Carol Schaefer - Grandmothers Counsel the World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet

Intriguing and meaningful... Grandmothers Counsel the World is an uplifting read that should be displayed prominently and hand-sold to those who wish for world healing.

New Age Retailer

Resonates with warmth and compassion... it will press you to see the world through the eyes of indigenous wisdom.

Feminist Review

Grandmother Spider is said to have the power to weave up the broken web of connection which sustains the world. This book was surely written in her spirit. Grandmothers Counsel the World is a fascinating collection of Grandmother stories and Grandmother wisdom told as if the future matters.

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfathers Blessings

Prophecy foretold the gathering of the Indigenous Grandmothers long before these thirteen wise women-elders from the North, Central and South America, Africa, Tibet and Nepal, and the Artic Circle were brought together. Who they are and what they have to say at this critical time in human and planetary history is fascinating. We can hope that they may be harbingers of a major spiritual shift toward peace, prophesized to occur in 2012 with women taking the lead, and circles of people bringing visible and invisible worlds together.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., author of Goddesses in Everywoman and Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World

Wise women from around the globe stand strong together on behalf of all of life. Their stories are amazing, their message to us is strong and inspirational. They are marvelous role models of how we can gather our energies together to make the necessary changes needed to return to a life of balance and harmony. I felt truly blessed to read this book.

Sandra Ingerman, author of Soul Retrieval and Medicine for the Earth

ABOUT THE BOOK

We are thirteen indigenous grandmothers.... We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth, the atrocities of war, the global scourge of poverty, the prevailing culture of materialism, the epidemics that threaten the health of the Earths peoples, and with the destruction of indigenous ways of life.

We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, believe that our ancestral ways of prayer, peacemaking, and healing are vitally needed today.... We believe that the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.

In some Native American societies, tribal leaders consulted a council of grandmothers before making any major decisions that would affect the whole community. What if we consulted our wise women elders about the problems facing our global community today? This book presents the insights and guidance of thirteen indigenous grandmothers from five continents, many of whom are living legends among their own peoples. The Grandmothers offer wisdom on such timely issues as nurturing our families; cultivating physical and mental health; and confronting violence, war, and poverty. Also included are the reflections of Western women elders, including Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Carol Moseley Brown.

CAROL SCHAEFER is a writer, editor, journalist, and photographer who has appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, and MSNBC. She is the author of The Other Mother, and she lives in New York City.

Sign up to learn more about our books and receive special offers from Shambhala Publications.

Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala.

Trumpeter Books

An imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

trumpeterbooks.com

Text and photographs 2006 by Carol Schaefer

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

Quotations from Bernadette Rebienot in the chapters Womens Wisdom and Our Mother Earth originally appeared in her article, Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, in World Pulse, issue 2.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schaefer, Carol, 1946

Grandmothers counsel the world: wise women elders offer their vision for our planet/Carol Schaefer.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2417-1

ISBN 978-1-59030-293-4 (alk. paper)

1. EarthFolklore. 2. WomenFolklore. 3. Spirituality. I. Title.

GR655.S32 2006

398.27DC22

2006013386

For the seventh generation and beyond

Contents

WEAVING THE VOICES of the Thirteen Grandmothers, such powerful and holy women, has been an enormous privilege and has changed forever the way I see life and how I want to be in the world. I am profoundly inspired by their passion and their dedication toward helping this planet become a sacred home for humanity and all of Creation.

I am grateful to my editor, Eden Steinberg, for believing in the vision of the Grandmothers book from the beginning, even before the council met for the first time. And I am also very appreciative of my agent Lynn Franklins tremendous support throughout the entire process of writing the book.

The Center for Sacred Studies has my deepest gratitude, especially Jyoti, Ann Rosencranz, Carole Hart, and her late husband Bruce Hart, producers of the documentary about the Grandmothers, for providing so much information and assistance.

I am very thankful to Donna Kaye White Owl for our friendship and for our conversations that opened up worlds as I tried to fathom the beauty of indigenous ways. My gratitude goes also to another great friend, Bonnie Corso, for her insights and constant support; to Artour Toulinov for teaching me so much about photography and for always being there for me; to Bob Kirby for being the best brother anyone could wish for; and, to my father, Walker Kirby, for teaching me to love books.

I am so blessed to have the love and encouragement my three terrific sons and their great wives: Jack and Anna Ryan, Brett and Jessica Schaefer, and Kip and DeAnna Schaefer, to whom I owe a special thanks for their unconditional support. And I am especially blessed to have eight beloved grandchildren: Dylan, Mia, Asia, and Tess Ryan; Cole and Reed Schaefer; and Hudson and Quinn Schaefer. It is because of my hopes and dreams for them, for their children, and their childrens childrenfor the future of all childrenthat I wrote this book.

THE POWER OF WORDS told over generations, remembered from trees, dreams, and ancestors, is a power inherent in indigenous cultures, contained within the fabric of our way of life. The value of the oral tradition, of the teachings contained in the messages that have passed between generations, is the value of relationship. Stories and instructions shared in relationship, reaffirming relationship within a community as it joins in the social dance or song, validate and strengthen communityas do the words of these women, these Nokomisinag, or grandmothers.

For many years, these words have been cached away. I have had some opportunities to hear many of these women speak, and I have observed some of them as I have traveled into their communities. What I know, in the least, is that their words have immense power and connect me to a larger reality in which I, as a spiritual human being, have a place in historythey remind me that I live in both the material and spiritual worlds. That is the power of these teachings: we remember and revitalize our connections. And, from this set of relationships and teachings, we are better able to care for our communities, whether this community has feet, wings, fins, roots, or paws.