Refurbished center at SSU’s Osborn Preserve start of partnership with Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria

SONOMA MOUNTAIN — The newly refurbished educational hub at Sonoma State University’s Fairfield Osborn Preserve is worth showing off.

Everything feels refreshed and new: the large, updated classroom; refloored and refinished areas for long-term exhibits; newly flagstoned courtyard; and the stone and concrete outdoor “listening circle,” surrounded by arching moss- and lichen-covered oaks.

New also is its name: the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Learning Center, a nod to the $2.8 million the tribe provided to pay for renovation and expansion of the building and grounds, now a sort of foothold on the mountain that has been held sacred by Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo for millenniums.

But what’s most gratifying to Claudia Luke, director of SSU’s Center for Environmental Inquiry, is the partnership formed to advance the facility’s face-lift and its joint mission of inclusivity, cross-cultural communication and connection with the landscape going forward.

Rooted in discussions with longtime Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris about “how we could connect the tribe to their ancestral lands,” the remodel provides increased capacity and opportunity to collaborate on climate, ecological and other issues, “where the environment has a seat at the table,” Luke said in an interview.

“The learning center creates spaces — spaces for new kinds of critical conversations,” Luke said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday attended by about 60 people. “At a time when our world faces unprecedented challenges, open and inclusive communication is more crucial than ever.

“We know there are no easy answers. But we do know that we need all voices engaged. Innovation and new ideas arise when people from different backgrounds share their diverse perspectives,” Luke said.

The 450-acre Fairfield Osborn Preserve is located up Lichau Road, on Sonoma Mountain’s northwest flank. It is home to diverse plant habitats and abundant wildlife. Some 3,500 people visit the preserve each year, including about 1,100 school-age children. The preserve is open to university students and visiting researchers, and offers programs and events to the public.

But increasingly, Luke hopes it serves to assemble folks of all sorts to tackle the planet’s problems through the lens of science, the environment and the wisdom of “the original stewards of Sonoma Mountain.”

For Coast Miwok, Sonoma Mountain is the cradle of life, the place where the creator, Coyote, decided to make people, said Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians for more than three decades and a professor of English, writing and Native American studies, most recently at Sonoma State.

In a wide-ranging speech before public officials, university staff and others in a group of about 60 attendees Tuesday, he touched on the interconnectedness of all life and the severe tests that lie ahead.

He spoke of dining with a large number of tech leaders and artificial intelligence experts at a dinner during the recent Asia Pacific Economic Conference in San Francisco, for which the Graton Rancheria was the top sponsor, and hearing about the extreme capabilities on the horizon for technology.

After leaving he contemplated the vast amounts of data that would be held by a few people, contrasted with the words of American beat poet Gary Snyder, who mused about how the information contained in a square inch of redwood forest surpassed “all the libraries of the world.”

He cited also the remarks at that same dinner of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who referenced the unprecedented era in which humankind finds itself.

Trudeau, Sarris said, noted that historically humans “have either done things to one another or done things to nature. For the first time ever, we are going to find ourselves in a world where things are done to us.”

Sarris said those experiences confirmed for him “what is so important and what is always true, and that is nature.”

“We are not in control,” he said. “We’re part of a whole.”

Sarris also recalled the remarks of Essie Parrish, a well-known Kashia Pomo spiritual leader, prophet and healer who lived from 1902 to 1979.

Parrish, Sarris said, used to say, “A day will come when the white people will be coming back to us and want to know, How do we live? What do we do? What went wrong?”

“And she said you young people are leaving all the teachings on the ground like clothes … Pick them up because they’ll be needed. The day will come.”

“The day is here, folks.”

“And working together creates not hope, but action as hope,“ Sarris said. ”And that’s what we have. That’s all we have. Action as hope.“

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @MaryCallahanB.