Nature and Spirituality with Kathryn Froelich

Spirituality has been the anchor for my family that’s always helped us through all kinds of difficult challenges in life and everything that you mentioned in there um my mother taught us about the traditional perspectives on that so for example she even says to this day remember on Easter morning go out and get a of water from the pond or whatever because everything is Holy remember water is Holy um and we’ve always believed that not just Easter time but you know and so and then at giveaways she said remember when you give away a blanket um remember that blanket should touch the ground because our Earth is Holy and sacred and so you want to give that blanket you make sure that that blanket is touching the ground before you give it to that person as a blessing um I mean she taught us these things and she was taught by her grandma and her grandma so all of that was handed down um and then respect for Animals you know in the creation stories all our tribes have creation stories and she shared the araro creation story with us as I was growing up and it talked about you know our relationship with all you know elements of our Earth the animals you know and that at one time we could talk to the animals and they could talk to us we could communicate with them and um so yeah growing up I remember you remember her talking about that so I think it’s that’s really an important value that our kids are missing because it’s that’s something that’s um it’s a invisible part of our culture that it’s not in the books you know it’s not it’s not taught in the schools so um hopefully with the essential understandings you know that will motivate teachers to include that in all their lessons and you know I think it’s so important