Journey of Activism and Engagement

by Bonnie Sundance (Executive Director of Our Sacred Earth)

I was born in 1940 of working class parents: my father born of 1st generation Swedish immigrant parents; --my Mother from tenant farmers; she was big on championing the underdog and teaching me to "waste not, want not," and “if something is worth doing, its worth doing well.”

In High School in the 1950s in Los Angeles, CA I was the drill team co leader of 120 pom pom girls during Football Season, dated the quarter back, was the Class Secretary my Senior Year and a real beach girl on summer week-ends.

Then in my Senior year in college in the early 60s at the University of Redlands, I heard Pres. Kennedy say to us “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” so I joined the Peace Corps he created and was a volunteer for 2 years in a small town south of Lima, Peru doing community building work, opening a small library in my "barriada" and becoming fluent in Spanish, an ability I have retained. I traveled alone by bus in South America 4 months, engaging in political conversations in Spanish and realizing I had become a global citizen for peace.

I returned in 1965 to the US the night of the Watts Riots in LA, bringing to it an understanding from the Sociology I had studied in college, about racism. As I looked for work, after that night, I celebrated the reality that black people were getting preference for the jobs I was applying for then.

After attending graduate school, I had a profound experience protesting the Viet Nam war as a young woman-- seeing the power of people to affect government policy and end that war. I demonstrated with the Bay Area Third World Liberation Front which seeded ethnic studies departments in local Universities and important programs for ethnic minorities. I received a deep education through work as a community librarian liaison, learning from the Chicano Student Movement from the inside about intense discrimination and erasure of Mexican American realities.

When I was given the opportunity from the Radical Returned Volunteers organization to visit Cuba with that group, I was inspired after hearing of Che Guevarra say "the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of Love.” We went as volunteers, working with Cubans fertilizing citrus orchards, visiting Cuban schools and facotires. I experienced the embodiment of a society that cares for its workers—making educational and health care freely available to all. I carry that seed of hope for the possibility of a society to care for all its people.

I went on from there in the 1970s to identify as and work with feminsts and Lesbians to shape and build women's culture and empower an entire generation of young women to value and celebrate ourselves as women, to cherish our friendships and to open the doors of possibility in our lives. In Seattle, I helped to form "Loose Womyn's Dance Collective", a womyn's poetry collective, the Seven Sisters Cafe and I produced numerous photographic slide presentations of my own photography which contributed to building and documenting the growth of this Northwest womyn's community.

In the 1980s I attended workshops of Chinook Institute on Whidbey Island in the Northwest experiencing deep connection with Earth, Land and Spirit. I heard Penan Indians from Borneo speak in a huge Seattle church about what was happening to their Forests at the hands of Palm Oil plantations, and how American's snack habits fed that loss. In 1986 at a Spiritual Long Dance one late and cold NW night, dancing around a fire and a pole in the center of our circle, I spontaneously and passionately made a commitment: "I shall live my life to care for the Earth," and have done so since.

I let go of my drivers license in 1993, refusing to participate in oil polluting companies domination of the auto industry. I began hitchhiking between my mountain home and Boulder, CO engaging people in conversations about our mututal concerns, and doing what I could to educate to care for Earth in our ways of living. It became part of my cherished social and community life for 22 years before COVID. In Boulder, I still do all my errands by bicycle year round, regardless of weather.

When I learned about what conventional agriculture including feedlot cattle raising was doing to Earth, I began replacing those foods with an organic and vegetarian source. In the 1990s I began doing all my produce shopping at the Boulder Farmers Market, building warm connections into friendships with the farmers. Ah, the food so fresh and delicious. I began finding ways to be a War Tax Resistor, especially by earning a low income and refusing to file taxes that support a war economy.

In 1996 in preparation for attending a business conference in LA, I envisioned a project I called Our Sacred Earth, to share what I was learning through eco-psychology classes at Naropa and to programs attended at Chinook in Washtingon. Then in 2006 that project became my current nonprofit, generating a website on which I share programs and Guidelines for Earth Living, including not using a clothes dryer but hanging one's clothes on the line. I've had thousands of visitors to that website over the years.

Nonviolent Communication as a powerful tool entered my life in 2000 when I began attending a number of workshops with Marshall Rosenburg and other trainers. Putting it into practice created a deeper way of connecting with people and distresses in our lives. I was able to better understand and walk with my own and other’s anger and approach activism differently.

I learned of a unique economic model called Time Banking in which we exchange “hours” instead of money for the skills and services we offer one another. I have made so many wonderful friends through that process and have been a member for 14 years. I love cat-stting for my friend, and get occasional assistance for car errand pick up and deliveries since I don’t drive. http://timebankboulder.org/

In 2011 I had to leave my mountain home of 18 years when it was sold, and was homeless for 5 months, living in a friends' unfinished basement in winter with no heat. Then I was offered the rental of an off grid cabin which allowed me to live even more deeply in connection with nature, my beloved tree community there and free of a phone, and of EMFs-- finding what human-Earth connection could become without electrical/phone grid interference yet still connected through email. My relationship became an intimate one with water collected from the rain or snow, with the intelligence and teachings of trees, with the joy of hummingbirds.

It was one of the more profound experiences of my life communicating with Spirit and Nature, living an embodied deep connection with the Earth ... and sharing a ceremonial circle in the forest with others to celebrate our Sacred Earth connection. Most of the past programs of Our Sacred Earth grew out of that experience and occured on that Land. (See under Poems, This Place of Forest 2016 https://www.our-sacred-earth.org/poems and see Past Programs under that menu tab)

While in that cabin, I discovered Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass. At one of her webinars, I learned of the Prophecy of the 7th Fire and realized I had been already going back to claim ways of Earth- connecting in order to walk “the green pathway”. I learned in herbal medicine creation to take only what I need from nature, the Honorable Harvest. I moved into the notion of not asking more of the Earth, but finding ways to do for myself—like riding a bicycle.

I lost that cabin, my tree community, and my way of Life and everything I owned in a Climate related Forest Fire in 2016--including 50 years of documentation of my life experiences in slides, photos and journals. Having lost the Land where I held most of my programs, and losing my way of LIfe, I had to go on. I began to collaborate with and contribute my skills to several other organizations: a local Bioneers Salon, Shambhala and the Symposium on Earth and Spirit, Eco Dharma Sangha, Envision Circle for the Future and Green Faith International and its program Living the Change.

People in my life say that I walk my talk. It is my passion to do so, on behalf of my beloved, Earth, and those future generations I share responsibility for. I am supported by the flow of Spirit and Earth herself in that.

In 2016 my heart and eyes were opened by a program about Indigenous history and relations with the US government, Towards Right Relationship. Out of that I am now contributing to Right Relationship Boulder https://rightrelationshipboulder.org/education-group/ as the facilitator of the Education and the Schools Group, seeking to engage students, teachers and parents with deeper understanding of Indigenous People, their worldviews and issues. I believe strongly that to step out of the dominant culture and worldview which is degrading our planet, we must listen to and learn from Indigenous Peoples and their thousands of years of experience in caring for the Earth from a worldview which recognizes our kinship with all life. (Please visit resources to learn: https://rightrelationshipboulder.org/resources/ )

I worked towards greater continued awareness and action on climate crises issues as co-convener of the forming chapter of Elders Climate Action; still work on the core committee of the 11th Hour (Climate) Calling and as member of our Green Faith Boulder Circle. I also send out a monthly announcement “Indigenous and Climate/Earth Matters” to 400 people about relevant matters related to the Climate Crises, Indigenous People, and Peace building. (You can ask to receive those announcements via my Contact email: oursacredearth@outlook.com )

I am grateful to work in this wonderful community of caring people building the world that can support the thriving of all Life on our beloved Earth. Please consider joining this work! Please consider learning more about and engaging with Indigenous worldviews which cared for this land before a colonialist and capitalist economy based on profit brought us to this brink of the extinction of life as we know it on this Earth.

Bonnie Sundance, in Ute territory in the Rocky Mountains of CO Spring Equinox, 2022; edited Feb. 2024

NOTE: Please visit these diverse websites of some of the people I collaborate with on behalf of the Earth:

Kristal Parks Activism With A Difference Interview by documentarian, Mahiema Anand, on her YouTube show Shifting Tides. Learn more about Kristal’s work as Director, Pachyderm Power! Love in Action

Stele Ely https://xoearth.org/ Inspires people with multiple ideas, information and actions “to save our burning earth”

Kritee Kanko Boundless in Motion aims to build a spiritually rooted movement towards climate justice, equity and inclusion for all life on the planet.

Oak Chezar https://oakchezar.com/Cornography-1 my favorite poem and her prolific work

Scott Brown https://4activepeace.com/ Honoring relationship and healing divisions and separation.

Laurie Dameron https://lauriedameron.com/spaceship-earth/ Musician who created a show about caring for Earth.