Keepers Of Life

This interdisciplinary curriculum in botany and plant ecology focuses on environmental and stewardship issues using the framework of Native American stories as an introduction to the topics.

Legacy of the raven, links to the supernatural, encoounters with the iron people.

Using tribal tales from across the country as inspiration, the authors provide practical information about seed preservation, planting and maintaining the garden, reaping and cooking the harvest.

A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited. On a winter’s day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband’s farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools. Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.

"Keepers of the Children" (subtitle: Native American Wisdom and Parenting) uses little known Native American secrets to teach parents how to raise children who know their nature and use their strengths to create lives of meaning and contribution. By raising children to unfold the uniqueness in their hearts, parents touch the depths of their own. By teaching children the secrets of genuine fulfillment, they grow up to lead purposeful lives and cherish their parents for this gift. ("Keepers of the Children" is the first in a trilogy of parenting books.)

Native lore, stories, and activities encourage children to explore the fascinating night world. By studying astronomy, Native beliefs, nighttime weather, and North American nocturnal plants and animals, children aged 5 to 12 learn to appreciate the importance of night in the natural cycle and overcome common fears about the nighttime world. Filled with interdisciplinary activities, legends, and illustrations to inspire children and educators alike.

The Papago Indians of the American Southwest say butterflies were created to gladden the hearts of children and chase away thoughts of aging and death. How the Butterflies Came to Be is one of twenty-four Native American tales included in Native American Animal Stories. The stories, coming from Mohawk, Hopi, Yaqui, Haida and other cultures, demonstrate the power of animals in Native American traditions.Parents, teachers and children will delight in lovingly told stories about "our relations, the animals." The stories come to life through magical illustrations by Mohawk artists John Kahionhes Fadden and David Fadden."The stories in this book present some of the basic perspectives that Native North American parents, aunts and uncles use to teach the young. They are phrased in terms that modern youngsters can understand and appreciate ... They enable us to understand that while birds and animals appear to be similar in thought processes to humans, that is simply the way we represent them in our stories. But other creatures do have thought processes, emotions, personal relationships...We must carefully ccord these other creatures the respect that they deserve and the right to live

At age fifteen, Martin "Donny" Donovan graduated from Testwood School in Southampton, England and set out on a ten-year odyssey of traveling the world, working odd jobs, and pining for an eventual means of returning home to the chalkstreams where he fished and explored as a child.Through connections and persistence he eventually worked his way into the exclusive niche of riverkeeping and landed a job working the Nursling beats on the famed River Test.Keeper, is Donovan's rollicking account of his antics abroad, and two decades of tending rivers, coddling fish, and guiding anglers. His stories are exceptional, but what ultimately sets them apart is Donovan's wry voice and his bracing departure from the stereotypical English fly-fishing memoir.With equal measures of passion, irreverence, and hilarity, he does a masterful job of salting a traditional setting with an oddball cast of characters, props, and predicaments. He introduces us to gentried English dry-fly purists and mobs of bait soaking carp-catchers. He writes about prominent London attorneys, cantankerous skinheads, redneck clock peddlers, and booze-swilling farmers. While fly-fishing for trout and salmon are Donovan's beloved diversions, he also has an eclectic fixation with derelict motorbikes, chainsaw carpentry, hitchhiking, canned beer, and curry houses.While some angling traditionalists may lament that all of the great stories have long-since been written about the English chalkstreams, we are proud to present an engaging addendum and a fresh new voice from the birthplace of fly fishing.

In the tradition of Annie Dillard and John McPhee, writer and activist Ann Linnea interviews fourteen tree keepers about their life and work saving North America s...