Season 1, Episode 17: What are the gaps in our thinking?

with Harley Bastien

In this episode, Jenny Yeremiy speaks with Harley Bastien, an environmental consultant and advocate for indigenous wisdom and environmental restoration. Harley shares his deep connection to the land, his experiences growing up with traditional Blackfoot teachings, and his journey through various sectors, including the oil and gas industry, which he left due to its detrimental impacts on the environment. He emphasizes the importance of protecting headwaters, restoring natural landscapes, and integrating indigenous knowledge with western science to create sustainable solutions. Harley also critiques the current education system for perpetuating historical inaccuracies and calls for a shift towards teaching the truth about history and our relationship with the environment. This conversation highlights the urgent need for a paradigm shift in how we view and interact with the natural world, advocating for a holistic approach that respects all of creation and considers the well-being of future generations.

Welcome and Introduction to Harley Bastien

Jenny:

Welcome to The Gravity Well, where we break down heavy ideas into small buckets anyone can handle. Our simple mission is to set aside differences and collaborate through conversation and process. Together we can face our dilemmas and make this world a better place for all. In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge we are in Blackfoot Treaty seven Territory and Metis District five and six lands. We take reconciliation by seeking the wisdom of elders and individuals who aim to restore water, air, land, life and community. A healthy living relationship with our homeland and each other is our guide. I am down in Piikani Reserve..

Harley:

That’s correct.

Jenny:

…in Southern Alberta with Harley Bastion. Harley and I met back in March at the Beaver Creek Watershed Council meeting, and I was impressed by Harley’s questions in the room.

By the way, Dixon says “hello”. He wasn’t able to join us today. Dixon did a good job in my view of having the right people in the room. He had Indigenous representation, the Hutterite community, all the local residents, experts, and even council members in the room. To me, everybody who should have been there. Check that box. The next thing was the questions. The conversation and the presentations were all that we needed to be talking about. He was talking about all the data that he’s gathered with the community over the last 20 years and how he’s been dedicated, not just him, he makes a point of saying everyone involved in the Beaver Creek Watershed Group, to have important conversations and to make sure that the decisions are being made by the landowners, not by somebody else.

One of the things that Harley said while we were in this meeting is “We can do everything we can, but if our headwaters aren’t protected, this area will suffer.” That is because they had done all this work over the last 20 years to look after their river system and ensure it was healthy, but that isn’t looking after the whole headwaters. I was telling Harley in advance that having these conversations is one thing, but what we’re trying to do in the real world is get to that logic of looking after our headwaters. We want to start restoring the Eastern Slopes as we’ve known since the 1870s, or longer. I’m sure that area is not a place to be developed. It’s a place to be preserved, honoured, and looked after. I look at [the Eastern Slopes] as the taps, this is our water source.

Every time we log, we’re shutting off the water. Every time we put a coal mine in, we’re polluting that water. Every time we put a road in, we are adding sediment to our rivers. All of those are adding to the issues we want to reverse. In the world of assumptions, I’m here to speak with someone with a lot of knowledge in this area and where we should be headed. In what ways we can repair the landscape? This is an open-ended discussion for you, Harley. I’m happy to help walk through the conversation, but let’s use the hour to hear your thoughts and I’ll be here for questions. Thank you.

Harley:

Thank you for that Jenny. I appreciate you taking the time to come out and put some effort towards addressing this issue, this problem. I’ll start by introducing myself… I introduced myself by my Blackfoot name, which interpreted in English loosely translates as “The Leader”. I’m from the Piikani people. I am happy to spend this time with y’all today and add that I’m 10th, probably maybe 10,000 generations Piikani.

Jenny: Wow.

Harley:

The land and the Piikani way of living are etched right into my being. I grew up in a semi-traditional family, raised by both parents and grandparents here until I was a grad student. I travelled extensively in my later years. In my early years, I learned how to conduct myself as a human being in the greater picture creation in natural order. I always thought that I wasn’t above any other creation. I always knew I had a spirit and that all of creation has a spirit that’s not limited to the planet Earth. This extends far beyond that. The Blackfoot way, the indigenous way.

We acknowledge what our ancestors, my ancestors called the “Star People”, some call them the “Star Beings” the Star People know there is life or intelligence if you will, elsewhere in the planet. Why? Because they have come to visit Mother Earth in the past. Some people believe they continue to do something to this day. I was taught as a child that everything as a spirit, all of creation, that being plant life, animal life, oxygen, air, you name it, anything that’s part of creation has a sphere. That’s how I was taught and I grew up believing that and conducting myself in such a fashion. I respect all of creation and acknowledge that they have a sphere. That’s the fundamentals to my being, my understanding of how my role on the planet should be and I conduct myself as best as I can, accordingly. Outside of that, we call it shall I call it my Canadian upbringing.

I went to school, elementary, high school, and some college and then I worked in various sectors. I worked in the oil and gas industry for about two years. That’s about all I could stand of it because the impacts on the land were just atrocious and the people who were conducting those impacts were even more atrocious than their actions. It went against my being and everything that I thought and stood for. I bailed out of that quickly and didn’t want any part of it. I realized that this type of mentality and living the dream comes at a huge cost. What can I do about it? I went on a one-person mission, which I’ve been on for well over three decades. I got into the environmental side of things, the environmental industry and consulting. That’s where I spent a good 20 years of my life in consulting.

All the while I stay away from working for any level of government, I just find it’s a waste of time. We all make a paycheck to survive and keep the tap running in the fridge full. But for myself, I think there’s always alternatives and so I chose other alternatives. It brings me up to speed as to who I am in a small roundabout way. I am an environmental consultant owner of two separate businesses, one called Harmony Walkers Incorporated founded in 2000 and sold in 2012. I started Eagle or Buffalo Rock TV camp as a way to give back through education and providing different points of view, two different perspectives on the same subject, what I call indigenous science and western science. And I try to blend both to create a better solution to looking at a problem or a perspective on whatever the subject matter may be. With Harmony Walkers, I have worked a lot internationally. I worked for about four years with various ministries of the Chinese government.

Personally spent about four and a half months in China over those four years I’ve had a lot of Chinese people come right here to my Buffalo Rock camp. I work a lot with the United States exclusively in the states of New York, state of Montana, state of Wyoming, all in the private sector. Then I represented clients from New York in the Middle East here in Canada we’re looking to develop sustainable renewable energy projects and solar, especially in Southern Oak River. Well still on various advisory panels and committees. I sit with the Minister of Environment, Alberta Minister of Environments, chief science office.

I sit on a panel called the Indigenous Wisdom Advisory Panel. Our counterpart is the science panel. We get together to find solutions to make Alberta more gentle on Mother Earth. I’m completing my third-year tenure and planning on not seeking another term there with the panel. I didn’t want to start my third three year tenure, but some of my colleagues insisted that they needed my house so I couldn’t bail out of hoping they don’t play the same car. I might have to stand another three years, which to me is a waste of time.

Jenny: I feel you.

Harley: It’s all geared around to the oil sand, not so much in the southern region where I’m from home, it’s all focused around trying to make and get the oil sands to look and smell as good as they can and to me that goes against everything.

Jenny: You can participate as long as you do it our way.

Harley: I also teach a lot of land learning what they call it today. We work with different school boards and I have post-secondary schools, corporations, and tourists that come to my camp. And so a very busy lifestyle, but it’s all geared towards the environment. Many years back I went on a vision quest just up here in the Porcupine Hills.

I was searching for something in my life that wasn’t complete. It made me feel unwhole. What came out, my feeling had to do with what I was exposed to in school, the residential school system and the Reserve school system, Catholic schools and integrated into the public school system, here in Fort McLeod. Through that going on in life, I start getting out and seeking an upgrade to education, seeking work, and so on. And so that’s my journey in a nutshell in my life. I’ve experienced a loss, and seen a lot. I paid my own way. I recently started another business called Eagle and Raven Consulting with a former colleague of mine, Brad. He came out of retirement a couple of years ago and talked me into getting back into consulting, but this time for restoration. We are pursuing restoration.

We worked with several clients out of Calgary and looking to expand the service. At Buffalo Rock, a tree farm of sorts. Not the regular run of the mill, but a tree farm where we don’t have rows of trees. I’m calling them tree plots where they’ll make the least impact on the natural spiritual integrity of the river valley here.

Jenny: Right on.

Harley: We’re working down that way. Again, all private sector, strictly non-funded, never applied for any grant funding or anything. I don’t know how to do it, so I don’t bother, haven’t got any time. Imagine this red tape about 20 miles long. I’m not good at jumping through hoops these days at my age especially anything to do with this government, it is what it is, I’ll leave it at that.

How Does One Learn To Be Human?

Jenny:

You were saying this is a space for you to help people learn how to be human.

Harley:

No, just the office.

Jenny:

I understand. I apologize.

Harley:

It’s all out there.

Jenny:

Of course.

Harley:

Indigenous learning, none of it is in here. I am going to cut right to the chase here about Indigenous learning. In Western learning, you learn about the land in school, then you go into post-secondary and get your degree. But all the while it’s on a computer and in a building and you are learning about the land. You’re learning from other people, who spent minimal time on the land and writing their reports. Doing their five days on the land, measuring plans, putting up polygons and coming back and maybe in three months and looking at them and they write their thesis and after what have you and they say: “Oh yeah, this is it.” “I know all about the land”, “I studied it”, I got a PhD in ” or what have you”, but you can’t tell this guy that you don’t know anything about the land. Why? Well, you don’t spend any time. You don’t wake up, you don’t go to sleep. I’m sure you might drive to the mountains, hike in the park and maybe up to the mountains, whenever you get a chance to go. To me, their experience of the land is in its infancy. It is missing the whole fact, missing the whole boat.

I have worked a lot with scientists, over three decades, all types. Not just Albertan Scientists, but Chinese, European, East Indian, and Indigenous Scientists. I work with all of them. That’s why I have a broad knowledge span. That’s why people come to see me. In my vision quest back in the day, the message, or the contact I made, told me to go out and save the land. And in saving my land, I save my culture. Save who I am for 10,000 generations of time. That’s who I save. And that seven generations. Indigenous people, we talk about seven generations. Most people have no clue what that is. Again, they think in their own way. Oh yeah, so many grandkids-type of generation or “Twenty-five years multiplied by seven.” Oh yeah, that’s your perspective.

Your perspective is only your perspective. You are the majority who hold the wrong perspective. Perspective, how we look at it, how we were brought up and raised. “Perspective” is a personal thing, but it can be influenced in many ways, by other siblings, by parents, by friends, by need, by wrong, by arrogance, by greed. All these things play into it. That’s what I was taught, How my parents or grandparents talked. They say these kind words. That’s why I am aware. I don’t know about other people I know. When I went to the school, I never heard any of that. No. All of us always thought this could have been a cycle 2000 to 3000 years ago, wrote something down and, “By God, it’s the gospel.” Then everybody says, “Oh yeah, that’s the way.”

I hear all these different talks and people talking about this and I think to myself, “That’s just your perspective”. I [keep an eye on] education because it is at the root. It’s one of the roots of all evil if you will. Trying to take it… I’ll just use the Blackfoot way. When you go talk to an elder and you ask them the question, they’re going to look at you and they’re going to ask you a couple of little questions. They’ll know where your train of thought is and the kind of person you are then they’ll say, “Okay, smarty pants, I’m going to give you your answer, but it’s going to be in the story and you going to find that for yourself. Don’t expect me to sit and spell it all out.” You’ve got to work that answer out yourself.

Gaining Perspective On Western Society Thinking

May I ask something about that? I have an idea of what that means from like you said, my limited perspective on this, but I think as a Western parent that the mistake that we’ve made is to shield our kids from things. They’re not old enough to take on that burden. They’re a kid. They need to be enjoying their childhood versus “What do you think? Why do you think that is?” I wonder if the stories if that’s what they’re doing is helping children understand that they have [responsibility]. I feel we hold our kids back versus where the stories offer and empower them to think for themselves and to find their truth. Am I understanding that right?

I will address your question as best I can. The problem with the human species. We put posters on the wall, you’ll see trees, sky, and grass. We go outside, hear the birds, see the birds, hear other animals, and I ask people this, “Do you see all that? What do you think of this?” “Oh yeah, it’s beautiful and it’s” this and that and I say, “Okay” and then I ask them this question. “Does any of it need you to exist?”

Jenny: No.

Harley: “Do you think all the trees are going to die when there’s no human beings here?” Think of the birds, the animals. “Do you think the air is going to be more polluted because no human beings are here? The water “miraculously” clean up.” They don’t need us guys. We need them more than they need us. That’s the truth.

Teach that in your schools. Do you want to talk about schools and what you teach? When I went to school history classes, I learned that some guy named “Columbus” discovered America. How could somebody discover something when it was already discovered? How? You are the scientists, the great minds, explain that one? If you dare. Explain that to me, and the rest of the human beings in the world. We always say the world. We’re so narrow-minded. When it rains outside and we talk to each other over coffee or across the cashier, we say, “Oh, it’s raining.” And the first thing that comes out of the other person’s mouth is, “We need it”, just us. What about the rest of the creation? When people say that to me, I say, “Yes, the land needs it and we are only occupants of the land.”

And we are a blip on the radar screen compared to how long trees have been here, for example. Some part of society, and it has been that way, I guess we developed five toes and five fingers and walked upright. The science tells us that we are apes, we are animals. Then religion tells us that there is a person up there who comes down and makes mankind in his image. How disillusioned can a people have been for thousands of years? And then I look at it even further and I start picking it apart and analyzing it for myself. And I look at religion. Okay, let’s throw that in because it affects everything’s sphere. Because, native people, we don’t throw that out.

What Is The Truth In Truth And Reconcili-action?

Harley:

No, I know you guys do. You are scared to address religion. Oh, “I’ll get kicked out of the church”. Yeah. I couldn’t care less about church. Too many churches are nothing more than financial institutions and torture chambers, at times, it’s all [inaudible] to me. I don’t care if anybody’s feelings are hurt. I couldn’t care less. I tell the truth. I’m not here to make anybody feel good. I’m here to protect Mother Earth for seven generations. I couldn’t care less about your church and some guy you claim walked on water. Let’s talk about that guy who supposedly walked on water. Where does he come from? He came from the Middle East.

What’s the natural skin colour of those people from the Middle East? You go, you steal somebody’s name, their religion, you make them your God, your savior. Then you paint them white with blonde hair and blue eyes. I mean, come on guys. Get it right.

When you talk about Christopher Columbus, well, as far as I know, he never even set foot on Turtle Island. He only made it as far as the East Indies. The first European here is claimed to be Cortes. Meanwhile, Scientists on the East Coast explain that the Vikings were here way before Columbus!

Columbus never even made it here. That’s a lie, guys. That’s absurd. But what do you teach in school? Do you teach any of that? No. No, you don’t. You keep teaching your lies, your fallacies and you teach them to your kids. Then you say, “Oh, am I being the right parent?” No, you’re all failing because you’re not telling them the truth. Why don’t you start there? That’s how I was brought up with the truth. I won’t be told a bunch of fairytales, make beliefs by some psycho, like I said, who wrote it two, 3000 years ago? Not this guy. I will not join your “March of Folly”, not me.

Jenny:

Thank you for saying that.

Harley:

Yeah, there are enough of you [promoting] that. And as far as I’m concerned, you knock yourselves out, your children, your grandchildren, and everyone before you because that’s all you will conquer.

Jenny:

Yeah.

Harley:

And if not, explain to me how you’re not going to do that. How do you expect to accomplish that lying in your schools? You want to start doing something right. Start with teaching the truth in your schools. Why don’t you start? I challenge you.

Jenny:

Yeah. I have a son in junior high. Recently, he asked me, “Why do I learn about history as if it’s over? For example, World War II. He said, why do we learn it as if it’s over? One thing you mentioned earlier, I’m wondering if you can speak more about is “giving back”.

Harley:

Giving what?

What Does Giving Back Look Like?

Jenny:

Giving back. As you said earlier, this camp is a way for you to give back. We talk about, for example, carbon capture and storage versus removing well sites from the landscape and letting the land come back to life. That is a way better way to capture carbon and give back to the land, instead of doing another development to solve a development problem.

Harley:

As I said, I have spent nine years in the Chief Scientist’s Office and toured the oil sands on several occasions. I flew over it and had boots on the ground. This is all because I requested this, and I rode them hard on this. You want us to talk about this stuff but you won’t bring us out here.

You want us to read your reports, your monitoring reports. That’s how you guys are. I work with many biologists, and I can tell the Earth’s people from the others. Very few of them, not many of whom I call “Earth’s” people. Somewhere in their life, they find their way back to Earth. They find themselves back to their spirit. It’s either by hook or by crook. Sooner or later, they become Earth’s people, who didn’t start as Earth’s people, which may not be their fault. That’s how they were raised to think. Eventually, some limited few become Earth’s people.

Life is complex, but it’s simple. I hear and sit in on plans and I hear a lot of presentations in my life work and all kinds of reports, forecast objections, and what have you. I hate sitting at the table or whatever the case may be. Wherever I’m reading, all I need is to read about who the [elected] office is and nothing about the rest. I’ve read it before.

The real skill of people is rewording things. That’s all you all do. And as I said, you go out for a week or two, whatever it is that’s required by the regulatory agencies and you come back and you say, well, “Okay, well this is it, the whole scenario.”

You ask about “giving back”, I’m speaking in the Blackfoot way. I’ll tell you a story and hopefully, you could find the answer there because there’s an answer. The question you have, you are not going to find the answer to your question in me. I don’t want to make it easy for you all to jump on Harley’s shoulders and just ride off, no, no, no, I’m going to give you enough for you to find the answer to those questions. When you do, then you’ll know what you’re talking about.

Right now, all these scientists, whoever people you are, it’s so easy for you to jump on the computer. Somebody says, “Oh yeah, I know all about it.” Pick my phone out to the side and hide it or go to the bathroom, sit there while I’m doing my doodle doodle and come, oh yeah, yeah, I know all about that. A bunch of fake ponies. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m full of shit.” That’s what you, I don’t miss words. Why should I cause the planets in rough states to want to keep kissing each other’s asses, making things easy for your kids, and hiding them from the truth? Keep doing it. Why don’t you start telling them the truth, “I’m scared for the future for you.” “Maybe we’re all going to die.” “Maybe we only got 50 years left.” Why don’t you tell them that? Yeah, that’s Indigenous learning right there. I read reports. All it talks about is three-year returns.

Never once does it say we’re talking about the generations in the state of the planet, 100 and 200 years from now. Why? Because you can’t see that far. Why? Because you don’t care to see that far. Why? Because you’re all a bunch of me and ours. It’s all about me and my savings, all my this. It’s all about you. You can’t take anything with you. I want to leave it for my kids. All good. We all want to take care of our kids, but why don’t you think about leaving them some breathable air too while you’re at it, instead of the cottage at the lake or what have you, where are they going to go to that lake and it’s all dead.

Why don’t you leave them breathable air, fresh water, rest of creation that sustains our lives and who don’t need us? Why don’t you tell them that? Why don’t you teach the right history in your schools? Why don’t you go to your governments and say, this Canadian history is all full of lies? I went to a conference one time in the war and I went up there and I was at a tourism conference and all I kept hearing them brag about was Rogers, Rogers did this. Rogers did that. Not even a mention of the native people. Somebody come to Q and A. I was pissed off by then. I got up there and my second one on the floor came to me and I said, “As a Blackfoot person was 10,000 generation if not more. Here. All I’m hearing about is this guy named Rogers. You expecting me to what you you’re talking about here in you’re selling in this room. The native people who walked in the footsteps of dinosaurs and woolly mammoths came right up to here. To this point in the mountains and waited there for tens of thousands of years for some guy named Rogers to tell us how to go over the mountains?” Rogers didn’t discover anything, just followed the names. None of your early explorers starting from the Yankee side to Lewis and Clark, whoever you want to name. They didn’t discover anything.

They just follow Indigenous people’s well-established trail routes. This is how it went down guys, is that first Europeans came out walking in our trails. Then they came with horses and then they came with wagons, then they came with railroads. Then they came with highways over those trails, right? Oh my God. Do you teach that? Then you wonder why the planet is so screwed up because you’re all screwed up. You don’t even know who you are. “I’m a Canadian sixth generation.” “I got so much clout.” “I’m a landowner rancher up here, fourth or fifth generation.” “I know everything.” Where is the snowpack going then?

How come there are no animals left up there? Because all your cattle crap in the head springs and chase all the wildlife out. Whose home has it been for thousands and thousands of years? “But how are we going to feed everybody? We need to find a better way of feeding [people]. Nah, it is messed up.

Giving back… As soon as these boots hit the floor, I’m giving back to Mother Earth, my relatives and seven generations. That’s how much I give back. I don’t give an hour here, an hour there. I don’t get paid for the things that I do. I don’t get paid for this, but I am giving it. Thank you. All the other interviews I give, I don’t get paid for them. To me, they’re going to take the money, their glory, their want to be looked at as the expert, not sell to me.

The only thing that matters is that I’m protecting all my relatives and I’m looking at seven generations. Not of human beings. Get that out of your heads, I am not speaking about your kids, your grandkids, and your great-grandkids. I’m speaking about all of creation and until you can get that in your head, your heart, and in your spirit, there is no hope the planet. will have a life that supports this planet sooner. Allow mother nature’s going to get enough and she’s just going to flush the toilet of man and the damn thing you can do about it. I know a billionaire, the smartest scientist, the biggest army and a safe picture, a tornado two miles wide coming picture that tornado 20 miles, 200 miles wide. Just picture that coming at you. What are you going to do? Kind of an old joke that I heard down in Texas.

Tuck my head between my legs and kiss my, that’s all you got to do and all your kids going along with you, you can all hold hands as the tornado sucks you all up or you can start doing, finding your true self and where you belong on this planet and find your road. We decided to go down the drive down to around this time of the year after a while, but he said, we crossed so many bridges that stay rivers and creeks, but they’re all jumping. You keep going. As we started getting out of the mountain in this region of northern California to the flat alongside the highway, the most beautiful green oasis, palm cheese, big ponds, and fountain spraying out of that and I said to my wife, where? Where the water’s going to their gulf coasts. Nobody is golfing in there. That’s their priority. That’s what’s most important. Then you go down a little farther south and then you come into places where two, three swimming pools full of water and nobody in it.

Stop Putting Humankind Above Nature

Jenny:

You got to have the pool just in case. What I’ve learned through this course, through this conversation so far is we put ourselves above all other animals and like you said, we have this here-and-now model of society. “You need to stop thinking and just be present.” No, I need to think responsibly. I don’t want to think “here and now”. I’m at a point where I don’t want to just be present. I want to be present and actively learn how I should be behaving differently. Thank you for saying this is our future at risk. We’re risking the whole planet with our behaviour.

Harley:

The planet will survive without a doubt in my mind, and the natural order of things will restructure itself like Mother Earth always has. She’ll do it without human being like she has before and she will do it again. There will never be another human being species after this one ends. I was thinking to myself, I think to myself, “What your thoughts are going to be?” “God, where are you? Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddha”, whatever you want to call them. “Why aren’t you saving me?” Then you die and your lights go off and that was your last thought? Sobering thought. I stop and think this way, and why I can speak about this. I know more about your ways than you know about mine. That makes me twice as sharp as you, anytime, anyplace.

Closing Thoughts: The Importance Of Alberta’s Mountains

Harley:

In closing, I would say this is in terms of the mountains. I’ll share a little story that I’ve shared a few times. It’s a challenge. I went up into Miistukskoowa, <motion bring in air> they call it red [inaudible], they call The Castle today. Then it was called Owl Eyes, I went with a grandmother. [She] one adult family member went along there to pick the berries. We’d only picked so much in one spot and we’d leave and go pick over there. My grandmother would say, “You have got to save some for your relatives” and “You can’t take them all.” And then we would move [over] there. We were asked to be quiet. Don’t talk loud, boys. No louder than if someone was over there and somebody wanted to call them out and say, “Hey, you get over here!” No, they’d send somebody over. That’s how I grew up. Never questioning. Well, I was 12 years old thinking I knew it all. One of my cousins and I found a couple of branches and we started sword fighting with the sticks until some of the older girls ran over and said, “Grandma wants you guys to go over there with your swords.”

She to me, said, “You two, you should know better.” “You’ve been coming up here a long time. You know better to keep quiet.” And before I said anything she said, “And those sticks, put ’em away.” We dropped them on the ground, “Pick them up. When ’em down talking to you, go put ’em right back where you took them and I was getting a little cocky, I said, “Well, how come grandma? There’s nobody around here?” She answered, “All around here in the mountains. It’s where the spirits are, the mountain spirits, and if we make too much noise, they’ll get mad, and leave. And when they leave the mountains, the mountains will become sick and all the animals and plants and the people will cry out to be created, but it be too late.”

What do we have up there now? We have a three-ring circus everyone from the Shriners to little old ladies picking berries to coal miners to oil and gas and logging, quads, side-by-sides. “Yahoo, weekend warriors.” They are full of shit. They jump in their 20,000-dollar quads, go up there, and rip the crap out of Mother Earth. Sooner or later the rivers are going to go dry. Then where are you going to go? I say this to people, “Oh, we’ll just move over there. They’ll have water over there. What happens if they don’t want you around? They don’t want to share water. Are you going to fight them for it? That’s when the water war may start.

You might think you have all the solutions and you’re on top of the world, but you aren’t taught enough. You only talk about the death and destruction of your own people, your own offspring.

That’s how I always thought about looking at the mountains, it’s precious. Leave them alone. You don’t need to be up there. What the hell do people want to do up there? It’s not their home. Human beings don’t have to inhabit every part of [Earth]. Now we’re even thinking that we can go to that space and live up there? Can’t live on the moon. It’s so ridiculous. You might fly out of space, but you can’t live there. You only got one home and it’s Mother Earth. What are you doing to her? You’re raping her. You’re abusing her. And don’t forget, she’s been here before human beings. People have only been here for hundreds of thousands of years. She’s billions of years old. She’s got the power. You have none. Just like I said, it’s “flush the toilet” and “nothing you can do about it.” It’s up to you. I was asked by the last interview in closing, they asked, “Harley, is there hope? No, there isn’t.

If there is hope, “Please prove me wrong.” I would love to be proved wrong when it comes to that question, so I hope that as I said, I wasn’t going to mince any words because I know the kind of people I’m talking to. I know the audience. If you think you’re somebody I haven’t met with, you have met with me. That’s all I have to say to you all is, “Knock yourselves out”, and fill that pool a little bit more.

Jenny:

Yeah.

Harley:

Okay, golf a little harder. Meantime, people like me will be down here saving the planet for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, thank you.

Jenny:

Thank you, Harley. I just am so grateful for your time. I’m so grateful for your honesty. I am going to take a lot of time to reflect on this conversation. To be sure I hear you. I’m here to learn. I’m here to understand that I don’t have the answers and that we need to look to as my good friend Kevin offered today to look to the prime culture. Realizing that we’re not prime culture as a Western society and knows. This is the wisdom we need to search and seek and keep seeking and keep working for and supporting. Thank you for your very much for your time.

Harley:

It comes after the truth.

Seek the truth, saying the “truth will set you free” comes out of church. The first step is got to be truth, realization of the truth. The best place to start that realization is not so much at home because not all homes are of many high moral standards as society defines them, but the truth begins in your schools. You want us to teach history, teach the right history. Start questioning our Ministers of Education. You start questioning your voted-in politicians and you tell them, “Change the curriculum.” Start with Cortez and Columbus if you don’t know where to start. Go inland and start saying, “We didn’t discover anything”. The Queen and King of England have no right to come over and say, “This is my land.” That’s what predators do. You’re a bunch of predators. When you realize that is part of yourself, you can begin to deal with the truth. Start with your education. Start with yourself.

Do I have any hope? You all know I don’t… but you better hope for your kids’ sake, your grandkids, that you start changing this way. Thank you.