The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Indigenous Wisdom: Resilience, Adaptation, and Seeing Nature as Ourselves with Casey Camp-Horinek

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

(Conversation recorded on June 12th, 2024)   Show Summary:  As we move through difficult cultural transitions and rethink our governance systems, it will be critical that we listen to voices that are rooted beyond the conventional Western thinking that has come to dominate our society. As such, it is always an honor when Indigenous leaders share their experiences and wisdom with the broader public. This week, Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation joins Nate to recount her decades of work in Indigenous and environmental activism. Her stories shed light on the often-overlooked struggles and tragedies faced by Indigenous communities in their efforts to restore and safeguard their homelands. Casey also shares her current work advocating for The Rights of Nature - which legalizes the same rights of personhood to Earth's ecosystems - of which the Ponca Nation was the first tribe in the US to implement.  How is the treatment of Indigenous people under the United States government reflective of the exploitative relationship between industrial systems and the Earth? What is 'Post-Traumatic Growth' and how could it assist in healing the deeper cultural wounds obstructing genuine dialogue and change? Could aligning our current laws with the laws of nature - followed by every other species - result in a more sustainable, interconnected, and thriving humanity?    About Casey Camp-Horinek: Casey Camp-Horinek, Councilwoman and Hereditary Drumkeeper of the Women's Scalp Dance Society of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, is a longtime activist, environmentalist, actress, and published author. First taking up the cause of Native and Human Rights in the early '70s, it has been in the last 15 years that she began her plea for Environmental Justice for her Ponca people and people around the globe. Casey has identified and diligently worked to remediate the corridor of toxic industry surrounding the historic lands of the Ponca people. Because of Casey's work, the Ponca Nation is the first Tribe in the State of Oklahoma to adopt the Rights of Nature Statute, and to pass a moratorium on fracking on Tribal Lands. Casey was also instrumental in the drafting and adoption of the first ever International Indigenous Women's Treaty protecting the Rights of Nature. Casey is a board member for Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, Movement Rights, as well as Earthworks. Casey Camp-Horinek has also been a film actor since 1988, starring in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Winter in the Blood, Barking Water and Goodnight Irene.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on Youtube   Support Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners    

virtually everything else in the world still follows natural law. And the only humans have tried to act like, well, we'll think of some words and we'll put it on a paper and we'll all agree with it, and then that's the law. And that's what the indigenous viewpoint and understanding has to offer. What has worked in the past? what has it been that allows us to live on this earth and to breathe the air, drink the water, eat the food? It's because we're an interrelated species. And so as an interrelated species, nature's doing fine. It's only humans that are really messing up.

You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagen's. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification. Today I am honored to welcome Casey Camp Horanek of the Ponca Nation in what's now called Oklahoma to the podcast. I heard Casey speak earlier. this year at Bioners and was blown away by her grace, eloquence, and drive for supporting the rights of nature.

She is a longtime activist, environmentalist, actress, and author. Casey has been advocating for native and human rights since the 1970s and in the last 15 years has been focused on environmental justice for her people and for people around world. In 2017, thanks to Casey's work, the Ponca people were the first in the United States to adopt the rights of nature statute as a tribal law, further inspiring many other tribes to do the same. Today's episode is unlike any that we have had before. Casey generously shares some of her experiences as an indigenous woman, many of which are heartbreaking. many of which I had no idea about.

They highlight the painful and actually not so distant past of how Native Americans have been treated in the United States. And I can increasingly see what modern American culture did to their way of life serves as a microcosm of what the superorganism is doing to the biosphere and the web of light on planet Earth. I feel honored that Casey chose to share her experiences with me, with us, with you. Please welcome Casey Camp Horanek. Hi, Casey. Great to see you. Good to see you. I'm really grateful to be here with you.

I am so looking forward to this. I was really inspired by your keynote presentation at the Bioners Conference a few months ago. And thank you for taking the time. to share your wisdom and thoughts. So I have so many questions on your work. You've been in activism and fighting for the protection of the natural world for a very long time. Maybe we could start, can you take me back to the moment you first got involved in environmental justice? And what inspired you to take that on as one of the primary focuses of your work?

Thank you for that question. It's very odd how the mind works sometime because when you said you've been fighting for, I think you said nature for a long time. And I was thinking, you know, for generations, nature has been fighting for us humans. And it's really kind of nice to have these places like you have provided here today to be able to say a few things on behalf of the ones, the silent ones, when they call them, but I kind of think they're just the folks that don't speak English or whatever this thing is that we share in the way of language, even though there's as much older and

much more profound. I'll do my best to kind of work as an interpreter to a degree. Because in our language, in our Ponka language, as well as other indigenous languages, the word for, the word for a person who, and you'll have to forgive me for just putting it in simple ways. The white folks that come into the culture, oftentimes say medicine man, medicine woman, shaman. In our ways, that's EASCA, and that's a translator. And we have the honor sometimes to be able, and I'm sure you've had the same sensation, but you weren't quite as tuned in as you are today.

But when you're young and you get the feeling that you feel when you walk out into a field of flowers or a butterfly goes by you and just mesmerizes you with the beauty and the grace, and you feel like there's something that profound that happened, you know, then that inner feeling, that that entity graces you with is that feeling of translation from their world into your world. So that's kind of, to me, what your podcast is.

Well, I mean, I grew up in southern Oregon, and as soon as I was done with school, when I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old, I would go into the Siscue foothills and just look at the butterflies and the plants and find a little salamander. And everything was so wonderful and beautiful and emergent. And I didn't know the words for it then. And then 10 years later, I go to business school at the University of Chicago. So I don't know what the hell happened. But there is something about like the five to eight year old humans in whatever culture that

recognize this kinship with nature. Right. Right. And then we as adults have to relearn sometimes what that feeling is and why we had it in the first place and how it translates into today's understandings of what is environmentalism. Because probably for you, it's the same way as for me. There wasn't that word when we were young. There was just getting through day by day, certainly in the, the area where I work and the area where I live and among my people. It was always survival at that time, have to have a job, have to go to the grocery store, have to have a little garden, have to be able to connect with life and not really fully understanding. So back to your question, there was a time as a young woman, as a young mother. I had my first daughter, we had our

first daughter when I was 22. My husband was 24. And it felt as enormous as it must feel for everybody. All of a sudden, there is that continuum, that life that you're responsible for and that you want the best for and that you do your best to try to make sure they have food to eat, you know, water to drink, a place to be. And among the indigenous peoples, as every knows. We've had this form of genocide that has been

very direct and very indirect by the federal government through the doctrine of discovery to begin with, the colonization process, the boarding schools and on and on and on. Until as a young woman,

I did not feel connected to anything in the world that I lived in. The schools were very foreign to me. To speak this language was very, it felt very confining and very cookie cutter to try to use the conjunctions and the verbs and all of that. When my mother and father, my grandparents, were part of the forest removal from Nabathasca, from our homeland. My grandpa was eight at the time.

And then my mom and dad, you know, were the first generation born in captivity, so to speak, on a reservation, without the ability to leave unless you're kidnapped by the boarding school peoples. And then you're confined, you know, and there's a form of Stockholm syndrome that kind of happens then where the Patriots, the language, the way of dress, the lack of parenting because you don't learn that. In the boarding school creates a society and kind of dumps us into what was called the melting pot at that time. And so when I became a young mother and I was very, didn't want my kids, I have four, or we have four, adult children now that were born. 70, 73, 76, and 79, that I was hoping would not go through the painful existence. So I homeschooled them.

And we seeped them in the traditional ways, the ways that I had been fortunate enough to be raised in as well as that other world. And then my brother Carter Camp became one of the leaders of this new thing at that time called the American Indian Movement that would have been around 1969, 1970, right on the heels of the civil rights movement, right on the heels of the turbulent 60s and the taking to the streets and the anti-war and kind of the budding. knowledge of that word environmentalism. And so for us, it was as a family, we do everything as a family. The organizing began at Mama's Table.

And I was blessed to be a cook, child care for. That's what I did was take care of the majority of the children. and to sew for my brothers, because all of them became involved in the American Indian movement as well as my husband. And as we moved along and stopped things like the forced sterilization of the women and the IHS hospitals and the Indian Health Service, as we made sure that we could have a generation to come,

because this was happening surreptitiously. No one knew that that was being done to them when they'd go in to have children. They'd come out sterilized and not know why they didn't have another child until they found out later. We were dealing with not just the memories of the land, but the longing for

and not understanding completely what that was all about, because again, colonization had been forced into our brains and our way of being. We were also dealing with the educational system. We were dealing with the false histories that were presented to us. There was marches to Washington that my brothers took part in, and I stayed home with my kids and in any other kids. children that I could. And that was the trail of broken treaties. Then there was the battle at wounded knee. And there's a whole story behind that, how it arrived in 1973. And so my dad and my brothers, they were all there, my companion, and I had a what we call it AIM house here in Oklahoma, American Indian movement camped in our home

and everybody who came through, including FBI. There was times of having prayer service when deputized ranchers would be sniping at our children in the yards out in the country. Those are memories from my children's childhood that are still very fresh in my mind. Sniping? Sniping.

What do you mean? Like shooting? Trying to shoot them, trying to kill them. Oh. One time in particular, I was expecting my son, Mekosy. This was in 73. My brothers were being starved, and my daddy had come home with pneumonia. He'd been thrown in jail up there in Rapid City,

and the federal government had surrounded that little hamlet and weren't allowing anyone to come into wounded knee or to know. At the same time, the whole Nixon thing was going on, Watergate. So attention was diverted, you know, into that political form. But we knew that there could be a massacre there at any moment. There was already people killed. And the American Indian movement, when we would gather, oftentimes they would arrest us for various things.

Some people never made it out of jail. They'd be beat to death. And at one point, we had gone to this elder family. Now I'm older than those two are then. But Beaver Morgan and Lily Carson Morgan. and it was at a place probably, oh, maybe three or four miles off on a dirt road off of a highway, way in the country, nearest neighbor probably miles away. And our family and many other families, native families, gathered to have a prayer service.

We all brought what we had, and we're going to eat together and pray for the well-being. of our relatives that were inside, wounded knee. Our children were playing outside. My girl would have been about not yet three. And she was Julie, Julie, and she was playing outside with the other children. And pretty soon we hear bullets flying. And we could hear the thunking of the bullets in in the garage that we were in. and our men folks, and, you know, it was mostly women and few men and some elders there,

got our babies inside, all of our children inside, and they had surrounded us during that evening. We came to find out that they had deputized the sheriffs and the police here, and Oklahoma had deputized all the ranchers around us as well, and they were shooting at us, and that continued. throughout the night. We weren't able to leave. We were pinned down in prayer. And so that's what we did is we prayed. And morning came, and we were all alive. And this was not an unusual story. I want you to understand that this was not an unusual story in our lives, not just our lives, but the lives of indigenous people at that time. And throughout history,

This is just one little story. Whenever it was time, you know, daylight came, and the police had set up roadblocks on each end of the dirt road, like a few quarter of a mile away on. You go out the driveway, and then about a quarter of a mile away on each end, there was roadblocks. And as you would attempt to leave, they would do car searches, and then if your tread wasn't deep enough on your tire, they would arrest you.

If your brakes had a little squeak in them, they would arrest you. We do have, it's hard to talk about a young man who was killed in the Pawnee County Jail after this, after being arrested. Terry Williams was his name. So if you didn't have a driver's license or whatever, so my husband began to drive everybody out and then he'd make his way back through the woods and then he'd drive somebody else out

because he had a DL. and so he got several people out that wouldn't have been able to make it. He had a good car or two at that particular moment, and that's even a story in itself. We lucked out and had a borrowed car from a sister. As the majority of the people had made it, and the others felt like they were going to stay and protect the elders that were there, We got in our car to drive the 30 miles to our home.

We had my dad with us, and Daddy had just come from wounded knee. He was suffering from pneumonia, but he still wanted to be at the prayer service. My husband and he were in the front seat. I was about maybe a few months away from having my oldest son, Minkasey, and Julie was in the back seat with me, We got out to the highway and felt like we were good, and then the sirens came, and they had us blocked in from the front and from the back, the police that were there, highway patrol and sheriffs,

and we felt still okay because the car was good, and he had a license. But when they got my husband out of the car, they begin breaking the lights, the taillights out with their flashlights and said, whoops, you know, got a bad light here, you're going to jail. That's hard, boy. Because he told me, go, you know, just drive.

And get the baby and your dad out of here because last I saw they were putting him in a ditch and he was cuffed. And they were kicking him. I got to the next place that I could, because you couldn't call the police. They were the ones doing it, you know. Called family.

And they got him to the Stillwater, Oklahoma jail at that time, and he wasn't killed. So that was that story. There's so many more. I have to light my cedar again. if you'll excuse me, some of these memories. And shoot, we had it good compared to a lot of people. I'm not saying we're the only one suffering at that time or even today and now,

because I've seen my sons go through the same thing at Standing Rock. I have a lot of responses to that. First of all, I didn't know most of that history. Second of all, I don't know how you. are with all the traumas and the, you know, the struggles that you and your people have been through, I don't know how you are so strong today. And not only that, but you're strong on behalf of the rights of nature and the environment, because a lot of other pathways would have been possible from the stories that you just shared. They were there. The anger was there.

and, you know, it hasn't totally lost its potency. I still understand where the, I know where to place my energy as I grow older, but our people have really been, with the basic understanding of the traditional way of being has kept pulling me back to the same. over and over again. And, you know, one of the main tenets that we were taught when people consider themselves your enemy or treat you badly is to pity them and to pray for them.

And if one really has that concept in their heart and spirit and understand that it does no good to... No, I'm not going to say that. everything has its place. It just wasn't my place to do what my husband did and be that one in the ditch being beaten. He withstood that. It was my place to make sure that I was focused on my child's needs

and my father, my sick father. And so my guidance has always come from a place of understanding what it is to be an indigenous. woman, what it is to be a Ponca woman and all of the facets that allow me to move in that role in this particular lifetime. I'm going to fast forward us through a thousand stories to the mid-80s. And in the mid-80s, the Department of Energy through the federal government, Mind you, we're already experiencing horrendous environmental issues here in Ponca territory because this is the heartland of the oiling gas regime, these heartless monsters, boy.

And so ConocoPy-Six 66 has set itself up. And there's a whole history that a person has to understand from the first time that the doctrine of discovery happened to write when the Bureau of Indian Affairs, that lovely misnomer of Indian affairs, was concepted by the federal government under the Department of War. And I'm not sure if everybody understands that. If its inception is under the Department of War,

that's exactly where it acts from. Now it's under the Department of Interior. But the signing of the deals with these petroleum people and various other killers has been with the approval and with the implicit direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the federal government behind it. So when we, as I told you, Mom and Dad were born in reservation status areas. So the first language was the Ponca language that Mama spoke. And so when her daddy and Mama were approached and we'd had to leave behind our seeds, our hunting things, our fishing things, everything, and walk 700 miles was what we had on our bird.

backs. One in three of us had already died. One in three died once we got here. We were reduced to such a small amount that when they would say, do you want to plow? Do you want some seeds? Then all you have to do is look at this paper and the BIA will approve it for you. We didn't know what was on the paper. You don't speak the language, you don't understand the concepts, and you have been good to everybody that comes in your territory, so maybe this is a good person going to help you out. You're getting plowing some seeds out of this. So that's how these oil companies and various other land theft things happened

and through five treaties with Pankas that were all abrogate. So 1980s, Department of Energy targeted indigenous territories in the United States in this Turtle Island to receive what they called economic development opportunities. And those to them were that reservation should be open to the nuclear waste, waste incinerators and various things along those lines. So it was, we're already dying from what's going on with the petroleum industry here. And Brother Carter began to organize again around these issues because we knew there had to be, we had to do something different.

We could not allow, you know, nuclear waste to be put into ground that has nurtured us for 100 years now since our forest removal. And to further kill any more of us, we had seen what happened at Big Mountain and out there with the Denay, the Navajo people, and what it had done. We knew that we didn't want the incinerators where they would be bringing in by train and truck waste from Detroit and Chicago. And much later, I could look back and see that was the turning point. So way back to the question that you asked, how did we get into this? That was the turning point. at that time we didn't know it was the beginning of a long curve and that the things that they call indigenous wisdom and all of those understandings that we now are are bringing forth to deal with

this crisis that the two-legged being has brought to Mother Earth was going to be something that indigenous people would take a lead in, but that was the beginning, Nate. As I hear you tell those stories, first of all, I'm struck by the resilience of you are such a strong, charismatic, wise person, but you've been, you know, exposed to those memories and events during your life, and I just have empathy. I can't. can't even imagine. My larger reflection is what our global economic, energy-hungry, market-led superorganism is right now to the natural world.

The story that you just said about the deputizing and the sniping and the mistreatment of the Ponca people and many other. indigenous tribes, that's really a microcosm of the larger story that we're facing on the planet right now, don't you think? Yes, absolutely. I hadn't really thought about it in those terms. I certainly did think of that in terms of what happened at Standing Rock. You know, at that time, I was still into thinking that it was more around civil rights, you know, coming myself through six, and this is the early 70s, that it felt more like, you know, a further form of genocide directly, you know.

But I know that, you know, my sons were called to Standing Rock by spiritual guidance. And my eldest son, Mekase became the leader at Standing Rock. that he was there. Him and Joy Braun had sent out a call for warriors when Dapple was getting ready to cross the river. My eldest son had responded. And then my youngest son and several of the other relatives went up that way, but they were there to start the first nonviolent direct action.

with the first people to go to jail. And it was on behalf of the water herself and all of the beings downstream, the millions of human beings and all of those other beings in whatever form that they took. And for me, that's the more of a nexus of consciousness. even than that other time in my life.

And, you know, again, I watched my son being treated like his father was. I saw my son being taken away by, you know, six or eight militarized police with his hands cuffed and dragging him. And, you know, at that time I was sitting zip tight on the ground. myself and we're all being tear gassed and and tased and you know and this is about this separation that

the colonized mind has somehow managed to lodge and it's someplace between its brain and its spirit that has caused such a total disconnect that they're not even aware of it It's beyond my understanding. From your perspective, if you could speculate,

where and when did Western society go wrong? And how come we kill nature and call it development? And how and when did this separation occur? Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I always have, you know, a certain question myself on the where and when. I don't believe that there's anything short of greed that has allowed us as a species

to say, this is mine and I'm going to eat it, but I don't care if you're hungry, dude. This is my water over here, and I'm going to drink it, and I don't care if you're thirsty either. That is such a, a thing that could happen if you were a year and a half old,

and you had not formed empathy. But I saw an interesting thing one time. It was a little study that kind of helped me to see that there is so much about the spirituality and about the connectedness of indigenous people's teachings that is also innate. And I'm not really understanding it, but I saw where there was a race that was being held. And all these children that were about four or five years old, there was a whole basket of apples. And the apples were set up under a tree. Are you familiar with this?

Have you seen this? There was kind of a little study. So the children were told, whoever gets their first, gets a... that basket of apples. And you can eat as, you know, it's yours then. It belongs to you. And they got all happy and they took off running fast as they could. And the one child out ran everybody and got up there and got the apples and sat down

under the tree with the apple in his lap. And immediately started passing them out. Now, they did that with non-Indigenous children of the same age. and that child walked off with that bag of that basket of apples and kept them all. How old were those kids? Oh, I would say maybe four to six, maybe closer to six. So is it education? Is it parenting? Is it genetics? I think that it's more parenting and societal.

because it is true that societal understandings. I always remember one of the first ladies' president's wife said, you know, it takes a village to raise a child. And I was thinking, hey, they're learning. They're getting it. Because I think among us, we don't have a word for cousin. and any one of our children could go stay with anybody else's children at any time, you know, and that, or any auntie raises any children that need raising, and there's a way of teaching.

And I'm not saying that there isn't that same type of individual within all indigenous nations. I certainly know that many of the people within the territory that I live have been indoctrinated and colonized to the point that it's very self-focused. It isn't part of the village, but our original teachings are that we do what is best for the whole. Are those teachings in English or in Ponca? Neither. When you teach a four-year-old child. They're in a way of being and the way that

I think it's teachings and I also think that there is that innateness in all children to have that duality in them. Every toddler is just as stinky as they can be about mine. Mine. It's mine. It's mine.

matter if it is or if it isn't, doesn't matter what it is. But then there's that time that you have to do what nowadays they call behavior modification. And that is helping that child to understand how to share, how to care, how to develop empathy. So many things come back to me when I'm talking, I remember my mom telling me one time, you know, if nobody likes your child, that's your fault. And it made me like have to really go clear with myself again because it is up to me to instill a value system in those children. It is up to me to teach the things that my mom taught me just like that. If nobody likes your child, that's your fault. Because a child is a child. Our society as a whole, as a two-leg being, as a species of humans, has failed to really

develop and mature. And in many ways, where do we find fault? I don't know. I'm not real certain that that's even relevant because at a certain stage in one's life, One also has to take responsibility for what they believe and how they view the world and how they see themselves in it. And even if they're the type that feels that Western education is positively the best way, because we have many of those in our family, and I'm so grateful for them. You know, we have, you know, my eldest grandson is a pharmacist, a doctor. I have a grandson that is an attorney. But their viewpoint, their world viewpoint, has to become something that encompasses reality.

So if one looks at science, one understands that if you kill all the green things, there's not going to be oxygen, right? If the combustible engine pollutes, then it's going to create this. particular situation. If there is too much sun, this happens. I mean, science verifies all of the indigenous teachings. So there's a whole way that we can either choose to continue to be idiots, or we can choose to become conscious and not think just a just a, just of self, but as self as a multiple organism that can have a future for its offspring.

And that's where we are right now. When I started this podcast, I didn't see that. And you're like the 10th or 15th person that I've had on that's mentioned something to that effect. I have so many questions, Casey. Let me go back to something you were just saying. I mean, you talked about your upbringing and the difficulties and challenges. And of course, in many First Nation areas, there's poverty and other problems.

Do you think that culturally, the way you teach the children, do you think it's easier? And the reason I asked this is this podcast originally is about the history of humans and energy use. and that we're headed into a period with less energy and a less material throughput. Do you think it's easier for a culture to embrace a sharing, wider definition of the self if there is resource scarcity or resource abundance? Okay, so your words remind me of things as well. So energy, let's think about that. And let's also look at the thought of resource.

First, I'm going to ask you to take off the RE on resource. Okay, the source. Sources of life. All things that they call resources are actually sources of life. Right? Yeah. Seriously. I mean, rethink that.

I know. I'm guilty of using that language. Fish stocks, the stock of fish we have. have. It's not a stock. It's a living school of fish. And then if one thinks of energy, what is that? If you're talking about the extractive industry's sources of life, then you're talking about a finite being. because I was talking to a penio opal plant who was part of movement, right?

She and Shannon Biggs were co-founders. And at one time, when she was dealing with the refinery in Richmond of California, we gathered together at its gate, and she asked for a prayer for the oil and for the gas. I just was so blown away because I really had not, thought of their life force, that they as an intricate part of Mother Earth had the right to live within her body as the great mystery intended. And the disruption that had caused where we are right now had nothing to do with them.

They are energy, but they are their own form of energy. they're not bastardized by refineries and by mixing them together with other chemicals that have their own life to create something that wasn't really intended to be until now in this time of greed. And so everything being redefined from what is that, what is energy, what is power. And the true energy is from the father's son. Agreed? All energy. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, the sun in the sky. Yes. That one. Yeah, I'm not Christian. So I'm not going that direction because I don't know. enough to even say anything about it. Okay.

But the sun, the sun that shines and every, you know, the energy that is brought from that, they might call it solar energy now. But it has an energy of its own. It creates the thunderstorms and the weather patterns are all in conjunction with that energy. another true source of energy is the Mother Earth, right? And we could go through every single millions and billions and trillions of portions of her cells that are energy. But you recognize that as being a truth. It's the growing things that feed these bodies and create these cells.

and it is her water. It is all of those things that are, those are true power, those are true forms of energy. The moon, the moon mother that creates the rhythms that are part of the mother ocean's understandings and those that live within her, part of how women are connected to the rhythms. and the waters and yeah.

So part of it is just going to take this whole shift in how humans understand relationship and understand what is natural law as opposed to the imaginary things that humans come up with like time, you know, and a clock and a Gregorian calendar and our own egos. that creates a superior thing, money.

I mean, these are all just such false premises. Carbon trading is another one of those, carbon sequestration. I mean, we could just go on forever with these weird things that humans imagine so that it allows that 1% of 1% to have imaginary money in an imaginary bank place. You know, it's all just kind of comical. And if we didn't all buy into it, it would cease to exist. Is it possible for an adult white person to have a change in consciousness away from money and nouns and looking at the natural world as it is a resource and a stock?

or does it really have to happen from a value education cultural infusing at a very young age, two, three, four years old? What do you think? I think that there is a shift in consciousness that's already happening. I think that the very words that humans learn to describe, themselves as and by, you know, you and I might call ourselves activist or environmentalist, and that's the most common use these days for those of us who want to label ourselves, that those words are meaning that there is a shift that is that slow boat turning.

I think that it is lagging and that it is inevitable and that we better all move that shift along with everybody else. I think your podcast is part of that. I know that certainly for me, like I told you, this is my first one, so I'm enjoying just having a conversation with you, and now I know that means I'm in a podcast. But I find it just part of this awakening. It also is that sharing that has to happen.

So I read a lot. I enjoy learning from everything all the time. And have you ever heard of that story about the 100 monkey? I've heard about the millionth monkey could type Macbeth by random on the computer. I have not heard the 100th monkey. Maybe it's just a number then. but it is about a scientist who is studying monkeys on a particular island and watching something about how they teach each other. And so one learned to crack open something and it taught its offspring.

And that knowledge kind of spread throughout their tribe. And then all of a sudden monkeys on another island spontaneously knew that. Is that the same story? No, I've never heard that. Okay. Well, it happened, and it was documented and well documented. But could the monkeys go from island to island or not? No, no. It was a spontaneous consciousness that spread however that happens. I have no idea, but it's through the spirit, through that form of energy that that happened.

And so I kind of hope and believe that that is where we are, that we monkeys, us humans, are sharing as much as we can right now. And we used to talk all the time about the web of life that we're all connected to. And now there is a different web, and it's on a computer, right? It's an Internet web. and there are things like this podcast that you're doing and many, many, many more ways of sharing that I'm hoping create such a wave of consciousness and such a wave of that internal understanding of connectedness that that the 100th monkey just starts tipping that consciousness until it's a spontaneous knowledge that's real.

awakened in humankind. We weren't always separate, you know, from understanding natural law. It was a concept that everybody understood to a certain degree, whether it was the farmer in Europe that knew that if he allowed his oxen's to poop into stream, that the stream would be dirtied for him and for everybody downstream, right? And so there is knowledge there for everybody, and they just have to really put it as a value above what it is that is of value now, which might be instead of a headset like this, connecting us as humans and sharing knowledge,

maybe it might be a child with a screen in front of him doing a battle with somebody somewhere else. And so the avenues open. The road is laid out in front of us and the knowledge is within us. So it's about walking that road. It's about, you know, holding hands with somebody else and walking them down that. road if you want to. It's about each of us having the gifts that the great mystery has a part of, an intrinsic part of our knowledge and soul and spirit that has to resurface and re-ground itself in what's real, what's true, and quit buying into the nonsense. I have to resurface and re-ground itself in what's real, what's true, and quit buying into the nonsense.

I happen to like nonsense. You know, I'm sitting in an air-conditioned house right now. I like both. I just need to change the form of energy that allows it to happen. I need to be able to be, and see poverty plays into this. So the 1% know that if we're kept in poverty, if we're kept in ignorance, that they can continue to accrue their false fortunes. and so they need to be called out and exposed for the ugliness that they truly are.

They're really the mass murderers and how history will portray them to their generations to come if they're lucky enough to have a place for their generations to come. I believe I'm 100% positive that that future is. going to happen in a good way. So building on that, what unique contributions can indigenous activism bring to our current cultural challenges, our current cultural situation? Our current cultural shift is what we're going to do that. And, you know, I learned a new phrase, too, from a young lady in my tribe called post-traumatic

growth. And I kind of think we're in that as well. Yeah. Yeah, her name's a nature warrior. And she was talking about the loss, you know, we have a missing and murdered indigenous women, children, people, however you want to look at it, that we've been able to kind of give some feet to in the political world to say, you know, we need to be able to identify those that are devastated by the extractive industry and the kidnapping of and on and on. And she had a tragedy in her life that would be hers to describe. But she said, I'm not going to say that I'm going to heal because I may not ever. But I will say that I am adapting.

And so that was a key word for me. She had a big long speech. Every bit of it was relevant. But there's always those little things that stand out to you as an individual adapting. Well, we've done that forever, we indigenous people. We have adapted to the weather. We've adapted to our place of being. We've adapted to having people come into our territories.

We've adapted to a shift in culture and language and clothing and on and on and on. So that fit for me. She also said that most of us, you know, because it's not about healing for her. It's about adapting. She also said, I also don't want to continue to say we're living in trauma because of all of the things that has happened to us and continue to. She said, what I want to do and what adapting has done for me is allowed me to move into post-traumatic growth. And for everybody, that's going to be different.

and I feel as if we as a species might be entering into that mindfulness, that ability to look at ourselves in post-traumatic growth. And so that's where I'm choosing to be and that's where I choose to believe. And what the indigenous people offer in terms of this thing called environmentalism, this thing that is allowing people to think beyond themselves is to see the concept of oneness that is obvious. It's another scientific fact. They used to say you are what you eat.

But a scientific fact is that this cell, this entire cellular being that's over my spirit, this body that I wear, has had the good fortune. of having plant life give its life for me so that I could grow a new cell and four lakes and bins and those that fly into sacred water and the breath that I share and with all that is. And so our understanding is not that we're out there saving nature, but that we are nature, saving itself at this time because we humans have not obeyed the natural law virtually everything else in the world

still follows natural law whether it's the deer or the water or the butterfly or the elephant or the sand the stone people, the star nation, the winds, they still live within the natural. law. And the only humans have tried to act like, well, we'll think of some words and we'll put it on a paper and we'll all agree with it. And then that's the law. And that's what the indigenous viewpoint and understanding has to offer the offerings. What has worked in the past? What has it been that

allows us to live on this earth and to breathe the air, drink the water, eat the food. It's because we're an interrelated species. And so as an interrelated species, nature's doing fine. It's only humans that are really messing up. We're the ones that have created situations that make it hard for our offspring to understand what's next. And maybe some people are still living in that trauma, but we have to teach that new way of looking, post-traumatic growth. I totally resonate with that, and I think post-traumatic growth is a much better path than post-growth trauma,

which I think is also possible, given the economic landscape of coming years and decades. So what could mainstream environmental activism learn from following the wisdom and holistic view of indigenous leadership that you're describing? I think that it's only in maybe it's words, I guess, that I'm stumbling over right now. And, you know, we were taught, I was taught, words have power, and that thoughts have power as well. That's why I'm telling you that there is that way through our thoughts, through the power of our thoughts, that we can embrace the concept of the next steps.

And it's not going to come from just one person. It's going to come from many of us that are going to suddenly have these great epiphanies of how. But I think that what could be learned and shared would be that the old ways of understanding are not irrelevant to today's life. And that there has to always be a sense of hope as well. We really cannot allow ourselves to sink into the morass of depressions or thinking it doesn't matter what we do. Everything matters. All the things we do matter. So indigenous peoples place a lot of weight on ceremony as a way of connecting and honoring Mother Earth, something that, quite frankly, my culture has lost.

Could you explain why ceremony and ritual and prayer are so important? And I ask this because you did your cedar smoke twice already on this call, and all I did was have coffee before this conversation. What are your thoughts on the importance of ritual? This is an interesting subject altogether. I'm drinking coffee. I feel like I really love coffee. And in my language, it's manka saabe, which means black medicine.

So sometimes, yeah, so you're doing a little ritual and a little ceremony and having a little medicine. That might be what the key is right there. Perhaps you're ceremonying all the time, like when you walked outside when you were six or seven years old, and you went into the prairies of the flowers and the butterflies. and you could hear the bird song, wouldn't you call that a ceremony of sorts where you were feeling and hearing and participating in something sacred? And I do that every day today too at 57 years old.

It's a ceremony. It's a ceremony. And so ours might be more focused but not different than that experience. A great deal of what I've learned has been not only in a very structured ceremony, which, goodness, the profound things that I've been introduced to

and incorporated into my understanding of who, where, and how I am have been in these very powerful, ceremonies. And then the other understandings have been in places like you're talking about that I can remember the first and only time I saw water spirits. I was by myself and I was by a stream of water and just lost in the gorgeousness of the sun hitting this sparkling spring. coming out of the rocks there and flowing in such a manner. And I suddenly became aware that I was actually visibly seeing the water spirits that were right on top of the water.

And I can remember exactly what they looked like and what their dance was. And it wasn't anything that I would have expected. It was more for me, and I'm sure it's different. with water wherever she is, she has her own spirit, her own ways. But in that particular instant, it was if one could picture a rainbow-y-type flame on top of a flowing stream, there were so many of them. And they were just enjoying the day same as I was. So this all, your work, your background, and you, and you.

You and many of your colleagues and family could be forgiven for just focusing on yourself and focusing on civil rights, but you're actually focusing on the rights of nature. Your tribe was the first, if I understand correctly in the United States, to legally adopt the rights of nature as a tribal law in 2017. And you also pass international rights of rivers a couple years ago in 2022. Can you explain what the rights of nature are and how you came up with the idea to implement them into tribal law? So the first time I heard about this little phrase called Rights of Nature was, I believe, in 2011, I had come together with 100 women from around the globe and Osprey Oriel Lake, who is the founder of, weekend, Women's Earth, the Climate Action Network, had gathered us all together. And it was kind of astounding to me to even be asked to be a part of that gathering, because just to get to learn and to hear

and participate. And while I was there, and there's not even a word that I can think of that could tell you about the energy force that was a woman from around the globe gathering and the path that it's set in every direction. But the words, rights of nature were uttered by what is now my close friend, Shannon Biggs. and I can remember walking away thinking oh, golly, another law, another law around nature. I mean, another man-made law, right?

And I could remember my brother Carter Camp saying about the Freedom of Religion Act that happened in 1978 for Native Americans. And he said, this if we really had freedom of religion, they wouldn't have to put a law out there and say, now we grant you freedom of religion. Because everything, our religion and our dances and our language and everything had laws about we can't do them, we can't do them, we can't do them. So, yeah, sure. So I felt that way about rights of nature. And it took a series of years.

including trips to Ecuador to talk about how the indigenous the land rights of nature was put into the Constitution. I believe that was 2006, somewhere in that area. We took a trip to the Wanganui River that's what's called New Zealand

and visited with the Maori people there. And over a period of time, I could understand that if that could be reflected in our territory, that it would have to come within the cosmology of the teachings and put into Western law form so that it could go through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, it could go through the Department of Interior. It could be passed into all of those forms that are also called laws. And so over a period of time having community meetings and visiting with people and learning more and more and more,

we eventually came to an understanding and believe me, prayer and ceremony, more than I can even tell you, listening to my own children, and listening to community people and listening to what is called nature, listening to the water and the earth and the winds, praying to the father's son, the moon, that it became a document that's called the immutable Ponca rites of nature.

In other words, it's always been in existence. It took me a while to us. understand how then to put it into Western law form, where it could be a, not only a viable tool to fight the extractive industry and what they're doing to my people in the form of environmental genocide, but also a reconnect through the bureaucracy of, what our original teachings were in relationship to all our relatives, all the relationships with all living things. And so that statute was formed and passed when I was on council.

Then in 2022, a similar process around water. And I think that might have sprung a great deal from all of the teachings that happened around what happened at Standing Rock, but also what the water here was experiencing. The rivers are so defiled by the fracking industry, by the mining industry with the sand around us, by the refinery and all of those things that, you know, she fairly cries as she moves for all of her relatives,

that she's held in her arms all this time, that, you know, fish kills happening here, deer that are dead from drinking from her. And that runs right to my community, you know. Now this is happening? Yes. Now the pollution in the river? Yes.

Yes. How can you wake up every day and be so graceful and happy. I just, I don't know how, I would be angry, I think, like every day if I lived in those circumstances. I am. I'm hurt. Okay.

I'm in pain for what's going on. And the manner in which I express myself has to come from a place of clarity. But we, you know, we have definitely believed. that right at this time, nonviolent direct action has more power than the angry lashes of so many of our warriors that are so frustrated by what's going on. But prayer has more power. Humans have more, we have to get things done. I really don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. I don't have the energy that I could just take and say, okay, right at this time I have, it's kind of like road rage. You know, like if you're having road rage, who are you hurting?

You're confined in this car here. Nobody else is hearing you. It's just you and you're giving yourself a pretty hard time internally and externally. And then the other people are just going on their way, you know. So I think that when one prays for direction and then one follows that direction, that this is where I'm led to be. This is how I'm led to be. The rights of nature and the ecocide movement and you and I have many mutual friends working in that,

that's a huge conversation on its own. And maybe you could come back and participate in a roundtable with some of our colleagues like Pella and others. since I have you for a little bit more time, I still have some, I'm so curious about this, and I hope this isn't an inappropriate question from a white American man to an indigenous woman, but much of your work has also been centered around being led by women and connection with women. And Nina Simons was on this show last year, the year before, talking about how she told a story about the Iroquois meeting with people back in the year.

the 18th century. And they were like, where are your women? There are no women in your negotiating team, etc. So from your perspective, what role do women uniquely play in indigenous societies and in leading environmental movements? You just told me a story about Oriel Lake and a hundred women in the We Can movement. What are your thoughts on that, Casey? I think it's about rebalancing. I think that men folks have really been treated badly, and I'm a little bit leaning towards helping folks to get within their own, assuming their own power, women, assuming their own power. No one can take anything from you.

I mean, you, I got to go back to my own mom. right? I remember she was talking about boarding school and there's some horror stories, you know. She was kidnapped at the age of six and didn't escape until she was 15, but she said, you know, they could cut our hair. They could take our language.

They could keep us away from our people. They could and she went to a whole litany of things that were done to her. She said, but they could not touch my spirit and what I thought. And I think that's with women in general, something that has been suppressed, but it's been kind of a self-suppression

in order to fit into this society norms that perhaps the power that they are, and a great deal of suppression by the colonized mindset of what women are in their societies. And Christianity certainly has been a difficult thing for a lot of women to be able to live within its confines and still assume their power and use it in a manner that is healthy,

not in a manner of manipulation, but coming from a place of truth and to understand that the universe is made 50-50. It's male energy, it's female, energy. Meanwhile, men have been given this real short shift of how they should behave. They've got to get a white horse, you know, and they have to swoop in and save somebody and provide for them for the rest of their lives. And they have to be, you know, and they have to be the ones, you know, and they have to be the ones who assume the power.

You know, I make the decisions. And that's mean. That's not nice to men. Men have the right to be 50% of the universe as well. They should not have the burden of always having to have all of that load of everything. So I feel, personally, that the shift that I have observed is women who are stepping back into that place.

You know, in our traditional ways, when you say indigenous people and women, it is very individual, very individual. Each nation has its own ways. Within the Ponca, you know, a lot of times our men speak for us. We expect that. And then I'm standing right here by my companion, my brother, my son, whoever it might be my uncle. And I'm saying, this is what I'd like you to say. And they give voice to that. And over here on this side, I'm looking around, and I'm seeing what my family needs.

I'm seeing what my village needs. I'm seeing what the elders, what the sickly, what the children need. And I'm saying, this is what we need right now. And he's making that voice. And there's a balance in that. So I'm more about, less about, I should say, saying women are leading all this, than saying that all of us are adapting

and living in post-traumatic growth within the boundaries of male and female energies as well. That makes so much sense to me. That's not what's happening in our culture, but what you just described is just that makes sense. Thank you. I want to be respectful of your time, but I ask some closing questions of all my guests. And I would love if you could, if you'd be willing to answer one. One of them just at the front end in your native language, just because I'd love to hear it. But I know you talk about, you mentioned earlier on this call about personal responsibility.

How do you take personal responsibility in your own life? And can such a thing be taught? Can you teach personal responsibility? I think we all have different stories. just as if I live in the southern plains of Turtle Island. I live among the Panka, which is considered,

the name is Sacred Head, and that's how it translates. And so my personal responsibility then is where I am at this time in this particular life. I live among an impacted community, and in the larger sense, I'm a citizen of Mother Earth, and I'm passing through as a living entity from the cellular viewpoint.

From the spiritual viewpoint, there's a whole other way that I'm walking within that context. So my personal responsibility, I guess maybe I'll, I'll go. give you another pank away of viewpoint to help you understand where I feel that I'm coming from in terms of relationship to nature. I was taught that when one rises for the morning prayer, that one, because we're not a churchy people, we live it every day, all day, right? And all night. that when you rise for your morning prayer, that you're supposed to look inward. And your first prayer is supposed to be looking inside and see what it is that you need. And then walking around yourself and see what your body needs.

And asking that first prayer for that. Because only then, when you are in the center of the universe, can you then pray outward? and it's like a pebble dropped in a pond that begins right here. That old 60s axiom kind of always struck a cord with me, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. So I be that center point where the pebble drops. And then I pray outward from that, my own little clan and outward. to my people and downwards to the Mother Earth and the Father's sky and the Star Nation

and the stone people and the forelegs and the fins. And I'm so connected with all of those that to deny myself as part of nature as a human walking on two legs would be as so foolish to me that that I wouldn't even be able to understand how to make my morning prayer, you know. And then to walk from that space into wherever you walk, you walk in as a warrior for Mother Earth, a warrior for the generations to come, a warrior for those that came before.

And a warrior simply means a lover of and a protector for. It doesn't mean you're going out to create havoc by hurting somebody else. It means love. You just use different words to describe exactly what my coach has been telling me for my work in the world on behalf of nature. You just basically told me the same advice. So it really personally hit home for me. and it makes sense. You have to take care of yourself

in order to be a warrior, but the warrior is love on behalf of other species and the broader web of life. Casey, I know this is your first podcast. I do have a few more personal questions. Do you have any advice to the viewers of this show,

to the listeners of this on the Spotify, etc., at this time of global upheaval, anxiety, environmental, social problems, what some would call the human predicament, this species-level conversation that we're spiraling towards. What sort of advice would you have for the viewers? I suppose if I were to try to think of what to advise, it's a little bit different because every day is different. I do believe in civil disobedience. I think it's really time to shout long and hard if we're going to turn this so that further harm doesn't happen. If I were going by a scene of an accident where life was fragilely hanging on by a threat, I would stop and I'd stop the bleeding.

I'd put a tourniquet on. I'd do whatever was necessary. that's where we are as a species. Whatever it takes for us to raise the elevation of knowledge, of the interconnectedness of all of our relations and our place in that, we have to do it. If it is to put different people in office, then get the vote out. If it is to understand that power has nothing to.

to do with those people you put in office either, and that the power is you and the warmth of the father's son and the nurturing of Mother Earth and that incredible gift called water. Then we have to say thanks and acknowledge that and teach one another, share with one another, pity them and pray for them, but don't allow them to continue. call out the falseness, lift up the truth. And again, that really awesome word of love, love for creation, love for what the great mystery put in place and that you get to exist among that,

and appreciation, gratitude. Yeah, those are all the walking. And to rearrange our own thought pattern of how we see ourselves in the scheme of this great, beautiful, universal life. We've got this opportunity to be the ones that history looks back and lifts up as the legacy that we left was just those things we talked about. that's kind of a heady thing and it feels real good to know that. It does feel good to know that, at least to hear you say that. How would you change that advice for young humans?

We talked about, you know, very young children before, but there's a lot of 18 to 30-year-olds watching this show. What advice, how would you change what you just said for them who have a full life ahead of them still? My mom used to say, make yourself proud. Make yourself proud of what you do. So you have all of these really magical tools that you hold in your hand. These little mini computers they call cell phones. And those things that the kids do, TikTok.

And what can you say or do with those? that are going to be part of the seventh generation philosophy. That says seven generations before you, something was done that made it possible for you to be here today. What are you doing for the seven generations to come? And if you think in those terms, you have an ability to see beyond yourself and see yourself also as an intricate beginning,

of the web from those ones way down the road that are going to, again, your future ancestor. What's your legacy? I think I might know the answer to this question, but I will ask it nonetheless, because I ask all my guests, what do you care most about in the world, Casey? There's no singular answer to that. I think the answer is all my relations. Excellent. If you could wave a magic wand and there's no personal recourse to you.

We are. We're waving a magical wand. Right now, you and I are. Yeah, this is it. This is the magic. When you share, when you encourage, when you enlighten, when you listen and you learn, and it goes out in a magical way into the universe. I don't understand all of these things. that's going on right now. But I know you and I are connected on a very deep level. And I know that we are sharing that out there. I don't know how and I don't know who. But I'm waving a magic wand right now.

Do you feel it? I do. I feel something. I feel friendship. I feel love that you and I care about many of the same things and that we just randomly met at a conference and now are having intimate conversation. that is actually being recorded.

So I feel inspired by this conversation. And thank you for your lifetime of all the things you've been through and you're still fighting for the rights of nature and your people. Do you have any closing words for those people who are listening and watching and who understand and feel what you're saying? I don't know. I still am hanging here in the magical space. and I'm feeling very blessed night.

And I'm inviting everybody just to feel gratitude and feel blessed and to look around them and think of those that they call those without homes. Think of those in those areas where wars are going on and pain is being deliberately inflicted. Look at those that call themselves leaders and see if it isn't true that you're actually the leader and that they're just shams that are put up there

as figureheads that are making decisions that you don't agree with. So you make the right decision. You become that leader. You have a magic wand, you know, start waving. Casey Camp Horneck, thank you for all your work and thank you for your time today. My honor, my honor. Looking forward to the next time, Nate.

If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of The Great Simplification, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. You can also visit thegreat simplification.com for references and show notes from today's conversation. And to connect with fellow listeners of this podcast, check out our Discord channel. This show is hosted by me, Nate Hagan's, edited by No Troublemakers Media, and produced by Misty Stinnett, Leslie Batlutz, Brady Hyan, and Lizzie Siriani.