“What part of sacred don’t you understand?”

This was an important rallying cry of an Indigenous movement to protect a sacred mountain that I was on the periphery of many moons ago.

I’ve been reading more about this movement for the last few weeks in the book No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred by Klee Benally, “a Diné (Navajo) musician, traditional dancer, artist, filmmaker, & Indigenous anarchist” and a friend of mine from my past life as an anarchist agitator.

This was the question that was posed again and again in the fight to protect the Holy San Francisco Peaks in so-called Flagstaff, AZ (as Klee calls it, and I will be as well). It was on banners, and flyers, and graffiti, and shouted through megaphones. The ski resort was trying to build out the infrastructure so they could pipe in reclaimed wastewater (aka pee and poop) to make fake snow on a mountain that is held HOLY to over a dozen indigenous tribes.

I went to college in so-called Flagstaff and in the last few years of my time there I got involved with the wider off campus activist circles, many of which Klee was an integral part of including both Save the Peaks and Protect the Peaks, it’s direct action offshoot.

He would never have claimed to be “the leader” of anything for a variety of reasons, but he was undeniably one of the most magnetic and powerful humans I have ever known. I looked up to him, was sort of scared of him (I could never tell if he liked me, hated me, or was totally indifferent towards me), and was endlessly inspired by him, perhaps now more than ever as I read his incredible book.

My contributions to Indie Birth would not be remotely the same if I have not learned from him and the other anarchist organizers I knew during that time of my life.

Klee attended my big not-wedding, commitment ceremony party – which was actually 12 years ago today as I’m writing this I am realizing omg – along with many of our other radical anarchist friends. After moving to Sedona and being on call as an apprentice midwife all the time, and then having my own baby, I fell out of contact with him and the rest of the crew while I was watching the resistance movements and activism from afar.

Probably the last time I talked to Klee, he asked if I was going to come be part of a resistance camp on the Peaks. I said I really just couldn’t since I was on call for births as a apprentice (and it is no small feat to land an apprenticeship as many of you know), and to get myself from the camp to a car, down the mountain and to Sedona would just take too long (especially if I got arrested) and I had to be available faster (and probably cleaner) for these clients. He basically said that was a silly reason, and told me someone who was pregnant was camping there, so I should be able to, too, lol. He was so hard core and I appreciated it even when it made me squirm.

A friend reached out last winter to let me know that Klee had died. I learned that he had released a book (and a board game that looks really rad) shortly before his death. I ordered the book this summer and have been reading it the last few weeks and it feels like my brain is being reorganized. Like a second radical re-awakening.

I’m making connections is ways I haven’t before. I feel “dignified rage”. I am questioning everything, again. I am inspired and convicted. I am terribly sad. I feel more deeply connected to what sacred means to me in my life and in the context of what we are doing here at Indie Birth. I am asking myself which parts of sacred I still don’t understand as someone whose indigenous ancestors were colonized an unknown number of generations ago, and I’m being gentle with myself in the process.

This is long, but that’s my style, so I’m going to include one of my favorite quotes from Klee for you. It is so beautiful that I’m crying as I work on this. You can read the writing that it came from here.

“Na’ashjé’ii Asdzáá [Spider Woman] still speaks. She shared her fascination and we began to weave, she said if we have forgotten, she will teach us again. The restoration is itself a ceremony. We pull at the thread and unbind ourselves and each other. We unravel one story and reweave. This is the pattern of the storm, it is carried by sacred winds.

As it blesses us and our breath mixes with the breaths of our ancestors, we are rewoven and bundled into its beauty. We are reminded, “There is no authority but nature.”” – Klee Benally

There is so much that I still don’t understand about the sacred. But I have pieces to offer to the collective reweaving, as do the 14 other women than have contributed to this project from all manner of backgrounds and experiences.

If some or all of this resonates with you, and you want to start answering this question yourself – filling in the missing pieces that you need to understand about the sacred in birth and life, then please spend some time getting to know our Sacred Birth Certificate Program.

What part of sacred are you seeking to still understand? I would be so honored to if we could be part of your own inquiry, learning and expansion around this.

Love,
Margo

PS I’m also really clear that there is internal tension for me in “selling” something that is sacred to me (Klee would have hated it honestly, and it feels wrong to not name that, but he hated a lot of things I did, lol so it’s ok <3). Two truths can be true though, and the other truth is that I'm finding ways to feed my kids as a single mom without harming the Earth or any people, and while actively helping people bring the sacred back to their lives and their work. Our work here at Indie Birth is actively working to restore the sacred to birth, and power to the women every single day, and that is so very very worth supporting and sustaining. There is no perfect answer. There is so much mystery and beauty