me living up to that life script... which may mean that it's ill-advised for me to push the idea forward any more strenuously than I've already done. I've pushed seemingly good project ideas before, mostly to the benefit of a wealthy employer and that collection of digital inkblots I call a resume. But the result for me on a spiritual level was an immense amount of strife.
Maybe what my God wants me to do is: show up to the mosque for prayer and community meals occasionally; sit on the couch and listen to a podcast about the life of the Prophet SAWS; make occasional outreach calls to other fellows in recovery; cook my meals. And take walks by a nearby river, frequently. In short: live a very, very simple life.
I don't know: maybe I'll get that text message, Insha Allah. And maybe I won't, Insha Allah.
This is beautiful. And the scene of the shock flash gave me goosebumps! What an awesome gathering to be a part of. And thank you for sharing your creek song. ✨
It's just beautiful Antonia, I can almost smell the trails, your writing is like poems, those images and the sounds from the rivers, makes us feel like we're part of it. 🙏💥💙
In the same way that staring into a campfire seems to call forth something primal...as if being called back to a oneness that, like the sacred, can never be captured, described, reduced, or tamed by human language...as a young boy I used to spend hours adrift in the music and the magic of mountain streams. Whether fishing, or just staring deep into time, I was lost to the world, but at the same time never felt so at home. Never felt so connected.
Thank you for sharing, Nia. The photos are lovely.
I've been asked to part of a focus group looking at hiking access on a new acquisition by our local land trust, a 216-acre farm that would have been sold for development had the land trust not bought it and would doubtless have been covered with 5-acre ranchettes each with their own well, septic, outbuildings, lawn, and driveway.
The local organic farm school will regeneratively farm the land. The public will have access to trails and to hundreds of feet of shoreline and beach. The property will be protected against development "in perpetuity", whatever that means.
All good, right? So, what's bugging me?
It's that the only way to protect land from development is to own it. It's still property.
Is that the right answer? I don't know. It seems it's the only one we have right now.
What a land Montana seems to be! I hope to pack the Subaru and come visit some day. As much as it seems weird to say, I feel that same way about much of Arkansas. Maybe it's not quite so vast, but I get to live amongst the oaks and pines and the cricks. It's not too shabby.
What an incredible result. Whew. And that shock-flash moment...
You said that it's not often that an effort gets a win like this - do you think this is in itself a potential turning-point and important precedent for bigger things, or just adding a bit more to the existing weight of cases that had a good outcome? What can you see (or hope to see) happening next in related cases as a result?
The sound of that creek is so lovely I've played it three times already. :) I'm so grateful that you were there to witness the Gathering and to share with us that news and what it was like to be there. That line about NEPA and NHPA....just no. I worked (that is, tried to work) in those frameworks and it's a maddening venture, the idea of that nothing is elevated over other 'priorities.' Just makes my blood start racing. I love the shock-flash, the feeling of that type of energy being recognized by a crowd, noting the resistance and why. Land back is beyond necessary--this back and forth and the values of commerce over land is so gutting on so many levels. I'm so glad you're writing about it and centering relationships we hold with the lands we live on. This line: "It’s asking questions of belonging and responsibility, and struggling with your own place in the world." Yes. That's exactly it. 💜
Beautiful column and photos as always. I 'batch up' (haha) your writings so when I have some nice interrupted time, I can read and absorb them without the rest of 'life' getting in the way. THANK YOU!
"Don't just do something. Sit there."
-Sylvia Boorstein
Antonia, thank you so much for this post. I spend a lot of time thinking about property law - especially its capacity to recognize and embrace Indigenous laws through alternative forms of ownership and land tenure. I wrote this paper last year on personhood and urban parks in the Canadian context, in case it's of interest - https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol50/iss1/1/. Any interest in a reading group??
> Or we could just abolish capitalism. Can’t take that long if we all team up, can it?
I’m up for this. I have a couple of days free next week.
Sometimes when people feel strongly about something, hopelessness can creep in. A while back I participated in a class of great value. Rather than focusing on the world that is, one aspect of the program was TO REALIZE THAT EVERYTHING THAT IS started out as simply one thought by one person. It remains the currency of change in our world even if it does not always feel that way. Keep writing Antonia. Always great to check in.
While reading, I felt the gamut of emotion -- interest, curiosity, joy, tension, uneasiness and peace.
Sorry that the legalities aren't in nature's favour. Here in the UK the license for an open cast mine expired last year and the miners... kept mining. Enter confusion about the void of enforcement. More positively, elsewhere in the world rivers have been given legal rights.
“Law, as I’ve written before, is a reflection of the dominant society’s values at any given time.” And a reflection of the masses of the dominant society’s willingness to fucking pay attention … which is a value of sorts too, I suppose. Understandable, given the mighty weight of capital directed toward distraction and obfuscation, but still, it pisses me off. It’s all going on right in front of our noses!
I was at a discussion in Missoula re: the leases years ago in the fading days when the Obama administration was still running the show and there was talk then of assigning the Badger Two national monument status. Tribal representatives were vehemently opposed then and I hope they continue to hold the line. The only answer is #landback. As for people wringing their hands over access when the tribe is returned what is and has always been rightfully theirs (even if via a concept utterly foreign to most of our ideas of what “theirs” even means), I pay $100/year to buy a conservation license from the CSKT to access their lands for recreational purposes, including the tribal wilderness. Hard to imagine the Blackfeet doing anything differently. Some sites might be off limits (Chief Mountain, in GNP, comes to mind, which they should also absolutely have back and limit access to) but that isn’t up to us, as you say.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your love for this place, Antonia. It is inspiring. ❤️
Your made my heart leak out my eyes. Thanks once again for your writing and putting into words the love I feel for this land!
The tagline for this post was right on point for me this morning. I'm older now (58) at the end of this month, not in the best of physical health. And I'm someone with a lot of academic letters behind their name to which I never truly "lived up" according to the standard Western secular script. I should have a book to my credit! Now's the time!
I had another Big Project Idea the other day, and it would involve me living up to that life script... which may mean that it's ill-advised for me to push the idea forward any more strenuously than I've already done. I've pushed seemingly good project ideas before, mostly to the benefit of a wealthy employer and that collection of digital inkblots I call a resume. But the result for me on a spiritual level was an immense amount of strife.
Maybe what my God wants me to do is: show up to the mosque for prayer and community meals occasionally; sit on the couch and listen to a podcast about the life of the Prophet SAWS; make occasional outreach calls to other fellows in recovery; cook my meals. And take walks by a nearby river, frequently. In short: live a very, very simple life.
I don't know: maybe I'll get that text message, Insha Allah. And maybe I won't, Insha Allah.
This is beautiful. And the scene of the shock flash gave me goosebumps! What an awesome gathering to be a part of. And thank you for sharing your creek song. ✨
It's just beautiful Antonia, I can almost smell the trails, your writing is like poems, those images and the sounds from the rivers, makes us feel like we're part of it. 🙏💥💙
In the same way that staring into a campfire seems to call forth something primal...as if being called back to a oneness that, like the sacred, can never be captured, described, reduced, or tamed by human language...as a young boy I used to spend hours adrift in the music and the magic of mountain streams. Whether fishing, or just staring deep into time, I was lost to the world, but at the same time never felt so at home. Never felt so connected.
Thank you for sharing, Nia. The photos are lovely.
Ah, Nia, your timing!
I've been asked to part of a focus group looking at hiking access on a new acquisition by our local land trust, a 216-acre farm that would have been sold for development had the land trust not bought it and would doubtless have been covered with 5-acre ranchettes each with their own well, septic, outbuildings, lawn, and driveway.
The local organic farm school will regeneratively farm the land. The public will have access to trails and to hundreds of feet of shoreline and beach. The property will be protected against development "in perpetuity", whatever that means.
All good, right? So, what's bugging me?
It's that the only way to protect land from development is to own it. It's still property.
Is that the right answer? I don't know. It seems it's the only one we have right now.
What a land Montana seems to be! I hope to pack the Subaru and come visit some day. As much as it seems weird to say, I feel that same way about much of Arkansas. Maybe it's not quite so vast, but I get to live amongst the oaks and pines and the cricks. It's not too shabby.
What an incredible result. Whew. And that shock-flash moment...
You said that it's not often that an effort gets a win like this - do you think this is in itself a potential turning-point and important precedent for bigger things, or just adding a bit more to the existing weight of cases that had a good outcome? What can you see (or hope to see) happening next in related cases as a result?
The sound of that creek is so lovely I've played it three times already. :) I'm so grateful that you were there to witness the Gathering and to share with us that news and what it was like to be there. That line about NEPA and NHPA....just no. I worked (that is, tried to work) in those frameworks and it's a maddening venture, the idea of that nothing is elevated over other 'priorities.' Just makes my blood start racing. I love the shock-flash, the feeling of that type of energy being recognized by a crowd, noting the resistance and why. Land back is beyond necessary--this back and forth and the values of commerce over land is so gutting on so many levels. I'm so glad you're writing about it and centering relationships we hold with the lands we live on. This line: "It’s asking questions of belonging and responsibility, and struggling with your own place in the world." Yes. That's exactly it. 💜