Squaw Lake

Photo by Luana Lopez - Photos of Squaw Lake Trail, Oregon - www.AllTrails.com

by Angela Rose de Roos in Southern Oregon

As I do the work that we as Women of the Water are calling for. I sit noticing the very privilege I am afforded to have the opportunity to journal my thoughts.  In gratitude, I turn my attention inward. As I have been taught to notice my sensations, thoughts and feelings…and who is watching this.  I can feel an anxiety, a tension and a thought… will this be enough? Is there enough  Maybe... there is not enough.  I feel into the areas within my body, my psyche that feel disconnected.  It seems to course through my veins, to bring my attention to the time, to measurement of, and lack of time.  To the way in which I value my time, and spend it.  And underneath an overwhelming sense of lack. As if inherently, there is not enough. This series of thoughts, or loop is familiar. As if it is built in, autonomic. I sense this not only in my own story, I notice it in the fabric of western culture. We feel hurried, paced, rushed. A principle premise in capitalism, at the root of racism, adapted from a masculine approach, called in economics opportunity cost. A sense of lack, what newagers call FOMO.  As if crawling as a child wasn’t enough, I must strive to walk.  It seems natural to strive, to compete and to evolve. And I receive the message, this is deeper than you.  In the developmental stages we seem to give our praise to the overachiever while resting into the moment of being, and just crawling, seems ordinary and is often underplayed or not valued as highly.        

I have been asked to study my family tree, and so I have been gathering the strength to talk to my mother at length about my ancestors.  This may not make sense, and if you knew my family history, it would.  When I was younger I remember having a very visceral reaction when I heard the stories about my lineage.  I recall not wanting to be connected to so much suffering, to a line that had pioneered through territories that were not ours, a line who took what they needed often at the expense of others.  As I learned of the natives who once lived where I did, I felt a great sadness.  A feeling of shame to be related to this history and a guilt to identify or express this to others. Especially my family. As a child I knew that we as white people were on the wrong side. This is the history that has been passed down to me.  And so I sit, contemplating.  What is my role? How do I receive these insights without continuing to perceive with negative emotions, and just being with this internal conflict?  How do I come to resolution?  To shift our current state of affairs? And very importantly what can I do as a woman, as a descendant of European Immigrants, who stands on stolen land. How do I come into right relationship with myself, with my family, with those this land belongs to. How do I empower my community to effect global change.

I understand how I have been conditioned, during my early childhood. I was surrounded by and brought up in conflict, steeped. My parents fought, my brothers picked on me. I would run away to the woods for solace, often. Daily.  When I needed a mother, I would go to the earth. She offered comfort and genuine presence. The plants, the trees, the water and the wind. How I loved the earthy smells of the dirt, and how I felt cared for in the most unconditional way.  There was no anger there, there was a sense of peace and ease. I would bury myself in the dirt and come home dirty, and squeaky clean. She brushed me off. And made a protective layer around me.  This peace carried me, this connection.  And, I go back here, again and again. And as I breathe into this body deeply, I remember that I am earth and as I give thanks for this life and worship this earth I pray. I gather strength, I ask to receive courage and to be a witness.

I realize it is important to know where I come from.  To know who my ancestors are and where they come from is to know where I come from.  As I face into my past, I promise myself to stay rooted in this awareness. I will remember my role is being fulfilled as I witness. That as I witness from a place of observation, non-judgement, openness and awareness, I will naturally and organically be called into action.  My work now is to bring attention, awareness to the living waters.  That this is healing, and it is important. I will not own this work. I will do this work. In a humble way, for the benefit of all beings.  

As I face in and walk the path of re-connection to my family who I feel quite literally estranged from, I will hold a space of peace, acceptance and do my best to navigate, to receive information and call forth integrity with my values. In the face of conflict, I will choose peace.  I will continuously forgive myself and others for making mistakes. I will be curious and receive the information I gather with reverence, and openness.  I will look into the pain and suffering I witness and offer presence. I will take care and nourish myself so I do not harm myself or others as fatigue, hunger, my needs and those of my family arise. I will return rested and recharged, I promise to return.  And to do the work.  

My walks beside Andrew and I have been making water walking a priority, and have been weaving this simple and profound action into our days afternoons and weekends. We talk, we walk, we vision about various ways we can support earth stewardship and as we drive, we process. We pray. We go to the water to listen, to make prayers and sing. This last weekend we went to Squaw Lake, above Applegate Lake and below Summit Lake around 3,000 ft elevation in Southern Oregon.  We have been getting to the roots of our conditioning, our patterns and limitations. Which can stir our deepest trauma.  As we got out of the car I was currently stirred.  Which gave me the opportunity to be simultaneously accessing awareness.  And so I watch.  We walk through a bit of mud as a slight drizzle comes from the sky. Down a path, through the fir, pine, madrone and cedar trees to Squaw Lake. At the left edge of the lake it ran off cascading into a creek. There was smooth concrete. The water fell through a pipe and spilled down to a few smoothed down pieces of concrete below that the water had worn down into the stones.  I noticed the merging.  It was nature meeting man.  We had been talking on the drive about what we knew of Squaw Lake, where it had gotten the name and why.  Andrew said Squaw is what white people called Native Women.  He said that it has been thought of as a derogatory word for women as a way to put them down, and also that native tribes have reclaimed the word and it is used as an empowering woman’s word, there is a (Navaho) Dineh Squaw dance.  And so as I walked the lake and contemplated all of these pieces.  The wind picked up, the rain grew colder as the sky grew thick with rain carrying clouds.  

I imagined the land once occupied by the tribes and the women who came to rest and bathe and live here. The willow shoots at the water’s edge, the trail around the lake and I let my mind dance with images of native women washing and tending their children honoring life by living and honoring the water. The ways that nature was their culture.  As I wandered through the campsites, the nature observatory and along the trail, a road once built for gold mining and later a campground then closed, I saw the immigrants and miners who traveled the Applegate trail. The water now directed by concrete to be used as a resource. Squaw Lake it is called. And I feel again the disconnect of our patriarchal white man’s culture. We register and pay to visit a place that was once this free.  

I feel a longing. A sadness, that wells. We are struggling as women, as men. Disconnected as a culture, as one nation.  I long for the freedom of women, for the safety of indigenous women.  For the integrity and right relationship of anger within men, for the indigenous whose land I stand upon, for the natural way of being in harmony with the earth that is within us.  I pray for us all.  I pray to the water as the darkness sets in and I go to be still for a moment and touch the water with my hands and I touch my heart, I touch the water again and the reeds of grass and I touch my third eye, I touch it once more and touch the top of my head and I ask to be forgiven, and to forgive.  For the water’s guidance, to teach me patience.  So that we may learn the tools to speak softly and listen well.  So that I may become calm, cool and connected.  To be busy in her way and still at the right time. So that I have strength to offer myself. So that I may heal within me this great sense of lack.  So that I may witness myself and my beliefs. To root out the racism, sexism, patriarchal, capitalistic systems that I may be operating from.  From this place of wholeness, naturally I will amplify this calling. 

We will find a different power in our return to the land, in our return to remembering.  A power that is already here.