Standing For The Land

This speech was delivered to the Red Bank, TN Planning Commission, March 2023.  It is in response to a Re-Joining petition to change an in-town (Chattanooga, TN), historical neighborhood (developed beginning in 1935) to multi-family townhomes.  The reference to “The Eager Ones” is relative to the developers, and ensuing infrastructure, and utilities.  Regretfully, and as predicted, the Planning Commission approved the developers’ request.  Since delivering this speech, there has been yet another Grandfather tree fallen, having taken out power lines, poles, and transformers, resulting in loss of power for nearly two days.  Excavation into the heart of those sacred mountains has begun. I can here them weeping, even now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some of you, the Eager Ones, have come here tonight to speak for the people - a people who have yet to arrive on these lands.  A people you hope someday, will find their way to one of these little boxes you call houses, and, with a little love, and a lot of luck, make a home out of it for themselves and their little children.

I too have come here tonight to speak for the people.  Yet, the people for whom I speak are people who are here already-  my neighbors.  And not exclusively my Two Legged Neighbors, but for other relatives who have lived among these lands for generations as well.  I speak for the Tree People, a magnificent White Oak Brother, for example stands at the top of my hill on my street, Alden Avenue.  It has greeted the morning sun for over two hundred Winters now.  I speak for the Rock People, and the Mountain People, who’s hills formed here, when land masses collided and the earth buckled in a time before anyone remembers.  I speak for the People of the Air - Barred Owls, and Eagles, Hawks, Woodpecker - all who once made this land their nesting home, now rare and occasional visitors.

I speak for the Ground Hog People who burrowed their nests near the natural spring in my back yard.

  My Ground Hog relatives have not returned this year.  Neither has the spring, but, then again, she left us years ago when you covered it up with graded debris from one of your boxes, you call a house.  I speak for the Deer People, who stand in the streets, and wander the neighbors yards because there is no more land to cover them.  These are my neighbors, and these are those for whom I have come to speak tonight

Some of you, The Eager Ones,  have come to this place tonight, to ask for land - more land.  More land from that which you took from the people already, one hundred-eighty years ago.  I too have come here to ask for land, and to stand for the land, as no one here has paused long enough to ask Her what are her wishes, her desires.  What is the land, the Earth, our Sacred Mother asking of and from us?  I am convinced, if we listened, we might hear her faint and sickly whisper, “Leave me be…..”

You came then, as you come tonight, with trinkets and treaties, promises and provisions, treacherous trickery, induced to persuade us to trade our land, our idea(s) of the land, our use of the land, to make it your land, with your idea(s),  and your use of the land.  We did not agree with your treaties then; we do not agree with them tonight.  We did not trust your treaties then, we do not trust them tonight.  And, as reluctantly as we surrendered our lands then, most likely, and what a shame it is that corporate greed will once again stand upon its presumption of Manifest Destiny, and take our land in a single, sweeping vote from Council, we will surrender them once more.  

Our beloved Duncan Hills, neighborhood and neighbors built on land you took from our Cherokee Ancestors, will once again, and like that day will become a Destitute Heap heralding yet another, Trail of Tears.  

Already, there is not a single space nearby unmolested by the constant, and deafening din of endless traffic, silenced only and briefly once a year - on a day when the whole world slows and celebrates Christmas.  At the dawn of the next day, like the starting bell of the gate, the hoofs of cars, trains, planes, motorcycles, sirens, begin again with a hypnotic hum turning my mind to mush.  I can no longer see the stars at night; your street and neon lights turn the night sky into a distortion of dusk and dawn.  

You have and continue to tear into the heart of these sacred mountains, excavating a postage stamp parcel of land to erect a structure you call a house, someone a home, much like our Long Houses which once graced this land, and set on its edge three stories high.  (Do you put elevators in those things?  An old man like me would have hard time climbing the ladder you call steps on one of those boxes).   What a strange juxtaposition that is.  Then another, right next to yet another, next to yet another, next to another.  

You come with talk of a “New” Nature Path and Park, in an area where already the neighborhood dogs must use a cared for lawn, for there are no more bare spots for dog business needs.  Just yesterday, I stood and watched two magnificent deer standing in my neighbor’s yard.  Lost.  Confused.  Dazed.  I understood better your “Deer in the headlights” observation.  The old trails paved over with concrete and asphalt.  Our Mother will remember her Old Paths, and will return her glory, and restore her richness, if we, if you, just leave her be.  

You punctuate your flyer with bold letters and exclamation points.  The earth, our land, our neighborhood would much prefer a simple period, but tonight, we will settle for a comma - a pause to rethink, to reconsider, to reposition to request.  Leave us be, as we are.  Leave the land, as it is.  It will return, as best it can.  You ask me, “What do I want see in this green space, in this park?”  I want to see trees.  I want to see stars.  I want to see the fullness of the March Worm Moon from last night.  I want to see grass.  I want to see meadows.  I want to see the Mountains.  I want to see the river, The River Which Sings, clear, pure, a river from which I can once again eat its gifts of fresh fish without warnings of potential disease and danger.  I want to see open skies, free from pollution and haze.  I want to see open spaces where my grandchildren can wonder, wander, explore, without fear of their personal safety.  I want to see my home, my neighbors homes and properties preserved as places where I can grow old(er), sit on my front porch and watch the young ones, the Sixth, Seventh, and maybe the Eighth generation play ball, and ride their bikes down the street.  I want to feel safe and secure in my own home when I lay down for sleep in the darkness of the night.  

These are things I wish to see, and if we do not make a stand today, tonight, here, now, the manifestation of this good desire may be lost forever.  I fear the days of a desire for the return to balance are over, and it is my belief, and in the not-too-distant future, the Earth herself will restore itself in a cataclysmic moment of beginning again.  I believe that we, relatives of a Seventh Generation, stand at an impressive fork in the road of our shared journeys.  We are being presented with a small, delicate, and fragile window of opportunity to simply, do better, than those who have gone before us.  The decisions, the Treaties that will be made and negotiated from this council tonight, and those yet to convene, will shape and mold our land, our future, our footprints, and once done, it is done.  May we call upon the Great Spirit to guide our thoughts, and determine our actions in a manner that is sacred, and seeks the absolute highest and best good of all parties, all people, and this Planet, we all call our home.  A’ȟo.  O Mítákuye Oyásíŋ.