Each year the budget for Ithaca Monthly Meeting (IMM) allocates sums of money to be used by the Peace & Social Justice and Earthcare committees to contribute to causes, projects, or organizations that align with the committee’s charge and Quaker testimonies. The Friends on these committees carefully consider where to donate their witness funds.
Perhaps you would like to take advantage of the discernment done by these committees and also contribute to these projects and organizations! This page lists where these donations went in 2024.
Ithaca Catholic Worker: Peter DeMott Peace Trot 411 Plain St. Ithaca, NY 14850 The Peace Trot occurs on Fathers’ Day each year, with fundraising happening in the weeks leading up to it.
Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC): Robin Fund 301 W Court St. Ithaca, NY 14850
Ithaca Monthly Meeting: Project Abundance To donate online, click Donatein the menu at the top of this page, then select the button for “Donate to the Ithaca Monthly Meeting General Fund”. Add “Project Abundance” to the section to write a note. Read more about Project Abundance here.
On Sunday March 17, eleven Friends from our Meeting gathered and discerned priorities they would like to see Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) address in the 2025-2027 Congress. Below is the list we have sent to FCNL. The four sections of the FCNL legislative policy statement are in bold italics; our priorities are capitalized, with specific issues listed under them.
We seek a world free of war and the threat of war.
1. Cut Military Spending
Sign the Non-proliferation Treaty.
End military support for Israel.
End the Korean war.
End production and upgrading of nuclear weapons.
Analyze effects of US military on the climate crisis.
We seek a society with equity and justice for all.
2. FUND NEEDS OF OPPRESSED PEOPLE
Reinstate guaranteed income. (Research shows it’s used for basics – food, housing – and better future.)
Legislate maximum income. (e.g., limit ratio of worker to CEO salary.)
Federal support for low-income areas, rural and urban, especially health care.
Lower the age of edibility for Medicare.
Federal funds for education at all levels.
3. CHANGE ECONOMIC POLICY
Tax the rich.
Prohibit privatization of health care by insurance companies.
End Citizens United.
Mandate public identification of candidates’ income sources.
Cut out loopholes in corporate tax evasion.
We seek a community where every person’s potential may be fulfilled.
4. FEDERAL/LEGISLATIVE SUPPORT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Pass the ERA; uproot patriarchy.
Push for national reproductive rights.
Prohibit book bans.
Provide citizenship for Dreamers.
Support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Prohibit privatized prisons.
Replace mass imprisonment with restorative justice.
Protect freedom of religion and speech.
Legislate humane border policies.
We seek an earth restored.
5. FEDERAL WATER PROTECTION BECAUSE WATER IS LIFE.
Prevent crypto mining, fracking and other over-use of water.
Ensure equitable water access and quality. Prohibit all water pollution.
IMM Earthcare spent the first half of last year reading and discerning on the food sections of “Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation” by Paul Hawken. It informed us that 35% of the world’s carbon emissions come from food production and processing and that “today’s food system has become the single greatest cause of global warming, soil loss, chemical poisoning, chronic disease, rainforest destruction and dying oceans.”
There are multiple ways of understanding these words, “mindful eating.” It encompasses a wide range of things, such as paying attention to the sensory experiences of taste, touch, and smell that are the pleasures of eating; paying attention to food as the nutrition that builds our bodies and health; paying attention to where and how our food is coming from.
Quakers, I think, also tend to connect mindful eating with our outsized human effect on this planet. Mindful Eating was the theme of New York Yearly Meeting’s January 2023 issue of their Spark newsletter* and the editors defined mindful eating as “Nourishing All Life While Nourishing Ourselves.”
To me when we look for the spirit in mindful eating, we are looking for connections like Thich Nhat Hahn’s conception of “interbeing,” or Donella Meadow’s “system thinking,” or Robin Kimmerer’s description of “indigenous wisdom.” Mindful eating is not just a set of rules to eat less meat or avoid processed food. For better or for worse, we are all crowded, more closely connected on this planet, and we can no longer act without consequences. We share them.
Mindful eating is, for me, the understanding that we are part of the slow unfolding that is the miracle of growth and decay. We are not outside looking in, but participate in this planetary ecosystem, in a deeply organic way. I call this “spirit” or “sacred” because what can be more sacred than the intricate interrelationships –which we cannot begin to understand– of life, time, and space on this planet. If we think of how billions and trillions of beings co-exist with us, big and small, short-lived and long-lived, each experiencing time and space from the vantage point of their own scale and life span, what does that do to our own human-centered sense of reality? We are all living side by side with vastly different experiential perceptions of what the world is like, each encapsulated in our own bubble of sensory filters. Yet we are interdependent and overlapping in ways that are incredibly complex. How do we even comprehend this?
The food chain is part of this amazing logic that inexorably connects us all. We humans have brought ourselves to the top of the food chain, but we have yet to understand how truly interdependent we are on others that need a place at the table. Let us open our eyes to the spirit and find a love and gratitude that nourishes all life, even as we are nourishing ourselves.
Ithaca Monthly Meeting’s Earthcare Committee invites you to a presentation on Heat Pumps, on Thursday, February 8 at 7:00pm via Zoom. The speakers will be Anne Rhodes and Leigh Miller from Cornell Cooperative Extension
During our October listening session on Earthcare, some people shared that they love their heat pumps. Others asked questions and expressed concerns about them. Are they appropriate for everyone? What are the advantages? What are the problems? Now we can offer you some answers!
New York is on the cutting edge of using energy-efficient heat pumps to change the ways that we heat and cool our buildings and that we heat our water. In NYS, millions of dollars of incentives to install heat pumps are currently available.
This presentation will talk about the range of heat pump options, their pros and cons, and introduce ways to navigate the incentives. Let us know what YOUR questions are, and Anne and Leigh, both knowledgeable Community Energy Educators, will be ready to answer them.
Depending on your building and the surrounding land, a heat pump can be geothermal (using the ground or a body of water) or air-source. You can install a “stand-alone” hot water heater, or have it be part of your whole house heating system. If “right-sized” and properly installed in an energy-efficient building, heat pumps use small amounts of electricity. And yes, there are now “cold weather” heat pumps” that can even handle an Arctic blast!
As our planet warms, the ability to cool our buildings (one of heat pumps’ big advantages over traditional heating systems) will become ever more important. More importantly, intergenerational justice — our love for the people and other beings who will be living in the world of the future — calls us to limit future warming as much as possible (AMAP) by reducing our use of fossil fuels as soon as possible (ASAP). Installing heat pumps in buildings we own and/or help make decisions about is a key way we can substantially reduce our use of fossil fuels AMAP ASAP.
On Sunday September 17, I was lucky enough to find myself on a chartered bus driving to New York City through very early morning sunlight with people from Extinction Rebellion (the bus organizers) sitting in front of me, and students from Cornell climate action groups in the rows behind me. The March to End Fossil Fuels was one of the most diverse marches I have ever been on. As their website said, it was “a broad-based collaboration among New York grassroots organizations; Black, People of Color, Indigenous and frontline communities living next to oil and gas facilities and infrastructure; youth, elders, workers, people of faith, and people of all backgrounds impacted by fossil fuels and climate disasters across the U.S.” Climate Change is affecting us all now.
Besides the diversity, I was also struck by how this march was connecting environmental protest to spirituality, across all faiths, in a way that I hadn’t seen much before. Many people were there to ask President Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop incentivizing fossil fuels, but I felt we were also there because we were reshaping our religious and ethical beliefs to recognize and engage with the sacredness of life on this planet we share.
I stumbled across a wonderful religious rally before the march started that I later learned was a multi-faith Invocation of Spirit:
Invocation of Spirit
People of many diverse faiths and spiritual communities will gather for an Invocation —inviting the spirit of the divine within our traditions, as well as the spirits of our ancestors, of future generations, of nature, plants, animals, elements, and all the places of the earth affected by what happens in NYC (the UN, Wall Street, etc) to march with us and help us to have the love, strength and courage we need to create a just and thriving world. People of all ages and cultural traditions are invited!
I listened to these religious leaders as, one by one, they took the podium and spoke to the surrounding crowd. It was a moving experience to stare up to the blue sky between NY City skyscrapers and hear people of all faiths acknowledge our dependence on Earth.
This event was organized through two interesting organizations: GreenFaith, a coalition of faith-based grassroots climate justice movements; and The Center for Earth Ethics located in Union Theological Seminary.
The Center defines Earth Ethics as “The discernment of how to live in relationship with the living planet. … [it] reminds us that we are connected to the Earth and that our moral obligations extend across space, time and even species.”
They further elaborate that Earth Ethics:
acknowledges that those who are least responsible for pollution and depletion of the natural world are the most harmed by them,
Ithaca Monthly Meeting has a relatively long history of supporting refugees, some legal, some not, going back at least to when Ned Burtt opened his home to “Esperanza,” a Salvadoran who came to Ithaca through a sanctuary network of social justice organizations. Nancy Gabriel remembers a Meeting “phone tree” of people in the mid-1980s who were willing to go to the Burtt House if called and place themselves between law enforcement and Esperanza and Ned, if needed. It was not.
More recently, the Meeting—under the “umbrella” of the Peace & Social Justice Committee—worked with families from Burma, Iraq, and a young man from the Congo. As we helped find housing, arrange rides, deal with various bureaucracies, and help navigate cultural differences, there often developed strong friendships.
In none of these cases, whether of individuals seeking sanctuary or immigrant families needing support, did the Meeting work alone. We often worked with other organizations, such as Catholic Charities and Amnesty International. Our networks were alliances, however informal or situational.
One religious organization in Ithaca that has worked hard to formalize immigrant support is the First Congregational Church (FCCI). In May 2019, the church membership voted overwhelmingly to become Ithaca’s first “sanctuary church” and create an apartment within the church to house immigrants who were at risk of deportation. The church’s minister stated at the time, “The offering of shelter to the vulnerable is a sacred calling. Serving the immigrant community with hospitality, kindness, compassion, and love is a ministry that connects us to the core spirit of our tradition: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Over the course of the next several months, the FCCI formed theIthaca Sanctuary Alliance (ISA), which is composed of several supporting congregations. A young Guatemalan mother and her daughter were the first to move into the sanctuary apartment and lived there for more than two years, while their case was being adjudicated.
On September 8, 2023, FCCI welcomed a Peruvian family of four to reside in its sanctuary apartment while their legal request for asylum is in process. At that time, FCCI sent out a request to approximately ten congregations asking whether they would be willing to be “supporting congregations” and serve as members of the Ithaca Sanctuary Alliance and be able to volunteer time and money to support the new family. The First Baptist Church, St. Catherine’s, the First Unitarian Society, the Living Hope Fellowship, Tikkun v’Or, and the Tompkins County Immigrant Rights Coalition have all agreed.
At its September meeting, our Peace & Social Justice Committee (P&SJ) decided that while it is not a “congregation,” it too would like to be identified publicly as being supportive of FCCI and ISA. We also decided to contribute to the sanctuary effort from our committee’s discretionary budget and we sent the names of four committee members who are interested in volunteering.
The committee also decided to take a Minute to the October business meeting asking if our Meeting would be willing to commit to being a “supporting congregation” within ISA. At the same time, P&SJ Committee hopes to interest more people in volunteering.
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a North American organization that is coordinated by people from all over North America. They have a very small staff (currently 2 people), and much of their work is done by volunteers on their very large (up to 50 people) Steering Committee. I became a member of the QEW Steering Committee last year when New York Yearly Meeting named me as a representative to QEW.
The Steering Committee meets twice a year for 4 days, and we had our most recent gathering the last weekend in April. While I have attended portions of Steering Committee gatherings for quite a few years, this was the first gathering where I attended nearly every session.
QEW asks all Steering Committee people to either be or to recruit a liaison to their Monthly Meeting. I will serve as liaison until I find someone else who is interested in keeping up with what a liaison does. With this newsletter article, I am fulfilling the major duty of MM liaisons: letting you know about events QEW is sponsoring this month. Each month I will also introduce one of the many resources they offer. This month I am going to highlight QEW’s monthly Worship Sharing.
NOTE: Full descriptions of these events (and other events) are available at the QEW website. The text in italics is quoted from the QEW website. The text in regular font is from Margaret.
with GreenFaith and Quaker Earthcare Witness May 8 @ 12:30 pm – May 12 @ 1:30 pm EDT
Hurricanes. Excessive Heat. Crop failure. The loss of biodiversity and human life around the world. All of it is horrible – and could have been avoided.
Climate destruction is being bankrolled by large corporations and their executives who choose to act against what is right and good, at the expense of our planet’s future. The climate crisis is a crisis of greed.
From May 8-11, people of faith will gather to learn about how banks and asset managers continue to invest in the fossil fuel industries that are destroying communities in the U.S. and around the world – and then find out how to hold these financial institutions accountable. Together, we can commit to taking the bold steps necessary to effect real change.
This year’s three day summit will amplify the voices of frontline leaders of Turtle Island (what we now call North America) and the Global South, whose communities bear the direct brunt of financial decisions made by Chase Bank, Bank of America, Vanguard, Black Rock, and others who invest in harmful oil and gas extraction.
This summit is for you if you’re just making the connections between faith, finance, and climate, if you’re a money manager rooted in just climate values, or if you are part of a community wrestling with these questions.
We will build on the momentum sparked with the 2022 launch of GreenFaith’s Climate Finance Campaign. This year we have a lot to celebrate, and the work continues! We hope you will join us and a growing number of partner organizations as together we:
Root in our faiths for resilience, inspiration, and joy for the journey ahead
Learn more about Indigenous-led campaigns in the U.S. and East Africa
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia, Friends Wilderness Center and the China Folk House Retreat are aspiring toward bridging divides in humanity, building community with nature, and lifting all toward the Light and a brighter future. Join Kimberly Benson and John Flower for a conversation on redefining conservation to include cross-cultural connections and building compassion and respect for all life, and how they’re making this happen on the ground. They write, “Humans have a tremendous ability to rationalize and justify exploiting what we ‘other.’ We need to remove the illusion of separation among people and between people and nature.”
John Flower is Director of the Sidwell Friends School Chinese Studies Program. Since 2017, he has worked on rebuilding the “China Folk House Retreat,” to serve as a site for experiential learning, environmental sustainability and people-to-people cultural exchanges focusing on traditional agriculture, folkways and craft.
In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular question (or questions) to explore our own experience and share with each other more deeply than we would in normal conversation. It seeks to draw us into sacred space, where we can take down our usual defenses, and encounter each other in “that which is eternal.” We welcome all to join us!
Together we are creating more opportunities for Friends who care deeply about the Earth and each other to be in spiritual community with one another. We hope you can join us.
I attended my first QEW monthly Worship Sharing this April and found it “spoke to my condition” and was very heartening because of the deep sharing. A new query is offered every month. Here is the info I was sent when I registered for the April Worship Sharing:
This event usually runs about an hour. For those who may be joining this worship sharing for the first time or would like a reminder, our usual structure is:
Worship Sharing in Breakout Rooms of 5-6 people (45 minutes)
Reflection, closing, announcements
As an example, this was the April query: We’ll be sitting with Mary Annaïse Heglar’s quote, “The thing about climate is that you can either be overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem or fall in love with the creativity of the solutions. If you feel inspired, you can read this article of hers beforehand.”
[The link goes to an article that is behind a paywall. If there is interest, I will print out a few copies for our library.]
Ithaca Monthly Meeting has had a long and loving relationship with the Afghan Women’s Fund and its director, Fahima Gaheez (formerly Vorgetts). Fahima used to visit Ithaca regularly to update us on their work and to sell rugs and handcrafts to support AWF’s work. Barbara Barry and Fahima were especially close, and they stayed in touch until Barbara’s passing.
The Afghan Women’s Fund currently needs an infusion of funds to launch an innovative program “that could put education in reach of literally tens of thousands of Afghan girls and young women. We can’t share details yet, but we look to 2023 determined to make it work.”
One of the best ways you can support her work is to purchase one of the hand woven rugs from central or western Asia that she sells to raise funds. You can see photos of the rugs here.
The following (lightly edited) letter is from the Fall 2022 issue of the newsletter of the Afghan Women’s Fund. To also see stories and photos from regions around Afghanistan, see the full newsletter.
Dear friends and supporters, This year, the Afghan people, including AWF volunteers on the ground, faced more severe challenges.
Working in the Taliban’s Afghanistan is very hard, yet the resilience of our volunteers, teachers, and the women, men, young people and elders is unmatched in the face of their harsh situation. Many local efforts have been successful due to their determination and resourcefulness despite the circumstances, although limited by desperate needs for funding.
While it is possible to move supplies and money to support projects, everything must be done very carefully due to poorly functioning infrastructure in many sectors and the harsh and inconsistent rule of the Taliban. For example, many AWF vocational training projects have been on hold because two key volunteers were killed and another jailed and tortured and now is in hiding. In some locations the teachers and volunteers who have run AWF-supported adult literacy and vocational projects just cannot publicly do so at this time.
So this is a time of working as hard as possible where we can, and working delicately and persistently to expand that space. In the past year this has meant a focus on elementary education and supporting dogged local efforts in several provinces to make high school level education available for girls.
Looking Ahead, AWF remains dedicated to women’s rights and empowerment, no matter the circumstances. This year has been trying for the people of Afghanistan and we are honored to work alongside them to find ways around the obstacles.
Recently we began working on a new program that could put education in reach of literally tens of thousands of Afghan girls and young women. We can’t share details yet, but we look to 2023 determined to make it work. And to share it with you.
We are very careful doing our work and always emphasize caution to our volunteers. Many activists, organizers, and average people (including AWF volunteers) have been killed, tortured, or jailed by Taliban in the past year. Others have had their homes confiscated and had to go into hiding to stay safe, only to have family members harassed and even abducted. Many struggle to have enough food and adequate living conditions. But they still do what they can, as we must as well.
Afghans are knocked down over and over again, yet they stand up again each time. And you, who believe in humanity, thank you for being there for them. Your donations and other assistance literally make the difference. Every help – small or large – gives them hope.
Thank you for your trust, love, and support. Please be in touch!
Best wishes in these difficult times, Fahima Gaheez Director, Afghan Women’s Fund
“Since 2002, Afghan Women’s Fund has been dedicated to rebuilding Afghanistan with a focus on empowering women and girls through education, access to healthcare, and vocational opportunities. Over the years, AWF has built and opened new schools for girls, developed literacy and computer skills classes for women, created income-generating projects for widows to help them become self-sufficient, distributed warm clothing and school supplies to refugees and guided numerous other humanitarian and educational projects like digging wells for clean drinking water and irrigation, building and supplying hospitals and clinics, and donating resources to widows.”
The spirit is leading the many thoughtful people in New York through the difficulties of shaping one of the most progressive policies in the union in regards to climate change. We in Ithaca Monthly Meeting, who advocate stewardship and respect for the Earth, can only be very excited and encouraged by the historic clean energy transition now underway, unfolding largely unnoticed by numerous people until recently.
The driver for this transition is the 2019 NY Climate Act – official name: the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. This bill sets the most ambitious goals in the nation for emissions reduction – 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and then to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050. Not only are these goals impressive, but also the commitments made to achieve them will be enforceable and written into law.
The methods and processes set into motion by this bill have been painstaking and deliberate. The bill authorized a ”Climate Action Council” to be formed by a diverse set on NY Departments, people, and organizations, representing a political spectrum of opinions from multiple sectors of the economy – renewable energy, transportation, fuels, buildings, agriculture, and waste sectors – to come up with the policies and actions to make the climate goals happen. Over the past 2 years the Council has been formed and has been working on how and what to implement. Just this past December they completed a draft “Scoping Plan,” which is now open for a 120 day period of public comment. See:
The “Scoping Plan” is a huge financial commitment, but at this point funding is unclear, especially since federal aid from the “Build Back Better” legislation has collapsed. Both a tax on the rich and a carbon tax have been proposed. Like all such large projects projected into the future many of its figures are based on estimates and unknowns. Practically minded accounting people are asking for more transparency, which is entirely understandable and important, yet how do you estimate what climate inaction will cost NYC or what affect the bill itself will have on the economy? Even the authors of the “Scoping Plan” admit this aspect needs more work, and it will be one of the major talking points in the public hearings ahead.
Expectations are that moving from fossil fuels will initially raise costs and money will have to be transferred to those who cannot afford to meet them. Expectations are also to create 160,000 new jobs – as well as lose some old ones. Economic justice is a serious consideration of the bill and there a requirement to direct at least 35-40% of the program’s benefits to historically disadvantaged communities
The Climate Action Council and it’s advisory panels include two people from the Ithaca area: Bob Howarth, Ecologist & Earth system scientist from Cornell, and Suzanne Hunt, a strategist and a seventh generation farm and Finger Lakes winery owner. Suzanne serves on one of the advisory panels to the CAC, “The Agriculture and Forestry Advisory Panel”. The new proposed laws will require updated accounting for methane emissions, a strong driver of atmospheric warming. That updated accounting was recommended based on Howarth’s research. There are seven advisory panels covering everything from energy efficiency to land use to waste, as well as a “Just Transition Working Group”.
Looking into the “Scoping Plan” and trying to understand it requires some investment in time, but the impact on New York (it will set into a motion a whole shift in energy use to electric vehicles, heating pumps, and off-shore wind energy, for one) is so great that it is well worth your time.
Earthcare will be reporting occasionally as this bill progresses. A few links and sources of education:
At IMM’s Peace and Social Justice Committee meeting on Sunday, August 15, we discussed a recent article from the Finger Lakes Times about Gayogoho:no (Cayuga*) people again living on their traditional lands around Cayuga Lake, and their interactions with the Seneca County Board of Supervisors (link below). We are deeply concerned about violence instigated by the federally-recognized Cayuga chief, Clint Halftown, against traditional Gayogoho:no living in Seneca Falls. However the article describes an inspiring development at the August 10 meeting of the Seneca County Board of Supervisors.
*Cayuga is the English spelling of Gayogoho:no, the Nation’s name in the Gayogoho:no language. Like the Finger Lakes Times, this article uses Gayogoho:no to refer to the traditional community and governance, and “Cayuga Nation” to refer to the organization headed by Clint Halftown, recognized as the sole chief by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), but not by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s Council of Chiefs. Each of the Haudenosaunee nations has multiple clan chiefs, or sachems, who are selected and guided by the clan mothers.
For many months, Clint Halftown had not been willing to meet with the Board of Supervisors to discuss the destruction and violence Halftown ordered in February of 2020 against the Gayogoho:no community. (More recently, he has been threatening eviction of Gayogoho:no families renting homes owned by the Cayuga government.)
In spite of being frustrated by Halftown’s lack of cooperation, the Board of Supervisors had not reached out to the Gayogoho:no community, on the assumption that they could only interact with the BIA-approved chief. However Bear Clan Sachem Sam George and a group of traditional Gayogoho:no people showed up at the August 10 meeting, and respectfully asked to be able to speak. Sachem Sam George explained how their governance works both within each Haudenosaunee nation and among all Six Nations via the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council of Chiefs; the commitment to peaceful cooperation between the Haudenosaunee and European Americans embodied by the Two Row Wampum belt; and thus why traditional Gayogoho:no leaders are more appropriate for the BIA and the Seneca County Board of Supervisors to be working with.
The Board of Supervisors decided to write a letter to Deb Haaland, the US Secretary of the Interior, which administers the BIA, and to two key BIA staff. From the Finger Lakes TImes: “While Seneca County explained that they would not ‘pick and choose’ who they believe rightfully represents the Nation, supervisors insist it’s clear that the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ leadership’s commitment to fairness and cultural values ‘offers our communities a better path forward to understanding and a positive model for the future.’”
The Peace and Social Justice Committee concluded that Friends wanting to support the non-violent traditional leadership could write postcards or letters to Secretary of the Interior Debra Ann Haaland and to key BIA staff in support of recognizing traditional Gayogoho:no sovereignty rather than Clint Halfown.
Debra Anne Haaland, Secretary of the Interior United States Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20240
Darryl LaCounte, Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs MS-4606, 1849 C Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 202
Kimberly Bouchard, Eastern Regional Office Bureau of Indian Affairs, 545 Marriott Drive Suite 700, Nashville, Tennessee 37214
Because this article has not been reviewed or approved by any Gayogoho:no people, any errors, inaccuracies or omissions are mine alone. I wrote it based on coverage from the Finger Lakes Times and email updates by allies working with the Gayogoho:no community. For more general background, I am learning from programs given by Gayogoho:no and Onondaga elders and educators offered by NOON (Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, a group of allies associated with the Syracuse Peace Council) and by the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center in Liverpool. –Margaret McCasland
–Update on the letter written by the Seneca County Board of Supervisors to Sec. of the Interior Deb Haaland, which includes an overview of events since the February 2020 destruction of Gayogoho:no community buildings:
Because of the genocide and disruption caused by European and then United States governments, bands from each of the six Haudenosaunee Nations are based in Canada as well as in various parts of the US. https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/who-we-are/
The Onondaga Nation, which lost much of their land but is still based on part of their original territory, remain the home of the Confederacy’s “central fire.”
The Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center is a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Heritage Center focused on telling the story of the native peoples of central New York. The history is told through the lens of the Onondaga Nation and covers topics such as Creation, European Contact, The Great Law of Peace, and more. The Onondagas, or People of the Hills, are the keepers of the Central Fire and are the spiritual and political center of the Haudenosaunee. Skä•noñh is an Onondaga welcoming greeting meaning “Peace and Wellness.”https://www.skanonhcenter.org/about-the-center
Cayuga SHARE (not currently active except as a listserve): To sign up for the listserv, please contact the list manager, Karen Edelstein, at karen.edelstein@gmail.com
