00:00:23.644 --> 00:00:26.644
[fabric scratching]

00:01:24.954 --> 00:01:28.554
[fabric scratching]

00:01:47.191 --> 00:01:52.528
- The dream of having a tapestry that
lasts for thousands of years and

00:01:52.532 --> 00:01:56.907
shared with the community on an
annual basis is like saying that

00:01:56.911 --> 00:02:00.577
50 years from now, we're still going to
be doing this. A hundred years from now,

00:02:00.581 --> 00:02:03.455
we're still going to be doing this.
A thousand years from now,

00:02:03.459 --> 00:02:05.874
we hope that we are still doing this.

00:02:05.878 --> 00:02:11.171
That it isn't exactly like how
we've shown things in the tapestry.

00:02:11.175 --> 00:02:16.051
That things change over time, that we
adapt, especially with climate change.

00:02:16.055 --> 00:02:20.133
That what is right for one decade is
not necessarily right for the next.

00:02:37.825 --> 00:02:43.537
The tapestry reminds us who we are,

00:02:43.541 --> 00:02:48.458
or at least who we
romanticize ourselves as being.

00:02:48.462 --> 00:02:52.004
That we believe in certain things
and that we do certain things,

00:02:52.008 --> 00:02:55.426
and this is our community identity.

00:03:12.668 --> 00:03:15.668
[fabric scratching]

00:03:27.082 --> 00:03:32.085
- I learned weaving from Navajo
Weaver, Mabel Burnside Meyer,

00:03:32.089 --> 00:03:36.592
and that was long before we
visited here on the Ridge.

00:03:37.218 --> 00:03:39.051
After I moved to the Ridge,

00:03:39.055 --> 00:03:42.971
I happened upon a book at
the Grass Valley Bookstore

00:03:42.975 --> 00:03:46.643
about the thousand-year-old Bayeux
Tapestry that tells the story of

00:03:46.647 --> 00:03:52.272
William the Conqueror's invasion
of Normandy in 1066.

00:03:52.276 --> 00:03:57.110
The cover was printed full size and
I could see all the stitches and

00:03:57.114 --> 00:04:00.405
I thought, we could do that.

00:04:00.409 --> 00:04:05.911
So I talked to the old timers
and got some idea about how

00:04:05.915 --> 00:04:10.040
to tell a story like the
Bayeux Tapestry tells a story,

00:04:10.044 --> 00:04:14.378
but we would tell the story of
our community here on the Ridge,

00:04:14.382 --> 00:04:17.508
not the story of England's invasion.

00:04:21.003 --> 00:04:23.403
[horse whinnying]

00:04:30.352 --> 00:04:33.352
[birds chirping]

00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:47.452
- Seeing the tapestries and
having both sides of my

00:04:47.456 --> 00:04:51.290
lineages reflected and visible was...

00:04:51.294 --> 00:04:56.837
I'm so used to especially the
native side being just invisible.

00:04:56.841 --> 00:05:01.550
Not only did they see us
as living descendants of

00:05:01.554 --> 00:05:03.427
those tragedies,

00:05:03.431 --> 00:05:08.724
but it gave me a moment to share it
with my elders and let them also

00:05:08.728 --> 00:05:12.229
feel that moment because I get
to feel it all the time now.

00:05:22.239 --> 00:05:24.281
The San Juan Ridge is really tiny.

00:05:24.285 --> 00:05:29.538
It's about seven miles by seven miles.

00:05:30.581 --> 00:05:36.710
Here we are at California,
San Francisco, Sacramento,

00:05:36.714 --> 00:05:42.090
Lake Tahoe. Now to find
the San Juan Ridge,

00:05:42.094 --> 00:05:49.598
come in, follow 49 and go up Tyler Foote.

00:05:49.602 --> 00:05:55.064
The ridge is really nestled between the
arms of the South Yuba and the Middle Yuba.

00:05:56.381 --> 00:05:59.381
[water flowing]

00:06:03.697 --> 00:06:09.910
- So, there were a couple of main people
who moved here in the late '60s,

00:06:09.914 --> 00:06:14.581
among them Mike Getz,
Gary Snyder, and others,

00:06:14.585 --> 00:06:18.251
and then gradually their friends
would come and join them until we had

00:06:18.255 --> 00:06:20.297
quite a community of people.

00:06:20.999 --> 00:06:22.999
[bell resonating]

00:06:23.342 --> 00:06:24.760
- One more.

00:06:28.001 --> 00:06:31.001
[bell resonating]

00:06:35.938 --> 00:06:40.359
Isn't that nice? Yeah, simple too.

00:06:47.032 --> 00:06:49.825
We moved up here in 1970.

00:06:49.829 --> 00:06:55.122
I discovered that this
parcel here was surrounded

00:06:55.126 --> 00:07:00.710
on two sides with federal land, which
is safe from logging pretty much.

00:07:00.714 --> 00:07:06.716
So I put money down with Allen Ginsberg
and a couple other friends of mine.

00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:12.889
And my intention was not exactly
to start a community at all,

00:07:12.893 --> 00:07:16.977
but to try to figure out
how to live here myself,

00:07:16.981 --> 00:07:22.568
and to make it a place where I
could continue my Zen practice.

00:07:23.999 --> 00:07:26.999
[group chanting softly]

00:07:33.530 --> 00:07:35.999
[bell ringing]

00:07:39.460 --> 00:07:44.423
- Gary Snyder has extensively studied
the Zen Buddhist discipline and is active

00:07:44.465 --> 00:07:45.799
in the environmental movement.

00:08:20.985 --> 00:08:25.085
[atonal ambient drone]

00:08:58.372 --> 00:09:02.666
- You do have to understand Gary
Snyder through the lens of Buddhism.

00:09:02.670 --> 00:09:08.630
You take care of responsibilities,
you chop firewood, you carry water,

00:09:08.634 --> 00:09:12.050
and you change the oil
in your pickup truck.

00:09:12.054 --> 00:09:16.846
He had no patience with people that
couldn't keep their shit together.

00:09:16.850 --> 00:09:19.933
He was not a guru.

00:09:19.937 --> 00:09:24.104
He was not the least bit interested
in having a band of followers.

00:09:24.108 --> 00:09:28.692
He just became an important
and helpful person in the community

00:09:28.696 --> 00:09:32.030
that had fascinating things to say.

00:09:34.001 --> 00:09:38.001
[conch shell trumpeting]

00:09:43.083 --> 00:09:44.183
- You taught me well.

00:09:44.999 --> 00:09:46.899
- Yeah, you really have got the tone.

00:09:49.673 --> 00:09:54.426
- In the process of looking for land,
I found out that Gary lived here.

00:09:54.430 --> 00:09:59.764
That was immensely attractive because I
knew that just buying a piece of rural land

00:09:59.768 --> 00:10:04.269
randomly somewhere didn't mean anything.
You wouldn't know anybody.

00:10:04.273 --> 00:10:08.150
You had to go somewhere
where there were like people.

00:10:12.195 --> 00:10:15.697
- There were so many
different types of architecture,

00:10:15.701 --> 00:10:21.828
of people's creative exploration of
what they wanted their homes to be like,

00:10:21.832 --> 00:10:29.419
that that became one of the more
central ideas of the homesteading tapestry.

00:10:29.423 --> 00:10:34.676
Just to show creative
expression and individualism.

00:10:36.225 --> 00:10:41.225
[birds chirping]

00:10:47.773 --> 00:10:51.024
The word travels,
you hear about places.

00:10:51.028 --> 00:10:53.236
There are places that are safe.

00:10:54.615 --> 00:10:57.615
[laughing]

00:10:59.993 --> 00:11:04.663
It's hard to convey to people
how explosive that time was,

00:11:04.667 --> 00:11:08.541
especially for young people. They
wanted to get out in the country.

00:11:08.545 --> 00:11:11.836
They wanted the challenge
of homesteading,

00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:17.528
and that really was re-living
a piece of American mythology.

00:11:22.474 --> 00:11:27.852
My mother, she famously said to
me when I was leaving St. Louis,

00:11:27.856 --> 00:11:32.482
"They tilted the country to the
west and everything that was loose

00:11:32.486 --> 00:11:33.999
ended up in California."

00:11:34.172 --> 00:11:36.899
And my reaction was,
"Glory, hallelujah."

00:11:36.999 --> 00:11:40.999
[gentle violin playing]

00:12:00.345 --> 00:12:02.095
- The folks that came in the '70s,

00:12:02.099 --> 00:12:06.683
there was this real back-to-
the-land movement and they were

00:12:06.687 --> 00:12:10.395
a deep thinking group of people,

00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:15.442
and what changed was the
attention to the landscape.

00:12:15.446 --> 00:12:18.611
That the land is alive, that
we need it for our children.

00:12:18.615 --> 00:12:24.492
That is in real harmony
with what the tribe lost.

00:12:24.496 --> 00:12:28.329
All the folks who came here in
the '70s, they knew my family.

00:12:28.333 --> 00:12:29.330
They knew we were native.

00:12:29.334 --> 00:12:34.127
I just don't think it was
ever spoken about deeply

00:12:34.131 --> 00:12:37.881
because you instantly become a threat.

00:12:37.885 --> 00:12:43.136
The culture here was so completely
devastated and our federal

00:12:43.140 --> 00:12:45.307
recognition taken away, we had no land,

00:12:45.432 --> 00:12:51.021
so the remnants that would identify a
native community were just non-existant.

00:12:59.613 --> 00:13:03.114
I think if that movement in
the '70s hadn't happened,

00:13:03.118 --> 00:13:05.241
where would we be today?

00:13:05.245 --> 00:13:10.371
It's only been very recently
that the tribe itself has found

00:13:10.375 --> 00:13:14.002
enough foundation to
begin educating people.

00:13:19.382 --> 00:13:22.342
- I can only speak for myself,
but when I came up here

00:13:22.346 --> 00:13:26.012
we were enthusiastic about
getting back to the land.

00:13:26.016 --> 00:13:30.016
It was like an umbrella,
getting back to the land.

00:13:30.020 --> 00:13:33.853
I mean, we're kind of naive
in a way because I mean,

00:13:33.857 --> 00:13:38.525
one of the things that I learned
is getting back to the land is

00:13:38.529 --> 00:13:41.110
a hell of a lot more
chores than you realize.

00:13:41.114 --> 00:13:46.324
There're a lot of chores
if you want to act natural.

00:13:46.328 --> 00:13:50.537
But in the process of doing
that, we reinvented everything.

00:13:50.541 --> 00:13:52.747
We're all reading by kerosene light.

00:13:52.751 --> 00:13:58.378
We were doing everything the hard way
as if there was some special dignity

00:13:58.382 --> 00:14:01.216
that went with that.
Maybe there was.

00:14:04.302 --> 00:14:05.343
In the early days,

00:14:05.347 --> 00:14:10.181
we actually did Amish-style house
raisings where neighbors would show up

00:14:10.185 --> 00:14:14.352
over a weekend and build a
substantial part of a whole building.

00:14:14.356 --> 00:14:17.999
That is part of what is captured
in the tapestry.

00:14:19.002 --> 00:14:20.999
That time.

00:14:21.002 --> 00:14:24.047
Now, it's other time.

00:14:24.752 --> 00:14:27.752
[faint hammering]

00:14:34.457 --> 00:14:40.253
- The contractor always used to call it a
architect's dream and a carpenter's nightmare,

00:14:40.257 --> 00:14:45.133
and this was one of the
controversial parts of the house,

00:14:45.137 --> 00:14:51.139
was building this wall out of
cedar rounds and concrete.

00:14:51.143 --> 00:14:55.810
And all the locals who came by
just would scoff at it and go,

00:14:55.814 --> 00:14:58.771
"Swiss cheese wall, this is gonna
be the Swiss cheese wall.

00:14:58.775 --> 00:15:00.734
"All this is gonna rot."

00:15:01.109 --> 00:15:06.779
They just thought this was the silliest
thing they'd ever seen, but here it is,

00:15:06.783 --> 00:15:08.575
50 years later.

00:15:09.640 --> 00:15:12.640
[birds chirping]

00:15:12.704 --> 00:15:16.873
- We lived on this little hill on one
corner of the property in a shack.

00:15:16.877 --> 00:15:19.876
It was just this tar paper shack and the
wind would blow through it and it would

00:15:19.880 --> 00:15:22.005
blow out our kerosene lamps.

00:15:26.635 --> 00:15:28.635
But I would spend most
of my time down here,

00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:32.221
the Dardick's house, because it
was a real house and besides that,

00:15:32.225 --> 00:15:33.640
the house looked like a spaceship.

00:15:33.644 --> 00:15:37.560
So, what kid would not want to
be down in the spaceship house?

00:15:37.564 --> 00:15:41.105
And another thing that I really loved
about this place growing up was that it

00:15:41.109 --> 00:15:46.611
was a farm. They had goats and
chickens and ducks and they had

00:15:46.615 --> 00:15:51.115
orchards and berry patches
and vegetable gardens and

00:15:51.119 --> 00:15:55.119
there was magic everywhere.
You could not possibly be bored.

00:15:55.123 --> 00:15:59.624
And not to mention they had probably
the best collection of Hindu mystical

00:15:59.628 --> 00:16:02.293
comic books that you could find
anywhere on the Ridge.

00:16:02.297 --> 00:16:04.796
They were always cooking and canning,

00:16:04.800 --> 00:16:09.634
and the way that we dealt with the canning
is that we would read really raunchy

00:16:09.638 --> 00:16:11.970
romance novels and one
person would read,

00:16:11.974 --> 00:16:14.975
one person would chop
and one person would stir.

00:16:17.021 --> 00:16:20.021
[children chatting and laughing]

00:16:24.067 --> 00:16:28.989
- This is very depressing referendum.
We're obviously not gardening.

00:16:29.011 --> 00:16:31.011
[laughing]

00:16:31.032 --> 00:16:33.493
Everyone's gonna think we're
dope growers.

00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:37.537
My father used a wheelchair,

00:16:37.541 --> 00:16:41.791
and so to get around the garden

00:16:41.795 --> 00:16:44.711
he dug all these paths,
and as he dug the paths

00:16:44.715 --> 00:16:47.130
he piled the dirt to one
side and to the other,

00:16:47.134 --> 00:16:50.258
and then people would show up
and they were like, "Oh, wow,

00:16:50.262 --> 00:16:52.428
French intensive gardening."
And Dad would be like,

00:16:52.432 --> 00:16:54.804
"Yeah, French intensive gardening."

00:16:54.808 --> 00:16:57.006
And the next thing we were doing is
we're going through all these

00:16:57.010 --> 00:17:00.313
gardening books figuring out what
French intensive gardening is.

00:17:02.013 --> 00:17:07.275
This was where the wine grapes were,
boysenberries, all sorts of fruit trees,

00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:11.448
a wooden water tank at
the top of the hill.

00:17:14.284 --> 00:17:19.829
- I haven't been here in 20
years and this homestead is

00:17:19.833 --> 00:17:20.999
really different.

00:17:21.004 --> 00:17:23.584
A lot of the orchard is missing,
gardens are overgrown,

00:17:24.169 --> 00:17:27.879
berry patches are gone,
the lake is smaller.

00:17:27.883 --> 00:17:30.381
It's filling in with cattails.

00:17:30.385 --> 00:17:36.637
And it just really makes me think
that I was lucky to witness a

00:17:36.641 --> 00:17:41.184
particular slice of time when
this land was being stewarded

00:17:41.188 --> 00:17:43.352
by this family.

00:17:43.356 --> 00:17:47.106
And there's less and
less people who are doing

00:17:47.110 --> 00:17:51.778
the self-sustaining homestead where
they don't just have some vegetables,

00:17:51.782 --> 00:17:53.279
they have animals too.

00:17:53.283 --> 00:17:58.701
I'm part of a demographic of people
who their primary income streams

00:17:58.705 --> 00:18:03.039
come through social media. That's where
I get most of my illustration jobs.

00:18:03.043 --> 00:18:05.458
I do everything electronically.

00:18:05.462 --> 00:18:08.586
A farm takes all of your time.

00:18:08.590 --> 00:18:14.133
You can't really do that and have another
job or another two jobs or three jobs.

00:18:14.137 --> 00:18:18.304
It's not that unusual to have
many different hats

00:18:18.308 --> 00:18:21.474
to make it out here in this
rural community.

00:18:21.478 --> 00:18:25.563
It's cheaper to just go
buy it at Grocery Outlet.

00:18:35.782 --> 00:18:41.369
- I needed a designer for
the tapestries,

00:18:41.373 --> 00:18:45.873
and I asked Jennifer Crosby if she
would be interested and she was.

00:18:45.877 --> 00:18:48.543
I was very thrilled.

00:18:48.547 --> 00:18:50.211
- In 2006,

00:18:50.215 --> 00:18:55.007
Marcia asked me if I would
embark on a journey with her to

00:18:55.011 --> 00:19:00.429
illustrate a tapestry
series that described

00:19:00.433 --> 00:19:04.183
the culture and history
of the San Juan Ridge.

00:19:04.187 --> 00:19:09.397
The idea was so big, it was mind
boggling and I was terrified,

00:19:09.401 --> 00:19:12.859
but I also knew that I wanted to do it.

00:19:12.863 --> 00:19:17.196
There were so many stories and we
couldn't figure out which one to include,

00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:22.285
but they all required research
and we really wanted to get going.

00:19:22.289 --> 00:19:25.538
So finally I decided that I would
do the Halloween gathering because

00:19:25.542 --> 00:19:30.835
I'd been going there for 30 years and I
could rely on my own memories for it,

00:19:30.839 --> 00:19:35.341
and I didn't have to consult with
anyone, so that's what I did.

00:19:37.385 --> 00:19:42.555
- She came out with this sketch
for a 12 foot tapestry.

00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:45.516
It was so huge, and she said,

00:19:45.520 --> 00:19:50.188
"I need that much room because
I have a lot to tell about that day."

00:19:50.192 --> 00:19:54.483
And I love that because the
Halloween celebration is just one

00:19:54.487 --> 00:19:59.240
of the rituals we've developed here
where we bind the community together.

00:20:00.408 --> 00:20:05.328
- So the first tapestry starts with
everyone arriving in their cars

00:20:05.332 --> 00:20:09.999
and bringing their picnic baskets
and hiking up a steep hill with a

00:20:10.003 --> 00:20:14.128
little sign that says,
"Up this little hill...yes."

00:20:14.132 --> 00:20:20.259
Arriving at the meadow, and then the
ceremony itself is described in four circles

00:20:20.263 --> 00:20:23.179
across this largest of all the tapestries.

00:20:23.183 --> 00:20:29.352
And underneath there is a sub-story that
shows things that are happening behind

00:20:29.356 --> 00:20:32.980
the scenes or something that was a
little piece of what happened in

00:20:32.984 --> 00:20:36.567
the circle, like the kids in their
costumes and the goblin parade.

00:20:36.571 --> 00:20:41.781
And then it ends on the far
right with the picnic tree,

00:20:41.785 --> 00:20:46.661
everyone eating underneath its branches
and the bonfire that goes late into the

00:20:46.665 --> 00:20:48.999
evening of everyone playing music
and singing songs together

00:20:49.003 --> 00:20:51.899
before they say goodbye and go home.

00:20:52.327 --> 00:20:55.327
[faint indistinct chatter]

00:20:56.756 --> 00:21:00.591
- We did sort of start out with
some kind of...

00:21:00.595 --> 00:21:06.013
whatever, but see the mess?

00:21:06.017 --> 00:21:09.999
And I mean they've only been
sitting here for what, half an hour?

00:21:10.003 --> 00:21:13.064
And look what they've done
all by themselves.

00:21:14.107 --> 00:21:17.733
Out of the blue, I received a
phone call from Marsha Stone.

00:21:17.737 --> 00:21:19.443
I didn't know her at all,

00:21:19.447 --> 00:21:23.908
but she had this wonderful idea to make
some tapestries for the schoolhouse.

00:21:25.410 --> 00:21:28.786
- Mary Moore is very hard to describe.

00:21:28.790 --> 00:21:31.872
I said, "Do you want to be involved
in a tapestry project?"

00:21:31.876 --> 00:21:37.378
She said, "Sure!," and that was the
start of 17 years of a lot of fun.

00:21:37.382 --> 00:21:43.134
We had a battle early on where I was
just gonna stick with only 13 colors

00:21:43.138 --> 00:21:45.764
'cause the Bayeux Tapestry had
only five colors.

00:21:45.768 --> 00:21:48.999
And she said, "No, no, no.
"You got to have more than 13."

00:21:49.003 --> 00:21:52.643
And she just went out and
bought more colors.

00:21:52.647 --> 00:21:55.064
And she was right!

00:21:55.857 --> 00:21:57.481
- I've had many titles.

00:21:57.485 --> 00:21:59.999
They call me bossy most of the time.

00:22:00.007 --> 00:22:02.327
I'm going out here and I'm
going to find a table.

00:22:02.655 --> 00:22:07.199
The first tapestry had been very close
to the Bayeux look with a lot of linen

00:22:07.203 --> 00:22:10.204
showing deliberately.
The second tapestry,

00:22:10.330 --> 00:22:15.166
we went with a lighter weight
yarn and suddenly our palette grew

00:22:15.170 --> 00:22:16.544
to probably 50 colors.

00:22:19.699 --> 00:22:22.699
[vines and brush rustling]

00:22:26.054 --> 00:22:30.850
- I moved here in 1975, and one of my
earliest memories of living on the Ridge

00:22:30.975 --> 00:22:38.858
was going to the work site of
Oak Tree School as it was being built.

00:22:43.999 --> 00:22:46.599
[hammer tapping]

00:22:47.700 --> 00:22:49.700
To me as a kid,

00:22:49.704 --> 00:22:54.163
it seemed like I could approach
any adult and they were safe,

00:22:54.167 --> 00:22:57.085
they'd look out for me,
they'd find me what I needed.

00:22:57.126 --> 00:23:01.545
It was a regular occurrence that people
were gathering together and building

00:23:01.549 --> 00:23:04.592
things for free.

00:23:04.999 --> 00:23:07.999
[indistinct chatter]

00:23:08.638 --> 00:23:14.225
I only used a little bit of
my own personal experience,

00:23:14.229 --> 00:23:17.686
my own memories, for that tapestry.

00:23:17.690 --> 00:23:19.814
If you look at the tapestry,

00:23:19.818 --> 00:23:25.444
there's some children that are
peeking out of a window frame.

00:23:25.448 --> 00:23:29.009
And that was something that I did
while I was waiting for my parents to

00:23:29.013 --> 00:23:30.827
finish up working.

00:23:31.002 --> 00:23:34.002
[indistinct chatter]
[tools clattering]

00:23:34.497 --> 00:23:37.748
- I think that those of us who were
that first generation in the school,

00:23:37.752 --> 00:23:42.086
we felt like it was a gift.
We treasured it.

00:23:42.090 --> 00:23:46.076
We would walk into these rooms and they
were cathedrals built by our family

00:23:46.080 --> 00:23:48.968
and our friends for us,

00:23:48.972 --> 00:23:52.263
and completely unlike conventional
schools that you would see.

00:23:52.267 --> 00:23:57.017
The library was this
stunning room with these

00:23:57.021 --> 00:24:00.521
majestic hand-hewn columns.

00:24:00.525 --> 00:24:05.818
The bracing work was embedded with

00:24:05.822 --> 00:24:08.154
silver and turquoise.

00:24:08.158 --> 00:24:12.201
So, it was like a temple of learning.

00:24:18.292 --> 00:24:24.211
- It brought together this group
of young people to give,

00:24:24.215 --> 00:24:26.999
in a somewhat selfless way,
to a common goal.

00:24:27.003 --> 00:24:28.966
And so in some sense,

00:24:28.970 --> 00:24:33.804
we were quite threatening
to the power structures

00:24:33.808 --> 00:24:36.809
that governed public school construction.

00:24:38.269 --> 00:24:41.770
- The head of the carpenter's
union in Sacramento came up.

00:24:41.774 --> 00:24:46.400
He was classic cigar-smoking,
suit-wearing guy.

00:24:46.404 --> 00:24:49.254
And he comes up to this site and
there's all these young people with

00:24:49.258 --> 00:24:54.241
very little clothes on, in hard hats,
forming a foundation, and he said,

00:24:54.245 --> 00:24:55.899
"Well, you got to use union labor."

00:24:55.903 --> 00:24:57.999
And I said, "Well, we'd love to
sign up all our people."

00:24:58.003 --> 00:25:01.500
And they said, "No, you have to
use our people."

00:25:01.504 --> 00:25:04.062
And we said, "No," so they struck us.

00:25:04.999 --> 00:25:07.999
[tools whirring]

00:25:12.428 --> 00:25:15.765
So they sent a striker out who sat in
the back of his pickup truck,

00:25:15.769 --> 00:25:19.683
and he knit or crocheted bikinis.
That was his part-time job.

00:25:19.687 --> 00:25:24.939
And we had one of the local grading
guys named Treelore who was grading

00:25:24.943 --> 00:25:28.442
the driveway, and he came down
and he asked him very politely,

00:25:28.446 --> 00:25:33.072
"Would you move your pickup truck?
I need to grade this part of the entry.

00:25:33.076 --> 00:25:37.999
And...he wouldn't move.

00:25:38.003 --> 00:25:41.538
So Treelore nudged his
pickup with his cat,

00:25:41.542 --> 00:25:47.171
and the guy just jumped in his
car and he drove away.

00:25:48.047 --> 00:25:51.966
We had a contract that says,
use local labor and materials.

00:25:51.970 --> 00:25:56.220
We found these little cement mixers,
and that's when, like,

00:25:56.224 --> 00:25:59.557
150 people would show up for a pour.

00:25:59.561 --> 00:26:05.062
There was a member of the community
who came up in a loin cloth and he

00:26:05.066 --> 00:26:10.776
stood on forms and he jumped off,
and..."Love is everywhere!"

00:26:10.780 --> 00:26:14.907
And he just became a one of the
crew, one of his lovely crew.

00:26:16.450 --> 00:26:18.000
We had another crew member,
Amos Takahoe,

00:26:18.005 --> 00:26:20.582
who faked his social security number.

00:26:21.163 --> 00:26:25.624
He'd been in jail someplace, but he could
play the harmonica and he could sing,

00:26:25.628 --> 00:26:30.462
and he kept the spirit up of this
project that was just really hard work

00:26:30.466 --> 00:26:33.092
all the time.

00:26:33.887 --> 00:26:36.887
[singing and laughing]

00:26:38.681 --> 00:26:41.599
- Not everyone in the
community was happy that

00:26:41.603 --> 00:26:48.063
a bunch of hippies had moved
in and were building a school.

00:26:48.067 --> 00:26:52.111
It just kind of rankled that
these newcomers were doing this.

00:26:53.070 --> 00:26:56.697
But it just takes one person,

00:26:56.701 --> 00:27:01.535
one person who's not happy with
things to bring it all down.

00:27:01.539 --> 00:27:06.165
It had been kind of
effervescent up until then.

00:27:06.169 --> 00:27:08.999
Just, like, look at all the great
things we can do!

00:27:09.004 --> 00:27:11.999
And then all of a sudden...
[mimics explosion]

00:27:12.089 --> 00:27:16.089
the school is gone and...

00:27:18.054 --> 00:27:21.349
...there was this big empty pause.

00:27:24.935 --> 00:27:30.191
- Fires are...they're terrible things.

00:27:36.238 --> 00:27:41.659
Part of me doesn't wanna believe
that anyone would be that angry

00:27:41.663 --> 00:27:48.082
or have that much revenge,
but since lately?

00:27:48.086 --> 00:27:53.253
I think it was the union,
or it was a disgruntled neighbor.

00:27:53.257 --> 00:27:57.509
We had a few people who really resented
this project and seeing all these

00:27:57.513 --> 00:28:00.999
dirty hippies up there,
and that they started a fire.

00:28:01.005 --> 00:28:04.255
And there was no way to stop it.

00:28:21.367 --> 00:28:27.913
- It was heartbreaking
that something so large

00:28:27.917 --> 00:28:32.626
could suddenly be gone
from one day to the next.

00:28:32.630 --> 00:28:34.296
Just gone.

00:28:42.054 --> 00:28:44.000
- Well this happened right in the
middle of a school year,

00:28:44.005 --> 00:28:48.084
and there were 120 children
that were bereft.

00:28:48.088 --> 00:28:51.272
They lost their home of learning.

00:28:55.651 --> 00:29:00.279
- Our family and our community was
devastated by the loss of the school.

00:29:00.283 --> 00:29:03.532
We were convinced it was arson,
so it was more than a loss.

00:29:03.536 --> 00:29:04.999
It felt like an attack.

00:29:05.018 --> 00:29:07.018
We knew everything about that building,

00:29:07.037 --> 00:29:11.792
and then to lose it and to lose it
so quickly was absolute tragedy.

00:29:14.545 --> 00:29:19.631
- The fact that it was rebuilt helped
strengthen this resolve that we

00:29:19.635 --> 00:29:21.300
are gonna carry on.

00:29:21.304 --> 00:29:25.806
I think that the values of Oak Tree
School are very much alive today.

00:29:32.062 --> 00:29:34.480
- So, before the school burned down

00:29:34.484 --> 00:29:38.609
there was this beautiful stained
glass window of the Yuba.

00:29:38.613 --> 00:29:43.155
And then after it burned down they
had to make a new stained glass window,

00:29:43.159 --> 00:29:46.911
and that was of the phoenix
rising from the flames.

00:29:52.299 --> 00:29:54.299
- So worthy of documenting.
[chuckling]

00:29:57.129 --> 00:30:00.881
- We had to solve everything
ourselves because at the time,

00:30:00.885 --> 00:30:04.428
there was no other tapestry going
that we knew of in the world.

00:30:06.139 --> 00:30:09.139
[indistinct conversation]

00:30:09.850 --> 00:30:13.002
So I called up a yarn store in
England and just said,

00:30:13.006 --> 00:30:16.608
"The Bayeux Tapestry, what are
those materials in it?"

00:30:16.612 --> 00:30:20.999
And they said, "Oh, you need to order
such-and-such linen and wool yarn."

00:30:21.003 --> 00:30:23.737
We said, "Thank you very much."

00:30:23.741 --> 00:30:27.866
- The tapestries grew big enough
that they needed bigger frames.

00:30:27.870 --> 00:30:32.996
We moved to an actual quilting
frame where we could get

00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:35.874
eight people around if it was
that big a tapestry.

00:30:35.878 --> 00:30:40.462
- As we started stitching, we found that
every day after we got done working,

00:30:40.466 --> 00:30:45.425
we would roll up the tapestry and ship
it off to Mary's house or my house.

00:30:45.429 --> 00:30:47.999
And that was quite difficult to do
that twice a week.

00:30:48.203 --> 00:30:50.971
We said, "This cannot go on.

00:30:50.976 --> 00:30:53.602
We need our own dedicated space."

00:30:54.144 --> 00:30:59.106
- So the project moved into the
library and I set my library hours

00:30:59.110 --> 00:31:01.197
so I would be working there when
they were stitching.

00:31:01.999 --> 00:31:04.194
That’s what I really do.

00:31:04.198 --> 00:31:09.283
- It became a really precious place to be
because all the visitors to the library

00:31:09.287 --> 00:31:12.037
then would be introduced to us.

00:31:25.601 --> 00:31:27.799
- We knew that we wanted to have the

00:31:27.927 --> 00:31:30.052
North Columbia Schoolhouse
Cultural Center as

00:31:30.056 --> 00:31:32.516
the place where the tapestry is housed.

00:31:33.601 --> 00:31:38.312
We're a community of diverse
spiritual and religious affinities,

00:31:38.316 --> 00:31:42.441
so this cultural center is the
closest thing to our church.

00:31:42.445 --> 00:31:46.153
Really, it’s this building that
inspired the tapestry series.

00:31:46.157 --> 00:31:51.283
Every single tapestry
fits between the windows

00:31:51.287 --> 00:31:54.080
to this specific building.

00:31:55.080 --> 00:31:57.456
And so the primary event

00:31:57.460 --> 00:32:01.752
of the cultural center is
the storytelling festival,

00:32:01.756 --> 00:32:04.500
so we knew that that had
to be really, really big.

00:32:04.504 --> 00:32:05.503
- ...I don't know where it went.

00:32:05.736 --> 00:32:07.736
Now, what happened to it?
I don't know.

00:32:07.740 --> 00:32:10.886
He said, "If you want to ride
your bicycle, you can do it..."

00:32:10.890 --> 00:32:16.850
- And there's a big difference between
the tapestries and the storytellers here.

00:32:16.854 --> 00:32:19.715
But the way that they're the same is
that they wouldn't be possible

00:32:19.765 --> 00:32:21.765
without volunteers.

00:32:21.815 --> 00:32:23.799
Storytelling, this is the
place that we come together.

00:32:23.803 --> 00:32:24.999
No matter what our differences are,

00:32:25.003 --> 00:32:27.306
this is the place where we
come together.

00:32:27.613 --> 00:32:31.239
So, it's really a work of love.

00:32:31.243 --> 00:32:33.601
Both of these things are a
work of love.

00:32:33.999 --> 00:32:36.999
[indistinct chatter]

00:32:38.916 --> 00:32:43.168
- When the storytelling festival at
the cultural center came along,

00:32:43.172 --> 00:32:47.522
we were getting a little short on money,
and we set up the frame so we

00:32:47.526 --> 00:32:50.035
could work on that tapestry during
the storytelling,

00:32:50.039 --> 00:32:52.038
which lasted two or three days.

00:32:52.888 --> 00:32:54.930
Mary said,
"Oh, I'll just put up a sign

00:32:54.934 --> 00:32:57.997
to say that people can name the cows."

00:32:58.001 --> 00:33:01.007
There was a whole herd of cows
in the front of this tapestry,

00:33:01.011 --> 00:33:05.065
on the road the way it used to be
when they were

00:33:05.069 --> 00:33:08.986
transporting them from lower
elevation to the higher elevation.

00:33:08.990 --> 00:33:12.999
And so she sold, like, one cow
for $5, and that got a name.

00:33:13.003 --> 00:33:16.868
As people really flocked around,

00:33:16.872 --> 00:33:18.999
wanted to name things in the tapestry,

00:33:19.090 --> 00:33:22.999
she finally got to--
there were dogs to name,

00:33:23.003 --> 00:33:25.794
and there was cow pies to name,

00:33:26.188 --> 00:33:30.060
and there was a truck to name,
and by the time she was done

00:33:30.064 --> 00:33:33.008
she had several hundred dollars.
And we thought,

00:33:33.012 --> 00:33:36.502
"Oh, that was a success!
Mary, great idea!"

00:33:36.999 --> 00:33:39.599
[cows lowing]
[birds chirping]

00:33:44.603 --> 00:33:47.603
[birds chirping and singing]

00:33:51.230 --> 00:33:53.907
- "The new moon long set

00:33:54.908 --> 00:33:58.037
A soft grumble in the breeze

00:33:59.038 --> 00:34:03.498
Is the sound of a jet so high

00:34:03.502 --> 00:34:06.462
It's already long gone by

00:34:08.547 --> 00:34:09.999
Some planet

00:34:10.054 --> 00:34:12.654
Rising from the east shines

00:34:13.761 --> 00:34:14.999
Through the trees

00:34:16.931 --> 00:34:18.931
It's been years since I thought,

00:34:20.801 --> 00:34:23.228
Why are we here?"

00:34:24.608 --> 00:34:28.646
[gravel crunching]

00:34:28.651 --> 00:34:32.069
When I first came up here, I thought,
oh, these are really old forests.

00:34:32.073 --> 00:34:34.071
No, they're new forests. [chuckling]

00:34:36.116 --> 00:34:40.454
The gravels that you drove across
here, called the Diggins?

00:34:40.459 --> 00:34:43.998
That used to be 200 feet under dirt,

00:34:44.002 --> 00:34:45.998
and all that dirt was removed so that

00:34:46.003 --> 00:34:48.007
they could get the low-quality gold.

00:34:48.107 --> 00:34:52.999
It's not like nuggets,
it's more like gold dust,

00:34:53.057 --> 00:34:54.999
but that's what they went after.

00:35:01.476 --> 00:35:03.725
- By 1865,

00:35:03.729 --> 00:35:07.998
there were thousands of people
living around here and everybody

00:35:08.003 --> 00:35:10.857
was dependent on hydraulic mining.

00:35:10.861 --> 00:35:15.904
What was new was the
application of pressurized water

00:35:15.908 --> 00:35:18.784
against a gold bearing body,

00:35:18.789 --> 00:35:24.001
in this case an ancient river,
60 million-or-so years old.

00:35:26.834 --> 00:35:31.169
You're just looking at the pit
here, and this is a gigantic pit.

00:35:31.173 --> 00:35:37.719
7,000 feet by 3,000 feet by
over 600 feet deep.

00:35:40.139 --> 00:35:41.998
You have to hand it to these guys.

00:35:42.002 --> 00:35:44.198
That is vision and a hell of
an endeavor.

00:35:48.397 --> 00:35:50.984
But I don't approve.

00:36:31.106 --> 00:36:36.443
- My very first memory of the Diggins
was I thought I'd come to the moon.

00:36:36.447 --> 00:36:40.490
It just seemed like such a
strange and desolate place.

00:36:41.801 --> 00:36:46.872
Even as a child, it felt kind of sad.

00:36:48.123 --> 00:36:52.459
There was something that was
quietly grieving out there.

00:36:52.463 --> 00:36:55.128
And wow, y'know,

00:36:55.132 --> 00:36:59.883
this whole place was mined with water,

00:36:59.887 --> 00:37:01.564
and the Native Americans that
were living here,

00:37:01.664 --> 00:37:04.014
they lost everything.

00:37:04.264 --> 00:37:07.260
So, the Diggins is like this
giant scar.

00:37:08.275 --> 00:37:13.275
[water flowing]

00:37:20.489 --> 00:37:25.283
- I truly think that the tribe had
found some kind of perpetual

00:37:25.287 --> 00:37:30.038
motion with nature in a way that
people could exist and nature

00:37:30.042 --> 00:37:33.585
kept going with its abundance,
and it worked together.

00:37:36.213 --> 00:37:42.842
Seeing the tapestry with the tornado
in the middle coming up the way

00:37:42.846 --> 00:37:46.638
that it did,
and all of the people just--

00:37:46.642 --> 00:37:50.141
It's pure chaos in the
center of that tornado.

00:37:50.145 --> 00:37:54.104
There was just absolute genocide.

00:37:54.108 --> 00:37:57.399
But in order to change any
of that chaos,

00:37:57.403 --> 00:38:01.194
we literally as people couldn't
exist today.

00:38:01.198 --> 00:38:03.822
This old man named Levi Potts,

00:38:03.826 --> 00:38:08.702
he came in the early gold rush days to
make his fortunes in the gold fields,

00:38:08.706 --> 00:38:12.539
and somehow instead married
into our Native Nisenan family.

00:38:12.543 --> 00:38:17.877
So if we wanted to undo the atrocities
that were done both to people, animals,

00:38:17.881 --> 00:38:22.590
and the planet, we would have
to also undo ourselves in a way.

00:38:22.594 --> 00:38:25.095
None of our family would exist.

00:38:25.341 --> 00:38:28.341
[goose honking]
[birds chirping]

00:38:33.587 --> 00:38:36.396
- You know, the hydraulic mining
in the 19th century,

00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:41.651
it choked all the rivers
and completely buried

00:38:41.655 --> 00:38:45.697
orchards downstream,
literally to the top of the trees.

00:38:45.701 --> 00:38:49.998
We didn't have the faintest idea that
gold mining was anything

00:38:50.003 --> 00:38:51.999
other than ancient history.

00:38:52.096 --> 00:38:54.006
To us, it was just part of the past.

00:38:54.506 --> 00:38:59.506
[woman singing]

00:39:03.592 --> 00:39:09.000
The idea that mining could resurrect
itself wasn't anything that any

00:39:09.004 --> 00:39:09.998
of us had thought about.

00:39:10.003 --> 00:39:12.842
But sure enough, in the late '70s,

00:39:13.685 --> 00:39:16.438
a company tried to open an
open-pit mine.

00:39:17.981 --> 00:39:19.691
That was the kiss of death.

00:39:23.570 --> 00:39:26.738
- When I was doing the design
for the tapestry,

00:39:26.742 --> 00:39:28.998
Marsha told me that one of the
hardest things that we were going to

00:39:29.002 --> 00:39:34.134
try to depict was all of these hundreds
and thousands of hours that

00:39:34.138 --> 00:39:39.089
all of these different people put
into doing phone calls,

00:39:39.189 --> 00:39:42.552
and writing letters,

00:39:43.899 --> 00:39:46.552
and constructing surveys and reports,

00:39:47.552 --> 00:39:52.806
all these environmental reports,
and testing and gathering all this data.

00:39:52.810 --> 00:39:56.080
And that's kind of a boring
thing to draw.

00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:03.149
And I think Marsha wanted to make
it a little bit funny because it was

00:40:03.153 --> 00:40:05.568
so grueling and hard.

00:40:05.572 --> 00:40:11.825
It's the viewpoint of a child of
being drug along to all these events

00:40:11.829 --> 00:40:14.619
like, "Okay, here, we're going
to another fundraising event.

00:40:14.623 --> 00:40:18.790
We need to pull together our support
and make sure that this doesn't happen."

00:40:18.794 --> 00:40:24.754
So we took the symbol of
this old miner with a

00:40:24.758 --> 00:40:27.632
long beard and his scruffy hat

00:40:27.636 --> 00:40:33.930
and potbelly, and we turned
him into our advocate,

00:40:33.934 --> 00:40:35.308
our good guy.

00:40:35.708 --> 00:40:36.933
[phone ringing]

00:40:36.937 --> 00:40:38.351
- Oh, my.

00:40:38.355 --> 00:40:43.565
This was the 1970’s gold
mine that was trying to get

00:40:43.569 --> 00:40:46.317
gold right near our house.

00:40:46.321 --> 00:40:51.531
It had a very large impact on
our family because Jerry took off

00:40:51.535 --> 00:40:54.784
work for six months for
how to fight the mine.

00:40:54.788 --> 00:40:58.663
There's been a series of mines,
one right after the other,

00:40:58.667 --> 00:41:00.998
and there's so many battles we've had

00:41:01.003 --> 00:41:03.898
that I just kind of blend them
in together.

00:41:04.796 --> 00:41:10.008
As a process of mining, all the
wells in that area went dry,

00:41:10.012 --> 00:41:13.636
And when the company said,
"Well, we'll drill new wells for you,"

00:41:13.640 --> 00:41:18.308
the water that they got in the
new wells wasn't drinkable.

00:41:18.312 --> 00:41:19.726
In the bottom of
"Don't Mine our Water,"

00:41:19.730 --> 00:41:21.998
it shows a cross section of the land,

00:41:22.003 --> 00:41:25.784
and where the wells dried up,
the red ones that are in the bottom

00:41:25.788 --> 00:41:28.679
were the houses that lost their wells.

00:41:30.279 --> 00:41:33.279
[construction equiptment
creaking and rumbling]

00:41:37.954 --> 00:41:39.102
- My uncle, Gene Covert,
at the time was

00:41:39.107 --> 00:41:41.572
on the Nevada County Board
of Supervisors,

00:41:42.042 --> 00:41:47.629
and he was seen in those
times as very othered because

00:41:47.633 --> 00:41:54.219
he was a conservationalist,
and he received a lot of threats.

00:41:54.223 --> 00:41:57.430
We wouldn't see it as extreme
today, especially in this community.

00:41:57.434 --> 00:42:00.266
It's sort of the norm, we're all
showing up to be like, "No mine!,"

00:42:00.270 --> 00:42:04.187
and we're a more involved community.

00:42:04.191 --> 00:42:08.399
And I feel like in those early '70s,
with that community out there,

00:42:08.403 --> 00:42:10.195
that's really sort of where
that was born.

00:42:10.205 --> 00:42:11.986
[protestors chanting]

00:42:11.990 --> 00:42:17.033
- The problem is that you can open a
gold mine that has $3 million worth

00:42:17.037 --> 00:42:17.867
of gold in the ground,

00:42:17.871 --> 00:42:22.330
but it may cost you twice as much
to get it out, and you destroy the

00:42:22.334 --> 00:42:24.393
environment in the process.

00:42:25.669 --> 00:42:28.127
But every time the price
of gold gets really high,

00:42:28.131 --> 00:42:30.922
we get nervous, and sure enough,

00:42:30.926 --> 00:42:34.719
some clowns arrive and
try to start mining again.

00:42:36.263 --> 00:42:40.598
- There's an application to open a
mine in Grass Valley right now.

00:42:40.602 --> 00:42:44.852
They're doing very slick
promotion of it.

00:42:44.856 --> 00:42:49.999
They show up in three
gangster-looking SUVs.

00:42:50.999 --> 00:42:55.031
[laughing]
I wonder if they're bulletproof.

00:42:55.431 --> 00:43:00.702
The story of gold is all
about pillaging.

00:43:00.706 --> 00:43:03.871
It's "get the goods and
get outta here."

00:43:03.875 --> 00:43:07.834
So, it's not real conducive
to community.

00:43:07.838 --> 00:43:11.899
It's something the next generation
has to prepare for,

00:43:11.903 --> 00:43:13.902
because they will be back.

00:43:15.885 --> 00:43:20.847
- I'd say there's a number of children
of the Ridge that have gone on to

00:43:20.851 --> 00:43:25.768
get degrees in environmental sciences
who have the kind of know-how

00:43:25.772 --> 00:43:26.999
to go after this.

00:43:27.046 --> 00:43:29.846
If the mine tries to come back,
we're gonna fight it.

00:43:30.692 --> 00:43:35.069
One good thing about this community
is that if they're gonna try to put

00:43:35.073 --> 00:43:38.074
the heat on us, it's gonna be
like kicking the hornet's nest.

00:43:38.574 --> 00:43:43.574
[protestors chanting]

00:43:55.092 --> 00:43:59.802
- This cradle has literally been
around the ridge for decades.

00:43:59.806 --> 00:44:04.807
It gets passed from one family to
the next for babies to sleep in.

00:44:04.811 --> 00:44:09.854
Steve Sanfield is the one who
built it, and their son, Aaron,

00:44:09.858 --> 00:44:12.690
is the first name on the cradle.

00:44:12.694 --> 00:44:15.388
And I don't think that they intended
it to be something that

00:44:15.392 --> 00:44:17.391
would be passed around,

00:44:17.781 --> 00:44:22.116
but all their friends are having
babies and just, like, you have this

00:44:22.120 --> 00:44:25.828
beautiful cradle and your baby
outgrows it in just a matter of months,

00:44:25.832 --> 00:44:27.899
and then somebody else has a baby
and you're like,

00:44:27.903 --> 00:44:29.992
"Well, take the cradle!"

00:44:30.085 --> 00:44:35.338
And then it just kind of started
going around to everybody's house,

00:44:35.342 --> 00:44:40.261
and then before you know it
it's like, you ask for the cradle.

00:44:41.012 --> 00:44:43.346
I'm not in it because I wasn't
born here,

00:44:43.350 --> 00:44:47.975
but my brother Ty is in it
and my sister Melissa is in it,

00:44:47.979 --> 00:44:49.998
and my youngest sister Grace is in it,

00:44:50.003 --> 00:44:52.299
and my son Oliver is in it.

00:44:53.017 --> 00:44:55.732
[cradle creaking]

00:44:55.736 --> 00:45:00.988
- Families come together and
honor the mother to be.

00:45:00.992 --> 00:45:03.614
Women's circles are fairly common,

00:45:03.618 --> 00:45:05.999
to have a safe place to
talk about things.

00:45:06.436 --> 00:45:08.436
[baby cooing]

00:45:08.873 --> 00:45:14.168
- How are we gonna continue to
keep passing the cradle around

00:45:14.172 --> 00:45:16.212
and commemorating all the births?

00:45:16.216 --> 00:45:19.634
What's gonna happen with this
cradle in a hundred years?

00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:24.764
- I love this community so much
and I wanna stay here forever,

00:45:24.931 --> 00:45:27.016
and that's why I had my baby here.

00:45:27.398 --> 00:45:29.399
[laughing]

00:45:51.958 --> 00:45:57.420
- One of the great things about working
with Jennifer Rain Crosby was that

00:45:57.424 --> 00:45:59.464
once she gave us her color drawing,

00:45:59.468 --> 00:46:03.803
we were allowed and encouraged
to interpret it as we chose.

00:46:04.387 --> 00:46:06.929
When we came to "The River" tapestry,

00:46:06.933 --> 00:46:12.479
she had made a beautiful colored
rendition all in shades of turquoise.

00:46:13.688 --> 00:46:16.564
But to get the shadows,

00:46:16.568 --> 00:46:20.904
I had to be able to take one
color into three mediums.

00:46:21.154 --> 00:46:25.656
So I began blending my yarns.
It was very freeing.

00:46:25.660 --> 00:46:29.162
It was the hardest thing for
new stitchers to do.

00:46:29.999 --> 00:46:32.999
[water flowing]

00:46:33.708 --> 00:46:37.710
- We fought for 16 years to save
the Yuba River from damming.

00:46:37.714 --> 00:46:42.008
The community really started to see that
it wasn't just a bunch of naked hippies

00:46:42.012 --> 00:46:43.591
on the river who wanted to save it.

00:46:43.595 --> 00:46:46.998
It was like, there's not a high school
kid who doesn't make the river

00:46:47.003 --> 00:46:50.998
part of their life, and that
goes back generations.

00:46:51.003 --> 00:46:55.520
So once you're able to break through
stereotype and see each other as

00:46:55.524 --> 00:46:59.440
river lovers, it's not a divisive issue
anymore to have a free flowing river.

00:46:59.444 --> 00:47:01.609
And yet 35 years ago,

00:47:01.613 --> 00:47:05.657
it was a dividing line
right through the community.

00:47:05.999 --> 00:47:08.999
[river water churning]

00:47:11.788 --> 00:47:16.707
So we had a great story all set up
for the river because we saved

00:47:16.711 --> 00:47:18.002
our river from being dammed.

00:47:18.006 --> 00:47:20.794
But then when it came down to it,

00:47:20.798 --> 00:47:25.091
we realized that we already had a
tapestry about our community activism.

00:47:25.095 --> 00:47:26.926
Then Hank Meals said,

00:47:26.930 --> 00:47:28.999
"Do we have anything with a
Native perspective?"

00:47:29.057 --> 00:47:31.513
And so I went to Shelly Covert

00:47:31.517 --> 00:47:34.727
to find out what their
stories were about the river.

00:47:38.773 --> 00:47:43.401
- The stories that I know about the
Yuba River are mostly about the

00:47:43.405 --> 00:47:47.697
beings that live within the river,
they were one-footed beings.

00:47:47.701 --> 00:47:50.950
They were called Momin Nisenan,
or the Water Nisenan.

00:47:50.954 --> 00:47:54.912
And they're actually stories where
some of the earliest miners came and

00:47:54.916 --> 00:47:56.706
they didn't know what the beings were,

00:47:56.710 --> 00:47:59.417
so they took them out of the
water and beat them to death.

00:47:59.421 --> 00:48:02.295
So as we talked about the river tapestry,

00:48:02.299 --> 00:48:06.998
I shared my sense of the identity of

00:48:07.003 --> 00:48:09.998
Uba Seo, or the great Yuba River,

00:48:10.003 --> 00:48:13.632
before it was damned and
before it was contained,

00:48:13.636 --> 00:48:17.020
and that personality was to
be respected.

00:48:17.229 --> 00:48:20.730
So the Uba Seo is not only
a pragmatic tool,

00:48:20.734 --> 00:48:26.152
but it is a conduit for spirituality,
and it is and always will be

00:48:26.156 --> 00:48:31.157
respected and a being of great
reverence for the Nisenan People.

00:48:31.161 --> 00:48:35.163
We say that She is the great sister
that takes your troubles away.

00:48:35.665 --> 00:48:38.665
[water flowing]

00:48:40.168 --> 00:48:44.795
- The more that I mulled it over,
I felt that that was their story.

00:48:44.799 --> 00:48:45.998
It wasn't our story to tell.

00:48:46.003 --> 00:48:50.002
So Marsha said, "What if we just
make it about the river?"

00:48:51.638 --> 00:48:54.931
The bottom border of that tapestry,

00:48:54.935 --> 00:48:57.308
we have a prayer to the salmon

00:48:57.312 --> 00:49:00.999
that we hope that they
return one day, [sobbing]

00:49:01.471 --> 00:49:03.471
that they belong here.

00:49:03.942 --> 00:49:07.944
And showing that they were
here before,

00:49:07.948 --> 00:49:11.030
that they are gone now,

00:49:11.034 --> 00:49:13.993
and that it is our hope that
they return...

00:49:15.995 --> 00:49:18.957
that became our river tapestry.

00:49:19.340 --> 00:49:22.340
[water flowing]

00:49:30.999 --> 00:49:33.999
[birds chirping and calling]

00:49:35.723 --> 00:49:38.351
- There are things that we took for
granted when we were initially here.

00:49:39.352 --> 00:49:40.351
Deep soils,

00:49:40.356 --> 00:49:42.998
forests that have been burned
regularly for thousands of years

00:49:43.002 --> 00:49:47.732
by the indigenous people that were
here before European colonization.

00:49:47.736 --> 00:49:49.570
And we also inherited this
very stable climate.

00:49:50.238 --> 00:49:53.449
But these days you realize that
can't be taken for granted anymore.

00:49:54.242 --> 00:49:57.328
Surface water is declining,
groundwater is declining,

00:49:57.787 --> 00:50:02.917
so these things related to climate
change are very serious threats.

00:50:03.914 --> 00:50:06.914
[birds chirping and calling]
[water flowing]

00:50:31.213 --> 00:50:35.213
[fire crackling]
[muffled roaring]

00:50:38.911 --> 00:50:41.998
- The very first of our gatherings
that stopped, actually stopped

00:50:42.003 --> 00:50:44.998
because of the fires,
fire danger was really high.

00:50:45.003 --> 00:50:46.917
It was very, very scary.

00:50:46.921 --> 00:50:51.380
We even prepared the meadow and
we'd rake the path and then the winds

00:50:51.384 --> 00:50:53.426
came in and it was like,
nope, we can't do this.

00:50:56.512 --> 00:50:59.388
- What ended was the continuity of it.

00:50:59.392 --> 00:51:04.393
One of my favorite parts of the
circle was people introducing

00:51:04.397 --> 00:51:09.023
new babies, holding the baby up,
introducing 'em to the community.

00:51:09.027 --> 00:51:11.525
It was great to see that!

00:51:11.529 --> 00:51:15.196
It just seemed inevitable,
with all that dry grass.

00:51:15.200 --> 00:51:17.700
It could be that that
particular chapter's over.

00:51:22.580 --> 00:51:24.207
- We have huge challenges here.

00:51:24.248 --> 00:51:28.876
Really, the biggest challenge for
us is wildfire and climate change,

00:51:28.880 --> 00:51:31.962
and we're gonna have to really
learn to be stewards of this land,

00:51:31.966 --> 00:51:32.998
of our personal property,

00:51:33.003 --> 00:51:35.774
and collectively,
because we could all die.

00:51:35.778 --> 00:51:37.512
We could lose everything.

00:51:38.846 --> 00:51:40.793
I think unifying around fire is
one of those things that's

00:51:40.797 --> 00:51:42.092
going to bring us together.

00:51:46.229 --> 00:51:50.439
- Oh god, it's funny, I was just
in a conversation like this.

00:51:50.443 --> 00:51:51.998
We're on pins and needles.

00:51:52.003 --> 00:51:54.264
I mean, it's been that way for
the last few years,

00:51:54.529 --> 00:51:56.998
but last year was unbelievable.

00:51:57.003 --> 00:51:58.102
Unbelievable.

00:51:59.135 --> 00:52:02.135
[fabric scratching]

00:52:08.167 --> 00:52:12.628
- The tapestry that I'm working
on now is especially critical.

00:52:12.632 --> 00:52:15.559
It's honoring our local
fire department.

00:52:19.846 --> 00:52:24.899
Just yesterday there were four fires,
which we were afraid were set.

00:52:24.999 --> 00:52:25.999
It's been a hard one to work on.

00:52:26.502 --> 00:52:27.999
It's so real.

00:52:28.437 --> 00:52:32.150
A fear that if it's not actively raining,
when's it gonna start burning?

00:52:33.526 --> 00:52:37.111
- I think there is an inevitable
fire that's coming.

00:52:37.115 --> 00:52:42.575
Someday there's gonna be a conjunction
between a fire and the weather and

00:52:42.579 --> 00:52:44.998
the slope, and whether or not
we have enough

00:52:45.003 --> 00:52:47.061
firefighters available to respond.

00:52:47.123 --> 00:52:50.916
Will it burn the entire ridge?
I certainly hope not.

00:52:50.920 --> 00:52:53.963
Could it? It certainly could.

00:52:55.999 --> 00:52:59.427
[fire crackling]
[water gushing]

00:53:04.891 --> 00:53:07.003
- In the early days, fire departments

00:53:07.007 --> 00:53:10.144
would've looked at most of this
area and said, "It's hopeless."

00:53:10.148 --> 00:53:12.359
And we didn't have a clue about that.

00:53:12.859 --> 00:53:14.859
Have we coalesced around fire?

00:53:14.863 --> 00:53:16.817
Not enough.

00:53:16.821 --> 00:53:20.406
We need to keep burning the fuel load.

00:53:21.449 --> 00:53:22.783
That's the issue right there.

00:53:23.326 --> 00:53:25.578
There's nothing wrong with
having fire through here.

00:53:25.745 --> 00:53:28.956
I would love to see fire go
through here and burn this ground.

00:53:29.248 --> 00:53:30.999
We wouldn't even think of
putting it out.

00:53:31.005 --> 00:53:34.999
We'd stand around with a hose
and go, "Go, baby, go!"

00:53:35.212 --> 00:53:37.548
Just stay away from the buildings.

00:53:39.217 --> 00:53:43.552
- Our generation is going to unify to
protect this community by focusing

00:53:43.556 --> 00:53:47.765
on wildfire prevention and becoming
good stewards of the land,

00:53:47.769 --> 00:53:50.619
but to do it in a way that's
sustainable and in a way that

00:53:50.623 --> 00:53:52.355
protects the environment.

00:53:53.356 --> 00:53:57.650
- The Tapestry Project is capturing
this history of this place.

00:53:57.654 --> 00:54:01.906
Doing forestry in this area, I feel
like we're directly connected and

00:54:02.031 --> 00:54:04.951
seeing the history, especially
because we do fire work.

00:54:06.035 --> 00:54:10.496
And I see that being a really
big part of future caretaking,

00:54:10.500 --> 00:54:12.208
is fire.

00:54:16.504 --> 00:54:21.632
- I got a grant to do clearing
on my own land.

00:54:21.636 --> 00:54:26.221
And we were having so much
fun doing it, then we were

00:54:26.225 --> 00:54:28.241
done with mine,
we didn't wanna stop.

00:54:28.245 --> 00:54:29.244
- What was that?

00:54:29.517 --> 00:54:30.516
- I'll take you over into the building.

00:54:30.520 --> 00:54:31.517
- Okay.

00:54:31.521 --> 00:54:38.065
- Tending the land is something
so natural for me,

00:54:38.069 --> 00:54:41.652
and it seems like the people around
me who are predominantly women,

00:54:41.656 --> 00:54:42.905
it speaks to us.

00:54:45.074 --> 00:54:50.077
- What I really notice in the forest
is the forest doesn't give one iota

00:54:50.081 --> 00:54:52.121
what your gender is.

00:54:52.125 --> 00:54:57.795
You can make a huge impact on the
place regardless of how you identify.

00:54:58.713 --> 00:55:00.899
- And I think that we really
like to have fun.

00:55:00.903 --> 00:55:03.257
I mean, one of our goals is
that if we're not having fun,

00:55:03.261 --> 00:55:08.429
then we need to change what we're doing
because this is naturally fun work.

00:55:08.433 --> 00:55:10.848
And the tapestry is fun.

00:55:10.852 --> 00:55:15.894
And so these are things that when you
look out in the brush that hasn't

00:55:15.898 --> 00:55:18.056
been cut at all, it just looks
like this overwhelming,

00:55:18.060 --> 00:55:20.221
monumental task that's impossible.

00:55:20.225 --> 00:55:22.771
And the Tapestry Project was
the same way.

00:55:23.321 --> 00:55:26.157
It was enormous, you couldn't
even wrap your brain around it.

00:55:26.574 --> 00:55:28.657
But the Tapestry Project is finished now,

00:55:28.661 --> 00:55:34.455
and I believe that in the hands of
a few determined people that we can

00:55:34.459 --> 00:55:36.751
make our community fire resilient.

00:55:36.755 --> 00:55:38.542
[chainsaws revving]

00:55:38.546 --> 00:55:42.923
Our tribe, the Nisenan People here,
burned all the time.

00:55:43.299 --> 00:55:46.759
Fire was essential for living.

00:55:46.763 --> 00:55:50.137
So when they outlawed the burning
of the land way back in the 1800's,

00:55:50.141 --> 00:55:52.183
they outlawed the burning
of the dead as well.

00:55:52.913 --> 00:55:54.913
[chainsaws revving]

00:55:55.644 --> 00:55:57.991
How do we get back to burning
an entire ecoscape?

00:55:58.841 --> 00:55:59.999
I don't know.

00:56:00.941 --> 00:56:04.443
It's just such a different world.
We don't eat the plants.

00:56:04.447 --> 00:56:08.491
Who needs basket materials
if we're not making baskets?

00:56:08.949 --> 00:56:12.284
So I know the reasons for
burning are different today,

00:56:12.288 --> 00:56:16.040
but it is essential to forest health.

00:56:16.248 --> 00:56:20.294
It is also detrimental to human
life if it's not happening.

00:56:21.003 --> 00:56:25.964
There's also this wisdom that comes
with the way the tribe lived

00:56:25.968 --> 00:56:30.427
with the land that actually
is of value to us today.

00:56:30.431 --> 00:56:35.099
We can do tribally-informed
burning and share

00:56:35.103 --> 00:56:40.646
our knowledge with a partner and the
tribe isn't feeling infringed upon

00:56:40.650 --> 00:56:44.024
of extracted from,
and we feel like, yay,

00:56:44.028 --> 00:56:47.027
we have something from the past
that is actually helping us today.

00:56:47.031 --> 00:56:48.946
Which, sometimes it's hard
to find those moments.

00:56:48.950 --> 00:56:51.617
So, kind of a win-win for everybody.

00:56:52.977 --> 00:56:55.536
- ...and you do it like 10 times,
and you have to remember too--

00:56:55.540 --> 00:56:57.706
I find it easier with that one
to remember where I left off.

00:56:59.667 --> 00:57:02.753
- It's really fire ecology,
landscape architecture,

00:57:03.671 --> 00:57:07.673
which is informed by native
fire practices of good fire,

00:57:07.677 --> 00:57:08.968
but it's not the same.

00:57:10.344 --> 00:57:15.599
Our methods are different and
our reasons are different.

00:57:15.999 --> 00:57:18.999
[birds chirping]

00:57:19.270 --> 00:57:23.147
- It's really nice that we have really a
great relationship with the community

00:57:23.151 --> 00:57:26.692
and with the people that have been
here for three generations.

00:57:26.696 --> 00:57:29.298
The back-to-the-landers, man,
they had it rough out here.

00:57:29.302 --> 00:57:33.708
No power, no water, no phone.

00:57:33.784 --> 00:57:36.104
They just built everything from the
ground up and just really kind of

00:57:36.108 --> 00:57:37.306
paved the way.

00:57:37.311 --> 00:57:40.024
And a lot of them, like
some of our neighbors right here,

00:57:40.028 --> 00:57:45.085
still don't have power and are
using kerosene lamps and whatnot.

00:57:45.089 --> 00:57:47.965
So, it feels good to come out
and support those people.

00:57:51.051 --> 00:57:55.345
- This place definitely inspires
commitment,

00:57:55.349 --> 00:57:58.100
a kind of deep love and belonging.

00:57:58.976 --> 00:58:00.976
From the time that I was a little child,

00:58:00.980 --> 00:58:05.772
there was a feeling of being
wanted and appreciated here,

00:58:05.776 --> 00:58:07.399
and part of something greater.

00:58:07.702 --> 00:58:09.702
As an adult working with fire,

00:58:10.404 --> 00:58:14.239
there's times where I don't really
understand why I know what I know,

00:58:14.243 --> 00:58:19.580
but I know things about fire and I
know things about this environment.

00:58:19.999 --> 00:58:22.999
[fire crackling]

00:58:33.010 --> 00:58:36.512
- "The Forest" tapestry talks
about the community,

00:58:36.516 --> 00:58:39.517
not so much in any kind of action,

00:58:40.309 --> 00:58:45.395
but that we really appreciate our
animal and our plant neighbors,

00:58:45.399 --> 00:58:47.189
the furry ones and the feathered ones,

00:58:47.193 --> 00:58:49.999
and the trees and the rocks too.

00:58:50.006 --> 00:58:52.806
I thought it would be fun
to have snow.

00:58:53.614 --> 00:58:55.741
The snow could help show
a change in elevation.

00:58:56.899 --> 00:58:59.870
So, there's a rabbit that's
running out into a meadow,

00:59:00.079 --> 00:59:04.208
and the further you get out into the
meadow the snow basically disappears.

00:59:04.833 --> 00:59:08.587
- Wow, this is the last one.

00:59:09.505 --> 00:59:14.426
Jennifer made each one
progressively harder,

00:59:14.510 --> 00:59:16.303
and she threw the book at
us this time.

00:59:18.847 --> 00:59:21.976
If we start here, we're at high altitude.

00:59:22.560 --> 00:59:26.063
The snow is the thickest,
the air is the driest,

00:59:27.231 --> 00:59:32.401
and that's what we had
to make it look like.

00:59:32.405 --> 00:59:37.008
Cold, snow, and the animals
of course

00:59:37.012 --> 00:59:38.599
coming out at night.

00:59:38.784 --> 00:59:40.784
There's a waterfall here,

00:59:41.370 --> 00:59:43.495
and it had to look half iced-in,

00:59:43.499 --> 00:59:47.666
and her color picture was perfect.

00:59:47.670 --> 00:59:51.005
We followed it slavishly.

00:59:52.006 --> 00:59:54.840
To get the snow to go up
and down we blended the

00:59:54.844 --> 00:59:57.342
stitch colors to get the shadows,

00:59:57.346 --> 01:00:02.891
and we elongated the stitches so
you'd have a real smooth look.

01:00:03.809 --> 01:00:08.814
The sky was done by Jennifer's
father, William Crosby.

01:00:10.190 --> 01:00:14.151
We had the tapestry at one of the
storytellings, and a little boy,

01:00:14.155 --> 01:00:16.947
about seven years old,
wanted to stitch and he said,

01:00:16.989 --> 01:00:17.989
"Could I do the raccoons?"

01:00:17.993 --> 01:00:20.531
And of course I thought,
yeah, you can do it.

01:00:20.535 --> 01:00:23.704
I'll take it out, but yeah,
you can do it.

01:00:23.954 --> 01:00:26.705
He had to be shown how to
thread the needle and knot it,

01:00:26.709 --> 01:00:30.919
and he did one of these
raccoons and it was beautiful.

01:00:31.337 --> 01:00:35.007
- We wanted to have people being
acknowledged who were the stitchers,

01:00:35.257 --> 01:00:38.216
and so Mary got an extra
piece of linen,

01:00:38.220 --> 01:00:41.094
and as people were working
on the tapestry

01:00:41.098 --> 01:00:43.591
we'd tell them to sign that
piece of fabric.

01:00:43.595 --> 01:00:44.890
And when we were done,

01:00:44.894 --> 01:00:48.268
then we would stitch it to
the back of the tapestry

01:00:48.272 --> 01:00:49.998
so everybody's name was there.

01:00:50.003 --> 01:00:51.855
When we got done,

01:00:51.859 --> 01:00:55.776
there was something like
340 different names.

01:00:55.780 --> 01:00:58.862
Some people worked on every
single tapestry,

01:00:58.866 --> 01:01:01.998
and some people just came once
and we said, "That's just fine."

01:01:02.003 --> 01:01:04.000
They said, "Oh, we don't know
how to stitch."

01:01:04.004 --> 01:01:05.494
I said, "Don't worry.

01:01:05.498 --> 01:01:08.499
Even little kids do it,
so you can do it too."

01:01:09.378 --> 01:01:12.378
[birds chirping]
[bees buzzing]

01:01:19.055 --> 01:01:23.055
[audience applauding]

01:01:24.657 --> 01:01:29.518
- This is gonna be an easy crowd,
I can see. [laughing]

01:01:29.522 --> 01:01:30.999
Anyway, my name is Jerry Teklin.

01:01:31.003 --> 01:01:33.303
I'm the husband of Marsha Stone,

01:01:33.607 --> 01:01:36.819
who you will hear from momentarily.

01:01:36.944 --> 01:01:41.905
She is the mother of the community
project whose accomplishment

01:01:41.909 --> 01:01:42.999
marks this day,

01:01:43.999 --> 01:01:47.585
this momentous celebration of the

01:01:47.589 --> 01:01:52.376
completion of these
magnificent tapestries.

01:01:52.584 --> 01:01:57.546
I guess there is a certain
weird kind of irony that

01:01:57.550 --> 01:02:02.759
the military matters of
the invasion of Britain

01:02:02.763 --> 01:02:07.599
would somehow compare to the
events of the late '60s and '70s.

01:02:08.517 --> 01:02:13.478
Our counter-cultural invasion
was seen by the locals as a

01:02:13.482 --> 01:02:18.527
development that seemed to cross
between a Little House On the Prairie

01:02:18.902 --> 01:02:20.779
and Sodom and Gomorrah.

01:02:21.026 --> 01:02:23.070
[audience applauding]

01:02:23.074 --> 01:02:28.034
- There was a gala celebration
for the ending of the project.

01:02:28.038 --> 01:02:32.291
Marsha put the last stitch in
at the celebration,

01:02:32.666 --> 01:02:36.044
and we all sighed in relief.

01:02:37.838 --> 01:02:42.108
There are stories to be remembered
and there are more stories

01:02:42.112 --> 01:02:43.111
being created every day.

01:02:43.611 --> 01:02:45.958
It's up to the next generation.

01:02:46.805 --> 01:02:48.432
We've trained them the best
we can. [laughing]

01:02:53.562 --> 01:02:54.733
- Where we are is,

01:02:54.739 --> 01:02:57.400
because of the forest fires that
we've had this summer,

01:02:58.066 --> 01:03:02.263
has been a great education for a
lot of people in California to

01:03:02.267 --> 01:03:05.998
start again and say,
"Okay, I'm gonna live here

01:03:06.003 --> 01:03:10.078
like I was gonna live here for the
next thousand years."

01:03:12.581 --> 01:03:16.251
- When you're fighting dams and mines
and timber plans and development,

01:03:16.376 --> 01:03:19.044
you never win the war.

01:03:19.048 --> 01:03:21.755
You just win the battle,
if you're lucky.

01:03:21.759 --> 01:03:24.593
And so you know you're in it for life.

01:03:26.303 --> 01:03:30.388
I think we're really challenged as a
country, but at the end of the day

01:03:30.392 --> 01:03:32.095
we have to live together in
communities.

01:03:32.099 --> 01:03:34.495
If you're yelling at each other,

01:03:34.895 --> 01:03:38.357
you're gonna see each other four
hours later at the grocery store.

01:03:39.358 --> 01:03:43.358
[singing in Nisenan language]

01:03:56.659 --> 01:04:00.379
- There are places that we still
remember that remain in oral history,

01:04:01.004 --> 01:04:05.257
and we can't talk about cultural
revitalization without the geographical

01:04:05.261 --> 01:04:08.051
spots where these practices belong.

01:04:08.055 --> 01:04:12.973
So I would see the future of us being
able to bring together thinking people

01:04:12.977 --> 01:04:17.896
to help us reconnect with these
very sacred places that are

01:04:18.313 --> 01:04:19.999
essential pieces of Nisenan culture.

01:04:20.209 --> 01:04:22.409
Those of us who are alive today,

01:04:22.818 --> 01:04:26.780
we're part of an incredible moment
if we can see past the pain and

01:04:26.784 --> 01:04:32.160
the suffering and the chaos and
really just be together in community

01:04:32.286 --> 01:04:34.997
to understand what the past
brought us,

01:04:35.747 --> 01:04:38.641
what we're holding today and what we
wanna leave for our descendants,

01:04:38.645 --> 01:04:39.877
of course.

01:04:40.546 --> 01:04:44.546
[singing in Nisenan language]

01:04:52.014 --> 01:04:56.935
- The stories that we make together
is part of what makes a community.

01:04:57.227 --> 01:05:01.064
We are not united by a
single faith or philosophy.

01:05:01.398 --> 01:05:05.998
We are united in our love of this
place, our attachment to this place,

01:05:06.003 --> 01:05:08.001
our commitment to this place

01:05:08.053 --> 01:05:12.998
through volunteering and through
collective action.

01:05:13.003 --> 01:05:17.620
That just cuts right across all
kinds of lines right there.

01:05:18.081 --> 01:05:22.544
But if you're helping your
neighbor and they're helping you,

01:05:23.295 --> 01:05:27.841
then it kind of doesn't matter
who you voted for.

01:05:28.008 --> 01:05:29.635
Maybe. I hope.

01:05:29.999 --> 01:05:31.999
[laughing]

01:05:33.889 --> 01:05:35.849
- We grew up in a community
of storytellers.

01:05:36.058 --> 01:05:40.938
Through the tapestry our stories have
literally been stitched one by one,

01:05:41.188 --> 01:05:44.183
and in this way that's going to
remind us of what happened and

01:05:44.187 --> 01:05:45.998
is still happening.

01:05:46.003 --> 01:05:49.002
It's a primer on how to live
in the future.

01:05:56.995 --> 01:06:00.248
In every case, we're together.
We're in this circle together,

01:06:00.374 --> 01:06:02.960
we're dancing together, we're
building the school together.

01:06:03.001 --> 01:06:05.295
We're fighting fires and
herding cattle,

01:06:05.420 --> 01:06:08.090
and all of this is communal
and collaborative.

01:06:09.151 --> 01:06:12.151
[cow lowing]

01:06:14.012 --> 01:06:18.016
Obviously, it's not the same as
it was in the '70s and '80s.

01:06:18.433 --> 01:06:20.686
But there is something that I
think is the same,

01:06:21.019 --> 01:06:23.998
and I think the tapestry is such a
perfect metaphor for it

01:06:24.002 --> 01:06:26.998
because you choose to come and
to contribute to it.

01:06:27.002 --> 01:06:28.860
It's a voluntary association.

01:06:29.569 --> 01:06:31.405
That's what community is really about,

01:06:31.488 --> 01:06:33.898
is seeing a need and stepping up
and saying,

01:06:33.902 --> 01:06:36.071
I want to be part of this.

01:06:36.103 --> 01:06:38.203
I want to add my stitch.