International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers

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The Wisdom of the Thirteen
Indigenous Grandmothers

This is an extraordinary opportunity to experience the timeless wisdom of indigenous elders joining together in sacred space to pray for all life and for the next seven generations to come.

Omega Institute Workshop, Rhinebeck, New York
Oct 10 - 15, 2010
The Wisdom of the Thirteen
Indigenous Grandmothers
Clara Shinobu Iura, Bernadette Rebienot, Mona Polacca, Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Rita Long-Visitor Holy Dance, Beatrice Long-Visitor Holy Dance, Tsering Dolma Gyaltong , Maria Alice Campos Freire, Flordemayo, Julieta Casimiro, Aama Bombo, Rita Pitka Blumenstein, Margaret Behan

http://www.grandmotherscouncil.com

The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, including women from the Alaskan Tundra ; North, South, and Central America; Africa; and Asia, represents a global alliance of prayer, education, and healing. They are women of prayer and women of action who regularly travel the globe to bear witness to the wounds of people and of the Earth to earth. And now the 13 Grandmothers are making their second visit to Omega.

This special week of traditional prayer, meditations, silence, ceremony, and council is open to all women and men of goodwill. Throughout the retreat, the 13 Grandmothers offer prayers and teachings from their own unique wisdom traditions—traditions that have served their people for hundreds of years, and are needed now more than ever—in an effort to ease war, environmental degradation, and social ills.

The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers came together for the first time October 11 through October 17, 2004, in Phoenicia, New York, the original land of the Iroquois Confederacy. grandmotherscouncil.com

The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers includes:
Aama Bombo (Tamang from Nepal)
Margaret Behan (Arapaho/Cheyenne from Montana)
Rita Pitka Blumenstein (Yup’ik from the Alaskan Tundra)
Julieta Casimiro (Mazatec from Huautla de Jimenez, Mexico)
Maria Alice Campos Freire (from the Amazonian Rainforest in Brazil)
Flordemayo (Mayan from the Highlands of Central America and New Mexico)
Tsering Dolma Gyaltong(Tibetan)
Beatrice Long (Oglala Lakota from the Black Hills of South Dakota)
Rita Long (Oglala Lakota from the Black Hills of South Dakota)
Agnes Baker Pilgrim (Takelma Siletz from Grants Pass in Oregon)
Mona Polacca (Hopi/Havasupai/Tewa from Arizona)
Bernadette Rebienot (Omyene from Gabon in Africa)
Clara Shinobu Iura(from the Amazonian Rainforest in Brazil)

We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, believe that our ancestral ways of prayer, peacemaking, and healing are vitally needed today. We come together to nurture, educate, and train our children. We come together to uphold the practice of our ceremonies and affirm the right to use our plant medicines free of legal restriction. We come together to protect the lands where our peoples live and upon which our cultures depend, to safeguard the collective heritage of traditional medicines, and to defend the Earth Herself. We believe that the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.
—From the Statement of Alliance of the International Council
of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers