17th Annual Gathering for Mother Earth to be Held 3rd Weekend in September

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 8/23/13 through 8/30/13

(THEME UP AND UNDER)  This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety.  Here is this week’s top headline:

• Seventeenth Annual Gathering for Mother Earth to be Held the Third Weekend of September

The seventeenth annual Gathering for Mother Earth, sponsored by Tewa Women United and community organizations of concern, is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, September 21st and 22nd, in Pojoaque. The two-day gathering is open to all cultures of all ages and seeks to honor Mother Earth for her lifegivingness.  The Gathering is a time for community unity to protect the most vulnerable people, including pregnant women farmers and infants, especially those living around nuclear production sites.  http://tewawomenunited.org/

Kathy Sanchez, of Tewa Women United, invited everyone to come together for a sharing of events, workshops, activities, and meals.  She said, “Let us all celebrate cultural ways of giving love and gratitude for our Earth Mother.  Her life givers need loving care to support us on our life journeys.  It is beyond critical time to stabilize energy with wisdom and unite for eco-systemic survival.  The time is now to awaken peace and stop the violent use of Mother Earth’s life giving energy.  We encourage all cultures, all ages, schools, communities and families to bring intergenerational thinking to this holistic event.” Both days will begin with a sunrise service at 6:30 and regular programming will start about 9.  Saturday’s scheduled program ends around 5 p.m. to be followed by a communal meal and evening entertainment.  On Sunday a scheduled program runs through the morning until the close of the Gathering around 1 p.m, when there will be a traditional distribution of gifts.  Food and drinks will be available and the organizers request that you bring your own plate, bowl, utensils, cup and water bottle.

Each year, Tewa Women United chooses special colors for the festivities. This year the color of peace, a rainbow of colors, will be celebrated.

Scheduled events include a children’s peace tent; health related information sharing; solar cooking and produce; healing tents; arts and crafts; and raffle prizes.  Attendees will enjoy performances of native songs and dances during the two days.  Invited guests include the Pacific Curls from New Zealand, Beverly Doxtator of Native Lifeways, Inc. in Canada, Yolanda Teran and Jose Males from Ecuador, and Katia Delgado and others from Peru.

The Saturday sunrise service includes the blessing for the relay run from Tsankawi, the ancestral Pueblo homelands near Los Alamos, to the Gathering site. The relay is open to runners between the ages of 18 and 30.

The Gathering will be held at Pojoaque Ben’s Gathering Grounds on Highway 502, 1.8 miles west of the interchange with Highways 285 and 84, near the Pojoaque High School.

Sanchez invites you, “To come prepared to revitalize beloved community energy to nurture all relations with water and sky.”  For more information, please visit http://tewawomenunited.org/programs/environmental-justice-program/gathering-for-mother-earth and the August 2013 edition of Green Fire Times.  See the  “Tewa Women United :  Indigenous Women United in Heart, Mind and Spirit” article at http://greenfiretimes.com/

 
This has been the CCNS News Update.  To learn more, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org.