In Walking With Nature, Jewell Praying Wolf James and Kenneth Cooper — spiritual leaders of Lummi Nation — related the miracle of the survival of American Indian spiritual awareness, given what they have had to endure. Kenneth Cooper has since walked on, but Jewell James remains a leader of the Lhaq ‘temish people.
On Monday June 16 at Wexliem House, Jewell James and other Coast Salish leaders will welcome an evening with Winona LaDuke in a Sacred Talk, as part of the Stommish Sacred Summit, convened by Lummi Nation to discuss energy export projects associated with the Tar Sands, Powder River Basin coal mines, and the Bakken Shale oil fields–all of which threaten to destroy the Salish Sea.
As Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians remarked, “Over the last 100 years, our most sacred site, the Salish Sea, has been deeply impacted by our pollution-based economy. We have decided no more and we are stepping forward.” The gathering at Wexliem in two days time is a significant part of that international indigenous initiative.
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