Fwd: Growing Smart Chief Sealth Style

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

Subject:     Growing Smart Chief Sealth Style
Sent:        12/10/19 7:33 AM
Received:    12/6/99 11:33 PM
From:        Shelley & Brad Hawkins-Clark, thehcs@netboise.com
To:          Smart Growth Listserve, smartgrowth@onenw.org   [Attn. 
Visionaries of Moscow-Pullman to these words
                from a former holistic manager of the land and waters. 
Does he make sense?]

=====  A message from the 'smartgro' discussion list  =====

Like many of you, I've heard speakers quote from and read the historical
accounts of Chief Sealth (the City of Seattle, WA was mis-named for this
Chief) and his vision for the land. I recently came across a statement
attributed to Chief Sealth as his reply to President Franklin Pierce in
December 1854, upon the U.S. Government's offer to buy 2 million acres
of Native American land in the Pacific Northwest. While some people
debate over whether or not it is an actual statement from Chief Sealth,
it's the meaning of the message that I find so compelling. 

As I read these words again this week, I was struck by their relevance
to smart growth principles and the sustainable, livable environment we
all seek out.  In this age when it seems everything has to be promoted
as some movement, special interest group, or patented as a "novel"
concept, including "smart growth," I found these words refreshingly
simple and universal. It reminded me that when people criticize efforts
to develop and use the land in ways that honor and protect the air,
water, soil and human health, they are not criticizing some new fad or
politically correct method of growth management. These are principles
that have been around for literally hundreds of years and believed by
people from the Romans to Native Americans. To view them in light of
transit-oriented development, neighborhood parks, pedestrian-friendly
streets, greenbelts and watershed protection programs shed an inspiring
light on things for me.

Here's some of what Chief Sealth said in that message to President
Pierce:

"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is
strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle
of the water, how can you buy them? 

This we know: all things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth,
befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is
merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. 

Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in
your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of
the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave
you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a
mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all
slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, and the view of the ripe hills
blotted by talking wires. Where is the Thicket? Gone. Where is the
Eagle? Gone. And what is it to say good-bye to the swift pony and the
hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. 

Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you take it. And
preserve it for your children, and love it. . .As God loves us all. This
earth is precious to Him. Even the white man cannot be exempt from the
common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. . ."

(taken from "Our Toxic Times," a publication of the Chemical Injury
Information Network)

Brad Hawkins-Clark



------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com