Reflections from a Community of Practice In-person Gathering for Indigenous Evaluators
DATE, TIME, & NATURE OF INCIDENT
DATE: August 12th, 2026
TIME: exact unknown; sometime in the afternoon of the partial solar eclipse in Leo
Eleven witnesses sought out local wisdom in the Alaskan forest via a plant walk; little did one of them know it would finally soothe the oftentimes inflammatory pain of ancestral remembering.
EVIDENCE:
The following poem was first seeded before the gathering, soon took root while in our container together, and has finally bloomed with further care post gathering.
Relatives who Inspired the Poem
Including the group of wonderful women I gathered with through the Indigenous Insights Collective, poet X̱'unei Lance Twitchell, and plant ancestor Devil's Club have expanded my heart to bring about this poem. May it bring us closer to the fire within ~ with immense love, mgmc
X̱'unei Lance Twitchell - and his book of poems, G̱agaan X̱ʼusyee / Below the Foot of the Sun
- X̱'unei Lance Twitchell is from the Lingít, Haida, and Yupʼik Native Nations; speaks and studies the Lingít language; and advocates for Indigenous language revitalization.
Devil's Club - Oplopanax horridus
- Large under-story shrub that's armed with spines and loaded with berries that are loved by bears during the mid-summer.
- Native habitat & range: cool, moist but well-drained forest conditions throughout the Pacific Northwest coast and interior mountain forests.
- Properties: anti-inflammatory, anti-septic, anti-oxidant, expectorant
Devil's Club is an important plant relative to several traditional and contemporary Native American/First Nations cultures such as the Tlingit, Haida, Salish, Tsimshian, Hesquiat, and Nuxalt.
Check out the Native Plants & Foods Institute to learn more about Pacific Northwest plants and related social-emotional teachings like the poster below featuring Devil's Club!
Thanks for reading INDIGENEXUS!⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆
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