In recognition of Diversity Week, NBC Connecticut 30 is scheduled to air a feature on the Mohegan Tribe and the Golden Paugusset Tribe during their 6:00pm newscast on Thursday, March 18th.

The Mohegan piece will include an interview with newly named Mohegan Chief, Lynn Malerba, and footage of historic Mohegan sites.

Goal: To sustain, grow and share that which makes us human, our vitality, our ever growing and changing cultures.

Though I am currently working within the theoretical boundaries of “Mohegan” in which there are many facets of culture to be discovered, relearned, cultivated and sustained, in the future, it is my hope that this proposal can be applied in a general, and with some research, in a specific manner, to other cultures, perhaps in the setting of a town multicultural center one day. The “smaller picture” is perhaps a Mohegan Cultural and Community Center, but the appropriate and larger picture MAY end up being the Multi-Cultural Center of Montville, Connecticut or the Multicultural Community Vitality and Respite Center of Montville, Connecticut … I can envision this place as a gathering area of song and dance, arts and crafts, language and skits, social gatherings and international potluck dinners, campfires and marshmallows, fishing and swimming… My daydreams about this vision are nearly endless. I have this picture in my head of a ball field out back, an “everyone plays playground,” a large house-like building with rooms to socialize, a “stage” like place for people to share parts of their culture in a potluck dinner-theater-like environment… Maybe an all-accessible pool that is enclosed in the winter months… Maybe some therapeutic equine riding areas… a campfire area for story circles around the fire…perhaps a longhouse too for colder days… These are my daydreams about this “place” for people and for families to gather…a “place” that lives but in my mind so far…

A multicultural center in Montville, Connecticut could be so incredible and diverse because it could be sustained by the influx of workers from EVERYWHERE in the world to the casino for employment — there are so many people so far away from their cultures and their homes. Perhaps this could even include some components of a respite center for caretakers – sustaining the caretakers of our communities is vital to sustaining our communities. Finding care for a special needs medically fragile child is all but impossible. Even when insurance will pay for a nurse, to find a nurse in the medical field shortages can take a year! Families with medically fragile special needs kids suffer so much emotionally, financially and as a family. The family is nearly always defined by the limitations of the medically fragile individual. Supporting a medically fragile special needs child takes a toll on the family, the relationships/the marriage, the other children – in short on the life of everyone that touches the situation. All of these factors make having a life outside of the home quite a challenge. The health of our family unit and our people as individuals – these are vitally connected to the health of our communities, so perhaps the daydream is a blended multicultural center/respite center/place to PLAY. This is perhaps the crux of the “Uncas lesson” the true Mohegan Way to friendship…

Outreach: Reaching outside of Mohegan

As an example of the blending of Mohegan culture with that of the Montville neighborhood, oddly enough, the summer “fireworks” provide a good example. The “fireworks” are held as part of Mohegan Sun Casino’s summer marketing, “Hot Summer Fun.” It is an atop the roof of a cement garage celebration at Mohegan Sun that is held every Wednesday throughout the summer months. The Mohegan Cultural and Community Programs’ part of the presentation is about an hour and a half long, and our rooftop journey includes a traditional thanksgiving in the Mohegan language, some history, some talk/advertising for the free Mohegan Wigwam Festival in August, storytelling, dancing, drumming and singing, and naturally, the event comes full circle to end as it began – with thanks – to the Creator, but also to the Mohegan Council of Elders and Tribal Council for continuing to support the effort s that contribute to the Mohegan Way through the Cultural and Community Programs. For one hour, the electronic talking stick microphone thing is ours. Some Mohegan teens are phenomenal dancers, and the younger children are following their steps, learning from their Mohegan peers who are just a few years older than they are… Our teens not only learned to dance, but also, they are learning to pass down their traditions.  That is “cultural sustainability!”

Our cultural hour is just the beginning of a terrific night on the rooftop overlooking the Thames River — somewhat like a huge, free beach party. There is a local farmer’s market, local foods, the firefighter’s cook off competition, and an antique car show. The food sales are through Mohegan Sun, and every item is $1 each. The entire proceeds are donated to a local chapter of a charity such as Habitat for Humanity or the local food banks or the Salvation Army. So the elements of “sustainability” are nearly endless. Until I was sitting in this Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability program in our residency week in January 2010, a lot of these elements were missed on me: local food, local farms, local charities, friendly local battle of the band competitions – all highlighted by the reflective backdrop of Mohegan’s quartz like tower of a hotel. Mohegan history, song, dance, games and storytelling events see the sun begin to set, our “Outreach” program ends, and the Battle of the Bands starts… At dark, the fireworks reflect in the glass quartz like tower of Mohegan Sun’s Hotel, creating a reflective rhapsody in the skyline set to the music of the local radio station.

This very odd intersection of a “traditional culture” and the local culture in this really strange cement ground setting has become more comfortable over the years.  It was rather awkward at first, but with a lot of communication, and many good people, we have ironed things out fairly well. It is difficult to explain how awkward this intersection was at first. There were some major logistical issues a few years ago – for example, the Battle of the Bands was at the same time as the Cultural Outreach presentation. That was undeniable failure. Many kids took their first dance steps to the beat of the drum on the cement roof of that garage. Those teenage dancers who now excel in many types of Native American dance and win awards at powwows – they too took their first dance steps atop River View Garage. It is cement – there is no getting around that fact, but the casino supplies a great big rug with our traditional woodland designs. If no drum comes, Mohegan Sun has a great sound system set up for us, and we Indians have learned well how to make and use CDs! It is all about adaptation and survival. There is that little feeling of apprehension every time we get ready for a presentation – those little butterflies flutter within, just like that same feeling every time I first get into the saddle atop my horse. I don’t think it is “fear” so much as anticipation… How will this journey turn out today? I never know the answer, but I know it is always good, it is always fun, and it is always a different journey than the day before.

So out of a class at Goucher College on Day 1 of our Residency, forming a rough definition of “cultural sustainability” through a weeklong residency program with my classmates and professors, and into an overall understanding of the meaning and convolutions of “cultural sustainability,” we come to the end – of the beginning – of our journey. As our first courses in our Master of Arts Program come to an end, we have formed relationships, theoretical action plans, groundwork plans, and in some cases, dreams… These dreams together with an evolving outline and together with what I perceive as the beginning of an incredible education through the MACS program at Goucher College provide somewhat of a “blueprint” for an incredible journey. How the journey will play out in the implementation of these dreams is very likely to be something totally different than any of the considered options… Will it be a Cultural and Community Center for Mohegan, or a Multicultural Community Center, or a Multicultural Community Vitality and Respite Center, will it be all three somewhere in the town of Montville? Will it BE at all? The journey waits to be played out in the rivers and tributaries of humankind here in the land that the great sachem Uncas once roamed…

“All my relations…”

I was so pleasantly surprised to find a link to “relations” in Cultural Sustainability 601′s reading this week, Diversity is Transforming Leadership by Juana Bordas. This was a very familiar term for me since I have been taught by my elders to always be concerned as to how my actions affect “all my relations,” or “wami skitôpak” in Mohegan, and this is a very broad term in “Indian Country” as Bordas explained a little. In Mohegan, and perhaps in many indigenous languages, a word has many convoluted hidden meanings, or “adjectives” built in — unlike in English where the adjectives are added to describe the subject, the word itself describes the situation. Like “aquai” or “hello” — it really means “greetings” but it really means “I wish you well, I am happy to see you…” much like the Hawaiian “aloha” meaning not only “hello,” but also, “breath of life.”

So, who is Fidelia Fielding? (http://www.mohegan.nsn.us/heritage/FideliaFielding.aspx)

There is an entirely different word for “snow that is on the ground acting as a pure white blanket that will bring cleansing and new life to Nonok Ahki as it melts in the spring” — all this in just one word: konak. Then snow that is falling from the sky — konaku, this is kind of a verb, adverb and subject all in one word. The convoluted and complex meanings were often lost in translation or misunderstood. Anthropologists referred to Fidelia Fielding as a poor speller of the Mohegan language, which, one had no known spelling as it was never written; and two, they misunderstood that falling snow was entirely a different word from snow on the ground. To come full circle to Bordas’ discussion about “all my relations,” in Mohegan, “wami skitôpak” means far more than “everyone here” or “all of you” — it means all of you, all four colors of people, all of your ancestors and all of your future generations — that is a great BIG “everyone” all connected in this great big web. So the connectedness to here and then and the future is understood and expected in Indian Country. The older something is the more value it inherently has – it was here on Nonak Ahki first – like the rocks. Something “old” or “obsolete” or “nostalgia” is the most valuable of the residual of mankind…This reminds me of a story about an elderly chief and his loving obedient grandson. I will save that for story time!

There are many indigenous beliefs and methods that are being “discovered” and implemented across many fields… One such field is medicine. We have touched upon the “new discovery” of animals and our connections to animals and how modern man has just discovered what is simply “universal truths” to many an Indian. Of course animals make people better, normalize their vital signs, and can sometimes cure them! Animals regularly visit our nursing homes now-a-days. Of course “heat” especially moist heat, cleanses your body and removes the toxins by allowing you to sweat them out. Of course crying cleanses the system emotionally and much as a sweat lodge ceremony does physically.

Another field of indigenous expertise is farming. “Companion gardening” is not a new concept. The Indians have been doing it for thousands of years. The three sisters, corn, beans and squash, support each other physically, chemically and in feeding us. Keeping our so called “heritage” seeds has been harder. Luckily our great grandparents saw this day coming, when the people would realize the value of the old ways and the “old” seeds, and saved things like our pink beans and our flint corn from extinction into hybrids. A farm in RI, called Harry Here Farm, saved Mohegan Flint Corn through a connection with Whit Davis’ family in Pawcutuk Connecticut. Whit Davis is an elderly man who comes to share Johnny Cakes with us every year at our August Cultural Week. Chief Uncas used to visit the Davis farm in the 1600′s, so the connection to Mohegan has been cultivated since then. When Mohegan was ready sometime around 2002, Whit Davis brought back our seeds just as his grandfather had asked. Whit protected the family farm a few years ago and established the “Stanton-Davis Homestead Museum.” This farm has been an active farm since 1654, when Uncas walked my homeland, and this farm was a place of peace between Native Americans and the Stanton-Davis family, between African ‘freemen’ who visited and found shelter with the Davis-Stanton family, and between all of us today. Perhaps the preserved connection is the “peace” that has been threaded through all of those generations since 1654 — sustain the peace that has lived on this land for so many centuries. See the link under my Connecticut Museums links to the Stanton-Davis Homestead Museum…

I think the importance is that we do not necessarily know the value of something that we have learned to take for granted. On one hand, we need to clean out the closets of the clutter that is not making us happy anyway (McGibbon, Deep Economy), but on the other hand, we must reflect upon what does make us happy and whole. We cannot save every piece of paper that comes home from school in a scrapbook, but we must hold onto that precious piece with our child’s tiny handprints… Saving our languages, saving our ways of life, remembering and replicating our ancestor’s ways and knowledge – if we don’t do it, if we do not lead it, who will?

Wami skitôpak,

Susan M, Golden Wolf

“True leadership only exists if the people follow when they have the freedom not to.” (Collins,  Jim. Good to Great in the Social Sector)

three sister recording susan solo.mp3

Reflections on Residency Week pdf

Susan W. Meehan, Golden Wolf
Reflections about Goucher College MACS Residency 01/2010
I remember when I first seriously considered starting on my Masters… Several co-workers were starting work on their graduate degrees; it seemed like everyone in my household was going back to school for something. I was downright envious! I loved school and I sure missed the academic environment… I could pursue a Masters in anything, but I really wanted one in “Mohegan,” and no one was offering such a thing! The local colleges had some very dull-sounding programs that seemed to involve a whole lot of reading from a whole lot of books that were written by the dominant culture’s knowledgeable “experts.” Besides, due to a very busy life, I knew I had to find something mostly “online.” I searched gradschool.com, and I found out a whole lot about the country India. So all this left me a very culturally confused mixed race mutt and feeling much like the “part-time Indian” in Sherman Alexie’s book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

I am not even sure how it is that I stumbled upon the MACS program at Goucher. I cannot duplicate the online search that led me there. It just happened somehow. I asked my Medicine Person about this school called “Goucher,” explaining the spelling as “couch with a g and an er”. I value her opinion a lot. She is working on a PhD, is an accomplished author, and she is my Medicine Person as well. She knew Goucher, and she thought a lot of Goucher as a college, and thought that the Historical Preservation program was one of the best. She had not heard of this new MACS program as yet. Once I found the program, I filled in the online form to request information, and some Rory person called my voice mail the next day. Then some Deborah person called another day. We played phone tag a day or two, and these people seemed genuinely interested in ME – not me as a number, but ME as a person. It was the genuine interest in me, and in me as a person that intrigued me, and caused me to follow up and follow through with the application process. It was the “feeling” part and the “thinking” part that Rory mentions in his video lecture that I valued. Rory was excited about talking to me and discovering what a “general specialist” was and who I was as a person.

I still thought that perhaps I was over-reading into Goucher’s interest in me – perhaps they just needed students and money, but my Medicine Person’s very high regard for Goucher helped push me to persevere. Talking to Rory Turner was easy and pleasant… I finished the paperwork process, and this “Residency Week” snuck up on me in time warp speed! I was apprehensive about the whole thing. Like my classmates, I had no idea what I was getting into, but I was there neck deep in the mud – well, maybe snow – driving to Baltimore. In one way, I was looking forward to thirteen hour days – that would leave about ten or eleven hours in which to sleep – with no children, no medical alarms from my special needs daughter… This sounded like vacation! I lead a very busy life as a full time mom, full time employee, full time Mohegan… Anyone who knows anything about a “Tribe,” which is everyone in the MACS program now, – well, let’s just say there are always things happening which need attention! What I did not anticipate from the Residency Program was the incredible connected network of relationships that I would build with this group of people over the course of only a week!

So now, we are all home scattered across the country, and there are these voices invading my head often times during the few hours a night I am supposed to sleep, and these voices all have faces and feelings attached! This human element in this supposed-to-be-mostly-online-program won’t get out of my head, and this has taken me by surprise! This is not “online school” – I know people who are attending online school, and this is clearly not it! I can hear this Dr. Rory guy who I could listen to for a really long time – he knows so much about people and places! There is this Dr. Ross guy who really grew on me, and whose wisdom in this “leadership” area intrigues me to no end! I hear this unbelievably wise elder-like-beyond-her-years-Indian-Susan-lady speaking her words of wisdom. I hear the youthful exuberance of Maja, Kate and Lara and think about their out of country experiences, and this whole culture hiding underground just below the radar. There is a whole world out there to explore! I hear the remarkably intelligent youthful sounding Chelsea who reminds me so much of my weird oldest daughter. (Note: My weird oldest daughter thrives on being considered “weird” so this is not an “insult” by any means!) A couple of “watermen” type guys Mike and Guy who consistently remind me of dear old dad who was a fisherman at heart but not by profession. There is this genuine “urban revitalization” fellow Jeff who cares a lot about rebuilding communities. I can just see this truly outback young lady Sarah splashing through the mud in a 4×4 just like I did in my younger days! The energy of this young lady Stephanie is infective – she cares so much about her home town and home state. Then there is Jane and this image of a little house with a metal roof nestled in a paradise like green setting and a woman who cares deeply about this one little house and the culture, family traditions and language that are so deeply connected to this magical piece of land.

All of my classmates and the professors I had the honor of spending a week working with have touched me in such a profound and unexpected way. This program and these people have more to offer than I ever anticipated. The support throughout the college from tech support, the book store and even the accounting department has been awesome. The element of the person in this program and in the school is clear and resounding. I think I did more self-reflection in this one week than I have in a very long time. I am beginning to see a lot of pieces of me that all need to come together to make things happen, and that is what this embedded picture is all about… The human element of culture is perfectly fit into the puzzle of the MACS major and the pieces were woven together in the introductory residency week… and I know I am in the right place at the right time in this incredible web of people and resources.

A Nation’s Strength
“A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons.” Native Proverb

Residency Reflections, 3 Lessons…

Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have:
But of the best leaders
When their task is accomplished
Their work is done
The people all remark
“We have done it ourselves.”
Lao Tzu

This statement on the front of Dr. Rory’s syllabus really hit home… I remember a miserable failure of implementation that I was a part of when I served on the Tribe’s Constitutional Revision Commission. “Failure” may not be the right word here – if it were meant to be, and if it were the work of the people, it would have succeeded. Looking back, it was a success in that it was not blindly accepted by the people. This proposal never “felt” right, but until now, I never understood exactly why it was doomed to failure. It was not the work of the people; therefore, it would never have the support of the people. So one thing I learned that hit very close to home, and I learned to take these wise words of Lao Tzu to heart. Work with the people, for the people, but always, let the people lead.

Another thing is the human element of the Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability program and Goucher College in general. The human element, the compassion and the selflessness of the Goucher faculty is evident in their work. Dr. Rory takes Lao Tzu to heart in his classroom – the learning was immense, flexible, community driven and collaborative in the spirit of The Courage to Teach. I can picture that little web from The Courage to Teach in my head, but now it has a whole bunch of names on it – those of my classmates and instructors! The human element of learning, teaching and sustaining cannot be denied, or the process is doomed for failure.

A third thing that I have taken home from the residency is the “consulting component” of the 601/600 course merging point – the event in which the class played consultants to a classmate’s personal dilemma. That process and the success of that process was a phenomenal learning opportunity. Wow. One major point of the practice was that it was not our problem or within our ability to solve the problem. This from my class notes:

“Susan is the only person with the power to solve her problem. We are only helping her to explore the problem and maybe see other options by asking clarifying and probing questions. In the end, we may even clarify the problem or the question itself.”

I can envision this consultancy problem being incredibly useful for my work environment, my household including my children, and for myself. This is a very useful process for decision making and conflict resolution. I also learned that I know more than I think I know about “tribal politics” and “tribal peacemaking and restitution…” Some of the process and Susan’s answers were so clear to me even before she spoke – like some sort of second nature or some kind of “basic knowledge,” maybe some sort of “tribal common sense?” The process was one that I could relate to from studying and participating in tribal peacekeeping forums, so I believe that it is a process that will also be acceptable to my coworkers, my family and my fellow tribal members.

Overall, the week was more than I had ever anticipated. Oh – and there is a fourth thing! When classmate Lara talked about her experiences in Austria, and shared her inspirational slide show, I had a realization. I realized how little I know about another facet of my identity, my father’s side of the family. Dad’s father was from French Canadian’s (with a maiden name like “Comeau”…) near the Aleutian Islands. Dad’s grandmother on his mom’s side was off the boat from Ireland! What rich dimensions of my “culture” I have ignored! So, Lara, thank you for opening my mind to these other dimensions of my culture that I must explore someday. The week together with all of you was phenomenal, and I cannot wait until our July week!

Work like you don’t need the money, love like you never been hurt, and dance like nobody is watching.

Well, here I am. Day 3 in Baltimore coming to an end… Class was amazing today. We have built such incredibly deep relationships with our classmates in such a short time. Well, 12 to 13 hours a day in Cultural Sustainability “Boot Camp” should never be taken too lightly I guess! When minds get together on an incredible idea, incredible things can happen. Today was all about finding the fire within, and I will leave it with that. I have to go find my canvas moccasins!