Not long ago, I interviewed George Sielstad, an Earth Systems scientist who taught for many years at the University of North Dakota. Sielstad is one of a group of scientists who work with NASA in its growing efforts to collaborate with indigenous peoples for answers to the problem of global warming. "In the Western world, people think they're not part of nature unless they're out camping," Sielstad said. "They have forgotten that we are all a part of nature even at home in the city. Indigenous peoples understand this."

The acknowledgement of the human spirit's relationship to the earth is at the heart of the native way of knowing. This knowledge, noted Sielstad, may be among the greatest gifts that native peoples have to share with scientists and the world.

For Ojibwe, especially women, everyday is earth day because we are the ones who care for the earth's most precious resource, water and take our jobs seriously.

For us, family and community include water, land and wildlife. We know, deep in our blood memories, that there is no escape from the natural processes that dominate our lives. No amount of money, jobs or political back room deals can buy off these forces. Ojibwe and non-Natives alike, rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans are all governed by the great leveler, nature. If we befoul our earth and our water, we poison ourselves. This is a simple fact that Ojibwe understand. Ojibwe women carry our young surrounded by water in our wombs; the power of water is etched in an unutterable place in our bodies, beyond words.