Teresa Peterson: Loving the Land that Cares for Us All

Transcript

Teresa Peterson: We can learn together what it is to be in relationship with Mother Earth and all that she provides. Physically, you know, there's so much there. Mentally and emotionally and spiritually, and it's a place of refuge. I get so excited in the spring because it's like, Okay, finally, you know, we can dig in and start planting.

Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, hello. Welcome to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. I'm your host Leah Lemm.

Cole Premo: And I'm your other host Cole Premo. Miigwech for joining us today on Native Lights, which is more than a podcast and radio show. At its core, it's a place for Native folks to tell their stories. Each and every week, we have captivating conversations with great guests from a whole lot of different backgrounds. We're talking musicians, artists, gardeners, healthcare advocates, language warriors, you name it. They have a wonderful mixture of passions. We talk to them about their passions and their gifts and how they share those gifts with their community, and it centers around the big point of purpose in our lives, amplifying Native voices, of course. Leah, how you doing? What's going on?

Leah Lemm: I'm doing well. Thank you. Thank you so much. Enjoying the warm weather, enjoying some sun, getting ready for a little vacation. You know, sitting good. How about you?

Cole Premo: Doing very well. Very well. We had a big family event over the weekend. So it's good to see you and bunch of the fam for the baby shower. In general.

Leah Lemm: Both of your baby shower.

Cole Premo: Celebrating her, celebrating the upcoming babym celebrating all of it. So it's good times. Marvin was doing card tricks. That was awesome.

Leah Lemm: Yes, and I gotta say, when I drove back to Grand Rapids, almost all the three hours, nearly all three hours, he was practicing more card tricks, watching YouTube videos on card tricks. So that's my future. It's pretty fun.

Cole Premo: It's good stuff. He was dazzling us, for sure. Marvin the Magnificent we called him. So that was fun.

Leah Lemm: Yep, yeah, he set up a little booth at the baby shower for people to come and be amazed by his card tricks.

Cole Premo: Yeah, so you also were getting back to your garden, right?

Leah Lemm: Yes, let's talk about a little garden. A little foreshadowing here. I have a bunch of flowers, and we have some raised planters with peppers and ground cherries and tomatoes and then strawberries and lettuce and kale. And, you know, every year I'm like, you know, I'm gonna plant just a little less, because I have so much to do, and I'm going on vacation. I can't possibly take the time to take care of this stuff. And, well, wouldn't you know? It just seems to sprout up.

Cole Premo: That's awesome.

Leah Lemm: How about you? I know you plant a little bit.

Cole Premo: You know, I've been working mostly on the lawn, like, kind of repairing areas of it. But we do have, you know, some gardening-related things around the place. We do have some raspberries that show up. They'll be showing up here. And over the month or so they do that. We're still kind of settling into our place, so we hope to, you know, improve that situation. So I'm looking forward to hearing more about that in today's episode, Leah.

Leah Lemm: Woohoo. Yes, today we are talking with author Teresa Peterson, just a great person. I've had the honor of speaking with her before. She's a gardening enthusiast. A really wonderful conversation.

Cole Premo: Yeah, Teresa is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and a member of the Upper Sioux community. She's an author of several books, most recently an award winner called Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden, which was published in June 2024. She says her passion is, of course, digging in her garden that overlooks the Mni Sota River Valley and feeding her friends and family. So we'll definitely talk to her about that book and other projects she's worked on. And here she is. Boozhoo, Teresa.

Teresa Peterson: Hello. Leah.

Leah Lemm: Hi. How's it going?

Teresa Peterson: Good. Good. I haven't met Cole before, so.

Leah Lemm: Oh, yeah? Well, this is my brother Cole Premo.

Cole Premo: I'm the younger bro. All right. So boozhoo, Teresa, can you start by introducing yourself, letting us know where you're joining us from?

Teresa Peterson: Sure. So Terry Peterson, or I guess a lot of people know me by Terry Peterson, but I'm Dakota, and I come from the place where they dig the Yellow Medicine. We are located on the bluff of the Mni Sota River Valley, north of Bellevue, south of Sacred Heart. Locals know where I'm at. Yeah. When I tell people, I say I'm between Upper and Lower. Or in between Granite Falls and Redwood Falls. And people kind of get an idea.

Cole Premo: Alright, there we go. How are you doing? How's the family doing?

Teresa Peterson: We're doing really good. You know, all three of my boys are all grown up and living somewhat close to me. I got one that's seven miles, and the other two are a little ways away, not too far, and I'm just anxiously wishing and praying for grandchildren. So otherwise, it's just Jay and I on our, let's see, six point whatever acres, little less than seven acres. But I see them almost every day, one of them at least. Yeah, great.

Cole Premo: Are you subtle with your hints about wanting…?

Teresa Peterson: Oh, no, not subtle at all. In fact, I have to check myself and make sure I'm not getting annoying.

Leah Lemm: That's so fun. Excellent. Well, Terry, what's for dinner tonight?

Teresa Peterson: Well, I get really excited thinking about what we're going to, you know, pull from our pantry or freezer or from the garden. It's fun this time of year too, because, you know, you can gather a lot of fresh stuff. But today, it's steak on the grill, and I made my own little marinade that included our own maple syrup for the sweetener and oil and little maple vinegar. Let's see. I made salads all from the garden. And yeah, I'm like busting at the seams with different various greens and giving them away, and wild rice from Mahnomen, from a friend up there. So that's going to be delicious. I'm going to try it in the rice cooker tonight, so I'll see how that is. I don't know, have you? Have you tried that before?

Leah Lemm: I have. And it's nice with wild rice that you can kind of strain it a little bit, even if it's still a little wet. When it's done, you can just, you know, get rid of the water. And, yeah, it's worked. I've had to cook it a little longer, but I've definitely used the rice cooker for that. You betcha.

Teresa Peterson: Okay. Oh, and then asparagus. We're, you know, getting down to the last of the asparagus, because it, you know, starts to shoot up and that kind of thing. But almost every morning I have fresh berries. Right now, we're in season, strawberries and raspberries, and, of course, we have plenty in the freezer as well, but I love that. I mean, again, I tell people as my disclaimer, you know, we still eat potato chips and that kind of thing, but every day we eat food that we grew.

Leah Lemm: Well, can you tell me a bit about the land that you work on, that you work with?

Teresa Peterson: Yeah, so, like I said, it's on the bluff of the Mni Sota River Valley. So thankfully, you know, all the water flows down, so we're not getting flooded right now, as there's been a lot of rain. Prairie and a little bit of woodland. And we've been working on, you know, prairie restoration. Of course, we have our big garden plot as well, and Jay has been trying to get me to downsize since we don't have three hungry boys at home eating with us every day. So I'm trying to do that and do it, you know, with thought. Today, I bought a few extra perennials to put in the garden, since that's supposed to be really helpful. But, yeah, we're always trying to work the land and bring it back. I don't think we'll completely get rid of buckthorn or that, at least, that's what I've been told, that we have to live with some of that. But, you know, we're doing our best to care for the land. So we do prescribed burns. We have had goats out before. I think I made some headway today talking Jay into like, maybe we can get just like, two little goats, you know, two little baby goats, and we can just tether them around and move them around, and, you know, because they help with buckthorn eradication and that kind of thing, keeping things cleaned up. Reseeding that kind of thing. Jay wouldn't let me get a chainsaw. You know, I'm older, so he's like I don't know about a chainsaw, there's a lot of kickback. But I convinced him to get a little electric one with a guard. And so I've been taking out buckthorn and some invasive honeysuckle and some small cedars and things that, you know, of course, if we all would have kept up on burns, the good burns right across everywhere. You know, we wouldn't have this problem now. So that's our land. We love it. We love the land. It cares for us in so many ways.

Leah Lemm: Beautiful.

Cole Premo: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we're speaking with Teresa Peterson, Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, and member of the Upper Sioux community. Teresa is the author of the award-winning book Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden. So we like to ask, what are you geeking out about right now? Is there something right now that you're focused on besides that great sounding food I'm hearing?

Teresa Peterson: You know, we joined a group called Climate Land Leaders. Their work is really centered on land restoration, planting perennials to help with all kinds of stuff, you know, erosion and carbon sequestration and you know all of that. So, I'm learning a lot. I'm learning a lot from this wide group of folks that are committed and experimenting and doing the best that they can. They bring in expertise now and then, and that's why we're thinking about goats. That's why we're working a chainsaw. And I got all this stuff piled up, I was like, well, maybe we should get a wood chipper next so that we can, you know, chip all this stuff up and use it for mulching around our garden and different areas. So I'm doing that as well. It's a big project. It's several year project. Of course, I do a little side work and things like that, and little writing and little book gigs and whatever. I keep plenty busy, even though I'm supposed to be semi-retired, but yeah. That's the kind of stuff I'm doing.

Cole Premo: Well, let's dig into the most recent book of yours. Could you talk about Perennial Ceremony?

Teresa Peterson: The book was really pretty easy to write because it just is about how we live and how we're trying to do our part and reciprocate for the land on all that it does for us. And it's a collection of, of course, story, and I like to write in kind of short story, little digestible pieces and things I'm curious about, things I'm thinking about or observing. There's a few poems in there. That was a new thing for me. And then there's lots of recipes, because I love to cook. And, you know, take what's happening in the garden and make some dish out of it. You know, I really just invite readers to join me on a seasonal journey in the garden, across our lands and the waters and the valleys. You know, sometimes I'm on a fishing trip or whatever, but, you know, you get the essence the garden and lands. We can learn together what it is to be in relationship with Mother Earth and all that she provides. Physically, you know, there's so much there, mentally and emotionally and spiritually, and it's a place of refuge. I get so excited in the spring, because it's like, Okay, finally, you know, we can dig in and start planting. I'm super excited. Our garden, like, looks the best it ever has. And I just really started thinking about that gardening, you know, it does all of those things. And then, and I started thinking about all the ways that this way of life can support our spiritual sense of self. And I started thinking about, well, what is ceremony? And so it has all these sections. You know, ceremonies happen seasonally. Often, there's passing down of traditions. You know, of course, during ceremony, people gather and, you know, feed each other, there's lessons, there's hard work. It's an opportunity for anybody and everybody to participate in some ways. I think it's apolitical when we think about like the water, like we all have to depend on clean water to live. So it's what is ceremony? And to live in that way of life that nourishes us, and then, in turn, we nourish and support the land.

Leah Lemm: This just sounds so beautiful, but personally, I noticed throughout the year that in the winter, like, you could not pay me to eat a salad. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want anything leafy. But then in the summer, I'm insatiable, like, I want all the greens. I don't know how to exactly put my finger on what that is. I don't know if it's just, like ancestral or something, but yeah, there's just maybe some sort of bodily wisdom or memory or something that promotes that feeling. Does that sound familiar at all?

Teresa Peterson: It does. It does. And of course, I have to say again, where does potato chips fall in that seasonal, you know, thinking? Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel like we really try to eat in a seasonal way. I think it's like, fresh is best. I mean, there's nothing like going out to the garden eating fresh peas right out of the garden. You know, in the winter, we're, you know, we have our beans stored up, and I'll make a bean soup. So I do think some of it is ancestral, and it's the way I think, you know, it's more sustainable. Again, not to say that I don't purchase things out of season or things that I know get shipped, probably from far away, but I try to decrease that by tapping into all that's available right now. And you know, the berries are popping. I gotta pick some, pick raspberries yet tonight. I think our bodies know, you know. I think we try to do it consciously, but then I do think that there's what are we craving, and I think our bodies are in tune to the seasons and the land, the land that you're on.

Leah Lemm: Thanks. Well, speaking of salads, and you mentioned berries. Do you have a favorite salad recipe? Because I have tons of greens that are growing, kale and other things I can't name that I kind of plant indiscriminately. But yeah, do you have, like, a favorite salad recipe?

Teresa Peterson: We just gather whatever is available, like, you know, run out and grab a red onion out of the garden. They're kind of smaller right now, but, you know, those green tops are really good. Some chives. Our greens are, it's not like iceberg lettuce, it's all these various colored greens. They're maroon and speckled. And throw some spinach in there and grate up some carrot or whatever. Yeah. So that's probably my least creative endeavor, is salads. But you know, we're getting our, we're getting our roughage in for sure.

Leah Lemm: Well, maybe you know what's freshest might be bestest. Um…

Teresa Peterson: Yeah, yeah.

Leah Lemm: But you mentioned asparagus, and my kid, Marvin, is completely disinterested, uninterested. For asparagus, do you have a recommended way to serve, maybe a marinade or a grilled?

Teresa Peterson: I do.

Leah Lemm: What do you think about that?

Teresa Peterson: Yeah. I mean, we're throwing some on the grill tonight with some garlic, pepper and olive oil, which is pretty basic. But the other day, I made a dish. I was like, What am I do with all this asparagus? Like I had hit up all my family and friends, and they were like, nah, nah, we're okay. But I was like, Okay. I mean, I'm not going to waste stuff, so this is cool. Okay. So just think of this. I got eggs from my son, who has chickens. Take out the eggs. We had some deer venison trimmings from my brother. And I took it to the locker, and they made venison links and, you know, sausage and stuff like that. So I took some breakfast links, fried that up, chopped it up, chopped up my asparagus, threw that in there with a little few dollops of cream cheese, some whole bunch of chives, mix that all up and top it with a little bit of spicy pepper cheese, and threw that in the oven, and it was so good.

Leah Lemm: Okay, that sounds good. Thank you.

Teresa Peterson: Yeah, yeah. And I like to cook. You know, it's not like even when we had to this book with editing, they had to tell me, you need to have specifics, because I kind of cook like, Oh, I just told you a little bit of this, little bit of that, what's in season. Throw this in.

Leah Lemm: A little jazz?

Teresa Peterson: Yeah, I don't like measure out things.

Leah Lemm: So improv.

Teresa Peterson: Yeah, that's kind of the way I cook. And so I did the best I could. I have disclaimers on all these recipes that say, you know, you could swap it out for this, and this is about that and but that's, that's the way we cook.

Leah Lemm: Thank you.

Cole Premo: Yeah. So you published it, what, like last June? How's the reception then?

Teresa Peterson: Really good. There's people that it really resonates with, I think, people that are land lovers, not just gardeners, but for sure, people that care for the land, there's, like, you know, this new, I don't know how new it is, but nature bathing, or whatever they want to call it. What is it?

Leah Lemm: Forest bathing?

Teresa Peterson: Forest bathing, yeah, yep. Or people that walk in nature with their bare feet, or whatever, you know, all of that, I feel like it's for a broader audience. We're all eating, we all, we all depend on the earth. So there's, you know, like that. You know, you write for your own kind of thing. But I would just really, I guess, humbled and surprised, got some awards, and so that's really cool. I got the finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, which was really a fun event. We had to dress up and all that. So that was that was cool. It got the Sigurd Olson Literary Award, which was fantastic. And I'm reading his books, and I love the way that he wrote, and has that same sense of understanding that we're dependent upon the land and anything that happens it, I mean, it all matters. We have to really recognize that. So I love his writing.

Cole Premo: PEN open book? P-E-N?

Teresa Peterson: Oh, yeah, that was long listed, which was pretty cool, because that's the PEN. That's national. But there's one more that was just recent. It has, like, looks like a scallop anyway. It fell into the religious category and won a Silver Award. So that's cool, gets people reading.

Cole Premo: Awesome. So, have you always been an author? Like, how did you get into the author business?

Teresa Peterson: You know, I tell people, like, honestly, I wasn't even a reader. Later, up until, like, oh, gosh, okay, I would say for sure, like, in my early 40s or something, or later, is when I really started getting into reading. I just was not a reading fan, and I, I kind of attribute to, like, I think in school, we just didn't get things that appealed to us or that we could connect or resonate with, you know? Dick and Jane and stuff. I just didn't have a connection with those guys. You guys remember that? Maybe you're too young for Dick and Jane.

Cole Premo: More Goosebumps on my end.

Teresa Peterson: Goosebumps. Okay,yeah. I really feel like, yeah. I just never thought about writing. But I was in my doc program, and I had started doing all this research around family history, and, you know, all of that, and our community history and then, of course, being exposed to my uncle. My uncle Super. A lot of people know him, and he's our gifted storyteller of our family, and really learned a lot that was just such a healing journey, kind of really understanding that story can heal. Story can provide that sense of belongingness. And so I experimented with storytelling. And I, you know, interviewed my mom and others and about story, the, you know, traditional practice of storytelling, and that ended up being that Grasshopper Girl book. I think you guys probably know them, Tom and Betsy Peacock. They're Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing. And that was how I got into it. When I was doing that history, I had a project that ended up being about 20 years and it finally got published, I think, what was in 2018 or something with my uncle Super, Voices from Pejuhutazizi: Dakota Stories and Storytellers. And so that was a long project. You know, I got to be in a writing group, Native women writers group, with Diane Wilson as our facilitator, who's, you know, so talented and generous with sharing all her knowledge and skills and network and all of that. And that group really helped push Voices over into getting it done. And then I was still in the group when it was getting worked on, so I started working on the Perennial Ceremony in that group. And writers groups are just like, kind of the best way. They're intimidating in some ways. You know, I had never been in one. And having people like just really critique your work and you're trying to be all vulnerable or I was very beneficial and really helped move these projects forward.

Leah Lemm: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we're speaking with Terry Peterson, Sisseton, Wahpeton Dakota, and member of the Upper Sioux community. Teresa is the author of the award-winning book, Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden.

Cole Premo: You mentioned Grasshopper girl. It's a children's book, correct?

Teresa Peterson: Yeah, it's a children's book. Like I said. I interviewed like my mom, and was asking her, well, when did you hear story? And she said, Well, I mainly heard it when I was sick in bed. Her dad, my grandpa, would tell us trickster stories. I talked to an aunt, and she said, Oh, I heard those stories when we would go over and visit relatives, for that long ride. So, you know, you could kind of tell, like that generation heard story often. And I don't, you know, I'm sure it might have been different for lots of other people, but in this particular case, or whatever they, you know, primarily heard story to be kind of pacified for time, or if they were, you know, sick or in pain or something. And then I found an interview, a 1968 interview of my grandpa, and he was asked about story. He told, told the iktomi story in there, the one that I have in Grasshopper Girl. And, oh, it was so fun to hear his voice. They asked him about when he heard story, and he said, and, you know, he was born in 1900 so you have to kind of put that in context. So he's heard story all the time, every night. That was their form of entertainment. So you can kind of, you know, if you look at the history of storytelling, Indigenous storytelling. And you can see this kind of decline. You know, for me, I didn't hear story, and I really feel like that journey, really discovering, for me that storytelling really helped provide a sense of belonging and identity and all of that, because through all those, I learned about the people I come from. And so I ended up having this kind of phrase that said, "When you know who you are, no matter where you go, you belong," that kind of became my little mantra. Stories were really my first kind of avenue into healing. And yeah, finding myself so. Grasshopper girl is a tribute to not just iktomi stories or stories, but it's also a tribute in recognition of the importance of storytelling. So it's kind of a story within a story, and I utilize my mom's story. I mean, even though it's historical fiction, I guess you would say it's kind of about my mom and her experience of hearing stories. So Grasshopper Girl is actually her Dakota name and she ends up in bed and has achy legs, and her dad comes home from a storm, and then he's, he's asked, you know, asking her what's wrong. And then she wants to hear stories. She wants to find out what's happening with iktomi. And so he tells her that story. And that story is the one I heard, well, from, from my mom and my uncle, but also in that interview of my grandpa, I heard that story. So that's, that's that book, and I sprinkle, of course, Dakota language in.

Leah Lemm: What sort of Dakota words do we get to learn?

Teresa Peterson: Kinship terms we learn the names of the trees. Yeah. And then just some common kind of things.

Cole Premo: As we close out our conversation, we like to ask, do you have any final thoughts? Anything that you want to mention before we say goodbye?

Teresa Peterson: Some people always ask about, what's your takeaway on Perennial Ceremony? What do you want people to take away? And I feel like it's really timely more than ever. So my piece is always, even if you don't plant a garden, or you go fishing or hunting, or all the things that you know I talk about in the book, go outside, unplug and listen and observe, and you're going to learn so much just from all that Mother Earth has to teach and share. And we can learn so much just from watching bees or watching ant colonies or observing the seasons. And what's resilient, what remains. You know, all of that, there's so much to learn. Look at all the things that is happening with our land, and I sometimes get really full of despair, because I feel like we're wrecking Mother Earth in so many ways. But I think that's where, you know, again, the garden is such a refuge for me, and I'll continue to do that. But yeah, that's my big thing. I encourage people is just to unplug, shut off the news and connect with her. She has so much to offer us.

Leah Lemm: Terry Peterson.

Cole Premo: If you know yourself, you're never a stranger in the places you travel. I think that's kind of what she said.

Leah Lemm: That's amazing.

Cole Premo: I think that's pretty much paraphrasing.

Leah Lemm: Oh yeah.

Cole Premo: And unplugging, of course, and just listening to Mother Nature. I gotta do more of that.

Leah Lemm: Especially in the jobs we're in, little extra difficult, but that's okay. Just gotta be a little more mindful of it. No problem.

Cole Premo: All right, so miigwech to our guest, Terry Peterson. She is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, a member of the Upper Sioux Community, and she is an award-winning author. I'm Cole Premo.

Leah Lemm: And I'm Leah Lemm. Miigwetch for listening. Giga-waabamin.

Cole Premo: Giga-waabamin.

Leah Lemm: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS With support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.