#western abenaki

[nonenglishsongs]

Mali Obomsawin - Odana (Abenaki)

[breelandwalker]

Buck Moon - July 20-21, 2024

Put on your flower crowns and your walking shoes - it’s time for the Buck Moon!

Buck Moon 🦌

The Buck Moon is the name given to the full moon in the month of July and is called this because at this time of year, the rack of antlers previously shed by male deer are beginning to regrow and harden in preparation for the fall rutting season. 

Other North American Indigenous names for this moon include Salmon Moon (Tlingit), Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Month of the Ripe Corn Moon (Cherokee), and Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe). The West Abenaki also call this the Thunder Moon in reference to the often-stormy summer weather. (This one is my personal favorite and the name appears in lunar calendars just as often as the Buck Moon.)

European names for the July moon include Hay Moon and Wort Moon, and it should be noted that the name Stag Moon does appear in some European sources as well.

This year's Buck Moon will be at peak illumination at 6:17am EST on July 21st, so the moon will appear to be full on both the 20th and 21st. Also, it's a weekend, so plan your festivities accordingly!

What Does It Mean For Witches? 🦌

The July full moon continues June’s template of planning for the future, this time with a focus on your passions and ambitions. Reflect on what you’ve accomplished so far this year and plan your next step.

Dream big and plan big, but don’t give in to reckless urgency. Summer (and capitalist grind culture) gives us the urge to Go Go Go. Despite all this, it’s important to take time to rest and recharge, lest we find ourselves burning out and losing our motivation.

What Witchy Things Can We Do? 🦌

Celebrate your victories and revel in the abundance of the summer season. If you’re inclined to do so, take a page from the deer and do a bit of prancing around a bonfire or your favorite flower arbor with some festive flowery headgear.

Go exploring! Find a local park or garden and take a stroll among the greenery, or use TV and the internet to explore and learn about faraway places. This is another opportune time to go and check out pick-your-own farms and farmers markets as well. Sharpen your foraging and plant identification skills while you’re out and about!

If you’re tending a garden, harvest some herbs and investigate what you can make with them. Whether it’s seasoning for meals, homemade botanical products, or just helpful spell ingredients, many herbs and flowers have a plethora of uses. As an exercise, select three plants growing in your yard or garden, research their magical correspondences and botanical properties, and try to think of as many ways as possible to use each one for witchcraft and for practical purposes. For extra credit, pick something native to your area that doesn't appear in the western magical canon and use its' physical, folkloric, and historical associations to create something new!

(Safety Note: Always clean and prepare home-harvested herbs properly before using them for kitchen, bath, or medical preparations. Always be sure to properly identify any wildcrafted or foraged plants. Always consult a doctor before trying an herbal treatment and take all allergies, medications, and pre-existing conditions into account. Please also note that while herbal treatments can be helpful, it can have negative interactions and side effects just like any other medication, and it is not meant to be a replacement for modern medical care.)

Apart from the usual full-moon festivities, I’ve always found this is an excellent time for weather-witching. Summer weather is notoriously fickle, but it is also highly malleable - one recalls that old American Southern epithet of, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

If you’re hoping to bring some rain to water your garden or break the back of a heat wave, this may be the time to do it. My personal favorite folk magic ritual for rain-calling involves going outside with a broom and a bucket of water, using the broom to scatter drops of water over your yard, and shouting up to the clouds, “SEE? IT’S NOT HARD!”

Make sure you take local weather patterns into account and try to draw on existing fronts and nearby precipitation to get the desired result. And keep in mind that with weather magic, less is more and one casting is enough. Asking for too much or asking too often can produce undesirable results. And if you manage to make it rain, be sure to collect some for moon water!

If you’re interested in weather-witching, I highly recommend checking out this masterpost by @stormbornwitch for a number of excellent articles and suggestions.

Happy Buck Moon, witches! 🌕🦌

Sources and Further Reading:

Bree’s Lunar Calendar Series

Bree’s Secular Celebrations Series

Witchcraft Exercise - Creating Correspondences

Buck Moon: Full Moon in July 2024, The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Buck Moon Bonanza: Embrace July’s Massive Energy!, The Peculiar Brunette.

Everyday Moon Magic: Spells & Rituals for Abundant Living, Dorothy Morrison.

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

[voraciouskingdom]

"January's full moon is named after the howling of hungry wolves lamenting the scarcity of food in midwinter, but we know today that isn’t accurate. Howling and other wolf vocalizations are heard in the wintertime to locate pack members, reinforce social bonds, define territory, and coordinate hunting. Other names for this month's full moon include Old Moon and Ice Moon. Another fitting name for this full Moon is the Center Moon. Used by the Assiniboine people of the Northern Great Plains, it refers to the idea that this Moon roughly marks the middle of the cold season. Other traditional names for the January Moon emphasize the harsh coldness of the season: Cold Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Moon (Cree), Freeze Up Moon (Algonquin), and Severe Moon (Dakota). Hard Moon (Dakota) highlights the phenomenon of the fallen snow developing a hard crust. Also, Canada Goose Moon (Tlingit), Great Moon (Cree), Greetings Moon (Western Abenaki), and Spirit Moon (Ojibwe) have also been recorded as Moon names for this month."

Justine 'J.E.' Marriott, Author — in Brockville, Canada.

🌙💙🌙

[as8bakwthesage]

Ladies, gents, and all those in between and beyond, may I present...

The Hacker!

AKA Sage Corvid, age 28, and chronically tired hacker and computer virus programmer.

With their robotic arm, they are able to hack into any Dispenser, Teleporter, and Sentry in order to change the side of the device to service their own team for a brief time. They can also hack into Spy's disguise kit to disable it for a limited time as well. However, in both of these instances, they have to touch the device in question with the hand.

Alongside their Quick Hack arm, they also have a taser and a pistol. Their taser is built into their arm, so they have to be within melee distance to use it on someone to stun them. Their pistol is their long range device which doesn't do a lot of damage.

However, their final ability and arguably the most useful one is their shapeshifting ability: the ability to change into two animals (a crow and a cat.) They use this to sneak passed enemies and escape tricky situations more swiftly.

Small Things:

They have a tattoo of a crow on their left arm and a cat on their right arm.

The headphones they wear are noise-cancelling because they cannot stand the sound of bullets and loud noises in general.

Sage is Autistic and has BPD.

Under their oversized jacket, they have a machine strapped to their back that connects to their Quick Hack arm. It's basically the computer that is also connected to the headphones.

During fights, they always have music playing on their headphones.

They are seldom phased by shit.

They eventually develop a crush on Medic, who eventually returns their feelings

Backstory Stuff:

In 1940, Sage was born to a Yugoslavian father and American mother, who met right before the start of WWII. Their mother was forced to flee back to the United States because of the pregnancy, while their father remained in Yugoslavia to fight for the Partisans. Unfortunately, Sage's father arrived in the United States disabled post war.

Their mother and father were married when they were 5. For the next few years, Sage lived a happy childhood and learned Serbo-Croatian. However, at age 9, their parents were killed in a car accident, putting them in the care of their mother's tribe - the Abenaki. The US government tried to take them away multiple times, only for Sage to hide. It's here where Sage learned Western Abenaki.

It was among their people where they learned that they could shape-change into two animals (a crow and a cat), a gift that was passed down through Sage's father's side. Sage used this ability to escape out at night, play mischevious pranks, and escape unwanted situations. (This is often how they would escape the government looking for them.)

During these years, Sage lived with a war veteran who helped decode German messages. His name was Francis Brault, and he taught Sage all about codes and how to decode messages and other stuff. He even built his own computer. He taught Sage how to make one from spare parts, alongside how to fight and use guns. Francis also began working for IBM at this time, and this gave Sage a good window into computers and programming.

When Sage was 13, Francis took Sage to his work place, and Sage took to it very well - impressing Francis and some of his fellow programmers with their understanding of programs and computers. They were often invited by the programmers to experiment on their own, and their skills only seemed to improve (obviously they received help when they needed it.)

However, when Sage was 14, Francis died of cancer, and Sage was taken into the state's custody. Frustrated with being placed into foster care, Sage often avoided going back to their foster parent's "home" to go back to the IBM, where they were welcomed to come after school by the workers there who grew attached to the poor kid.

When they were 18, they aged out of the system, and Sage was effectively left alone. Their knowledge of computers and their fast growing skill with them allowed them to get a job working for a college in New York. And with this new job, they were the first person to create a computer virus.

During a regular day assisting with the computers, Sage found a rogue program in the system and used their own virus to combat it. They succeeded, but the person who actually messed up blamed them for the incident. Because of racism and general bigotry, Sage wasn't believed over the white guy and was fired.

At age 20, they began to built their own computers again, looting garbage bins and stole from hardware stores to do so. They moved to NYC, where they got a job as a cashier, but at night they'd make programs and computer viruses before sending them off via email to infect the systems of companies so they could steal money.

They did this for a while, worked for a few shady people as well, and started going by the name CROW. Learning from their mistakes, their programs and viruses became more and more advanced and dangerous. This eventually led them to discovering about Mann Co.

Originally it was just a curiosity, but as they began to syphon money from the company, they noticed that something wasn't right. This looked like a coverup for something else. Digging deeper, they found out about the Gravel War and found this to be especially interesting. They hacked the cameras to watch the fighting take place, finding it all very fascinating that these men were fighting over a gravel pit of all things.

However, they soon caught the attention of the Administrator due to a mistake on their part. And she sent someone after Sage. They kidnaped the enbie and took them to the Administrator, who offered them a deal. Either stay in Teufort and work for her, make tons of money, or be exposed as the thief who stole thousands from other companies and go to jail.

Sage chose the first option and became another mercenary. Their ultimate goal is to eventually take down the Administrator, but for the moment, seeing a bunch of grown men fight each other is equally fun.

[the-occult-lounge]

January 25th is the first full moon after Yule and the New Year. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the names for full moons come from a number of places, including Native American groups, colonial Americans or other traditional North American names passed down through generations. This moon is typically known as the Wolf Moon, believed to be derived from Celtic and Old English origins. So, why the Wolf Moon, mainly due to the fact that wolves tend to howl more often in the winter months.

Other Names for the Full Moon in January:

• Center Moon (Assiniboine)

• Cold Moon (Cree)

• Frost Exploding Moon (Cree)

• Great Moon (Cree)

• Freeze Up Moon (Algonquin)

• Severe Moon (Dakota)

• Hard Moon (Dakota)

• Canada Goose Moon (Tlingit)

• Greeting Moon (Western Abenaki)

• Spirit Moon (Ojibwe)

This year the Wolf Moon occurs in the sign of Leo. It is a powerful time to embrace your passions and let go of people or things you are not in tune with. During this full moon you should be able to find the areas within your life that need you focus, maybe take the time to do a tarot spread to ask what areas are lacking the attention they need. When doing the spread focus on the meanings that reach to your heart and not your mind, Leo energy often focuses on truths of the heart.

You may feel strong emotions pulling you in one direction, do not over think. Allow your emotions to guide you during this time, it may be a leap of faith but it is one that is needed. This road you travel may feel messy or illogical but hold strong and know that through chaos comes clarity. Leo teaches us to show up for ourselves with courage and strength. It reminds us that we can face anything within ourselves, not just the good, with love and compassion.

Take sometime to meditate over the next three days with a focus on listening to your heart, try to block out the mind during these moments (which can be difficult). Find a candle or incense that brings your heart joy. Listen to a soft song that calls to your heart. Set your intention out loud by saying something along the lines of "I block the thoughts that flow from my mind and allow the feelings to flow from my heart that I often push aside". Repeating this allows you a focal point to put your energy into during your meditation. Once the session is complete write EVERYTHING you felt down. Then over the next few days decipher why it was you felt these things.

Another action you can take during this full moon is bathing ritual to aide in self-love. Leo is perfect to bring out unconditional self-love. Take time to look at yourself in the mirror, do NOT focus on the things you see as negatives but say aloud each thing you find to be amazing about yourself, whether physical or mental. Then set up a shower or bath with some candles, a mesh bag of herbs that correlate to self-love (rose buds/petals, apple, lemon balm, marjoram, mint, etc), some soft meditatice music and allow the water to wash away the faults that you see in yourself. When you step out of the shower or bath be renewed and know that you are capable of so much more than what your mind allows you to believe.

[beardedmrbean]

Ben & Jerry’s called on the U.S. to return “stolen indigenous land” to American Indians during its Independence Day message last week. Now a tribe in Vermont is asking the famous ice cream company to personally partake in that effort.

Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation, told the New York Post on Friday that Ben & Jerry’s headquarters in South Burlington is located on Western Abenaki land.

If the company is “sincere,” Mr. Stevens told the newspaper, then he “looks forward to any kind of correspondence with the brand to see how they can better benefit Indigenous people.”

“If you look at the [Abenaki] traditional way of being, we are place-based people,” the chief told the Post. “Before recognized tribes in the state, we were the ones who were in this place.”

Mr. Stevens said that the Abenaki people view themselves as “stewards of the land.”

The state of Vermont recognizes four tribes that are descended from the Abenaki people, including the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe. The Abenaki Alliance told Fox News Digital that their people had inhabited the land that included Vermont for 12,000 years.

Ben & Jerry’s July 4 message took aim specifically at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, and called on the U.S. to return the land to the Lakota Sioux tribe.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem came to the defense of her state’s most famous monument after the message went viral last week.

“We can learn from the men on that mountain, we can do better, but boy, they led us through some challenging times,” Mrs. Noem told Fox News on Thursday. “We should be proud of America and knock off what Ben & Jerry’s is doing.”

Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield co-founded Ben & Jerry‘s in 1978. They sold the company in 2000, and as part of the agreement, the company has maintained its voice in social causes.

It has long supported Democrats and liberal causes.

[fernmaddie]

introduction

hey folks! i wanted to give a little introduction to myself and my work, as this is my first time presenting myself publicly on tumblr. this is going to make me sound rather professional, but i promise i'm just here to do the regular ol' tumblr things: be silly, gush about things i care about, and not take myself too seriously. i hope you'll join me. :)

i'm fern maddie (she/her), a queer experimental folk artist, multi-instrumentalist, and balladeer based on abenaki land. through folk balladry and original writing, i perform songs and stories exploring themes of grief, trauma, and renewal.

***please note: my approach to folk music is adaptive, interpretive, critical, queer-feminist, and inclusive. white supremacists, "folkish" nationalists, terfs, or anyone who engages with english-language folk literature as a tool of western cultural "purity" will be blocked***

buy my music on bandcamp

listen on spotify

watch some performance on youtube

more about my work below the cut....

past projects

ghost story - my debut album, released in 2022. ghost story was named the #2 best folk album of 2022 by the guardian, and one of the top roots albums of the year from npr music. across 10 tracks, it explores the stories we inherit from the dead -- both our personal dead and cultural dead -- through a queer-feminist lens. includes a critically-acclaimed interpretation of the ballad "hares on the mountain" (roud 329), as well as the ballads "the maid on the shore" (roud 181), "northlands" (roud 21) and a queer re-framing of the scottish shepherding song "ca' the yowes."

north branch river - my debut EP, released in 2020. across 6 sparse tracks and spry banjo-playing, it explores the intimacy and pain of our tenuous relationship with the natural world. includes a re-interpretation of the ballad "the elfin knight" (roud 12), and the original song "two women," inspired by selkie folklore.

of song and bone - of song and bone is a short-lived podcast i produced a few years ago. there are only 3 episodes out, but they illustrate some of my scholarship about folk balladry and my own relationship to balladry as a literary tradition. FYI: i would probably frame a few things differently if i were re-recording the podcast today (ideas and language evolve!). perennially thinking about making more, but we'll see.

currently in development

way to live - way to live is my second studio album, currently in production. as of this writing, way to live includes 8 tracks, and similar to my previous work, combines original songs with folk ballads, though with a greater share of personal storytelling than my earlier records.

said the false nurse - this is a piece of adaptive short fiction i'm currently developing. it's a deeply sinister queer re-telling of the horror ballad long lankin (roud 6), set in the 1620s in the north of England. stay tuned for process updates!

adult children - this is a full-length original novel and associated concept album i'm developing. it's set in contemporary rural vermont, and focuses on a group of adult siblings, their dying father, their failing farm, and the new arrival who threatens their co-dependent bond. the associated rock opera will be written in a folk-rock style with digressions into folktronica and country.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aleks Phillips

Published: Jul 7, 2023

An Indigenous tribe descended from the Native American nation that originally controlled the land in Vermont the Ben & Jerry's headquarters is located on would be interested in taking it back, its chief has said, after the company publicly called for "stolen" lands to be returned.

Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation—one of four descended from the Abenaki that are recognized in Vermont—told Newsweek it was "always interested in reclaiming the stewardship of our lands," but that the company had yet to approach them.

It comes after the ice cream company was questioned as to when it would give up its Burlington, Vermont, headquarters—which sits on a vast swathe of U.S. territory that was under the auspices of the Abenaki people before colonization.

"The U.S. was founded on stolen Indigenous land," the company said in a statement ahead of Independence Day. "This year, let's commit to returning it."

It added that the "land back" movement was about "ensuring that Indigenous people can again govern the land their communities called home for thousands of years," but focussed much of its statement on the taking of land from the Lakota in South Dakota.

The acknowledgment of historic tribal lands is a contentious subject, pitting the claims of Native Americans, whose ancestors were subject to violent persecution and displacement, against the status quo of a modern nation with entrenched borders.

While some say colonized ancestral lands should be at least partially returned, others say that it is impossible to decide which of the various groups to have claimed land throughout history it should be returned to.

Maps show that the Abenaki—a confederacy of several tribes who united against encroachment from a rival tribal confederacy—controlled an area that stretched from the northern border of Massachusetts in the south to New Brunswick, Canada, in the north, and from the St. Lawrence River in the west to the East Coast.

This would put Ben & Jerry's headquarters, located in a business park in southern Burlington, within the western portion of this historic territory—though it does not sit in any modern-day tribal lands.

"We are always interested in reclaiming the stewardship of our lands throughout our traditional territories and providing opportunities to uplift our communities," Stevens said when asked about whether the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe would want to see the property handed over to Indigenous people.

While the chief said that the tribe "has not been approached in regards to any land back opportunities from Ben & Jerry's," he added: "If and when we are approached, many conversations and discussions will need to take place to determine the best path forward for all involved."

Ben & Jerry's has not yet publicly responded to calls to return the land its headquarters is situated on.

Newsweek contacted the company via email for comment on Friday.

A spokesperson for the Odanak Council of Abenakis, who now reside near Montreal, Canada, told Newsweek that the council would comment on the matter following their weekly meeting on Monday.

Newsweek also approached the Abenaki Nation of Missiquoi and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe—both recognized in Vermont—via email for comment on Thursday. Contact details for the other state-recognized tribe, the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation, could not immediately be found.

According to historical records, the Abenaki initially traded with European settlers in the 16th century, but their population was afflicted by the spread of Old World diseases. The confederacy allied with French colonizers against English settlers in growing territorial disputes, before many fled to what is now Canada following a series of defeats at the hands of the English.

During the early part of the 20th century, a state-spon.sored eugenics program in Vermont saw some Abenaki sterilized. The Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe has described these acts as "ethnocide."

==

Checkmate.

They weren't stolen, they were conquered, as tribes have attacked, killed or driven out, and conquered each other's lands for thousands of years. Not just in North America, but worldwide. "Handing back" just gives it to the next most recent conquerors. Will they be racked by the inherited guilt of their own ancestors conquering the occupants who preceded them? Should they be? If not, why not?

Social media virtue signalling is cheap and easy. But walking the walk and talking the talk are two different things. High-priced CEOs, college presidents and other elites who espouse "antiracist" shibboleths such as "equity" rarely - although not never - act against their own self-interests by saying something like, "I'm a straight, white upper-middle class woman and I'm going to resign so that a disabled, fat, black, trans lesbian can take this position."

P.S. Community Notes are amazing.

[caecilius-in-horto-ubi-sedebit]

So I watched Wednesday a while ago, and I've been rolling some feeling around ever since that I feel I should spit out here for some closure. Obvi spoilers if you want to watch the show.

Wednesday Addams is Latina. Cool, awesome, good. The villains of the show are descendants of Pilgrims. Here's where my feelings start souring. The show is set in Jericho, Vermont. That's important. The entire main conflict is a land dispute, between the Addams family, and the Crackstone family. It's explicitly stated that the Addamses came up from Mexico, settled in Jericho, and consider it theirs. Crackstone's family came over with the Pilgrims (I grew up in the Plymouth area, so the historical inaccuracy hurts me, but that doesn't really matter here so much as that he is a white colonizer from England), settled in Jericho, and eventually locked all the outcasts from Mexico in a building and burned them alive. Horrible man, obviously.

Here's my problem. Mexicans have indigenous lands. In Mexico. They have land that is integral to their heritage. It's not in Vermont. Vermont land is Abenaki land. It belongs to the Abenaki people, always has, always will. Not once are the Abenaki represented. Wednesday makes snide comments about Pilgrim World and how the settlers did their level best (and continue to do their level best) to genocide native people off the face of the continent. But nowhere are there Abenaki people, saying "This is our land, we're still here, we need to be recognized, Land Back."

Vermont is a beautiful state, with a rich history. The Abenaki people are a strong, proud people, with a rich culture, a history, and the Western Abenaki language is still spoken to an extent, with strong attempts being made to revitalize the language. I have Abenaki heritage, which I am looking into reconnecting with, but I didn't grow up in the culture, and my family has been disconnected for a while, so maybe I'm reading this wrong. But I can't help but feel cheated. If the main conflict hadn't been a land dispute, I might not feel so euch about it, but they made it a land dispute, with Crackstone openly trying to kill any outcasts in the school, and the antagonist Laurel straight up stating that she wants "her land" back. But nary an Abenaki, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, nor Penobscot face in sight. And certainly no real mention that indigenous peoples still inhabit their lands to this very day. It just really pissed me off.

[76historylover]

this is for indigenous folks, specifically Abenaki individuals: kwai! i want to let you all know that ndakinna education center has online western Abenaki lessons that you can sign up for! there's beginner, intermediate and expert lessons, as well as a game night! Abenaki is a beautiful language and i hope to guide abenaki/indigenous folks to resources that help with reclamation/revitalization/rematriation!

[spiritualsimtatyana2000]

Full Super Moon in Capricorn

Happy Buck Moon, loves!

July’s full Buck Moon rises after sunset on Monday, July 3—the eve of Independence Day! This is also a supermoon that will appear bigger and brighter than average. See more information about July’s Full Moon from why we call it the “Buck” Moon to best days by the Moon.

July’s full Buck Moon orbits closer to Earth than many of the other full Moons this year, making one of the four supermoons of 2023! At its nearest point, the Buck Moon will be 224,895.4 miles (361,934 km) from Earth, which means that August’s Blue Moon will be the only supermoon that is closer to our planet this year. 

While a supermoon is technically bigger and brighter than a regular full Moon, it only appears about 7% larger—which can be an imperceptible difference to the human eye, depending on other conditions.

The full Moon in July is called the Buck Moon because the antlers of male deer (bucks) are in full-growth mode at this time. Bucks shed and regrow their antlers each year, producing a larger and more impressive set as the years go by.

Several other names for this month’s Moon also reference animals, including Feather Moulting Moon (Cree) and Salmon Moon, a Tlingit term indicating when fish returned to the area and were ready to be harvested.

Plants are also featured prominently in July’s Moon names. Some of our favorites are Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Moon When the Chokecherries are Ripe (Dakota), Month of the Ripe Corn Moon (Cherokee), and Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe).Thunder Moon (Western Abenaki) and Halfway Summer Moon (Anishinaabe) are alternative variants that refer to the stormy weather and summer season. 

The mostly affected zodiac signs are:

Capricorn 

Aries 

Cancer

 Libra

[the-cool-space-nerd]

7/3/2023

Today the Moon entered its Full Moon phase! According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, today’s Full Moon is referred to as the Buck Moon. Why? Because the antlers of male deer (bucks) are going through their growing period during July!

There are several indigenous names for the July Full Moon phase as well, including the Feather Molting Moon (Cree), the Salmon Moon (Tlingit), the Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe), and the Thunder Moon (Western Abenaki). These names refer to natural events that take place during the month of July, such as stormy weather, berry growing seasons, and fish migration patterns.

Today’s Full Moon also happens to be a Supermoon, meaning that the Moon appears to be larger and brighter in the night sky than normal. This phenomenon is due to the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth; When there is a Supermoon, the Moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit.

Happy stargazing y’all, and keep an eye out on July 9th for when the Moon enters its Last Quarter phase!

Image credit link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wkyt.com/2023/06/30/first-supermoon-year-hits-skies-next-week/%3foutputType=amp

[mywifeleftme]

17: Alanis Obomsawin // Bush Lady

Bush Lady Alanis Obomsawin 1985, Radio Canada (Bandcamp)

A review of the well-meaning things I meant to say about Alanis Obomsawin’s Bush Lady

“No matter how accomplished Obomsawin’s sole LP, 1988’s cult classic Bush Lady may be, it’s naturally overshadowed by her extensive work as a documentary filmmaker. Her searing Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (available to stream for free from the National Film Board), covering the 1990 Oka standoff between local Indigenous land defenders, Quebec police, and the Canadian military, is a landmark. Her films are celebrated, broadcast on public television, and taught in schools.”

1.5/5—Book report quality. This is a not-very-slick way of admitting the only one of her movies I’ve seen in her most famous one. Also saying a director’s films are “celebrated, broadcast on public television, and taught in schools” in Canada sounds a lot like saying not many people have actually seen them.

“Her roots as a singer-songwriter predate her filmmaking, however. By the late 1950s, when she was in her twenties, she was performing and writing original songs in the Waban-Aki/Abenaki language, English, and French, but her recordings are sporadic prior to cutting this set at the CBC in the mid-1980s. The material was scantly issued at the time, and it probably found its widest listenership after a 2018 reissue by Constellation Records.”

2/5—Solid enough exposition, though it does beg the question why I didn’t just paste in the press release from the label.

“Bush Lady finds her singing and playing a handheld frame drum alongside a Quebecois chamber quartet. I was drawn to the record by ‘Odana,’ a melancholy fable about resisting colonial land grabs written in Abenaki by a tribal elder in the 1800s, which Obomsawin has presumably set to music of her own devising. Arranger Jean Vanasse and the quartet, likely trying to equate the song to a mode they were more familiar with, approach it like Nelson Riddle on Sinatra’s Only the Lonely. Nocturnal strings and woodwinds ripple around Obomsawin’s satiny vocal, lending the tragic folk tale the style of a blue ballad in an urban theatre.”

2.5/5—It took a while, but finally something about the music, an opinion even!

“There may be a bit of a feint in opening an album called Bush Lady with such a high-thread-count piece. ‘Odana’ lulls the non-Abenaki-speaking listener in with its soothingly westernized take on ‘Indian music,’ the lyrics’ message about stolen land masked by the unfamiliar tongue.”

2/5—Translation: “I am sort of embarrassed that the song I like best on this protest album is the one that sounds kind of like Nat King Cole, so I’ll change the subject to rhetoric.”

“But as the music segues into the theatrical 13-minute title track, its politics become explicit even to an English speaker. Obomsawin chants ritualistically over the insistent thump of her frame drum, interspersed with semi-spoken dialogue. She acts out characters: leering white men who harass and prey upon young Native girls; scornful, gossiping housewives; and finally the ‘Bush Lady’ herself, asking a white woman to care for her blonde mixed race child for fear it will be rejected by her own people. The recurring chant serves as a Greek chorus, a mournful counterpoint to the acrid sarcasm of the dialogue. The song undergoes a dramatic shift at the end when the fallen woman is visited by the spirit by her kokum (grandmother), who ushers her into paradise, accompanied by fluttering strings.”

3/5—Decent exegesis. But, dammit man, do you enjoy it or don't you?

“The track is a surprisingly good fit with reissuing label Constellation’s own catalogue. Like their cohort of Godspeed You! Black Emperor-adjacent projects, ‘Bush Lady’ is expansive and confrontational, fusing funereal cello and violin with blunt agitprop. When it works, it has a palpable force. Like agitprop though, the song isn’t subtle fare, and I have to admit the melodramatic conclusion (which is a harp or two away from a caricature of Christian heaven) feels a bit Wizard of Oz to me. I also don’t have a lot to say about the nearly side-length ‘Théo,’ a second drum-driven story song, this one sung in French. It is even more in a spoken word style than ‘Bush Lady,’ and as an Anglophone I can’t glean much despite another magnetic Obomsawin vocal.”

2.5/5—Reader, that must be one comfortable fence.

“I’m glad to have this reissue of Bush Lady in my collection for its transfixing A-side, and its significant overall historical interest. It’s well worth a listen for the curious.”

Overall review rating: 2.2142857142857142857142857142857/5, or 5 CLICK THE LINK TO WATCH HER FILMS FOR FREEs out of 5.

[ladyimaginarium]

hello! just wanna let you know that ndakinna education center has western abenaki classes online that you all can take! i hope this helps you all! ^^ -sundawn system

Oh, oh my& god, thank you! We& just registered! We& were invited to join a Mi'kmaw class taught by one of the chief's daughters and now an Abenaki class?! We're& on a roll! /vpos — 🎤 / Alex Benedetto&, she/her.

[as8bakwthesage]

"I found you, Kijedias..."

I have massive Savi Han (from "The Crow's Calling") brainworms right now. I can't wait to write them going apeshit on some pricks.

Also, because there is no word for Jedi in Western Abenaki, I made one up! Technically Savi is saying "you Jedi" but it would be translated as "Jedi" because they are referring to a Jedi. If any Western Abenaki speakers know better, please let me know because I'm still learning myself--

[the-occult-lounge]

🅙🅐🅝🅤🅐🅡🅨

January or winter's second month, gate of the New Year, is the first month of the Gregorian and Julian calendar whose first day marks the beginning of each New Year. January's name comes from the Latin lanuarius and is derived the Roman Deity Janus, God of Gates. Janus had two faces one to look to tbe future and one to look to the past, this made January the best month to name after him. January marks the end of one year that has past and a year that is beginning and full of possibilities.

Deities: Freya (Norse); Innana, Sin and Antu (Sumeria); Saravati (Hindu); Hera and Irene (Greece); Ch’ang-O (China); Felicitas; Janus, Pax and Venus (Rome)

Animals: fox, coyote

Birds: pheasant, blue jay

Celebrations: New Years Day (Jan 1st), Hogmanay (Jan 1st), St. Agnes' Eve (Jan 20th)

Colors: brilliant white, blue-violet, black, indigo, purple, grey

Element: earth, air

Flowers: carnation, crocus, snow drop

Gender: masculine

Herbs: marjoram, holy thistle, nuts and cones

Magick Areas: beginnings, protections, reversals, healing, strength, personal betterment, rest

Moons: Wolf Moon (Indigenous & European), Center Moon (Assiniboine), Cold Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Moon (Cree), Great Moon (Cree), Freeze Up Moon (Algonquin), Severe Moon (Dakota), Hard Moon (Dakota), Canada Goose Moon (Tlingit), Greeting Moon (Western Abenaki), Spirit Moon (Ojibwe)

Sabbat: none

Scents: musk, mimosa

Spirits:  gnomes, brownies

Stones: garnet, onyx, jet, chrysoprase

Trees: birch

Zodiac: Capricorn, Aquarius