PEOPLE’S JOURNEY: WOOD

COASTAL MIWOK, POMO, AND YUKI LAND
NORTH BAY

Thank you to the Coast Miwok, Pomo, and Yuki peoples who steward the land that holds us on this journey. The fifth section of our journey is WOOD.

We planted the seeds of our journey in the EARTH of Tongva land (Pasadena, Los Angeles), practicing “community as shelter.” We followed the WATER to Yokut land (San Joaquin Valley) and the people who protect it. We learned with our comrades partnering flood and FIRE in Mutsun and Awaswas land (Central Coast). We tasted freedom in the AIR readied by youth and elders on Ohlone and Coast Miwok land (Bay Area).

We now give ourselves to WOOD, learning with our Black and brown siblings under the shade of the trees they’ve protected and communities they’ve built. Listening to WOOD as ancestor, fostering WOOD as sanctuary, celebrating WOOD as the destiny of SEED.

How do we understand the role of the school in community? Particularly one that skills and centers us in ancestral wisdom?

Find out more questions we explored in our WOOD Field Guide.

coming soon

Peoples and places we met

EARTH SEED FARM and permaculture center

Established in March, 2021, EARTHseed Farm is a 14-acre solar-powered organic farm and orchard. With the permission and blessings of Graton Rancheria Tribe, the farm is operated and rooted in AfroIndigenous permaculture principles, and built on the long legacy of earth wisdom traditions of people of African descent.

shelterwood collective

Shelterwood is a 900-acre Indigenous, Black, Disabled, and Queer-led community forest and collective of land protectors and cultural changemakers. Through land stewardship, active forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction, community and cultural organizing, and the development of a community retreat center, Shelterwood heals interconnected ecosystems.

ras k’dee

Ras K’dee is a Pomo/African musician from Sonoma County, California, who is a community educator, and renowned lyricist, producer, lead vocalist and keyboardist for Bay Area-based Audiopharmacy. In 2003, Ras co-founded, and is current director of, a Native youth media organization called Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG). Ras also leads summer youth workshops and is a producer and occasional co-host of a Northern California radio program, “Bay Native Circle.”

Prompt: Rest and Reflect

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