Summer Solstice Ganonyok @ white pine noon

JUNE 20 th- Summer Solstice Ganonyok

Trailguides Needed

Ganondagan is looking for a few more people who are interested in becoming trail guides. Being a trail guide is a wonderful way to share the history of the site and of the Seneca people with visitors. Trail guides will lead visitors on guided trail walks and can be an important part of a visitor's experience of Ganondagan. Training is provided to all potential trail guides.

If you would like to learn more about our trail guide program, please see an article written by one of our long time trail guides about her experiences and the program.

If you are interested in this volunteer opportunity, please contact our Volunteer Coordinator.

"Crooked Arrows" -- Catch it This Weekend

Be sure to catch special screenings starting May 18th of the movie, Crooked Arrows. The movie centers around a Native American lacrosse team and its new coach helping the team members to find pride in themselves and their heritage. See more about the movie itself at the official website.

Many of the actors and athletes in this movie are from one of the Six Iroquois Nations. See some of the list of Native actors in the film on the Crooked Arrows site or see the full cast and crew list plus reviews, trivia, and more at IMDB Movie Database. For a list of theatres showing this wonderful film, be sure to see the list on the Crooked Arrows theatre page.

After you see the movie, please share your thoughts about it on our Facebook page!

-kim

Crooked Arrows Official Movie Trailer:

May Flowers, Herbs, & Trees

May is always a time of abundant life and plants to me. It is the time when the forests become a verdant green and when wildflowers continue their spring show. It is also a busy time of gardening and planting for the coming season. To celebrate this greening of the world and the start of the new agricultural season, I take May 1st off of work. It is a 20-year old tradition. Often I spend the day in my gardens, but sometimes I take hikes or do other activities to celebrate May Day. 

In that spirit of celebrating the Earth and her greening cloak, it was my pleasure to attend not one but two plant hikes over this past weekend. The first of these hikes was led by Dr. Les Moore on Saturday May 5, 2012. It was held in Phelps, NY along the Ontario Pathways Trail System. This hike focused on identification as well as the medicinal properties of the wild plants found. This hike is also part of a series of classes Dr. Moore teaches on medical herbalism. If you are interested in learning more about these classes, please see the Classical Formulas website. I created the video at the bottom of this article from the photos I took on that hike.

The second hike was at Ganondagan and it was led by Tonia Loran-Galban and Peter Jemison on Sunday May 6, 2012. This hike was along the Earth is Our Mother trail and it focused on the medicinal as well as the ethnobotanical uses of the plants along the trail. It was a beautiful day for a hike - made even more special by the abundance of the migrating red admiral butterflies. You can see the slideshow from this walk on our Plant Hike slideshow webpage.

I hope you enjoy the slideshow and video. I wish for your May to be happy and abundantly green!

-kim

Wild Strawberries in Bloom

Wild Strawberry, Fragaria virginiana

One of the signs of spring has come, the blooms of the wild strawberry. The blooms herald the coming of the very tasty fruit.

If you would like to see more images as well as a video on how to identify wild strawberries, be sure to check out my new blog, Our Green Neighbors. It is dedicated to information on and images of our green friends and neighbors - the plants of our world.  

Of special interest to our readers here, Our Green Neighbors will regularly feature information on medicinal and native plants as well as heirloom vegetables - being that those are some of my favorite interests. It will also feature The Herb of the Week which will be a new article each week on a selected herb.

I'll still be writing for the Friends of Ganondagan blog, but I encourage you to follow me on Our Green Neighbors as well. Enjoy!

-kim

Lily of the Mohawks

Kateri Tekakwitha (Source: Wikimedia)

In February of this year, Pope Benedict the XVI announced that Kateri Tekakwitha would be canonized on October 21, 2012. She would be the first Native American to reach sainthood.

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 to a Mohawk father and Algonquin mother in the Mohawk village of Canaouaga or Ossernenon (modern day Auriesville) in upstate New York. She converted to Christianity at early age and led a devout Christian life.  She died on April 17, 1680.

Immediately upon death, her body was said to have lost all of the disfiguring facial scars of smallpox - the same smallpox which killed the rest of her family when she was four years old - and her corpse become very beautiful. Other miraculous occurrences and indeed, miracles have been attributed to Kateri when people have used relics of hers or prayed to her for intercession on their behalf.

Sainthood is a very long process and her canonization began in 1884. On January 3, 1943 she was declared venerable by Pope Pius XII and was beatified on June 22, 1980 by Pope John Paul II. On December 19, 2011, the Congregation for Causes of Saints certified a second miracle through her intercession. The process will complete with her canonization this October.

I urge you to read more about this interesting woman and her sainthood from the sources listed below.

-kim

Learn more about Kateri Tekakwitha from the following sources:

YouTube:
"Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha"

Websites:
Wikipedia: Kateri Tekakwitha
National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine
Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs
Blessed Kateri, Model Ecologist

News Articles:
Montreal Gazette (Dec. 20, 2011): Sainthood Nearer for Kateri Tekakwitha
Montreal Gazette (Feb. 20, 2012): Kahnawake's Kateri Tekakwitha to be Canonized Oct. 21
Times Union (Feb. 20, 2012): Kateri to be Canonized in October

Books:
A Lily Among Thorns: The Mohawk Repatriation of Kateri Tekakwitha by Darren Bonaparte

Signs of Spring Redux - Snakes Awake

I must start off by saying that I lived most of my life with an irrational fear of snakes. I would have rather faced a charging, rabid grizzly bear than a couple of inch slithering garter snake. I was taught from little up to be afraid of them. My mother, who was a strong presence and in my child's mind afraid of absolutely nothing, was petrified of them. She screamed when she saw them. She couldn't stand to see them on tv and would leave the room if they came on one of the many nature shows we watched like "Wild Kingdom." She would even tape or staple the pages together of our Ranger Rick magazine if there happened to be a snake article - I have an incredibly vivid and amusing memory of that!

While not as extreme as my mom - I could watch them on tv, see them in books, look at them in the zoo or if a handler was showing a snake, I still shrieked and ran when I saw them in the wild. Tiny, little harmless snakes. I must say that surprised the heck out of my kids when they first saw that reaction out of me. They never see me scream or show fear like that. I tend not to be a person given to extremes and this was clearly an extreme.

My oldest, who must have been 6 years old at the time, tried to comfort me. With his hand patting me he said, "It's ok, mommy. It's just a little snake. He's really little. He's going away." Boy, does that make you feel silly! But proud too that you raised a compassionate human being who stepped up when he saw someone else needed strength and comfort.

I suspect it started that day, but in the years since I've come to kind of a truce with snakes. If we keep to our own spaces and there is no surprise appearances directly underfoot, I can get by. No more shrieking or running. I can even watch them in the wild, at a polite distance though!

This spring we figured out that garter snakes like to use an area at our place, which is one of the many old hand-dug wells on the property, for a winter denning spot. From what we saw, we guessed maybe a dozen snakes had been woken by our unusually warm early spring weather. My children loved the show the snakes put on. The slither this way or that around the old well. My youngest remarked that, "Nature is amazing!" She surely is.

I snapped a few pictures of our legless visitors. I share two below - saved for the last in case you too are like my mom and can't stand to even see pictures of them. Since snakes also have their place in the world, I hope you can find your truce with them as well.

-kim

The biggest of the garter snakes we saw - compare to the dandelion leaves

Some were more brown in color