Practicing Care in a time of Climate Crisis

The woman in white is Meda DeWitt, a Tlingit traditional healer and ethnoherbalist, who led today’s workshop at the Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland. Meda lives in Alaska, in one of the tribal areas inside the Arctic Circle, where the ice is disappearing, massive methane bubbles are exploding, and people are grieving and frightened. She says the native elders teach the way forward, which is not mitigation but adaptation. “It’s too late to stop global warming,” she says, “but we can care for each other and the environment as we move deeper into the crisis.” 

Human beings have evolved for touch, she says. Kind touch heals and helps us to develop resilience, so we can adapt to life-change that is coming faster than we expect. “Touch your children more, touch your friends and loved ones more, always asking for permission, always respecting boundaries.” She asked for a volunteer and demonstrated how to offer comforting touch with respect and attention.

The other half of the workshop was about what she calls “re-matriation” of plant knowledge. She says native women used plants for healing for thousands of years before pharmaceutical corporations slapped patents and price tags on native knowledge. She created a couple of vats of “salve” based on olive oil and beeswax with calendula, lavender, yarrow, and a leaf called tundra tea, and workshop participants decanted the salve into small glass containers (Extras).

Au and I made hundreds of photos and felt privileged to be allowed to witness what Meda DeWitt was teaching.

*The white fluff on the ground is from cottonwood trees.