Randy Woodley - Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth

Praise for Becoming Rooted

In a world sick with domination, striving, and consumption, Randy Woodleys Becoming Rooted offers a strong dose of very good medicine. Woodley speaks from his own big heart and his own profound story. He also gifts readers with wisdom from Indigenous peoples around the world to offer our divided and disconnected generation a way back to harmony. This is a must-read for everyone who longs for peace.

Lisa Sharon Harper, president and founder of Freedom Road and author of The Very Good Gospel and Fortune

I am grateful this book is in the world. As we hope to enter intentionally into a healing relationship with the earth, Woodleys stories and reminders can inspire us to get there.

Kaitlin Curtice, author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

Becoming Rooted draws you deeper into relationship with the land where you live. Few of us live in the place we were born, but these reflections take you past that disconnection and help you notice the world around you in new ways.

Patty Krawec, Anishnaabe author and co-host of the Medicine for the Resistance podcast

Randy Woodley invites readers into the ancient and practical wisdom that has sustained the community of creation for generations. It is oriented toward deeply forming us into Indigenous ways of being, doing, interacting, and relating to one another and the earth. The stories and examples provided are inspiring and compelling, drawing us out of the Western mechanistic logics that lead to ecological devastation and possible extinction and into Indigenous-oriented worldviews grounded in harmony and balance with all creation. In view of our current crisis, everyone should read this book individually and in a circle with others.

Drew G. I. Hart, assistant professor of theology at Messiah University and author of Who Will Be a Witness? Igniting Activism for Gods Justice, Love, and Deliverance

Becoming Rooted offers us a precious way back into the land: a way into restoration and reciprocity, a way into healing ourselves and the land, a way of belonging again, a way of finding out who we are. Randy Woodley takes us by the hand and walks with us for the first one hundred days. We begin to think and feel differently, our senses gain new direction, and we start to gain roots. The law of the land becomes our most fundamental law, and we move as the land moves. After reading this book, we know enough to keep on the journey, to pay attention, to look and listen for the signs. Unless we become rooted, there is no future even for our next three generations. I am so grateful for this book and for the life and work of Randy Woodley.

Cludio Carvalhaes, associate professor of worship, Union Theological Seminary

Randy Woodley reminds us that we all have an understanding of what it means to be indigenous to a spiritual place. Through slowly unfolding layers of meaning, he shows us where we may discover that place for ourselves.

Steven Charleston, elder of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, retired Episcopal bishop of Alaska, and author of Ladder to the Light

During this season of complete disruption in our world, nothing seems more sacred and more helpful than a book drawing us to the landthe land God created and called good. Words, models, products, theologies, and practices can seem empty when surrounded by hostility and pain. We need a book that guides us to be better earth dwellers, that apprentices us in the values God wrote into creation. Becoming Rooted is that book.

MaryKate Morse, spiritual director, seminary professor, and author of Lifelong Leadership and other books

Randy Woodley

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

BECOMING ROOTED

One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth

Copyright 2022 Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (AMPC) are taken from the Amplified Bible (AMPC), Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Cover design and illustrations: James Kegley

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7117-4

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7118-1

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

We must all get together as a race and render our contribution to mankind.

Redbird Smith, Keetoowah Cherokee, 1918

What does it mean to be rooted in the land? How are we shaped by being from somewhere, some place, some land in particular? How do we become rooted?

Indigenous people are those who originate naturally from a certain land, who have dwelled there for a long period of time. To be Indigenous is to be rooted: to be part of a community or ethnic group with historic continuity. Indigenous people understand how to live with the land.

We are all indigenous to some place. We are all from somewhere. I repeat: we are all indigenous, from somewhere. Allow that phrase to sink deep into your being. Now begin to open yourself up to the reality embedded deep within your own DNA, your very own identity. Each human being is a finely crafted amalgamation of various ethnicities, each originating from a particular place on Earth. Your ancestors were, at one time, all indigenous. Might we regain a bit of our ancestors indigeneity, much of which has likely been lost through time and travel? Your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents who lived and breathed and experienced life before youthey are now living through you. From manifold generations back, they looked forward, sometimes even on their deathbeds, to your life. They and their indigeneity matter because you are here now, as their living hope.

Why does indigeneity matter? Because people who have lived on their own land from time immemorial have worked out their relationship with the plants, animals, weather, and mountains. Those relationships grew and matured over time until there were balance and harmony between the people indigenous to that place and the rest of the community of creation. In order to live in harmony and balance on the land, we all need to recover or discover truly Indigenous values.