February 18, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode, co-hosts Peterson Toscano (he/him) and Miche McCall (they/them) explore the deep connections between Quaker spirituality, nature, and Indigenous wisdom. This episode features Gail Melix, an Indigenous Quaker who shares how walking in the woods transformed her experience of burnout into a practice of prayerful meditation. Paula Palmer examines the legacy of Quaker-run Indigenous boarding schools and the painful losses experienced by Indigenous children. We also hear about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book The Serviceberry, which invites us to reimagine our relationship with abundance, reciprocity, and the natural world.
Healing Through Walking Meditation: Gail Greenwater’s StoryGail Melix (also known as Greenwater,) a member of Sandwich Meeting in Massachusetts and a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag tribe, shares how she found healing through daily woodland walks. Facing burnout from social justice work, Gail sought guidance from Quaker and Indigenous elders and turned to nature for restoration. Through walking meditation, she discovered deep stillness, a renewed sense of peace, and even moments of profound connection with wildlife.
In The Delight of Being a Walking Prayer: Meditation for Healing, published in the February 2025 issue of Friends Journal, Gail reflects on the gifts of nature, the importance of listening to the land, and how slowing down can restore inner balance.
Reckoning with the Legacy of Quaker Boarding SchoolsPaula Palmer, a Quaker researcher and activist, delves into the historical trauma inflicted by Quaker-run Indigenous boarding schools. Through an excerpt from a QuakerSpeak video, Paula describes how Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families and stripped of their cultural identity. Many Quakers at the time failed to recognize the value of Indigenous cultures, blinded by the assumption that assimilation was an act of benevolence.
Paula reminds us that true healing requires listening, truth-telling, and ongoing dialogue with Indigenous communities. You can watch the full QuakerSpeak video, The Lasting Trauma of Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools, on YouTube or at QuakerSpeak.com. Many thanks to Layla Cuthrell, producer of QuakerSpeak.
The Gift Economy and Abundance: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The ServiceberryIn The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer explores the idea that wealth is not measured by accumulation but by generosity. She describes harvesting serviceberries alongside birds, witnessing the mutual exchange that defines a healthy ecosystem. Drawing from Indigenous knowledge, Kimmerer challenges the scarcity-driven mindset of capitalism and invites readers to embrace a gift economy—one where all flourishing is mutual.
To read Ruah Swennerfelt’s full review of The Serviceberry, visit FriendsJournal.org.
Answers for This Month’s QuestionIn our last episode, we asked: "What is your relationship with nature like?"
Listeners shared stories of finding peace in the woods, experiencing the divine through the changing seasons, and feeling responsible for the land they live on. Thank you to everyone who called in, emailed, or commented on social media!
Question for Next Month: Neurodivergence in Worship and EducationFor next month's episode, we invite responses from those who identify as neurodivergent or have neurodivergent children or students.
What are some best practices you have experienced or would recommend for places of worship or schools supporting neurodivergent people?
Leave a voice memo or text with your name and location at +1 317-782-5377. You can also comment on our social media channels or email us at podcast@friendsjournal.org.
Quakers Today: A Project of Friends PublishingMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Miche McCall (00:01):
In this episode of Quakers Today, we ask, what
is your relationship with nature like?
>> Peterson Toscano (00:07):
You will hear about Robin Wall Kimmerer's.
>> Miche McCall (00:09):
New book, the Serviceberry Paula Palmer
explores the damaging impact of Quaker
boarding schools on indigenous children and
cultures.
>> Peterson Toscano (00:18):
And indigenous Quaker Gail Melix,
also known as Greenwater, takes us on
her journey of walking prayer
meditation along the Santoit River.
She weaves together her heritage, her
faith, and the restorative power of nature.
I'm, um, Peterson Centiscano.
>> Miche McCall (00:36):
And I'm Miche McCall. This is season
four, episode three of the Quakers Today
Podcast, a project of Friends Publishing
Corporation. This season of Quakers Today is
sponsored by American Friends Service Committee
and Friends Fiduciary.
Peterson, I need to be honest with you. When
I think about you in nature, I, um, picture
(00:59):
your face on the boys in But I'm a
cheerleader while they're at, ah, conversion therapy
camp.
>> Peterson Toscano (01:07):
Okay. For anyone who doesn't know this movie, this is
a campy spoof of, um, a conversion therapy
camp. And it was based on the one that I spent
two years living in in Memphis. And that
is. It's pretty true, actually, because
I love nature a lot, but
I definitely am terrified of
(01:28):
it. I mean, I just think about all the tics
and, uh, stuff that can bother me when I
go in nature.
>> Miche McCall (01:35):
And maybe relying on a campy
satirical comedy for my entire
understanding of conversion therapy isn't
great, but it's the only story I've been
given. So when I think about Peterson in
nature, it's hard not to think, oh, a boy in
a tiny blue flannel chopping wood with
RuPaul.
>> Peterson Toscano (01:55):
Oh, gosh, if RuPaul would totally beat me at that
game in heels backwards.
But that's the single narrative trap,
right? You know, it's a powerful tool for
maintaining the status quo. And even though it's
a great movie, by focusing on a single voice,
it's really easy to erase the contributions, the
(02:16):
struggles, and the very existence of entire groups of
people.
>> Miche McCall (02:20):
Exactly. Yeah. Stories are the
connective tissue between all of us.
And listening to our guests today, I realized
how many stories I don't know and sometimes
how much I've been taught not to
know.
>> Peterson Toscano (02:35):
But everything is connected. Our stories, our
land, our very existence. Re.
Centering that connective tissue also means
acknowledging the original stewards of the land
or where we live, and understanding the stories that have been
suppressed for generations.
So the question becomes, where do we begin?
>> Miche McCall (02:56):
Well, that's what our podcast seeks to do.
We share stories from people who come to
Quakerism, from all sorts of places so we can see
Quakerism and the world in its
full, vibrant, and sometimes painful
complexity.
And speaking of Quaker stories, we talked to Gail
Greenwater, a member at Sandwich Meeting in
(03:18):
Massachusetts, land long stewarded by
the Wampanoag tribe.
>> Peterson Toscano (03:22):
Right. Her article, the Delight of
being a, uh, Walking Prayer Meditation for
Healing, shares how she moved out of
burnout. Through her daily walks in the woods,
Gail learned to slow down, pay attention, and
find joy in and the simple wonders of the
natural world. Gail's article appears in the
February 2025 issue of Friends Journal.
>> Gail Greenwater (03:49):
I am Gail Greenwater. I'm an indigenous
Quaker. I need both my faith
communities for me to connect deeply with God, whom
I also call Creator and Lord.
I'm a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag tribe of
Plymouth, also called Patuxet in
Massachusetts. And this is the tribe who met the
Mayflower Pilgrims.
(04:11):
My father, who has passed over to the Spirit world,
raised me with traditional indigenous practices
and cultural values. We are descendants of
Massasoit, which means Great Sachem,
whose given name was Osequin. My
mother's people were from England, came over on
the Mayflower. Our ancestor, William
Bradford, uh, who became the governor of
(04:33):
Plymouth Colony. So my people were
Puritans before becoming convinced Friends of the
Truth, the original name for Quakers.
In 2022, burnout. From the slow
pace of social justice, I realized
that I was beyond my measure. I was doing
far too much, and some of it was not in the right
spirit. From worship, I discerned, both
(04:56):
individually and with others, that I needed to take
a break from half of all that I was doing.
I prayed for the Creator's guidance to give
me what was mine to do. I sought
advice and counsel from indigenous elders and
from Quaker elders. I added a woodland
walk to my daily schedule. I went into the
(05:17):
woods to heal. And this has made all the
difference to me.
>> Miche McCall (05:22):
That decision to step back to connect
with nature really marked a turning point for
Gail. It wasn't just a walk in the woods.
It became something much deeper.
>> Gail Greenwater (05:33):
It grew into a, uh, healing, meditative.
Walk in the woods just became a very powerful
practice for me. The three months of every day walking
the same path and deciding which my
favorite trees were and just all the things that
I saw and I learned and the things that nature does
for us, it teaches us and it heals us.
And most of all, it provides a place where
(05:56):
you can really grow the inner peace
that you need. Because everything we do comes
better from peace. We need to have that peace
before we can face the things we have to. And
to make the decisions we need to how to go forward.
Everything comes better from peace. When I'm out in the
woods, it also allows me to really use all
(06:16):
five senses. And what a wonderful thing that we were born
with five senses. It's just a, uh. I'm very grateful
for it.
>> Peterson Toscano (06:24):
And it's in those woods,
engaging all five senses, that Gale
experiences something truly
remarkable.
>> Gail Greenwater (06:33):
I climb a tree. Different trees every
day. And one day I was in the arms of
a white pine, silent,
holding completely still. A
blue heron lit on a branch two trees
down, about a yard from me. I waited
and watched, wondering when he would notice
me. And he did. We locked
(06:55):
eyes for a good two minutes
before he hopped off the branch with a six foot
wingspan and flew. He maneuvered,
I don't know how, through that dense
thicket of pine branches. And he did it with
such grace. I wanted to shout, yes.
Yes, teach me. Teach me that. Teach me
that form of grace. Sometimes our
(07:18):
hearts are made to be full to bursting with
longing. When I hold completely
still and quiet, hidden in a
tree, all the life around me loses
the tension that exists when I am visibly
present. The birds, the two leggeds and
four leggeds come back out into the sun and
air once again. I sometimes wonder
(07:41):
if we become invisible when we are so
still. I've had songbirds light on me
as if I'm a limb on a tree. I do know that if
I sit long enough in stillness, day after
day, there comes a time when I
transform into a feeling of oneness.
With all life, my separateness
disappears.
>> Peterson Toscano (08:03):
That feeling of oneness, that
deep connection with nature, is something a
lot of us crave. I know I do.
And the concepts of self, care and
mindfulness are popular and well known by
Quakers today and with other people who want to make the world
a better place. Many of us know it's
(08:24):
the right sound and healthy
thing to spend time in quiet and in
nature. Yet many of us put it off
or never even get to it.
>> Gail Greenwater (08:34):
I think a lot of us know
what we should be doing, but, uh, in some
cases it feels like it's overwhelming.
I'll have to do this for a whole half hour? No, we can
start small. You know, you can give yourself
five minutes. And if you do that breathing for five minutes,
you will calm down. You will come to a
peacefulness.
>> Miche McCall (08:55):
And those small Moments add up. Five minutes
here, 10 minutes there. Over time, they build
a foundation for a deeper, more consistent
practice.
>> Gail Greenwater (09:04):
Things that I do when I don't have the time for as Long a
walk as I want. I make sure that every
day at some point I go out.
I go out with the intention to find joy.
Every day I'm looking for that, and I'm going to look for
delight. So go out, look around. You'll find
it.
>> Peterson Toscano (09:23):
That was Gail Greenwater, author of the
article the Delight of Being
a, uh, Walking Prayer Meditation for Healing. It
appears in the February 2025 issue of
Friends Journal.
>> Paula Palmer (09:35):
I think most people don't know
participants in this enterprise
of forced assimilation of Native
people. And so the first thing that we
have to do is learn the truth. My name is
Paula Palmer. I'm a member of the Boulder
Mating, and I live outside of Boulder in a
(09:56):
little town called Louisville, which is in
the homeland of the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute
peoples. One Dakota
woman, Zitkala Shah, was taken to a
Quaker boarding school in Indiana at age
8. She talks about what she
lost in order to get what
(10:16):
she called the white man's papers. Through her
schooling, she was awarded
certificates and graduation papers.
But what she lost was her
relationship with the natural world, her
relationship with her mother, with her
community, her connection to
spirit. And she writes about that with
(10:38):
such pain. The
indigenous people of this country experienced
many traumas, beginning with the
arrival of Europeans on these
shores. The boarding school experience was
particularly traumatic for the
children who were taken away
from their families, intentionally
(10:59):
separated from their parents and grandparents
and communities. And so you
can imagine the trauma that they
experienced not only by being
physically separated, but by being told
that everything about their lives was somehow
wrong and that they needed to change
everything. As they left the
(11:21):
schools, they faced another
really difficult challenge. They were
never going to be completely accepted as
equals in a racist society
dominated by white European
Americans. Many of them had lost so
much of their indigenous identity
by missing those years of growing up in their
(11:43):
families and learning the dances and the
stories and the songs and the
skills of their people.
Friends sometimes ask me, well, how
could Quakers have done this?
Didn't Quakers at that time
see that of God in indigenous
people? And, uh, from my reading
(12:06):
of Quaker journals and the
letters that so many of the teachers at
the Quaker indigenous schools
wrote back to their friends in
Philadelphia, I think they did see that of
God in individuals.
What they didn't see
was the intrinsic value
(12:29):
of indigenous cultures as a whole.
And that's because they were blinded by white
supremacy. They were blinded by
their certainty that their way
of life was superior
and by their
desire to
rescue indigenous children
(12:51):
from the societies that they saw
as failed societies.
What can we do now is not
something that we ourselves can answer alone.
We can only really answer that through dialogue
with indigenous people.
>> Peterson Toscano (13:13):
That was Paula Palmer in an excerpt from the
quakerspeak video entitled the Lasting
Trauma of Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools.
You will find this Quakerspeak video and the
Quakerspeak channel on YouTube or visit.
>> Miche McCall (13:27):
Quakerspeak.com
Hey Peterson, have you ever gone berry
picking? Not like at those U pick
places, but side of the road in the suburbs? Berry
picking?
>> Peterson Toscano (13:40):
Yeah, well I can't resist a uh berry
anywhere I see one. In fact, I have a mental file
of every spot within a 20 mile radius where I can
pick blackberries, raspberries, or my all
time favorite berry mulberries.
>> Miche McCall (13:55):
Some of my favorite childhood memories
are of late summer BlackBerry picking.
Coming home with my legs all scratched up, belly
full, tongue purple, I felt like the earth
was giving me a gift. And that gift meant
I savored every one of those berries.
And that's what I first thought about when I read the review of the
(14:16):
Serviceberry in Friends Journal this month.
Robin wallkimmerer recounts how she harvests
Serviceberries alongside the birds,
who in turn digest and drop the
seeds, planting new little Serviceberry trees.
This exchange exemplifies the gift
economy, a system where currency is not
money but relationship. Wealth
(14:38):
lies in reciprocity. For her, her
bounty of Serviceberries feels like a pure gift from the
land, something that is not earned but
freely given, which is in stark contrast to
our current market economy where goods are private property
and money is king. It
creates a false sense of scarcity, which leads to
separation. This prioritization of
(15:00):
wealth over health blinds us to the gifts that
surround us and encourages us to treat our
planet with avarice. In the
Serviceberry, kimmerer shares her desire to live in a
world where wealth means having enough to share, where
the economic unit is we, not I,
as all flourishing is mutual. The
Serviceberry Abundance and Reciprocity in the
(15:22):
Natural World is a little book, just over a hundred
pages by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's it's available
as a hardcover or ebook. To read the full
review by Rua Swennerfelt, visit Friends
journal
online@friendsjournal.org
thanks Miche.
>> Peterson Toscano (15:38):
And uh, you could also find the Serviceberry at
my library and other libraries. I'm on a list
right now of people interested in reading the
Serviceberry. Thank you library.
I actually have another resource to share with you, a
Quaker resource. Now, you may be one of
the many listeners who is not Quaker and you
want more Quaker content. British Quaker
(16:00):
Rhiannon Grant, who was on our show last year,
pointed me to Discovering Quakers.
If you're curious about what happens during a Quaker, uh,
worship time and you want to learn about Quakers in
bite sized chunks, check out
iscoveringquakers on TikTok.
>> Miche McCall (16:17):
For links to the Discovering Quakers TikTok account
and Robin Wall Kimmerer's new book, see
our show notes by visiting
quakerstoday.org.
>> Peterson Toscano (16:27):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of
Quakers Today. If you like what you heard today and
you listen on Apple podcast, would you do us a
favor? Please rate and review
our show. Many thanks to all of
you who are sharing Quakers Today with Friends with your
Quaker meeting on social media. Quakers
Today is written and produced by.
>> Miche McCall (16:49):
By Miche McCall and Peterson
Toscano. Music on today's show comes from
epidemic sound.
>> Peterson Toscano (16:56):
Season 4 of Quakers Today is sponsored by
Friends Fiduciary. Since
1898, Friends Fiduciary has provided
values aligned uh, investment services for fellow
Quaker organizations. Friends Fiduciary
consistently achieves strong financial
returns while witnessing to Quaker
testimonies. They also help individuals
(17:17):
support organizations they hold dear through giving
strategies including donor advised funds,
charitable gifts and stock gifts. Learn
more about FFC's
services@friendsfiduciary.org this season.
>> Miche McCall (17:32):
Is also brought to you by American Friends Service
Committee Vulnerable communities and the
planet are counting on Quakers to take action
for a more just, sustainable and peaceful
world. The American Friends Service Committee,
or afsc, works at the forefront of
many social change movements to meet urgent humanitarian
(17:52):
needs, challenge injustice and build
peace. Find out more about how you
can get involved in their programs to protect migrant
communities, establish an enduring peace in
Palestine, demilitarize police forces around
the world, assert the right for food for all
and more. Visit
afsc.org that's
(18:13):
afsc uh.org
visit quakerstoday.org.
>> Peterson Toscano (18:18):
And you will see our show notes and a full transcript
of this episode. And if you stick around after
the closing you will hear listeners responses
to the question what is your relationship with nature
like?
>> Miche McCall (18:31):
Thank you friend for listening. See you next month.
>> Peterson Toscano (18:36):
In a moment you will hear listeners voicemails about
their relationship with nature. But first I want
to share next month's question.
Our question is specifically for people
who identify as
neurodivergent or have a child or
student who is neurodivergent?
What are some best practices you have
(18:59):
experienced or recommendations for places of
worship or schools with neurodivergent
people?
>> Miche McCall (19:06):
Leave a voice memo with your name and your town. The
number to call is
317-QUAKERS. That's
317-782-5377
plus one. If you're calling from outside the USA,
you can also send us an email. I have these contact
details in our show Notes over at
quakerstoday.
>> Peterson Toscano (19:28):
Now we hear your answers to the question
what is your relationship with nature like?
>> Miche McCall (19:34):
Atie, uh, Beth21 messaged us on
Instagram. I once told a professor in
undergrad during a discussion about prayer that
I had stopped really praying freshman year.
But sometimes the way the flowers bloomed on this
tree in the courtyard really touched my
soul and that felt like a moment of
conversation with the divine. The
(19:56):
bonny Alaba commented, my relationship to
nature is very peaceful and important
because nature helps me get rid of stress and obilindsay.
Ah 23. Simply
put, indispensable Carol
Bradley, in a.
>> Peterson Toscano (20:11):
Beautiful email wrote, my relationship with
nature is becoming a lot more personal
as I deal with the implications of having lived on the same
piece of land for 41 years. The
six chickadees who greet me every day, for
instance. It's simply impossible that they
are the same chickadees. So how long do these tiny
birds live? Have they gathered in other families
(20:34):
over these years? How many generations have passed down the
knowledge of the black oil sunflower seeds on the
deck? Their lives a mystery to me,
although so familiar. Last fall
I disconnected a streetlight that has come
on every night since I moved here.
Finally, the knowledge of its light pollution, its
possible effect on the birds, its carbon
(20:56):
cost overcame my personal fears of living alone
in the country and my inertia. I'm excited to
see if it makes any changes for the birds.
Who knows, maybe its absence will now bring an
owl or two. The chickadees will not welcome that,
though. At Miche we have some
voicemails to share.
>> Charlie Dominicki (21:14):
Ah,
well, that is a hard question.
Hi, this is Pamela Haynes from
Philadelphia. I would say that my relationship
with nature is one of ever growing
respect and connection. On the one
hand, as I pay more attention, I keep noticing and
learning more about this amazing living world
(21:36):
in which we're embedded. Seeds don't know how to grow into
trees, um, mycelia that send underground
messages, species that live in such symbiotic
interdependence. On the other hand, I grow ever more aware
of the flaws in the way we were trained to see ourselves as
separate from something that we call nature.
I love resting in the reality that we're not separate
(21:57):
at all, that we're part of nature as much as any
other living being. And the inanimate ones as
well. Thanks for asking.
This is Max Goodman of the Brooklyn
(22:18):
Quaker Meeting. I became a
convinced friend while I was working as
counselor for the Baltimore Elite meeting camps. I
had a few experiences that stand out in my
memory. Like watching a thunderstorm roll
in towards Annapolis Rocks, this big
overlook on eat and
knowing that the whole
(22:40):
unit, our whole, our whole trip was going to get soaked
and just seeing in the force of the
storm and feeling that like
sublime immersion and
desolation and watching the beauty
of it. I see God much
more clearly in nature than in any
of our symbolic human attempts at
(23:02):
touching our understanding, divinity. The inherent
balances and intricacies of
leaves decomposing on the forest floor, the
cycles of the seasons and life and death and
predation and prior production
that play out in front of you if you go out
in the woods and sit. It was a backdrop that
(23:22):
allowed me, particularly because I
was in really active wick energy
to have a faith in the fundamental
goodness of people. Because I could see the fundamental
goodness of the natural world that we came from and
I could see the wisdom and the glory in the
architecture. And um, this is all very romantic
(23:43):
description and you know the places we were leading
these trips were not pristine wilderness. They were thin
strips of national park land in the front range of
Appalachia near some mid sized cities in
Maryland. I don't think
that the non wilderness of the nature that we
interact with takes away from
display of divine wisdom. The woods I was
(24:05):
hiking in were secondary forests. The
fire circle where we had our meetings for
worship at this camp was an old charcoal pit
from when they had logged down and burned this whole
mountainside to make charcoal to send
to the cities and to make grazing land for sheep.
People didn't have to go and plant those trees again
(24:25):
as far as through natural succession brought itself
back. That ah, vitality like
is resurrection like what? Where
else can we see the like visible
embodiment of resurrection
in this world other than nature reclaiming spaces
that have been disrupted by human activity. In New
(24:45):
York City I feel estranged from it, but
sometimes they'll break through. Today I
was walking up 11th street in Park
Slope at like 3pm for some
reason it was just thick with birdsong.
The brownstone walls were kind of
echoing with all these birds that were flying
around in the barren winter
(25:07):
treetop. It was really beautiful
obviously, but uh, helped me
feel at peace in the world in a
time that feels really dark and complicated.
Something that's right, that's just naturally
right is still happening in the background. The wheels
of creation are still turning. There's still
Berton that's given as a free gift to
(25:29):
humanity.
>> Miche McCall (25:32):
Thank you to everyone who answered the question, what is
your relationship with nature like?
>> Peterson Toscano (25:38):
And if you identify as neurodivergent or you have
a child or student who is neurodivergent, or what are
some best practices you have experienced or recommend
for places of worship or schools with
neurodivergent.
>> Miche McCall (25:50):
People, call us and leave a message.
317 Quakers. That's
317-782-5377
or comment on one of our social media channels.
>> Peterson Toscano (26:04):
Be well friends.
In this episode of Quakers Today, we ask, what
is your relationship with nature like?
>> Peterson Toscano (00:07):
You will hear about Robin Wall Kimmerer's.
>> Miche McCall (00:09):
New book, the Serviceberry Paula Palmer
explores the damaging impact of Quaker
boarding schools on indigenous children and
cultures.
>> Peterson Toscano (00:18):
And indigenous Quaker Gail Melix,
also known as Greenwater, takes us on
her journey of walking prayer
meditation along the Santoit River.
She weaves together her heritage, her
faith, and the restorative power of nature.
I'm, um, Peterson Centiscano.
>> Miche McCall (00:36):
And I'm Miche McCall. This is season
four, episode three of the Quakers Today
Podcast, a project of Friends Publishing
Corporation. This season of Quakers Today is
sponsored by American Friends Service Committee
and Friends Fiduciary.
Peterson, I need to be honest with you. When
I think about you in nature, I, um, picture
(00:59):
your face on the boys in But I'm a
cheerleader while they're at, ah, conversion therapy
camp.
>> Peterson Toscano (01:07):
Okay. For anyone who doesn't know this movie, this is
a campy spoof of, um, a conversion therapy
camp. And it was based on the one that I spent
two years living in in Memphis. And that
is. It's pretty true, actually, because
I love nature a lot, but
I definitely am terrified of
(01:28):
it. I mean, I just think about all the tics
and, uh, stuff that can bother me when I
go in nature.
>> Miche McCall (01:35):
And maybe relying on a campy
satirical comedy for my entire
understanding of conversion therapy isn't
great, but it's the only story I've been
given. So when I think about Peterson in
nature, it's hard not to think, oh, a boy in
a tiny blue flannel chopping wood with
RuPaul.
>> Peterson Toscano (01:55):
Oh, gosh, if RuPaul would totally beat me at that
game in heels backwards.
But that's the single narrative trap,
right? You know, it's a powerful tool for
maintaining the status quo. And even though it's
a great movie, by focusing on a single voice,
it's really easy to erase the contributions, the
(02:16):
struggles, and the very existence of entire groups of
people.
>> Miche McCall (02:20):
Exactly. Yeah. Stories are the
connective tissue between all of us.
And listening to our guests today, I realized
how many stories I don't know and sometimes
how much I've been taught not to
know.
>> Peterson Toscano (02:35):
But everything is connected. Our stories, our
land, our very existence. Re.
Centering that connective tissue also means
acknowledging the original stewards of the land
or where we live, and understanding the stories that have been
suppressed for generations.
So the question becomes, where do we begin?
>> Miche McCall (02:56):
Well, that's what our podcast seeks to do.
We share stories from people who come to
Quakerism, from all sorts of places so we can see
Quakerism and the world in its
full, vibrant, and sometimes painful
complexity.
And speaking of Quaker stories, we talked to Gail
Greenwater, a member at Sandwich Meeting in
(03:18):
Massachusetts, land long stewarded by
the Wampanoag tribe.
>> Peterson Toscano (03:22):
Right. Her article, the Delight of
being a, uh, Walking Prayer Meditation for
Healing, shares how she moved out of
burnout. Through her daily walks in the woods,
Gail learned to slow down, pay attention, and
find joy in and the simple wonders of the
natural world. Gail's article appears in the
February 2025 issue of Friends Journal.
>> Gail Greenwater (03:49):
I am Gail Greenwater. I'm an indigenous
Quaker. I need both my faith
communities for me to connect deeply with God, whom
I also call Creator and Lord.
I'm a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag tribe of
Plymouth, also called Patuxet in
Massachusetts. And this is the tribe who met the
Mayflower Pilgrims.
(04:11):
My father, who has passed over to the Spirit world,
raised me with traditional indigenous practices
and cultural values. We are descendants of
Massasoit, which means Great Sachem,
whose given name was Osequin. My
mother's people were from England, came over on
the Mayflower. Our ancestor, William
Bradford, uh, who became the governor of
(04:33):
Plymouth Colony. So my people were
Puritans before becoming convinced Friends of the
Truth, the original name for Quakers.
In 2022, burnout. From the slow
pace of social justice, I realized
that I was beyond my measure. I was doing
far too much, and some of it was not in the right
spirit. From worship, I discerned, both
(04:56):
individually and with others, that I needed to take
a break from half of all that I was doing.
I prayed for the Creator's guidance to give
me what was mine to do. I sought
advice and counsel from indigenous elders and
from Quaker elders. I added a woodland
walk to my daily schedule. I went into the
(05:17):
woods to heal. And this has made all the
difference to me.
>> Miche McCall (05:22):
That decision to step back to connect
with nature really marked a turning point for
Gail. It wasn't just a walk in the woods.
It became something much deeper.
>> Gail Greenwater (05:33):
It grew into a, uh, healing, meditative.
Walk in the woods just became a very powerful
practice for me. The three months of every day walking
the same path and deciding which my
favorite trees were and just all the things that
I saw and I learned and the things that nature does
for us, it teaches us and it heals us.
And most of all, it provides a place where
(05:56):
you can really grow the inner peace
that you need. Because everything we do comes
better from peace. We need to have that peace
before we can face the things we have to. And
to make the decisions we need to how to go forward.
Everything comes better from peace. When I'm out in the
woods, it also allows me to really use all
(06:16):
five senses. And what a wonderful thing that we were born
with five senses. It's just a, uh. I'm very grateful
for it.
>> Peterson Toscano (06:24):
And it's in those woods,
engaging all five senses, that Gale
experiences something truly
remarkable.
>> Gail Greenwater (06:33):
I climb a tree. Different trees every
day. And one day I was in the arms of
a white pine, silent,
holding completely still. A
blue heron lit on a branch two trees
down, about a yard from me. I waited
and watched, wondering when he would notice
me. And he did. We locked
(06:55):
eyes for a good two minutes
before he hopped off the branch with a six foot
wingspan and flew. He maneuvered,
I don't know how, through that dense
thicket of pine branches. And he did it with
such grace. I wanted to shout, yes.
Yes, teach me. Teach me that. Teach me
that form of grace. Sometimes our
(07:18):
hearts are made to be full to bursting with
longing. When I hold completely
still and quiet, hidden in a
tree, all the life around me loses
the tension that exists when I am visibly
present. The birds, the two leggeds and
four leggeds come back out into the sun and
air once again. I sometimes wonder
(07:41):
if we become invisible when we are so
still. I've had songbirds light on me
as if I'm a limb on a tree. I do know that if
I sit long enough in stillness, day after
day, there comes a time when I
transform into a feeling of oneness.
With all life, my separateness
disappears.
>> Peterson Toscano (08:03):
That feeling of oneness, that
deep connection with nature, is something a
lot of us crave. I know I do.
And the concepts of self, care and
mindfulness are popular and well known by
Quakers today and with other people who want to make the world
a better place. Many of us know it's
(08:24):
the right sound and healthy
thing to spend time in quiet and in
nature. Yet many of us put it off
or never even get to it.
>> Gail Greenwater (08:34):
I think a lot of us know
what we should be doing, but, uh, in some
cases it feels like it's overwhelming.
I'll have to do this for a whole half hour? No, we can
start small. You know, you can give yourself
five minutes. And if you do that breathing for five minutes,
you will calm down. You will come to a
peacefulness.
>> Miche McCall (08:55):
And those small Moments add up. Five minutes
here, 10 minutes there. Over time, they build
a foundation for a deeper, more consistent
practice.
>> Gail Greenwater (09:04):
Things that I do when I don't have the time for as Long a
walk as I want. I make sure that every
day at some point I go out.
I go out with the intention to find joy.
Every day I'm looking for that, and I'm going to look for
delight. So go out, look around. You'll find
it.
>> Peterson Toscano (09:23):
That was Gail Greenwater, author of the
article the Delight of Being
a, uh, Walking Prayer Meditation for Healing. It
appears in the February 2025 issue of
Friends Journal.
>> Paula Palmer (09:35):
I think most people don't know
participants in this enterprise
of forced assimilation of Native
people. And so the first thing that we
have to do is learn the truth. My name is
Paula Palmer. I'm a member of the Boulder
Mating, and I live outside of Boulder in a
(09:56):
little town called Louisville, which is in
the homeland of the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute
peoples. One Dakota
woman, Zitkala Shah, was taken to a
Quaker boarding school in Indiana at age
8. She talks about what she
lost in order to get what
(10:16):
she called the white man's papers. Through her
schooling, she was awarded
certificates and graduation papers.
But what she lost was her
relationship with the natural world, her
relationship with her mother, with her
community, her connection to
spirit. And she writes about that with
(10:38):
such pain. The
indigenous people of this country experienced
many traumas, beginning with the
arrival of Europeans on these
shores. The boarding school experience was
particularly traumatic for the
children who were taken away
from their families, intentionally
(10:59):
separated from their parents and grandparents
and communities. And so you
can imagine the trauma that they
experienced not only by being
physically separated, but by being told
that everything about their lives was somehow
wrong and that they needed to change
everything. As they left the
(11:21):
schools, they faced another
really difficult challenge. They were
never going to be completely accepted as
equals in a racist society
dominated by white European
Americans. Many of them had lost so
much of their indigenous identity
by missing those years of growing up in their
(11:43):
families and learning the dances and the
stories and the songs and the
skills of their people.
Friends sometimes ask me, well, how
could Quakers have done this?
Didn't Quakers at that time
see that of God in indigenous
people? And, uh, from my reading
(12:06):
of Quaker journals and the
letters that so many of the teachers at
the Quaker indigenous schools
wrote back to their friends in
Philadelphia, I think they did see that of
God in individuals.
What they didn't see
was the intrinsic value
(12:29):
of indigenous cultures as a whole.
And that's because they were blinded by white
supremacy. They were blinded by
their certainty that their way
of life was superior
and by their
desire to
rescue indigenous children
(12:51):
from the societies that they saw
as failed societies.
What can we do now is not
something that we ourselves can answer alone.
We can only really answer that through dialogue
with indigenous people.
>> Peterson Toscano (13:13):
That was Paula Palmer in an excerpt from the
quakerspeak video entitled the Lasting
Trauma of Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools.
You will find this Quakerspeak video and the
Quakerspeak channel on YouTube or visit.
>> Miche McCall (13:27):
Quakerspeak.com
Hey Peterson, have you ever gone berry
picking? Not like at those U pick
places, but side of the road in the suburbs? Berry
picking?
>> Peterson Toscano (13:40):
Yeah, well I can't resist a uh berry
anywhere I see one. In fact, I have a mental file
of every spot within a 20 mile radius where I can
pick blackberries, raspberries, or my all
time favorite berry mulberries.
>> Miche McCall (13:55):
Some of my favorite childhood memories
are of late summer BlackBerry picking.
Coming home with my legs all scratched up, belly
full, tongue purple, I felt like the earth
was giving me a gift. And that gift meant
I savored every one of those berries.
And that's what I first thought about when I read the review of the
(14:16):
Serviceberry in Friends Journal this month.
Robin wallkimmerer recounts how she harvests
Serviceberries alongside the birds,
who in turn digest and drop the
seeds, planting new little Serviceberry trees.
This exchange exemplifies the gift
economy, a system where currency is not
money but relationship. Wealth
(14:38):
lies in reciprocity. For her, her
bounty of Serviceberries feels like a pure gift from the
land, something that is not earned but
freely given, which is in stark contrast to
our current market economy where goods are private property
and money is king. It
creates a false sense of scarcity, which leads to
separation. This prioritization of
(15:00):
wealth over health blinds us to the gifts that
surround us and encourages us to treat our
planet with avarice. In the
Serviceberry, kimmerer shares her desire to live in a
world where wealth means having enough to share, where
the economic unit is we, not I,
as all flourishing is mutual. The
Serviceberry Abundance and Reciprocity in the
(15:22):
Natural World is a little book, just over a hundred
pages by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's it's available
as a hardcover or ebook. To read the full
review by Rua Swennerfelt, visit Friends
journal
online@friendsjournal.org
thanks Miche.
>> Peterson Toscano (15:38):
And uh, you could also find the Serviceberry at
my library and other libraries. I'm on a list
right now of people interested in reading the
Serviceberry. Thank you library.
I actually have another resource to share with you, a
Quaker resource. Now, you may be one of
the many listeners who is not Quaker and you
want more Quaker content. British Quaker
(16:00):
Rhiannon Grant, who was on our show last year,
pointed me to Discovering Quakers.
If you're curious about what happens during a Quaker, uh,
worship time and you want to learn about Quakers in
bite sized chunks, check out
iscoveringquakers on TikTok.
>> Miche McCall (16:17):
For links to the Discovering Quakers TikTok account
and Robin Wall Kimmerer's new book, see
our show notes by visiting
quakerstoday.org.
>> Peterson Toscano (16:27):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of
Quakers Today. If you like what you heard today and
you listen on Apple podcast, would you do us a
favor? Please rate and review
our show. Many thanks to all of
you who are sharing Quakers Today with Friends with your
Quaker meeting on social media. Quakers
Today is written and produced by.
>> Miche McCall (16:49):
By Miche McCall and Peterson
Toscano. Music on today's show comes from
epidemic sound.
>> Peterson Toscano (16:56):
Season 4 of Quakers Today is sponsored by
Friends Fiduciary. Since
1898, Friends Fiduciary has provided
values aligned uh, investment services for fellow
Quaker organizations. Friends Fiduciary
consistently achieves strong financial
returns while witnessing to Quaker
testimonies. They also help individuals
(17:17):
support organizations they hold dear through giving
strategies including donor advised funds,
charitable gifts and stock gifts. Learn
more about FFC's
services@friendsfiduciary.org this season.
>> Miche McCall (17:32):
Is also brought to you by American Friends Service
Committee Vulnerable communities and the
planet are counting on Quakers to take action
for a more just, sustainable and peaceful
world. The American Friends Service Committee,
or afsc, works at the forefront of
many social change movements to meet urgent humanitarian
(17:52):
needs, challenge injustice and build
peace. Find out more about how you
can get involved in their programs to protect migrant
communities, establish an enduring peace in
Palestine, demilitarize police forces around
the world, assert the right for food for all
and more. Visit
afsc.org that's
(18:13):
afsc uh.org
visit quakerstoday.org.
>> Peterson Toscano (18:18):
And you will see our show notes and a full transcript
of this episode. And if you stick around after
the closing you will hear listeners responses
to the question what is your relationship with nature
like?
>> Miche McCall (18:31):
Thank you friend for listening. See you next month.
>> Peterson Toscano (18:36):
In a moment you will hear listeners voicemails about
their relationship with nature. But first I want
to share next month's question.
Our question is specifically for people
who identify as
neurodivergent or have a child or
student who is neurodivergent?
What are some best practices you have
(18:59):
experienced or recommendations for places of
worship or schools with neurodivergent
people?
>> Miche McCall (19:06):
Leave a voice memo with your name and your town. The
number to call is
317-QUAKERS. That's
317-782-5377
plus one. If you're calling from outside the USA,
you can also send us an email. I have these contact
details in our show Notes over at
quakerstoday.
>> Peterson Toscano (19:28):
Now we hear your answers to the question
what is your relationship with nature like?
>> Miche McCall (19:34):
Atie, uh, Beth21 messaged us on
Instagram. I once told a professor in
undergrad during a discussion about prayer that
I had stopped really praying freshman year.
But sometimes the way the flowers bloomed on this
tree in the courtyard really touched my
soul and that felt like a moment of
conversation with the divine. The
(19:56):
bonny Alaba commented, my relationship to
nature is very peaceful and important
because nature helps me get rid of stress and obilindsay.
Ah 23. Simply
put, indispensable Carol
Bradley, in a.
>> Peterson Toscano (20:11):
Beautiful email wrote, my relationship with
nature is becoming a lot more personal
as I deal with the implications of having lived on the same
piece of land for 41 years. The
six chickadees who greet me every day, for
instance. It's simply impossible that they
are the same chickadees. So how long do these tiny
birds live? Have they gathered in other families
(20:34):
over these years? How many generations have passed down the
knowledge of the black oil sunflower seeds on the
deck? Their lives a mystery to me,
although so familiar. Last fall
I disconnected a streetlight that has come
on every night since I moved here.
Finally, the knowledge of its light pollution, its
possible effect on the birds, its carbon
(20:56):
cost overcame my personal fears of living alone
in the country and my inertia. I'm excited to
see if it makes any changes for the birds.
Who knows, maybe its absence will now bring an
owl or two. The chickadees will not welcome that,
though. At Miche we have some
voicemails to share.
>> Charlie Dominicki (21:14):
Ah,
well, that is a hard question.
Hi, this is Pamela Haynes from
Philadelphia. I would say that my relationship
with nature is one of ever growing
respect and connection. On the one
hand, as I pay more attention, I keep noticing and
learning more about this amazing living world
(21:36):
in which we're embedded. Seeds don't know how to grow into
trees, um, mycelia that send underground
messages, species that live in such symbiotic
interdependence. On the other hand, I grow ever more aware
of the flaws in the way we were trained to see ourselves as
separate from something that we call nature.
I love resting in the reality that we're not separate
(21:57):
at all, that we're part of nature as much as any
other living being. And the inanimate ones as
well. Thanks for asking.
This is Max Goodman of the Brooklyn
(22:18):
Quaker Meeting. I became a
convinced friend while I was working as
counselor for the Baltimore Elite meeting camps. I
had a few experiences that stand out in my
memory. Like watching a thunderstorm roll
in towards Annapolis Rocks, this big
overlook on eat and
knowing that the whole
(22:40):
unit, our whole, our whole trip was going to get soaked
and just seeing in the force of the
storm and feeling that like
sublime immersion and
desolation and watching the beauty
of it. I see God much
more clearly in nature than in any
of our symbolic human attempts at
(23:02):
touching our understanding, divinity. The inherent
balances and intricacies of
leaves decomposing on the forest floor, the
cycles of the seasons and life and death and
predation and prior production
that play out in front of you if you go out
in the woods and sit. It was a backdrop that
(23:22):
allowed me, particularly because I
was in really active wick energy
to have a faith in the fundamental
goodness of people. Because I could see the fundamental
goodness of the natural world that we came from and
I could see the wisdom and the glory in the
architecture. And um, this is all very romantic
(23:43):
description and you know the places we were leading
these trips were not pristine wilderness. They were thin
strips of national park land in the front range of
Appalachia near some mid sized cities in
Maryland. I don't think
that the non wilderness of the nature that we
interact with takes away from
display of divine wisdom. The woods I was
(24:05):
hiking in were secondary forests. The
fire circle where we had our meetings for
worship at this camp was an old charcoal pit
from when they had logged down and burned this whole
mountainside to make charcoal to send
to the cities and to make grazing land for sheep.
People didn't have to go and plant those trees again
(24:25):
as far as through natural succession brought itself
back. That ah, vitality like
is resurrection like what? Where
else can we see the like visible
embodiment of resurrection
in this world other than nature reclaiming spaces
that have been disrupted by human activity. In New
(24:45):
York City I feel estranged from it, but
sometimes they'll break through. Today I
was walking up 11th street in Park
Slope at like 3pm for some
reason it was just thick with birdsong.
The brownstone walls were kind of
echoing with all these birds that were flying
around in the barren winter
(25:07):
treetop. It was really beautiful
obviously, but uh, helped me
feel at peace in the world in a
time that feels really dark and complicated.
Something that's right, that's just naturally
right is still happening in the background. The wheels
of creation are still turning. There's still
Berton that's given as a free gift to
(25:29):
humanity.
>> Miche McCall (25:32):
Thank you to everyone who answered the question, what is
your relationship with nature like?
>> Peterson Toscano (25:38):
And if you identify as neurodivergent or you have
a child or student who is neurodivergent, or what are
some best practices you have experienced or recommend
for places of worship or schools with
neurodivergent.
>> Miche McCall (25:50):
People, call us and leave a message.
317 Quakers. That's
317-782-5377
or comment on one of our social media channels.
>> Peterson Toscano (26:04):
Be well friends.
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