It was summer when the New Seminole resisted. Of course, we fought back with bullets and Stinger missiles. And we lost mightily. I highly recommend resisting Greenpeace-style which includes peaceful assembly and non-violence.  Hopefully it'll work because our approach sure as hell didn't and Gaia is running out of time. Of course, Greenpeace has been doing it its way for 45-years and the planet looks worse off than it ever did. Maybe it'll never get better. I just know from experience that armed conflict with a superior force of well-trained professional soldiers will only lead to one thing: you losing and lots of people dying. And then there was Gandhi. And King. Of course they-- and others like them who followed-- had to die for the bigger cause. But it's still better than what we and Uncle Sam went through.  So go ahead and give it a shot. Sign up for Greenpeace's "Direct Action" program. Maybe this time it'll work.

According to a new study by scientists from the University of Florida, sea level rise is happening six-times faster down here than anywhere else in the world.  How ironic that a state that voted Trump, a climate-change denier, will be the first to get its collective feet wet. 

​Hopefully local teen environmental activist groups like Miami Waterkeepers, GenCLEO, and Miami Sea Rise will  save the day-- if there is a day to save by the time they get the attention of the "adults" in charge. 

That said,  if any one of these teens is going to come through for the planet, it's 17-year-old high school senior Delaney Reynolds, the founder of Miami Sea Rise. She's only a couple of years younger than me but has a head and spirit much older and positive than me then or now. Heck, this girl has already spoken to the UN General Assembly and given TED Talks on this subject. At her age I was running away from my dad with Nokosee through a burning Everglades. And getting pregnant. If you want to know if I'd do things differently had I known what was coming down the pike, I hate to say it, but I wouldn't-- only because of our baby girl Haalie. It makes me sick to think about all of the killing that followed the moment I met Nokosee, but if it meant that was the only way Haalie could be born-- through fire an war-- I'd do it all over again. And feel guilty as hell about it for the rest of my days. 

Before my life living in Sanctuary at the Miccosukee Embassy in Miami, before the shit hit the fan deep in the Everglades in our last battle with Uncle Sam's Army Rangers, and before my daughter Haalie's birth, I had the rare opportunity to swim in the dark, tannic drenched, alligator infested waters of Fisheating Creek.  Just west of Lake Okeechobee off of US27 and north of Gatorama, one of Florida's first tourist traps that still thrives to this day-- like its attractions on display-- before the Interstates were built, Fisheating Creek was accessible to everyone if they knew where to go looking for it. That all changed in the early 80's when Lykes Bros, which owned the land, fenced it in and shut it off from the public.  It wasn't until 2016 after a lengthy court battle that it was reopened. And, of course, the Outside had to commercialize it.  

I can't imagine what it's like now with tons of people swarming down upon it, but back then, when Nokosee and my new in-laws the Osceolas and their 14-year-old daughter Gerryragni took me there for the first time, it was like stepping back through a thousand year time warp. Cutting the chain looped around a steel gate with bolt cutters was the first thing you had to do to get transported there. And then after walking down a dirt road through the woods, there it was, all alone and dangerous and beautiful and spooky all at the same time. Sunlight broke through the thick tree canopy in shafts of dusty light over the flat black water. Aside from hearing insects buzzing and an occasional bird cry, it was basically about as quiet as you can get. 

Of course my father-in-law and founder of the New Seminole, Busimanolotome Osceola, used it as another opportunity to test my worthiness as the white woman (I was only 18 then) who had the audacity to screw with his grand and cockamamied plan by marrying his only son Nokosee whom daddy had groomed to be the "First of the New Seminole." Before I knew it, Busi was daring me to join the family in the black water. Although I felt like a real pussy standing on the riverbank, I just couldn't join that crazy bunch of loons in the water. I just knew there was a cottonmouth or a gator down there waiting to get at me. But I also knew that if I didn't get in that creek, the Osceolas would never let me forget that I was... unworthy. So, after more catcalls and getting splashed enough times that I was already soakened wet, I got in. 

First I stuck my big toe in and pretended it was too cold-- and it was-- and wondered out loud as sarcastically as I could, "Oh, how can you stay in the water? You must be the strongest family in all the land."  But I shuffled in anyway. Nokosee extended his hand so I could grab it for support but I slapped it away. I didn't appreciate him ganging up on me. Within seconds of sinking into the water up to my head, I was shivering-- and this was in the heat of summer-- and thinking I'm gator bait again,* something I was sure Busi was hoping for.

But that didn't happen. Looking back, it was my official baptism into the New Seminole because it involved water. The others which came before and were to follow were all different but forever saved for history in my books.  

Oh, yeah, and that picture came much later when I was sneaking up on Nokosee who, of course, cannot be snuck up on.  I was pregnant and we were alone then enjoying the Creek by ourselves after I had become accustomed to the cold water. He had a GoPro and got that picture on the fly.  I had "war paint" on in an effort to make me look all bad ass and stuff since we were at that time at war with Uncle Sam. I just wish I had had some Butch Wax for the Mohawk so it could have stood upright. If I had, you can bet I would have come at Nokosee with my head below the water, with only my Mo racing toward him like a shark fin. 

*I was really used by Nokosee as gator bait in Book One when he used me to coax his 16-foot pet gator Haalapatee out of my dad's Park Ranger pen when we were trying to escape from the Outside. That was pretty scary but, like getting use to the Fisheating Creek water, I learned to not fear the gator which, at the end of Book One, gave its life to save ours. In thanks and memory, we gave our daughter his name. 

That's what I saw coming at me in Book One, a frightened cottonmouth looking for a way out of an Everglades fire.  I was on the run too, when I tripped and fell through the sawgrass into the nearly dry Everglades. The only thing that saved me that summer was an Everglades white-tail deer-- also on the run-- who happened to trample the poisonous snake-- also known as a water moccasin-- before it had a chance to bite me. 

​Which brings me to this: apparently the recent heavy rains across SoFla has driven these snakes into the suburbs, disrupting homeowners from their entitled barbecues and strolls through pristine neighborhoods which were at one time not so long ago part of the Everglades. 

No matter how hard you try to position that brand new home you just have to have on the scale of Needful Things to be happy, Nature has a way of reminding you that just outside your walled and gated development, grizzly and painful death waits; has been waiting for eons and may in the end in some ironic way, meet you face to face despite all of your efforts to kid yourself that it isn't there, you know, like us, the New Seminole.

The Standing Rock Anthem "Stand Up!" has earned an MTV Video Music Award Nomination in the "Best Fight Against The System" video category. Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas wrote the song and my favorite actress Shailene Woodley-- who has been there from the beginning-- opens the video rapping out the message. Voting is open now until the day the show airs on Sunday, August 27th. You can learn more here.

I like how the video shows a smooth transition from a typical hip hop gesture to a First Nation Pow Wow spin. 

I want to believe that singing and dancing will change the world because I know what the New Seminole did under the leadership of its founder and my dead father-in-law Busimanolotome Osceola failed miserably.  He lost his life for "The Cause" of freeing up the Everglades and South Florida and returning it to its rightful caretakers-- the New Seminole-- in a David and Goliath battle that Goliath won. If you're interested in how all of that went down, you can read about it here.

Love this music video by Theresa Bear Fox, a member of the Akwesane tribe of the Mohawk nation. It's about loved ones who have passed over. I like the dance, too. I like the spinning movement when the dancer drags his feather across the sand. It reminds me of Nature's power, a swirling wind that catches you and takes you up into the Sky World.  Bear is up for 2 NAMMY's (Native American Music Awards). They are songwriter of the year and song of the year. Once registered through the link above, you can vote for her like I did.
 

Although I may be a white chick with spear tats on each side of my Mohawk, I can relate to America's great black writer James Baldwin's take on growing up black in America. Especially now after joining up with the New Seminole. I've become more empathic towards people of the First Nations and people of color because I've been there and can see it and feel it. America was once called the "great melting pot" of cultures. Since I married Nokosee Osceola, I'm now part of that mixing of the world's races but not as much as our daughter Haalie is. You can see it in her face and skin, a great blending of mom and dad. But with POTUS maddeningly stirring the melting pot with each new decree,  I wonder if she will ever be able to fit into the New America he's trying so hard to create. Listen to Baldwin tell it like it was and still is. Not much has changed since he spoke so eloquently.

Ryan Vizzions has entered the above pix in the 2017 LensCulture Street Photography Awards. As far as Nokosee and I are concerned, this is the winner. In one picture, it summed up what the Water Protectors were facing on a daily basis: one mechanized culture armed to the teeth seeking to take down an unarmed volunteer band of nonviolent First Nation resistors and supporters. To support Ryan, please share from this link. 

Today is Earth Overshoot Day. Unlike most national or world days, it's not something to celebrate. Today EOD falls on August 2nd. That means "humans have already used up their allowance for water, soil, clean air and other resources on Earth for the whole of 2017... The date, earlier this year than in 2016, means humanity will survive on 'credit' until 31 December... [By today,] we will have used more from Nature than our planet can renew in the whole year.” Which is to say, "the equivalent of 1.7 planets would be needed to produce enough natural resources to match our consumption rates and a growing population."

I don't know if Busimanolotome Osceola, my passed father-in-law and founder of the New Seminole, was aware of this record-keeping (since 1986) but this is the first time Nokosee and I have ever heard of it. According to the linked article above, the EOD has "never fallen so early as in 2017."

We suspect it will only get worse what with Trump in charge. Too bad for all of us.