Sludge Watch ==> Sludge Watch Christmas: One Water, One Air, One Mother Earth

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludge Watch

It is Christmas.  A time of gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion. It is a 
time of gathering in and a celebration of hope.  This year Sludge Watch 
wishes to remember the light of the late Corbin Harney, who died in July of 
this year.  Corbin was a Shoshone Elder who devoted himself to educating 
people on nuclear issues, the environment, and especially water.  Every 
morning, Corbin built a sacred fire on the hill at his healing center 
PooHaBa in Tecopah, in the Mojave Desert.  Every morning, burning sweetgrass 
and sage, the sky reflected in a bowl of spring water, he sang five sacred 
songs.  The Bear, The Water, The Darkness, .... his gruff voice tells the 
stories that sit in his heart, in our hearts, to bring our footsteps to walk 
the Earth in a good way.

I had the privilege of getting to know this wise and gentle-spoken Western 
Shoshone elder and spiritual leader. Corbin Harney has a vital message for 
all of humankind: "It's very important for all of us that we really take 
care of our own power. We were given the power by the Nature to heal each 
other. What we should be doing today is uniting ourselves together 
throughout the country, throughout the world."


To listen to Corbin Harney sing The Water Song:
Real Player needed:
http://media.pbs.org/ramgen/electricshadows/corbin_final.rm

to download Real Player for free:
http://www.real.com/playerplus/index.html


Excerpt from The Way It Is: One Water, One Air, One Mother Earth
by Corbin Harney

As I see it all around me, the trees are dying out, our water is 
contaminated, and our air is not good to breathe. Those are the reasons why 
today I'm trying my best to come back to our ways of thousands of years ago.

We have to come back to the Native way of life. The Native way is to pray 
for everything, to take care of everything. Our Mother Earth is very 
important. We can't just misuse her and think she's going to continue. We 
can see what's taking place: the animal life, the tree life, even the water 
is telling us, but we're not paying attention to it.

We've been told to take care of what we've got so that we can leave 
something for the younger generation. We've tried to practice that from the 
beginning of our life, but we forgot our way.

I never have spoken out until lately here, the Spirit coming to me and 
telling me, "Well, you are going to have to give us a hand here." In a 
vision, not too many years ago, the water came to me and told me, "I'm going 
to look like water, but pretty soon nobody's going to use me." These words 
came from the water, the Spirit. Now I see that the water has been polluted 
everywhere you go, and pretty soon we're not going to be able to use it.

All living things like to enjoy clean water. The rocks right here, they want 
clean water. The tree life has to have clean water. We are all one life, and 
clean water is something we have to rely on.

We, the people, are going to have to put our thoughts together to save our 
planet here. We only have One Water . . . One Air . . . One Mother Earth.

______________________________________________________________________

In memory of Corbin Harney
March 24, 1920 - July 10, 2007


..........................................................

for more about Corbin Harney and his message, and his music see:

PBS Circle of Stories
http://www.pbs.org/circleofstories/storytellers/corbin_harney.html

http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=c_harney

http://www.shundahai.org/Corbin_Harney.htm

RECOMMENDED READING

The Way It Is: One Water...One Air...One Mother Earth
by Corbin Harney, Bill Rosse, Paul Clemens (Introduction)