There are Four Sacred Mountains
White, Yellow, Blue, Black
We must jump each one of them
Because we canwoven prayer by Alta from the dream of Cynthia New Holy
Spirit Aligned Leadership Program works to support essential partnerships of Indigenous women Elders who transfer their cultural values, knowledge, and experience to younger women in their communities. We honor the transformational leaders who work tirelessly from the depths of their hearts, spirits, and dreams to regenerate and renew their communities with positive legacies in language, lands, and long-term futures through a holistic vision.
Calling forth the resilience of Indigenous women Elders in our societies, we work to redefine how they are viewed and valued, first strengthening how they view and express themselves. We work to build sisterhood partnerships across North American Indigenous community contexts in which impacts can be sustained over time and distance, learning in relationship to one another. We work to disrupt the painful patterns of our histories of land dispossession and relocation within the realities of increased vulnerability of Indigenous communities to climate change.
Our ancient sensibility is captured well in a prayer of the Dine’ that addresses Four Sacred Mountains of their homelands. The invocation holds that as human beings we are from Mother Earth; we are of Nature, we are Nature, we come from Nature, we go back to Nature.
Transformative solutions are needed to change the status quo. The four sacred colors of the powers of life are within us as we face the unprecedented “code red for humanity” detailed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (August 2021), a scientific body convened by the United Nations. As we embark on Native American History Month the 13-day COP26 UN Climate Summit kicked off October 31 in Glasgow, Scotland to accelerate action on global climate change and the ambitions of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Building partnerships across movements, Indigenous leaders attending the COP 26 UN Climate Summit will advance a community land tenure that centers Indigenous land rights agenda to mitigate climate change. A growing body of research, including a new report released by the World Resources Institute on October 27 emphasizes Indigenous land rights and access to climate funding is integral to battling the climate crisis.
Leadership on an Intertribal Working Group working in partnership with Grand Canyon National Park recently met to discuss strategies that comprise a “vision of for the future of tribal relationships” building upon respect, equity and empowerment of the 11 associated tribes. An effort to expedite hiring directly from neighboring tribal communities by the National Park Service, relocation of bison from the canyon’s North Rim to the tribes, conducting regular listening sessions with employees who are tribal members, and increasing cooperative agreements with tribal partners are key features of the strategy.
At Spirit Aligned Leadership Program we celebrate and live our Native American heritage every day. We look around and we can see that humanity is at a crossroads. How do we regenerate our communities and economies that supports Mother Earth to renew, restore, and reclaim with her living tissue?
The dream of a young woman who had to jump across four sacred mountains was a dramatic movement of a young woman’s energy towards holism and healing. It’s the energies we all need to build on.
Four Sacred Mountains continue to stand at the corners of the world.
“We must jump each one of them, because we can.”
