Interview Towa Elder Charlie Toledo

[labingi]

I wanted to share the interview I did for Sufficiency and Wellbeing with Charlie Toledo, the amazing director of the Suscol Intertribal Council in Napa, California. I feel deeply honored that she took this time to share her thoughts about effective activism and finding hope and joy in our troubled times.

Comments

[isis]

Aw, that was lovely!

[labingi]

Thanks! I'm so glad I got the chance to share Charlie's words.

[watervole]

Very interesting interview, but one bit puzzled me.
"That’s one of the things I was talking about with the RCD [Resource Conservation District] because the city hasn’t been taking care of the places where we used to harvest tule, so it’s all overgrown with blackberry. "

Why didn't she form a group to clear the tule places themselves?

[labingi]

That's an interesting question that I can't answer on her behalf. But my guess is lack of time and "bang for buck." I do know this is a lady who has been incredibly busy for, like, that past 40 years, from local activism to representing non-profit work around the world. It would be more effective overall to have the RCD change its practices than to have a group of volunteers keep clearing the area, so that might be why she's focused on working with the RCD.

[skinintheway]

You know, it’s always fascinating to hear from the older generation, from people who’ve been active for longer than I’ve been alive. It’s like they must have found some holy grail to keep going, like there’s some esoteric knowledge to be imparted from their perseverance itself. She is spot on about the difference between doing what you feel you must and what you truly want. This is chronically underestimated, and we’ve paid the price again and again.
Lately I’ve been cautiously finding my way back to active work, feeling out the possibility of a restart. Interestingly, my mind keeps circling back to the question of finding joy. It’s part of my ongoing discourse on how to balance impact with sustainability - how not to burn out, yet also not surrender. How to do it all over again, but this time with the benefit of experience. I feel like there must be a way, however narrow, if only I could see it. These days I walk miles around the city streets, like I could somehow catch it just around the corner. XD
Her thoughts on the Age of Aquarius sound perhaps quaint on the surface, but they feel relevant to how things have shifted since we started the first movement in 2018. We can definitely no longer go about it as ruthlessly as we did then, treating ourselves and each other as expendable. I feel we either find a gentler way to do it, or it won’t be at all.
Anyway, sorry if I’m not making much sense XD. And thank you for doing the interview!

[labingi]

You make a lot of sense!

These days I walk miles around the city streets, like I could somehow catch it just around the corner.

That's beautiful, like a line of out of a poem.

I also struggle with how to connect joy to what feels like good work in the world. One of my problems is the chief thing I get real vocational joy from is writing science fiction, which doesn't feel like enough in this moment--potentially helpful but not enough. (It also doesn't pay, so there's the question of making a living.)

One part I cut out of the interview for length was where Charlie mentioned that terms like the "Piscean Age" and the "Aquarian Age" come out of Greek astrology and that she was using them as recognizable vocab to discuss this concept of the 5000 year cycles of the sun that is essentially Mayan. It does connote Hippie, but she's actually speaking out of a different tradition.

BTW, I owe you an email! I haven't forgotten. It may not arrive till my great holiday catch-up, but if you'd like a reply sooner, just ping me. :-)