I'm a few short hours away from driving to Chaco Canyon to meet the Lummi Nation House of Tears Carvers who, this week, began their Red Road to DC journey to plant a carved cedar totem pole in the nation's capitol.  It's honestly the best thing happening this summer, and with one of the most honest and urgent messages: protect our holiest lands. 

If you've been following this newsletter, you'll know that I've met some travel delays in the last two weeks on my own personal journey to Alaska. Rather than bore you with those details, I'll share how grateful I am to the universe for slowing down my trip.  It means I'm now able to cross paths with these carvers whose livestreams I've been watching all week and have been filled with spoken phrases like, "heal the land, heal your soul."

My heart is warm.  

That I'll be able to place my hands on that totem pole in ceremony - and on my Indigenous homelands, Chaco Canyon - it's quite moving.  A thousand ago and to today, Chaco Canyon continues to be source of guidance for Pueblo people - largely from signals from the land, and most definitely the sky.  I haven't even arrived, yet, but even as I write, I feel the power of its protection; it's diplomacy.  There is gratitude for this gift.

It stands in stark contrast to the way I felt earlier this week in watching a pair of billionaires grab headlines over the race to colonize space. 

For all the shade thrown their way, notwithstanding recent revelations by ProPublica that billionaires like Bezos have managed to avoid paying taxes, few journalists explored history repeating itself:  the settler tendencies to "explore" and "discover" seemingly new frontiers.  Branson even used the word "pioneer" to describe the determination to engineer twenty-first century space tourism for the masses. 

There's more to come. This week, we'll see Bezos try to one-up his moneyed competitor by aiming to go even further in distance than Branson did on his weekend run.  It's like a bad broken record - reasons for which the community of Bucksport, Maine can't help but to re-enact Christopher Columbus's arrival in America even among widespread protest by Indigenous leaders and their allies. 

I'm running out of time and must get on the road, but I wanted to some gems I came across in preparing this newsletter for you. If you're short on time, please make room for this one read: "Pity the Indians of Outer Space: Native American Views of the Space Program" Western Folklore, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 1987).  The writer is a white woman, but she managed to grab some fascinating anecdotes from across Indian Country, including from Inuits in Alaska who teased anthropologists in the 1960s over how bowled over they were about America's first moon shot. "We didn't know this was the first time you white people had been to the moon," they laughed. "We go to visit the moon people all the time." 

They're reaction tee's up this week's endorsement and other links here:

• How we are people of the stars
• And how those stars reflect the realities of my ancestors at Chaco
• The Settler Logics of (Outer) Space
• Rolling Stone's fine take about the "billionaire cat fight"
• And this Teen Vogue rant about  how space travel = climate change
• Oh and click the end quote of this newsletter for some fun histoire

Total days Richard Branson beat Jeff Bezos to be first in space on his own ship: 9

Estimated time in seconds Virgin Galactic crew experienced weightlessness: 240

Exact altitude in miles reached by Virgin Galactic over New Mexico: 53.5

Total miles/km above Earth Bezos' Blue Origin intends to send tourists: 62/100

Exact amount Bezos, the world's richest man, paid in federal taxes in 2007 and 2011: $0

Total amount Doña Ana Co. taxpayers funded Branson's Spaceport America: $90.25M

Reported cost to fly Virgin Galactic to space: $250,000

Approximate number of years ago Chacoans thrived in an arid earth city: 1000

Total Chaco Canyon place names listed by the National Historic Park Service: 18

Number of 4.5-ton sandstone slabs behind a sun dagger, Chaco's spiritual center: 3

Number of years Chaco Canyon has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site: 34

An International Dark Sky Park: 8

Total bills introduced to protect Chaco from oil and gas drilling: 1

Estimated number of new wells projected to be fracked by the Trump Admin: 3K

Total stops, including Chaco, in a totem pole journey to protect sacred lands: 10

"We come from the stars"

(And other things I'll be streaming on the road)

Keeping up with the theme of this week's newsletter, I wanted to share with you this episode from CBC Radio's "Unreserved," the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's premier radio space spotlighting Indigeneity.  I've been a fan for years.

In "We Come from the Stars," it dives into the distinctions of inner versus outer space perspectives among Indigenous astronomers, astronauts, and storytellers.  When you think of the night sky, what constellations come to mind?  Chances are they're not the stories that Native people have been guided by for millennia. 

“This is a wonderful list."

Nicole, Virginia 📚

Heard from a good many of you about the books you are adding to your collection after taking in our Summer Reads recommendations from last week.  I added one more title: Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert (Crown Publishing Group).  It's currently on backorder, but a good sign that it's must-read.

Support your local bookstore, not Jeff Bezos' Amazon.