Land Acknowledgement | Moonly Connect

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous Moon
Sun Phase: early Spring
Prayer: May genuine action bring you peace
Music: Advocacy Into Allyship by kuwa jasiri (beauty)
Affirmation: I learn from my failures and mistakes, in an attempt to be my best

Bright blessings, Beautiful beings, Bienvenido!!

Land Acknowledgments are a form of truth-telling that require relevant and connected action to ensure the truth-telling is meaningful. We must become aware of both our own stories and the stories of the land we are on, to be able to identify meaningful actions we can take in support of the land and the people who have stewarded it since time immemorial.

The following land acknowledgement was written with care
by new Advisory Council Member Amy (they/them).

I live on land Ancestrally cared for by the Payómkawichum/Luiseño peoples, also alongside the Cahuilla/Ɂívil̃uwenetem Meytémak. I want to acknowledge the presence of the Soboba people who are of both Cahuilla and Luiseño Ancestry and call home, this area that I occupy, now colonially called “Hemet, California.”

It was when ranching became monetized and land was being sold that these people were stolen of their ancestral and legal rights to their land and the water. There was a continuous battle within court systems for the Sobobas to be given claim to their lands. Finally, in 1911, a legal title was held for the Sobobas by the federal government. By then and soon after, the colonizer activity of diverting and withdrawing Water flow for agriculture dried up the natural Water table that had been efficiently cared for by the native peoples for many, many generations.

This was once a place where Water was held. Now, it is often thought of as a desert. As I live here and explore the lands and witness the plants, I acknowledge the way this place would have held Water, so much that it is a place where fossils of animals from the Ice Age have been found. 

The grief of the land is in its taking and being (ab)used, being misunderstood, and the loss of connection to the original knowledge that is still in communication now.

With farms still being present, and new Water infrastructure being built, I wonder for this place, how it can be appreciated without exploitation. It is I who can leave to try and find a home with less obvious destruction. But what about the plants and animals who stay and still find their home where there is space.

At this moment, I have not witnessed or found a call to the public for support towards these tribal groups. I will continue to search.

When I visit a place, here, that I cherish in my heart for the wisdom it continues to share with me, an ancient petroglyph, I wonder who would have had a story to tell.

I am grateful for access to the parts of this land where Coyotes still roam among the brush, and the screech of the Owls by my window at night. I am grateful to witness when the Water still holds, after enough rain, that it even sits through the heat of Summer. A part of me changed when the wildflower blooms of 2023 lit up these hillsides and shared solace with me. I came to appreciate this tucked away land as I have come back, temporarily, as an adult. I acknowledge my privilege and continuation of colonial practice by being able to relocate to lands that my families have no ties to.

As a multi-ethinic being, I do struggle to feel “home” and feel the loss of culture and language from my own story, as a reflection to those of the Original People of this land and Indigenous people overall. There are things you can not dig up and learn from the internet. My father is an immigrant from a small island made up as a population of migrant and displaced people. This island called Mauritius has the story of early colonization and the extinction of its native Dodo bird, but the native people live on. His family did like many others from their native region of China and migrated to Mauritius for better economic opportunity. Before this, I have learned that our Chinese ancestors were also migrants, to escape imperialism, and have been on the outskirts of original communities. I still feel this in me now.

My mother’s side is of multi-ethnic European descent. There have been no Ancestral stories passed down. It is this part of me where I reconcile my white privilege and recognize the potential for settler colonial violence that my family could have enacted and still does by their lifestyles of whiteness today. The acts of buying, owning, and selling land and the buildings on the land that both of my families engage in is a part of colonialism that I am learning to reconcile with in hopes to remove violence from my wake.

I am grateful to be in this role of building bridges over the gaps of oppression and open my heart to receiving the wisdom of Ancestral knowledge, here, and other places I may go.

my bio: Amy Y. is an agender human (they/them) that works virtually as an environmental educator and coordinator of education programs for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. They have learned many lessons of patience and compassion from their 10 year old cat and 3 year old dog, which coincides with being a human in a family home and working towards being a member of physical community and better relationships. Amy is in continual transit of forming a life that represents truth and values radical expression in others.

Thank you!!

Stay tuned for a formal introduction of Amy!

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