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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking with Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller. 

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller I would tell the coming generation that we are preparing ourselves for you. We are readying this place for you and that you, our descendants, are worthy of fighting for, that you are worthy of a safe and healthy home.

Ayana Young Oh Ruth, I am so happy to be having this time with you. I'm so excited. I've been excited to talk with you on the Podcast and beyond, so this moment together is already warming my heart and I'm so looking forward to all the places we're about to go.

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller I absolutely share the same sentiment, it feels precious, like precious seeds were planted to get there.

Ayana Young I love that. Well, Ruth to begin I wonder if you would like to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Of course, Yagheli da everyone, [introduction spoken in Dena’ina]. My English name is Ruth Miller and my Dena'ina Athabaskan name is Łchavaya K’isen, gifted to me by my first language teacher. I was born and raised here in my Dena'ina homelands of Dgheyay Kaq, otherwise known as Anchorage, Alaska. But my family is from the Lake Clark area traveling down to Bristol Bay, before coming into Anchorage, and I'm presently the Climate Justice Director for a grassroots matriarchal, Indigenous nonprofit here in Alaska called Native Movement and I'm so happy to be speaking here today.

Ayana Young Thank you so much for grounding us with that introduction and, yeah, I want to start by asking about how you define a just transition. This term has gained so much momentum, but often I think many default to a very limited understanding of it that focuses on its implications in context to jobs, the economy, and policy. I’ve read some of your reflections that powerfully remind us that a just transition can also be understood, not as a linear objective, but a cyclical movement inspired by reciprocity, kinship, and care. As a climate just organizer working towards just transition, can you share what the totality of this idea means for you?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Well, let me take us back a little bit. My elders in my culture remind me that we always have to begin with stories and for me to be telling the story, you know, our listeners have to remember that I don't come to this work as an environmentalist, I don't identify as an environmentalist. Everything that it means to be an Indigenous woman intrinsically is connected to the protection of our lands, our waters, our air, and the protection of one another. Our call to justice, our call to reciprocity to community care, and fundamental compassion. So being an Indigenous climate justice activist, or organizer, you know, are all ways of saying the same thing that I am investing every spark of my being into a world founded on reciprocity that my ancestors would recognize and that my descendants would be grateful for.So when we think of just transition, we're not thinking of an economic shift, although that is one aspect of moving from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. But the just transition framework when it first came to Alaska, resonated here, because it is everything that is so intrinsic to Indigenous well-being, and the success and the thriving of Indigenous societies. When just transition came to Alaska, we realized that we needed a different name for it, that we needed something that we could see ourselves in and so we began calling just transition Kohtr’elyeh, which in the language of the Benhti’ Kenaga’, means we remember - remembering forward, that is what just transition is to us. It is an act of remembering forward, an ethos, an ideology of bringing our sacred teachings, our traditional lifeways and practices, and our fundamental value of reciprocity and interdependency and interconnectedness that bring our economy into a spiral that both takes inspiration from the past and thinks about tending to the future. So that's an economy that incorporates aspects of just government management. It also incorporates food security, justice for workers and immigrants, justice for families and the care economy, incorporates aspects of education, and, of course, you know, renewable resources. But it also introduces a reminder that all of this economy, all of this economic transition must be founded on a worldview of reciprocity, a worldview of responsibility for one another, and fundamental community.

Ayana Young Wow, what a beautiful response. Thank you for taking us there. Now, as mentioned, you recently moved into the role of Climate Justice Director with Native Movement, I would love to hear your reflections on this, because certainly land defense and environmental protection is something that Indigenous people have been doing long before there was this idea of a “climate change movement”, but I’d say in the past decade things have definitely shifted in terms of the strategies and difficulties that arise in context to what many might understand as oncoming climate chaos. What does climate justice work look like right now? And what do you think are some of the most important areas that we need to course-correct?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Well, instead of speaking to my most recent job position, I think I’d like to speak to my very first, which was when I was 15 years old. I flew out to Bristol Bay, the area that my grandmother was raised and I began working for a summer with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, particularly gathering testimony and doing community education, civic education around the proposed Pebble Mine, which would have devastated our entire watershed, the last great salmon fishery in the world. And not only a supporter of 14,000 plus jobs annually but additionally, you know, our salmon are our blood, our salmon are our lifelines, they’re our predominant food source, and they're also the backbone of our culture, in the Bay. So I flew out and stayed with a wonderful precious family of mine who's, you know, very close to me to this day, and was getting nervous for my first day of work, first real job. When I realized that I had to call in and tell my boss that I couldn't go to work. And the reason was, because the night before I was supposed to begin my job, the King Salmon had hit the nets, and it was time to pick fish. And I called my boss, a very dear mentor of mine, Alannah Hurley, and told her “Hey, the fish came in” and without a second of hesitation, she said, “Yep, go work, see you tomorrow.” And, you know, in retrospect, that was my first day of climate advocacy. It wasn't, you know, sitting in an office writing testimony templates for our people. It was being with my people on the land, cutting and processing fish, returning the hospitality that I was gifted with, you know, my labor and my work using our hands together to learn and prepare this fish to feed our families for the months and months to come. It was an act of honoring the animal relatives that I would then go on to fight for in other forms. 

So when I think about what climate justice work looks like today, I'm always reminded of those first days on, you know, the shoreline picking fish and, and centering myself in the why of this work. You know, today I sit on my laptop in my home during the covid-19 pandemic, I'm on lots and lots of Zoom meetings, I do lots and lots of writing a lot of coordinating a lot of different conversations, but the core of that work is the heart that will never leave those shores of the Bay, and that will never leave my approach to climate justice. So now when we're thinking about what areas of you know, climate policy, climate organizing, that we need to course-correct, I still fundamentally feel that it is that ideology, that sentiment that underlies all of our work and our approach to one another, you know, whether it's working with environmental big green groups here in Alaska and challenging them to decolonize and come to just transition principles, center frontline voices, you know, that's a huge aspect of our work. So is, you know, advocating within national and international platforms, be it with the Green New Deal Network in The Thrive Agenda, or in preparations for COP26 in Glasgow of this year, the ideology that guides our work has to be a reminder of why we are fighting, it has to be spiritual, it has to be soulful, it has to be warming, it has to be comforting, the why of our work, and the principles that underlie climate justice advocacy, will lead to justice informed policies, they will lead to negotiations that center, frontline voices and grassroots communities if we are able to reintroduce an ethos of care, and a determination to see our values being centered at the heart of every, you know, policy, writing and decision making space and to hear our Indigenous voices in those rooms, that is the biggest change that I think we could see, implemented. That's the biggest, you know, shift that we could advocate for, because that value system will then trickle down into those policies and into those decisions, ensuring that we can see ourselves in all forms of climate justice advocacy.

Ayana Young Wow, I'm hanging on every word and I really appreciate the form that you're speaking about this work within and, you know, a theme that has been very present for me, and one that I am always reminded of in context to so much of the grassroots organizing going on in Alaska, is that of abundance. You recently shared some reflections on abundance as a mindset, and I am hoping we could revisit this topic, as it feels like it is so often overlooked in mainstream movements, because there is this emphasis on scarcity and saviorism. I wonder if you could speak to how abundance shows up in your work, or perhaps what it could mean for our objectives, organizing, community, and personal wellbeing if we took a more abundance-centric approach to this work?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller I think that deficit thinking was one of the most toxic and predatory forms of colonization that was brought to Indigenous peoples, deficit thinking teaches us to be scared, it teaches us to fear one another. to fear the future, it shuts down our ability to think creatively, and it sends us into forms of all or nothing thinking, “me or you” thinking that is fundamentally opposed to the types of community investment that our people thrived within for 20,000 plus years. Abundance thinking, however, is a fundamental part of who we are as Indigenous peoples and who we must be as a global community. In my culture, one of the most principled insisted upon practices is sharing our harvest. I don't know that I can think of, you know, a more shameful act than hoarding food and hoarding harvest for yourself. In our community the first catch, the first hunt, the first bucket of berries always, always, always goes to our Elders and from then on everything is shared across community, we share our harvest, we share our hunt, so that no one goes without, but also because it deepens our relationships with one another. 

Being in a mindset where we always have more to share, regardless of how much you have materially, you will always have more to share, whether it's time, or energy or a shoulder to lean on, or whether it's a full freezer, that you can, you know, share out with others who don't have that abundance, being in relationships of reciprocity, mean that, you know, you can rely on me because I can rely on you. And the currency of this gift economy is gratitude and relationship instead of money. And that, in and of itself, is exercising ideological resistance to this colonial scarcity thinking that teaches us that we are poor, that teaches us that we are oppressed, that teaches us that we are less than. Recentering ourselves away from capitalism and a market economy means that we have the ability to redefine our successes, and our cultural wealth, and our linguistic wealth, and our ancestral knowledge that so many others don't have, and therefore resist that ethos of the market economy that bases wealth and private accumulation. 

It reminds me so much of you know, the writings and works of Robin Wall Kimmerer, of course, a huge light in my life, she wrote, particularly on abundance in her work titled The Serviceberry, and she spoke on the ethic of reciprocity, at the heart of the gift economy. And this in and of itself, you know, is what it means to be Indigenous, and is one of the most critical aspects of not just climate organizing, but, but being with one another being in community and building healthy communities based on wellness, and community investment. And so when we translate this to thinking about, you know, an abundance-centric approach and climate organizing, one of my favorite reminders that all yell from the rooftops is that we have our solutions, the climate crisis was not inevitable, it is not irreparable, and every choice that was made by power hoarders that got us to this moment of climate chaos, was that - it was a choice. And we as a collective, we as a people have the ability to make different choices, to learn from those mistakes, and to learn from our ancestral imperatives that successfully lived in tandem and in harmony with our lands, and waters, and airs, our plant and animal relatives, with one another, with diverse nations, for millennia. The legacy of colonization is a process and not an event, but it was a relatively small dark mark on, and is - continues to be a dark mark on a much, much longer history, of abundance, of thriving, of reciprocity, of all these, you know, concepts that we've evoked just in our short conversation so far. So reminding our people, you know, we have the solutions, they're hidden in our languages, we have the solutions, they're hidden in our subsistence practices, we know in our spirits, we know in our hearts, what it means to live in right relationship with the world. And now it is our role to take those teachings to take those successes and translate them to the scale and the demand at which we need change now. 

Ayana Young I am just following your words really closely and I appreciate all of the heart, and love, and thoughtfulness that you have put into understanding so much intensity, and beauty and all that jazz. But I wanted to bring up that, you know, last month as we all know, in March of 2021, Deb Haaland was confirmed as the first Native American Interior Secretary, a position which oversees federal lands, “natural resources”, protecting cultural heritage, and many programs related to the “United State’s trust responsibility” to Indigenous peoples And I know that this is a topic that we could talk about for the whole hour, because it holds so much within it; history, the purpose of these departments, the recognition of Deb Haaland, criticisms, etc. But I’d like to share something you wrote on Instagram in reflection of this moment; “Leading a Department that has caused our people unspeakable trauma and pain, we now have the opportunity for sacred transformation, deep healing, and profound justice to our peoples and all our lands.” As an entrance into discussing the importance and limitations of policy work, I wonder if for listeners, you could share what this appointment signifies for folks who are doing the kind of work that you are, and what it could mean for the next four years?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Well, for listeners who, you know, might not understand the full implications of what this means for not just Indian Country, but for this nation as a whole. You know, I would remind them that the Department of Interior is a powerful branch of the U.S. government that is devoted to not only all lands management but within it holds the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Now, the Department of the Interior, many don't know, this was formerly the Department of War, and it was the same Department that managed the mass genocide and an attempted extinction of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island, what is now called America. And this Department of War was consistently determined not only to extinguish all Indigenous/Aboriginal titles to land but to exterminate Indian people. They did this first through warfare as the Department of War, and later, when the Department changed, it was sought through education, unfortunately. 

So this Department, through the Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was most you know well known to many of us through their abusive, and just tragically devastating education system, which took our children from their home communities and attempted to assimilate them. The very common phrase that I hate to hear leaving my own mouth was the ethos of that time, which was “Kill the Indian, save the man.” These were the boarding schools where our children were taken to have their hair cut, to be whipped, beaten, often violated, and raped, so that they would forget what it meant to be Indigenous, not that there was much potential, even if they were to, you know, whiten and enlighten themselves for advancement in white supremacist society. So now that we have a Native American Interior Secretary, the first in 171 years of this department and 53 secretaries, the question that we're actually getting at is, how can we do radical work within a fundamentally white supremacist structure? Is that possible? And truth be told it's a question that I asked myself all the time in my pathways for advocacy. 

But not only is Deb Haaland’s appointment, you know Auntie Deb’s appointment, symbolic and, and powerful because of the stark history of trauma, but it is also a serious impetus for change. You know, I recommend readers check out some writing done by Nick Estes, an Indigenous scholar on on this change in the administration, but Deb Haaland has a difficult road ahead of her and will have to negotiate, you know, rather centrist and pro-corporation interests, even within the Democratic Party and Biden's administration. So, Auntie Deb needs us to push her, she will not be able to achieve the forms of radical change and ideological shift that has been ingrained in this department for 171 plus years, without our loud and proud advocacy, insisting on these radical shifts that we need to see. 

You know, I have to imagine that even within these structures that, you know, are unequivocally founded on, on extreme racism, and white supremacy and radical individualism and all these aspects of this oppressive regime, the US empire that that many of us have, you know, can wear our voices out, analyzing - even within a structure such as that, a Native woman leading lands management in this country brings with it not only all of her ancestral teachings and her cultural learnings, but it brings with it so much potential and so much opportunity. Because Auntie Deb will not be the last, she will be the first of many, many, many, but everything that gets done under her watch will come from the people. And so you know, I'd really encourage folks not to, not to, you know, sit back and relax because we want one, but to work in collaboration with our shared interests, and with our shared vision because it will continue to take pushing. It will continue to take radical imagination and insistence, and ambitious audacious demands from the people who are intent on preserving our lands and people for generations to come.

Ayana Young Yes, I'm so with you there and, and I feel that rising happening within us, within the folks around us, I feel that desire from people to want to be involved want to be engaged, wanting to be within this radical imagination movement towards something that many of us can't even begin to imagine what it could look like. But pushing ourselves to imagine I think is so important, and sticking with it. And, you know, there's this other thought that comes up for me and you know, just something where we are really going to have to grapple with in the next couple of years is the creation of more and more sacrifice zones, should aggressive development of “green energy” be pushed through. In the so-called United States, we know what these sacrifice zones look like in context to uranium mining and oil and gas, but going forward I believe we will need to expand our understanding of these zones in relationship to “green energy.” I’m curious how you contend with this, if you think you will see this in Alaska, and how we should begin to wrap our minds around this?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller So first, I think I'd like to take us back to a bit of a reflection on Alaska in particular and paint a better picture of where we are today. Resource extraction began only really about 50 years ago, a number of decades ago, when the land began to be seen, by settler society as a resource that can be extracted from that is fundamentally oppositional to any Indigenous perspective that cannot understand land, or Earth, our relative, our mother, as a resource that can be taken and even owned, much less destroyed and left in despair and devastation. You know, this reminds us of the gift economy that we had pre-contact and still manifest today. That is one of reciprocity, resource extraction and our lands is what brought the U.S. Empire to annex Alaska, basically, without the consent of the Indigenous peoples here, to falsely purchase it from Russia, who certainly never owned it in the first place, and to begin to seek exercising legal jurisdiction and formal jurisdiction over land claims here. So what this means is that our communities that have always lived closest with the lands that have always been the experts on climate in these precious places that are woven into our genealogies are also now the first to suffer at the hand of climate chaos.

So not only are we seeing increased resource extraction, contributing to rising global temperatures, which leaves our community vulnerable to melting sea ice, to coastal erosion, to melting permafrost, but also locally, resource extraction in state has led to extraordinarily high rates of toxins being leached into our atmosphere, in our waters, into our food systems, whether it be turning the marrow of our caribou black, or whether it be higher rates of respiratory illness, and cancers, and decreased fertility in our rural communities. And additionally, of course, proximity to development, unfortunately, and tragically as our relatives and so-called Canada know all too well also correlates with an increased rate of violence against our Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit relatives. So we, our bodies, as Indigenous people have become the battlegrounds of climate chaos. So when I think about the sacrifice zones, I'm not just thinking about, you know, sites and mines and oil fields, our bodies are the sacrifice zones of development, and if green renewables, if this new green economy continues to perpetuate the same ethos that resource extraction has, then we will not find any solutions and we will see our suffering, you know perpetuated. 

When it comes to the push for green energy, we seriously have to consider if we are just trying to replicate the systems of overconsumption and consumerism that have gotten us into this mess in the first place. Or if we are willing to create new patterns and behaviors that are committed to abolishing human rights violations from resource supply chains, and that are committed to abolishing high waste overconsumption as a societal practice. My next reading on this because of course, I have much more learning to do is a piece that I just found by a War on Want titled “The Material Transition,” which examines the potential devastation by the rush on transition materials, materials, and minerals needed for transitioning the energy economy. And, you know, in my little reading that I have done, they really emphasize the potential for circular economies being introduced, which would be a departure from the way even green energy is being approached now. And by circular economies, they mean economies and systems wherein all aspects of, of biological and technical nutrients, inputs flow in cycles, an economy where we repurpose, repair, reuse, refurbish, recycle, but we also compost and integrate smart design to ensure that the systems of green energy will be different than the extractive practices and the exploitative practices that got us here in the first place. And if they are not determined to break those cycles of exploitation, then we will not see any relief as a climate or as a society. 

And so I think specifically of renewables that are rooted in Indigenous ideologies, but that are also supporting our frontline Indigenous communities. I think of Wahleah Johns, who is the founder of Native Renewables, an Indigenous own solar company that has brought solar energy to 15,000 homes on the Navajo Reservation. I think of the work of Edwin Bifelt here in Alaska, the creator of Alaska Native Renewable Industries, that's bringing Kotzebue, one of our rural hubs, to at least 50% renewables plus dozens and dozens of local hires. We have to integrate a value system, we have to integrate holistic whole system's thinking into any type of new energy economy that we're creating. Otherwise, we'll just be substituting materials and creating more destruction and devastation in an effort in vain. So I'm looking forward to growing my knowledge in this area and thinking about how you know that ideological shift that we've already spoken about today can be incorporated into the push for green energy and green industry.

Ayana Young Thank you for speaking to this really complicated arrangement with such grace, transparency, and clarity, I appreciate just the care that you are taking when thinking about this and a lot of respect, but going back to radical imagination, I’d like to ask you about this fruitful space of bridging radical imagination and policy as a meaningful step in creating futures that are non-extractive. As someone who has worked at the intersections of climate justice, regenerative economies, and international advocacy, while having a background in critical development studies, how can you encourage folks to think about policy in a way that challenges the sort of understanding that frames it as a very stagnant form of compromise?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller You know, I struggle with this all the dang time. It is absolutely a legitimate challenge to these very slow systems of change. But I actually would encourage folks to sit in that discomfort, to continue weighing impatience and patience and to continue weighing compromise and our North Star demands, and to stay in that unease because that is where we get to the core of what we need. That is where we get to the most ambitious solutions if we stay in that discomfort. You know, personally, for me, working between radical imagination and policy, I am frustrated all the time. And I am sometimes doubtful, and I'm sometimes hopeful. And that movement, that conversation, that interplay between, you know, whether it be a North Star, whether it be a visionary dream, or whether it be an Overton window, what is politically realistic, has to continue that dialogue, we must always be determined to push for, you know, not just what we think we can get, but what we know, that we need, that might happen incrementally. 

You know, our Elders teach us patience, but the fundamental lesson is that we must take the next best wise step toward that vision. And so I don't think that working incrementally has to be stagnant. I don't think that the types of policy change that, that we might see, you know, month, by month or year by year comes without years of expertise and years of knowledge and advocacy and such, you know, little wins are still wins, but ensuring that they continue to build that momentum is not lost, is so crucially important. 

You know, it makes me think, you know, living here in Alaska, anyone who spends time out of the land would know the difference between, you know, a stagnant body of water stagnant lagoon versus a body of water that has some movement, that has some spirit, that's making progress, that's changing and shifting, you know, or a frozen lake versus a lake that is slowly thawing, that's slowly changing. The qualities of these relatives are so distinct, the qualities teach us that, you know, change is happening even if we don't necessarily see it on the surface. And I think that that has to be the type of radical imagination that we engage when we think about policy/advocacy. And, personally, I'm no expert in policy specifics or legislative lobbying, but in my experience, that consistency, that determined drive, to continue being visionary, and to continue to engage imagination is what will continuously open more doors for conversation and progress. 

And also, I would just add, it's who we are. It's what we have to do and I would never sacrifice my vision for the sake of what I think could pass through Congress, the heck, no way, it's also who we are as advocates - as people who care.

Ayana Young Yeah, no, I think we all need to hear this at times. It's like, I just, yeah, that was really uplifting and I loved the metaphor or the vision of the lagoon and the moving water and I do feel like there's movement, even as you know, sometimes slow or frustrating as it feels. What else are we going to do you know, it is who we are and I feel that and I'm wondering particularly, are there any policies that you're interested in at the moment? Or what kind of policies are you interested in?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Well, the policies that I am interested in are policies from the people. They're fundamentally justice-oriented, they elevate frontline community leadership, and they are actively anti-racist. And so when I think of policies that you know, fit my description, one in particular that I've been organizing for a number of months now with our Just Transition Collective and the Green New Deal Network, is the Thrive Agenda. The Thrive Agenda was brought to the House at the end of last year as a Resolution and will soon be reintroduced as an Act, and is fundamentally derived from networks and networks of communities, people on the ground that have developed an eight pillar approach to economic recovery and COVID-19 relief. So it's thinking not only about what job creation and re-creation can mean, for a U.S. economy, but it's fundamentally thinking about what kind of economies we want those jobs to be investing in, and what kind of benefits and securities must those jobs have to be jobs of quality. And so it incorporates pillars that are dedicated to tribal and Indigenous sovereignty, and, and leadership of frontline, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, as well as justice for workers facing challenges of economic transition, as they transition away from dying economies like oil and gas and towards renewables. It's also thinking a lot about the care economy, and how we implement reproductive justice, in a recovery. 

And so it's acts like the Thrive Agenda, the Thrive Act, that really, you know, whether they get passed or not, these pieces inspire me to think creatively about what policy can achieve for us, and what it means to have an act written in this way, written by these communities in tandem, and in coalition, and an allyship with one another. So I'd really encourage folks to go check that out if they'd like to ThriveAgenda.org it's something that we in Alaska see ourselves in because so much of the progress being made and articulated in this Act comes from us, it's what we have already been doing for centuries, if not millennia. But it's also resonant of our, you know, devoted communities that are working on justice in the carceral system and justice for immigrants and Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. You know, this is a piece of policy that again, we can see ourselves in and that will give us frameworks and tools beyond just the singular act to continue to build on and to continue to push Congress on as we work to make progress.

Ayana Young With roots in Bristol Bay, you’ve long been involved in work around protecting this Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine. As a reminder for listeners, Bristol Bay is “home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run”, but alongside it is the Pebble Deposit, which contains an estimated $500 billion worth of copper and gold. Ultimately, in November of 2020, the Army Corps of Engineers rejected an essential permit for the project, and I know you began working with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay at 15, encouraging fishermen to testify against this mine, and this example just evokes a lot of different though(s) around how we come together, understanding success, and the long term commitment of protecting place. I think Pebble Mine is maybe an example that the work isn’t ever truly done, in fact I’ve heard you speak about how the chronology is not linear, it’s never finished, and I believe you’ve shared similar reflections on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well. Can you speak about the importance of balancing the joy of success, while also understanding that we must ask ourselves to hold our attention to place beyond a deadline?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Absolutely, you know, especially considering the end of last year, November 25, I will always remember, the day that this decision came out about Pebble, it felt like our energy and celebration was just hanging in the air. It was in every breath it was in every movement, it came with such a huge wave of relief, but also absolute disbelief. Everyone was like, “Wait really did that, huh?” And, you know, I think I thought about that, that kind of suspended disbelief, where this campaign that has been, you know, passed down from leader to leader for over 20 years. Now, you know, finally reaching a point of celebration was almost, I don't want to say it was taken from us, but it was an important learning opportunity for us. When you live in tandem with the land, you know that your health, your community's health, your family's health is one and the same as the health of our lands and waters. And so to think about, you know, after 20 plus years of threat, and fear, that our salmon would be taken from us, that our culture, our way of life would be destroyed, because of their loss, to have this moment of peace, felt almost short lived.

Pebble will appeal the decision by the Army Corps of Engineers and so you know, there's not a nail in the coffin yet. But, you know, I had to take this into my personal learning, because it was too easy to just run to the next Zoom meeting. I think that you know, the most important lesson that we can take from moments like this, especially when we consider that Pebble Mine here, the Trump administration changed the tune, it had been singing for four years, because Donald Trump Jr. came to Alaska and fell in love with this place, and is the sports fishermen that has traveled to Bristol Bay, and decided that he stood in opposition to the mine. So the lesson I think is about is, wow, all of this advocacy work is about bodily lived experience. It is about being in the moment, it is that moment of breath-taking awe that somehow Donald Trump Jr. must have had at being here on the land, it was the land saving itself, through someone that we never thought we would find an ally in. And that same bodily experience was that moment of shock and relief and disbelief that we felt when this decision finally came down. And so if we remember that, you know, the joy of success is allowed to live in our bodies just as much as I know, we all take on the pain of hard work and, and the labor and the burdens, and the devastation that comes with losses, you know, bringing all of those aspects into our lived experience into our bodies, remind us that this work is one and the same and that we deserve the successes just as much as we take on the weight of the burdens as we're in the process of advocacy. I am not good at celebrating, I'm not good at resting, and that is a tragedy. That is something that I personally will continue to grow in as an advocate and activist but really just as a human being, you know, how do we take these successes and these ones in these moments of rest into our whole selves? How do we down-regulate our stress response? How do we think about the ways that the sustaining of our lands and waters like this landmark Pebble decision can also contribute to the sustaining of our minds, bodies, and spirits?

Ayana Young I love that you said that it's a tragedy to not be able to rest and feel relief, and just feel like we have to expect ourselves to fight24/7. And I yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up in context to Pebble Mine, because I think it's such a good way of viewing this relationship to the work. And yeah, so definitely gonna be sitting with that long after this interview has come to a close. But I'm just thinking about Alaska, and this narrative that it is solely dependent on oil and gas, and its oil-rich and resource-rich. But, of course, there is so much richness prior to capitalism that had nothing to do with these resources. And, you know, I know also I've heard folks say, “Oh, Alaska is the resource colony for the lower 48.” So I'm just thinking about Pebble and other projects. And, you know, if you could share what climate justice organizing looks like in Alaska, especially regarding these massive resource extraction projects, or are there any issues you'd like listeners to pay special attention to at this moment in time?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Well, I guess taking the first part of your question, thinking about, you know, this, this false narrative of oil rich, you know, it began before oil was even being extracted in Alaska with, you know, this myth that Alaska is the last frontier. And so as a settler narrative that painted Alaska, as you know, this mysterious wild wilderness that was foreign to people, that is white people that was yet to be conquered, and it was the last such place, the last frontier, where this type of you know, adventure, could be found. And so obviously, I hope, our listeners, put two and two together to realize that this is an extremely racist approach to a place that has always had a reciprocal and harmonious relationship with humanity, with our Indigenous peoples who have been here for more than 30,000 years, because we are one in nature, we as humans are not excluded from nature. And that the ethos of the last frontier, well, who was it last to? It was the last place that no white settler society had yet to invade. 

And again, you know, frontier is the language, its vocabulary used to talk about battlegrounds, in warfare. So that eventually transitioned to talk about oil rich as yet another compliment, to the ways that Alaska and its lands and resources can serve this growing U.S Empire. It was rich, because it offered a commodity that could be accumulated. It is crucial to challenge this narrative by remembering that our peoples here are Indigenous peoples of Alaska and of other lands had thriving and holistic economies, economy, meaning management of home, that were pre-commodification that were pre-material wealth, that saw wealth as cultural wealth and linguistic wealth and a happy, thriving community that was well, that had deep interconnections that could support one another that could share the harvest, and that could care for elders and invest in youth. That was what a healthy economy meant, you know, we were in continue to be extremely culturally wealthy people. And so, you know, with that reframing I rarely ever call our people, you know, vulnerable or in need, because we have so many riches that are such a far cry from oil and gas that are such a far cry from this extractive system of exploitation and commodification, that it was only very recently brought to these lands. And so if we engage with Kohtr’elyeh, remembering forward, with just transition, we remember that we already have our solutions at our fingertips. We already have our teachings and our learnings to live in a holistically well society and have wealth, if we reframe what wealth means to us. 

Ayana Young Yes, yes. I feel that so much this reframing, this internalized reframing, a narrative shift is just really at the foundation of our work and I think sometimes it gets buried under these other forms of work that feel more important, but without what you just spoke to, we can't really get to where we want to go. So, gosh, yeah, I really appreciate that. 

You’ve previously noted the importance of building a politics of love, and I’d really like to explore this further and where such a politic might be able to breathe...We are in a time where the spirit needs lifting because many are living in conditions desolate of care and love, existing in varying stages of despair...How have you come to this place of truly understanding the importance of radical softness and a politics of love as we tend vessels to move us out of this storm?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller I really spent a lot of time the past few years reflecting on this, my politics of softness, my politics of love. At the end of a very, very draining, and difficult four years of college, these were the words that I decided I most wanted to share when having the opportunity to speak to our graduating class. The politics of love remind me that, whatever we do, whatever intervention we make, it has to be soulful. It has to be life-sustaining, it has to contribute to our wellness. And this is difficult in a society that insists on productivity, and monetary wealth, and, you know, strict time management, you know, I struggle with feeling caught between these two worlds every day. But the politics of love, remind us, that anything that's good will come from the heart, it will be tested and true, by the way, that that we experience pleasure in it, by the way, that we engage softness within,  anything that we invest our spirit in has to be just that we have to see a part of ourselves in it. 

So I think of you know, incredible scholar mentors like adrienne maree brown writing on Pleasure Activism and Emergent Strategy, I think of bell hooks writing All About Love. It's about instilling caring, compassion, strength in all that we do so that it can contribute to systems of wellness, so that it can begin to construct little by little instead of systems based on oppression and exploitation, and division, we can create systems that are based on caring and compassion. And you know, this is as much a lesson as it is a practice, it's an exploration of how to be soft in a sharp world. It's about how to resist what is rigid and unforgiving, and instead, create places for ourselves to be revolutionarily soft, to be cozy, to be kind, to be patient, and to live, the types of practices that we want to see our systems and our creations founded upon.

Ayana Young I have chills and literally feel love growing within me as you're speaking. I'm so grateful that you can speak to so many intersections of this deep work, it's very heart opening and I could imagine the folks listening to are feeling that pulse within us and also the desire to be soft, in a sharp world, to feel that love to come from that place, to feel others coming from that place as we interact. There's just so much healing within that. So thank you-

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Well I want to be clear too, you know, Ayana you and I have discussed this before, it's really hard. It is really difficult. You know, I certainly feel the responsibility to you know, give my labor in infinite time to perform emotional labor, to give all that I can not just to this cause, but to just about everyone, everyone else in my life and setting those personal boundaries is a lifelong lesson. I received a really beautiful teaching from a Wampanoag elder, upon whose lands I was visiting while I was in college, and he reminded us that, you know, you have to tend to your own fire, you have to kindle your own flame before you can keep others warm. And that was like a smack upside my head because I had spent so many years working so hard to attend to not only the needs of others but the needs of the movement. And I still do, that I suffered greatly, emotionally with depression and anxiety, also physically manifesting chronic pain and burdensome conditions through this, you know, limitless stress that I thought I could live in. And so when we challenge ourselves to be soft, it's not, you know, this airy-fairy, kind of, you know, take baths and do face masks, it's it is a sign of strength to be soft, it is a sign of care and devotion to our bodies, our first territory's, our first vessels, so that we can manifest more, so that we can give more, so that we can use our personal power in tender and meaningful ways. Some sister-friends recently reminded me that we have the sovereignty to create and contribute on our own terms and I think that first act of sovereignty has to be a dedication to wellness, you know, if we hope to create systems based on wellness, then, dang, we better get better at practicing it ourselves.

Ayana Young Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm definitely gonna keep this part of the conversation and just keep practicing, keep practicing. Thank you for that second part. And as we begin to come to a close, I just think about the importance of transgenerational knowledge and I think it's also equally important that we pass down strategies for fortitude and well-being. And I love how you just talked about taking care and tending to burn out and nourishing our bodies. And I'm wondering if there's anything else you want to share with the next generation, regarding these themes and practices?

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller I would tell the coming generation that we are preparing ourselves for you, we are readying this place for you, and that you are descendants worthy of fighting for, that you are worthy of a safe and healthy home, to arrive in, that you are worthy of you know the full power and beauty of our cultures that we will preserve so that you might learn from that one day. I would tell the coming generation, that we are in a time of painful transition so that this next generation can build even greater beauty. We know that transgenerational knowledge is one of the most precious forms of interdependency and interrelation. That we, as Indigenous people’s value, and especially in terms of well-being and nourishing ourselves, having that sense of validation and self-importance, knowing that we all must be preserved and prepared for what is coming next. And that we all will have a place in this just transition is both, you know, a reminder and comfort and it's also a call to action. You know, whether it's drinking your water or getting out into the sunshine. We don't have time to fail to take care of ourselves anymore and our next generation, our future descendants are going to be grateful to us as future ancestors, that we took this time to tend ourselves and tend our world so that they will have a place of comfort and joy to arrive upon. And I would you know, tell that next generation, you know, welcome to this place that we built for you. You know, we are the ones collectively that we've been hoping and praying for and together we can create such extraordinary spaces of beauty dedicated to love, you know, invoking decision-making practices that we all see ourselves in, you know, living in tandem with the Earth's cycles to know that our, you know, anthropological mark on this world will not be one of pain and of harm and of devastation, but that we will bring ourselves back into right relationship and reciprocity as we have always done.

Ayana Young Thank you so much for closing us on that note. I think that that gives us really good, marching orders isn't really the word I was looking for, but it came up. Well, Ruth, this has been so special to spend this time with you. I feel like I have soaked up every one of your responses, as I'm sure those listening will as well. And I just support you, For The Wild supports you and is grateful for all that you give to this Earth and to this work.

Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller Thank you, sister, you as well. You are a blessing to me and to all of your listeners and many, many, many others. Thank you for creating the space for us to visit.

Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you’ve heard today is by Madelyn Ilana, Holy River, and Mariee  Sioux. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.