Moment of Meditation: Breathing & Being in the Present Moment You are deeply rooted in the Earth. Her Amazing Grace flows through you. Her Divine Breath breathes through you. As wide as rivers run, and as far as oceans go You are deeply one with Earth Community. You are rooted in the Earth, and Earth is rooted in you. by Melanie L. Harris
ECOWOMANISM Healing Grace by Charles Bibbs
ECOWOMANISM Ecowomanism is an approach to earth justice that centers the theological voices, ethical perspectives, multilayered analysis, and experiences of women of color, specifically African American women.
ECOWOMANISM Methodological Steps 1. Honoring Experience 2. Reflecting on Experience Connection with Earth Earth as Sacred Shared Experiences of beauty and suffering Parallel oppressions between Black Women and the Earth 3. Conducting Womanist Social Analysis
ECOWOMANISM Methodological Steps 4. Critically Exploring Tradition 5. Engaging Transformation 6. Sharing Dialogue 7. Taking Action for Justice - Sharing in Justice work as a protest to the logic of domination, racial ignorance and white supremacy
Honoring Experience: EcoWomanist Praxis, Spirituality, and Activism Kathe Hambrick-Jackson, of the River Road African American Museum in Louisiana, raises foods that would have been familiar to slaves, like okra and pears. New York Times, The Seeds of Survival June 13, 2012
EcoWomanist Praxis EcoWomanist Spirituality ~ Honoring Sacred Earth Communion with Earth Teaching Earth Care Teaching Earth Care to Future Generations
Step One: Honoring Experience Alice Walker The Color Purple Delores S. Williams Sisters in the Wilderness Sin, Nature, and Black Women s Bodies Emilie M. Townes Breaking the Fine Reign of Death Ecowomanist Theory Mother Love by Charles Bibbs
Step Two: Reflecting on Experience Earth Prayers and Reflective Wisdom Charles White ~ I Have A Dream, 1978
Reflecting on Experience: Reflective Wisdom Black Art and Nature Harvest Talk by Charles White
Reflecting on Experience: Something slow moves through him, watched by hills. Something flows with him in stubborn streams, And in the parted foliage something lives In upright green, stirred by the rhythmic gleams Of his hoe and spade. From worn-out arms he gives; The earth receives, turns all his pain to soil, Where he believes, and testifies through toil. Black Eco Literature, Eco Poetry and Art ~ For a Farmer by James A. Emanuel Harvest Talk by Charles White
Step Three: Womanist Social Analysis Analyze Environmental Racism Using Intersectional Analysis Is there a difference between personal ecosin and social eco-sin? Call for confession of complicity, repentance, and conversion Creating Womanist Hope for Earth Justice
Step Four: Critically Exploring Black Biblical Hermeneutics and Earth Story In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ~ Genesis 1:1 And God said, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth. ~ Genesis 1:26 God, you have been our dwelling place, throughout all generations. ~ Psalms 90:1
Black Earth & Bible Roots The Creation James Weldon Johnson And God stepped out on space, And She looked around and said, I m lonely I ll make me a world. And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp. Then God smiled, And the light broke, And the darkness rolled up on one side, And the light stood shining on the other, And God said, That s good! https://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=jehhungxuby
Step Four: Critically Exploring Tradition and History EcoMemory Eco-memory refers to the collective and individual memory of the earth that African Americans have in relationship to and with the earth. Agricultural Knowledge Slavery Underground Railroad Burden-to-Beauty Paradox Sharecropping Lynching Great Migration
Critically Exploring Tradition and History EcoMemory Eco-memory refers to the collective and individual memory of the earth that African Americans have in relationship to and with the earth. African Cosmology and Interconnectedness Agricultural Epistemology Slavery ~ medicinal and conjure roots Underground Railroad ~ Harriet Tubman Burden-to-Beauty Paradox Sharecropping Lynching Great Migration
Sharecropping as EcoMemory: Poetry and Verse I have sown beside waters in my day. I planted deep, within my heart the fear that wind or fowl would take the grain away. I planted safe against this stark, lean year. I scattered seed enough to plant the land in rows from Canada to Mexico but for my reaping only what the hand can hold at once is all that I can show. Yet when I sowed and what the orchard yields my brother s sons are gathering stalk and root; small wonder then my children glean in fields they have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit. ~ A Black Man Talks of Reaping by Arna Bontemps
Strange Fruit Billie Holiday
Lynching as EcoMemory The lynching of two African American men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, a large gathering of lynchers. August 7, 1930, Marion, Indiana.
Lynching as EcoMemory Lynching of African American Male, 1960 McDuffie County, Georgia
Lynching as EcoMemory Property Loss Journey of Escape by Joseph Holster, 2008
The Great Migration as EcoMemory Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41
Step Five: Engaging Transformation Moving Towards Justice After Harriet Joseph Holston
Step Six: Sharing Dialogue Ecowomanist Reflection Questions: Honoring Your Experience 1. Reflect on your experience of viewing the various images of African American EcoMemory 2. What earth relational questions arise? 3. What eco-memories come up for you?
Step Seven: Taking Action for Earth Justice. Facing the Rising Sun Sun Warms the Freeman ~ Joseph Holston Color in Freedom, 2009