All things connect

I didn’t write this as an expert on societal, cultural and political issues or as a representative of any organization. I did write it as someone with strong concerns about where our country as it relates to those issues is headed.

A Place for All…

There couldn’t be a more appropriate title for this Pathfinder column.

Thank you Andi and Nathan Bourne for your inclusiveness.

The past two weeks have brought reflection.

Listening to and reading the tributes given to Senator John McCain, I clearly hear their common theme: civility.

And if I may add my words: It means meeting in the middle to get the work done that is so badly needed in our country now. Differences should never divide us but rather spark discussion of our common ground, finding the common good and working from there. “United we stand...Divided we fall.” To me, that is what Senator McCain was all about, that our greatest strength comes from being united and serving something greater than our individual selves and cultural/societal/political ideologies.

Divisiveness and derisiveness are causing devolution of our country. I blame both cultural and sociological insensitivity and extreme political ideology for that destructive divisiveness that is splitting us, the US, apart.

I was raised in a “working class” family. My dad was a long haul trucker and my mother was a waitress, neither graduating from high school. Both were “blue-collar” Democrats with a definite lean to the right. But they were also staunch supporters of many Democratic candidates, possibly due to that party’s support of unions and fair wages for workers; my dad was a member of the Teamsters Union. My dad was born on his parents’ ranch in Nevada and I lived much of my childhood on another ranch where my uncle was foreman. Both backgrounds formed my basis of sympathizing with and understanding our country’s working class and rural area concerns.

A few years ago, I was given the book “Hillbilly Elegy” by JD Vance. I recommend it to those without working class or rural roots. It may help explain the fear and frustrations of “middle” America. They, we, are not “deplorable.” We hurt. And we hurt due to many complex reasons. (Often I feel that “coastal” America just doesn’t get it.)

What helped form a basis for my multi-cultural understanding and acceptance, which tremendously “broadened my horizons,” was accompanying a climbing expedition to the Mt. Everest area of the Himalayas in 1984. I since made four more trips to that area, twice staying several months each time. What struck me during my first visit there in 1984 was how linear the climbers and trekkers were. I instead would leave the main trail and spend as much time as possible in Sherpa villages far from the trekker/climber route.

I wrote the following during my first extended stay in the Himalayas:

Untitled

The adventures that take us there are

equally as important as the destination,

whether it be to our hearts or the Mountain Top.

Remain always humble

and graciously accept the

Wisdom offered along the way.

And remember:

“...The Highest Wisdom requires only the naked mind.”

“May you journey in peace and walk in delight.”

- cg ~ Khumbu, Nepal spring 1986

Immigrants vs. Invaders vs. Native…

We are all descendants of, or first generation, immigrants.

Follows are edited comments I added to a discussion of the so called view of “settlers” versus “immigrants”. (The implied meaning is that by settling “undeveloped” areas of the US it would not be considered an “invasion” displacing American Indians.):

The first known people in North America were the First Nations: American Indians. Europeans displaced American Indians from coast to coast, even in what were called “undeveloped” areas. Those undeveloped areas were significant to all the different tribes as they moved throughout the North American landscape to hunt and forage. Many of the tribes’ territories were vast and often used seasonally. Think habitat and all of it occupied by the various tribes to give them food, water and shelter.

In terms of “modern” settlement history of North America, this country was invaded by the British and other non-natives. I say this as a direct descendant of one of the individuals making their way to North America on the Mayflower. That British individual married an American Indian. So that makes me both a descendant of an invader (immigrant) and of a tribal member.

And were American Indians immigrants? Anthropologists believe they are descendants of people who traveled across a land bridge between Asia and North America over 15,000 years ago.

Which leads to consideration of the concept of human and non-human global movement over eons: Just where is the origination point of any species?

All Things Connect…

Many years ago the Missoulian newspaper published a weekly supplement that covered Frenchtown, Ninemile, Alberton and other west-end areas. I wrote a weekly column for that supplement with a focus on natural history and wildlife education. I called that column, All Things Connect.

All life is interrelated.

Nothing (no one) exists in isolation or is independent of other life.

All things connect.