Happy indigenous people’s day to all my lovely indigenous humans out there!! And happy indigenous people’s day to my great great grandmother, a Chahta woman, and my great great grandfather, a Euchee man. Both of whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. I see you. You are remembered. You are loved. Your legacy and descendants live on 💙💚
Category: Tumblr Archives
Blue Aliens Are Cool 🤷🏾♀️
Honestly?…I guess I just have a thing for blue aliens.
- The Pearls from Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets. I went to see this movie twice in theaters just so I could see these beautiful beings again. The movie itself wasn’t that great, but the visuals were absolutely stunning and I loved the Pearls so much. They were the best part of the movie and I wish their storyline could have been expanded on instead of that silly convoluted mess they tried to come up with in the film.
- Diva Plavalaguna from one of my favorite films of all times, The Fifth Element. She was literally in the film for all of like…five minutes lol. But she was still one of the best characters and I loved the mystery surrounding her character.
Funny thing is, both of these movies were made by the same person, but they are NOT on the same level imo (*cough* the 5th element is better *cough*).
Anyways.
Blue aliens are cool and I’d rather live on a planet with them.
Ending Amazon Destruction
Exit Amazon Oil & Gas Webinar
Here are some of the speakers from the webinar this morning. I really enjoyed this talk and I wish the Q&A session could have been longer. Many of the viewers had some reeaaally good questions.
I learned a lot from this webinar and I will admit that a lot of what was shared bothered me. Such as learning that there are parts of the Amazon in Ecuador where tribes have been misplaced due to their homes being destroyed and their rivers being so polluted that there are no longer any fish. Because of this, they have had to rely on tourism just to buy canned goods for food.
I also learned that these governments, if they don’t blatantly ignore what’s in their constitutions, they find loopholes. Such as the Ecuadorian government “allowing” indigenous tribes to keep their land, yet claiming ownership over what is BELOW the surface of indigenous land, and therefore displacing tribes because of this. The government is not upholding the parts of the constitution that say to protect the rights of nature. Instead they extract more oil as a way to help meet the country’s financial debt.
There is so much going on, yet the head honchos don’t care. The Ecuadorian government has green lit more oil drilling. The Brazilian government has green lit more burning and illegal logging. And the American government ignores and allows oil drilling coming from companies based in Canada, which violates actual treaties with our Native communities.
The most we can do now is keep speaking out about this. If the head honchos that govern our countries don’t care, we can at least reach out and speak to the corporations that our governments do care about and that’s banks!
Many banks have ongoing relationships with oil companies and traders that operate in the Amazonian region by investing in or completely financing these oil companies. If we can get them to create an Amazon exclusion policy, we can be that much closer to protecting at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025. Many of these banks have Arctic exclusion policies, so why not an Amazon exclusion policy?
We need to start thinking more about how we can strengthen the Amazon and that’s by halting all exploitation or else we won’t have an earth to live on. Don’t wait until Amazonian animals are going extinct! Don’t wait until almost all indigenous tribes are going extinct! This can be stopped now and if you are reading this, I hope you will consider helping in any way you can.
Sign the petition to call on the high risk banks to commit to an Amazon exclusion policy for Amazon oil:
Replay of today’s webinar:
Other links:
Help End Amazon Crude! Exit Amazon Oil & Gas
If you are interested in hearing from indigenous leaders and environmental activists about how banks can help put an end to crude oil and gas from damaging the Amazon rainforest, be sure to watch the webinar. Link to the webinar will be under the photos! 🌴
Tuesday, September 21 @ 11am EST (USA/Canada) & 8am PDT (USA/Canada)
Avatar Costuming: Neytiri
This is my other favorite look from the film. Hands down, one of the best! Besides the fact that this outfit is purple, which is my favorite color, I really have no idea why I love this outfit so much lol. I just simply love how unique it is. It’s completely different from any other look that Neytiri wore in the film, and completely different from anything anyone else wore throughout the film also. And I am so in love with how the necklace piece looks like the roots of a tree! (and this is the scene where Neytiri takes Jake to the Tree of Voices, which is so fitting).
One of the things I would have loved to know from the film is where the Na’vi get their beads from. From what I know about indigenous cultures around the world, wooden and stone beads can be made in their own communities. Even beads from dried seeds. However, beads like the ones pictured above (which are usually made from some type of plastic, metal, or glass) generally come from non-indigenous communities through trade and/or selling.
Since trade is not something that has happened on pandora and humans were trying to colonize for unobtanium only, I am very curious to know how the Na’vi got their beads or how they made them/where they come from. I don’t remember seeing anything about beads in the book I have on Pandora so I’m super curious.
New life goal: recreate this look! 💜
Why I Like The Na’vi
One of the many reasons that I like the Na’vi so much is because of their connection to nature. I honestly can’t remember a time that I didn’t love nature. Unless it was mosquitos lol.
I was the kid that collected rocks and my mom would get frustrated every time she washed my clothes because a hoard of rocks would fall out of my pockets and into the washing machine.
I used to pick yellow dandelions even though I was allergic to them.
I would also collect the big, white, fluffy ones and make wishes over them before blowing them into the air. And yes, I called them “wishies” and not dandelions lol. I believed that as long as the dandelion seeds caught the wind instead of falling straight to the ground, then your wishes or prayers would come true.
I had a pet caterpillar and cried when I had to release it after it turned into a butterfly.
I climbed trees like it was my religion and dreamed of the day that I would have a treehouse and live in it ( I am an adult and still want one lol).
After watching the movie Ferngully as a child, I swore I could talk to trees and hear them.
I could go on and on. People like to talk crap about Avatar, but if you got nothing else out of the movie, I hope you can take away the message of appreciating the natural world around you. There is so much beauty in it and as long as you take care of it, it will always give.
The Amazon Tribe That Inspired Avatar
Although not the only tribe affected with what’s happening in Brazil right now, this is the specific tribe that Avatar was based off of. I’ve only ever seen James Cameron’s documentary on this tribe, but watching this 15-minute video absolutely made my blood boil and by the time it was over, my eyes were stinging with tears.
I am absolutely disgusted and appalled at what Brazilian leadership is doing and the specific things the man said in this video made me want to gag. I am at a complete loss for words.
I have no idea where to ind the full 60-minute episode, but this 15 minutes is more than enough to get the point across.
Trigger warning for pretty much everything pertaining to the destruction of nature and human life.
When learning about stuff like this, it’s easy to want to scream, yell, and curse Brazilian leadership. It’s easy to want to ask how we can donate and write to our own leadership to possibly step in and do something, but what will it do? What will it do when you have environmentalist leaders who aren’t even environmentalist, who’ve never been to the Amazon before, and who is on record saying that “Indians are indolent”?
What will it do when the new environmentalist leadership is filled with nothing but retired police and military officers? What will it do when you have a Brazilian president who is also on record saying that Indians are less than human? (Direct quotes from this article here: https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/brazils-bolsonaro-creates-amazon-counsil-and-environmental-police-force/ )
2021 update on the Amazon: https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/amazon-forest-loss-hits-second-highest-level-since-2008/
My heart just feels so heavy. And to know that something similar is going on in my own country with oil pipeline 3 being built to run through the land and treaty territory of the Anishinaabe people. I don’t know what to do or what will help. We are calling on our own president and state officials, and we hear absolutely nothing in return.
So, I post this to get the word out to anyone who might care. Write to your leaders. Repost and spread the voices of the indigenous people strong enough to speak out, brave enough to risk arrest during protests, and those who are sharing their own experiences. Even if you are feeling hopeless like I am feeling right now, do what you can and never back down. Indigenous people deserve to live and they deserve to keep their lands and their homes.
For anyone that is not familiar with Line 3, here is the website and a video breaking down what’s happening in simpler terms:
Website: https://www.stopline3.org/#intro
Pandoran Fauna: The Tetrapteron
I wonder if we will get to see the Tetrapteron in the new movie since the new movie is supposed to largely take place in or around water. The Tetrapteron is found in wetlands or near the ocean and hunts in flocks, so this would be really cool to see.
I just imagine a scene where the camera is panning over a body of water and there is just a huge flock of Tetrapterons that are a multitude of beautiful, bright colors, standing in the water or flying low over it like flamingos do.
Low flying Tetrapterons over turquoise water with the beauty of the rest of Pandora in the background. That just sounds so perfect 💙
Pandoran Fauna: The Slinger
This is by far THE MOST horrifying and creepy animal on Pandora. Hands down.
Out of all the frightening animals on the moon of Pandora, this would be the one to make me completely faint in fear…or just die on sight lol.
Like, wtf??
Read that page. Reeeaaddd it! And tell me if you would get anywhere near that creature. Two creatures in one body??
Count me out.