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“Feminism isn’t about making women strong. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” –G.D. Anderson
I’m sharing this quote because it feels connected to what’s happening in the field of early childhood education in this country. That is, the way so many strong, determined women within the field (like you) are making a difference in terms of changing the way society perceives the value and importance of ECE. Happy International Women’s Day!!!
*Content below comes from the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve webpage entitled: The 13 Moons of the WSANEC (Fletcher, 2019).
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PEKELANEW-Moon that turns the leaves white(Oct.)
PEKELANEW – The Moon That Turns the Leaves White (October)
This is the moon of the turning white season (frost). This moon brings the first frost. The leaves lose their colours and turn pale. Deer hunting is the activity during this moon. The earth is cooling down and the people turn their efforts to hunting.
CONNECTIONS AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION
October derives its name from the Latin word ‘octo’ meaning eight. It was the eighth month of the Roman year. The moon marks the end of summer (snails) and the beginning of cooler weather.
WEATHER
The longer, cooler nights can lead to frost on the leaves and the ground in higher country.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
The WSANEC people began splitting the cedar logs they had felled in the Spring. The completion of the canoes was Winter work. They would rough out their canoes in the forest making them easier to carry and move them to the villages.
Seals and Sea Lions were hunted in the San Juan Islands. Cod fishing tapered off toward the end of this moon and grouse hunting ceased. Preparations were made for the Fall hunt of the deer and elk. Deer were in their rutting season and easily fooled because they were not as cautious as normal.
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
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To insist that we make and inhabit worlds (in the plural) is not to deny a common space of existence. Rather, it is to hold such an idea in tension with another, namely, with the sense that each of us, individually and collectively, also crafts and inhabits distinctive spaces of existence. The ravens that regularly visit the tree outside my window do not experience, understand, and make sense as I do. We inhabit different worlds, populated by different entities, in different relationships. To call these differences “worlds” is to insist that they do not simply reside “in the head” of a human, a raven, or another but rather emerge in relationship with others and ripple out to take material form-more or less consequentially (for whom?)-in the lives these beings live and the ways in which they world to shape the present an the future…To “share” is both to hold in common and to divide something up. (van Dooren, 2019, p. 8)
This time of year, around what is now called November, is traditionally known as WESELÁNEW – Moon of the Shaker Leaves
Based on the sacred interconnectedness of all things, the observation of the 13 moons is part of W̱SÁNEĆ natural law. Each of the 13 moons provides guidance as to what cultural and economic activities are best suited for the time of year, as well as what weather to expect and what food is most abundant.
When I started thinking about a conceptual framework for early childhood pedagogies, I was really interested in this notion of common worlds, because I'd read a lot of Latour's work. I sort of grabbed onto it because it really spoke to me in a couple of ways. First off, I really love the idea of the commons and I think about that, not just in terms of human commons, but in terms of the ways the notion of a commons is used in the sciences. You know: the sky, the air we breathe, the water, everything about the world we live in is something that's common to all beings on Earth. So that's a notion of the commons I really loved. And the notion of worlds and worlding (via Haraway). I love the idea that we live in a world, we don't just live in a society. - Affrica Taylor, 2019