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Hello all! And happy June. This has been a month of blowing breezes and...sniffling sneezes. Yes, Carl's allergic to June. (We hope he's not allergic to July.) This is also the month in which I passed into my second quarter century of life. The last two weeks have been unusually steamy here -- normally the Porcupine summer heat is dry and windy. The grass is heavy with seed-heads and the wild flowers are each coming into their time. The grass is so tall the the dogs have to jump instead of trot to see where they're going. They look rather like dolphins leaping through the sea. People are saying that this is one of the prettiest and greenest summers they remember here in the past 10 years. But people who've been around awhile also say that it used to be green like this every year, many years ago. Thank you global warming for worldwide climatic chaos. Anyway, since you all can't take wildflower walks with us, we've taken (plenty of) photos and proudly present to you the virtual prairie wildflower walk. And if you take the virtual wildflower walk, you can virtually imagine Carl walking along side of you with his hanky and his nasal horn blowing and puffy eyes growing. The last couple days he's quarantined himself in our trailer with all the windows closed, to no avail. But never fear, all ye mothers and aunties and grandmothers -- I convinced him to get a doctor's appointment next week. Actually, it didn't take much convincing. Last year's drought was good for one thing at least -- a sneeze-free spring. This month is the most relaxed we've been in 2005. When we saw that our June calendar was pretty empty a month ago, we tried to keep it that way. Our only trip away from home was a trip to Washington DC in early June for the meeting of the Anti-Racism Table -- a support & advisory group for MCC's Damascus Road anti-racism program. Otherwise we've been quite happy to be home. We didn't provide you all the pictures that corresponded with our last update. So there are several different picture collections available for your viewing pleasure. If you look at the one titled, "Snow, storms, sunsets, rainbows, and wildflowers" please take note of how brown and barren the landscape was in March after a years of drought and a nearly snowless winter -- the transformation this spring was incredible. This weekend is full of fun outdoor events. Yesterday (Thursday) evening I had the pleasure of attending a Christian rap concert with my 6th grade neighbor. A rap group from the Crow agency performed on a truck bed at the Porcupine baseball diamond. In addition to the concert, there was a great game of tag happening behind the bleachers. Tonight I am writing to all of you and watching a lightning storm blow in. (It has now arrived in full force with more rain). Tomorrow we are hoping to go to some horse-races in Manderson (commemorating the victory over Custer at the Little Big Horn), and possibly the Oglala Lakota College graduation pow-wow in the evening. Then on Sunday we'll be at the Oglala Commemoration, a gathering remembering 30 years since the shoot-out between FBI agents and AIM members in Oglala in 1975, and the imprisonment of Native activist Leonard Peltier based on fabricated evidence. We've spent a lot of time in our office this June. Much of that time has been preparing for the joint meeting of the MCC OLN Discernment Team and other MCC Central States board and staff in July. The meeting will take place here on the reservation July 15-17 in Kyle (about 25 miles northeast of Porcupine). On Wednesday we e-mailed a completed 85-page packet of information to the MCC Central States office for distribution to board members and staff. Whew!! It includes history on both the Oglala Lakota Nation and on our Unit, information about our Discernment meetings, and information from our interviews with many people. The packet features a 24-page Deliberation Framework designed to prepare participants for our discussion in July. The Deliberation Framework was carefully written and edited by our whole Discernment Team of 10. This was possibly the most efficient group writing and editing project I have ever been a part of, including the fact that everyone at least claims to be very happy with the final product. Needless to say, Carl and I spent a lot of time sorting through e-mails and comments and reworking different sections. What's exciting about this packet is that it does not give absolute answers or proposals to be rubber-stamped. Instead it provides needed background and lays the ground work for a respectful discussion about new possibilities. Specifically, we will be talking about new ways for addressing the problems this unit has encountered in its relationship to the larger MCC structure. Is MCC really able and willing to fully support the work of this unit? Out of this, we may also address the longer term question of who supervises us. Right now we are temporarily supervised by the MCC US Peace & Justice Ministries. It's been exciting to be a part of this whole process. It has often felt like we were placed here in this MCC unit after a great storm had passed, at a point of exciting new beginnings, prepared by the tears and determination of others. It feels strange somehow, strange to be the ones standing in the fields of wildflowers, under the rainbow (see pictures), when we didn't suffer the blustery winter blizzards that came before. That said, there's still plenty of hard work to do. We have a responsibility to those who held down the fort during the hard times, and of course to the whole Oglala Lakota Nation. And really, the rainbow was nice, but it only lasted a half hour. AND Carl is allergic to the wildflowers anyway. So maybe we can still feel a little sorry for ourselves after all :-) Love to you all! Karissa p.s. I have commissioned Carl to write the next issue of "Dear Carlissa." Since our update in January, we have accumulated a total of (drum-roll........) 2 questions. You guys are just so inquisitive! Hope you enjoy the updates anyway. We miss you all and hope you are doing well. p.p.s. For past updates, and current and past photos: http://www.meyerloewen.net
