A Time For Healing

A Time for Healing encompasses the two pronged efforts of the Peach Tree Project and Sheep is Life. For the Peach Tree Project, I will be going to Canyon de Chelly this summer to document the replanting of sacred peach trees in Arizona in Navajo Nation. The volunteer effort comes 154 years after the trauma of the Long Walk of the Navajo, when, in 1864, the United States government forcibly deported the Navajo people from their land, destroying their homes, their churro sheep and crops in the process. An estimated 4,000 peach trees, an integral element of tribal pride and tradition, were torched and over 240,000 sheep died.

In the fall I will be returning to a sheep camp in New Mexico when the churros come down from the mountains for the winter. Coverage will take you inside the life of a Navajo sheep herder and traditional weavers who work with the coveted churro wool. Sheep in every essence is an important part of their culture and traditions.

This project will be the start of the restoration to these lands once so devastated. In an era where Natives and immigrants are so marginalized, I feel this is an important story to be told.