Lyla June Johnston

Lyla June Johston: https://humansandnature.org/lyla-june-johnston/

(There is a possibility that Lyla June may not be able to join is.  If that is the case we are going to play a 5 or 6 minute excerpt from a terrific TedTalk she gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH5zJxQETl4  I’ll send the cut points separately)

 

Lyla June Johnston is a musician, public speaker and internationally recognized performance poet of Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) lineages. She graduated with honors from Stanford University with a degree in Environmental Anthropology. Her personal mission is to grow closer to Creator by learning how to love deeper and to support and empower indigenous youth.

She is a student of global cycles of violence that eventually gave rise to The Native American Holocaust and the destruction of many cyclic relationships between human beings and nature. This exploration birthed her passion for revitalizing spiritual relationships with Mother Earth and cultivating spaces for forgiveness and reconciliation to occur between cultural groups. She is a co-founder of The Taos Peace and Reconciliation Council. She is a walker within the Nihigaal Bee Iiná Movement, a 1,000-mile prayer walk through Diné Tah (the Navajo homeland) that is exposing the exploitation of Diné land and people by uranium, coal, oil and gas industries. She is the lead organizer of the Black Hill Unity Concert which gathers native and nonnative musicians to pray for the return of guardianship of the Black Hills to the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota nations. She is the also the founder of Regeneration Festival, an annual celebration of children that occurs in 13 countries around the world every September.