Message from Our Founder and Executive Director, Karen Mihlayi

I’ve been hearing the geese calling overhead, flying north back to their summer home! The days are longer, the sun sings higher in the sky, and the earth turns toward the miraculous transition of new life, growth, regeneration, and transformation. Spring! It’s a time to both notice and celebrate the cycle of the seasons and our connection. And as our Onondaga friends remind us: each living thing is our relative. Each is our teacher. What does this mean? What can I learn from the geese, the buds, the birds…

All My Relations is a simple phrase. But the practice of living it is more complicated. Last season we sang about the Honorable Harvest principles like: take only what you need, give something back. Listen and notice what the earth is saying. We are in a reciprocal relationship which means giving back. How will you give back?

All My Relations also means looking at our own human interactions, our intentions, patterns, and privilege. Unfettered capitalism and the belief and laws that hold it in place (i.e. colonialism, Euro-Christian supremacy ideology, Doctrine of Discovery, settler mentality, patriarchy, white supremacy, and others) are based on lies and greed. These narratives say that some live (people and non-human beings) are worth more than others. It continues by separating us, perpetuating fear, greed, and the misuse of our earth. We are all affected by these brutal systems. Some of us have benefited; others have been incredibly hurt or killed and suffered great losses. The phrase “decolonize our minds” becomes essential as we strengthen a movement of resistance that includes all voices, including the earth. All My Relations calls for honest, personal responsibility, showing up, building communities that support and protect and that are based on a fierce radical love. It also means incredible joy. Joy to dismantle such a brutal system, joy to be together, joy in the process of liberation.

How do the principles of All My Relations or We Are All Related inform our actions now? Many of us believe that we can learn from the earth and from Indigenous ways of thinking offer a way forward; that we need to keep building community, intentionally creating systems (organizations, movements) based on these ideas. People around the world are doing so, using tools such as Sociocracy, circles of caring, and alternative economies (read The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer). And finally, let us incorporate the idea of gratitude and thanksgiving in all that we do. Again, our Onondaga friends remind us that before all else, let’s give thanks to the earth, the teachers, and all the gifts we’ve been given.

This season, the Syracuse Community Choir will have a chance to deepen our relationship with the Onondaga and Haudenosaunee people as well as explore ways of moving forward, creating community and pathways through the hard times ahead. Let’s do it!

I am so glad to be here with you!
~Karen Mihlayi