A reflection from our cofounder Mą̄xipį̄

I’ve always felt connected to water… and I know I’m not the only one.

From childhood memories at the river, to healing in moments of grief, to standing with our relatives at Standing Rock… water has always been there. She gives life. She listens. She holds us.

But today, our waters are under threat. Pollution, pipelines, and industry continue to harm our rivers, our relatives, and our people.

Protecting water isn’t just a movement… it’s a responsibility.

We do it through action, through teaching our children, through the choices we make, and through prayer.

Water is not a resource. She is a relative.

On this World Water Day, take time to learn, reflect, and stand for our waters.

Learn more here: https://www.unwater.org/our-work/world-water-day

Water is sacred. Water is life.

This Women’s History Month, we honor the strength, leadership, and resilience of Ho-Chunk women, past and present.

Lillian St. Cyr walked in spaces not built for her and still made history. From the Winnebago Reservation to early Hollywood, she carried herself with strength, talent, and pride in who she was.

She didn’t just act, she created, advocated, and uplifted our people every step of the way.

Her legacy reminds us that Ho-Chunk women have always been at the forefront, leading, creating change, and taking up space exactly as we are, without apology.

May we follow that path, unafraid to rise, to be seen, and to remember that we were never meant to stay small.

Tune in every Friday this March for a new episode honoring Ho-Chunk women who shaped our past and continue to inspire our future.

This Women’s History Month, we honor the strength, leadership, and resilience of Ho-Chunk women, past and present.

Our first episode highlights Mountain Wolf Woman (Xéhachiwinga), also known as Stella Blowsnake Whitepine Stacy, whose life story gives us one of the earliest firsthand accounts of Ho-Chunk womanhood, family life, and cultural resilience during a time of immense change.

Her voice preserved generations of knowledge and history.

Tune in every Friday this March for a new episode honoring Ho-Chunk women who shaped our past and continue to inspire our future.

For the Ho-Chunk, the new year doesn’t begin on January 1st.

It begins when the Wakąja, the Thunderbirds return.

Like many Indigenous nations, we traditionally follow the moons and the natural cycles of the earth, not the Gregorian calendar. The return of the Wakąja marks the renewal of life. When the earth awakens, storms return, and a new cycle begins.

Winter is a sacred time for rest, reflection, and renewal, preparing us for the new year ahead.

As the Thunderbirds returns, so does life.

Mą̄ Cēk Gipįesge / Happy New Year.

- Hisgexjį Horak

A reflection from our co-founder, Mą̄xipį̄.

As Ho-Chunk women, we come from matriarchs. Our clans, our names, our belonging, they once came through our mothers. We descend from women who survived removals, boarding schools, and policies meant to erase them. And still… they endured.

The Moon, Hāhewira, our “Night Luminary”, reminds us of that endurance. She waxes and wanes, but she is never gone. She shifts, but she always returns.

Right now, many of us are feeling the weight of political decisions being made about our bodies, our autonomy, and our futures. Indigenous women especially understand what it means to have systems attempt to control us while claiming it’s for our own good.

At the same time, within our own communities, we face lateral oppression, criticism, projection, and sometimes misuse of power often from the very men who benefit from the matriarchal systems our grandmothers upheld.

And still… we show up.

We show up for our children.

For our elders.

For our communities.

For our people.

Because our resilience, our big, soft hearts are what makes us Ho-Chunk.

Hāhewira reminds us that power does not have to be loud to be constant. That cycles are natural. That rest is sacred. That even through hardship, return is inevitable.

We are daughters of matriarchs. Of nation builders. Of women who held everything together when the world tried to tear it apart.

As a small team of two, we have been busy behind the scenes, building, creating, protecting our energy, but more content, more storytelling, more events are coming soon!

Stay tuned.

We believe our stories deserve to be centered, spoken by us, created by us, carried by us.

Walking into the Des Moines Art Center to experience Aagakinąk Haciwi: We Live Opposite Each Other by Henry Payer felt like more than visiting a museum. It felt like witnessing Ho-Chunk presence affirmed on our traditional land.

This is what it looks like when our voices are not included, but centered.

On view through June 17, 2026. Admission is free!

Also, be sure to follow Henry Payer on Instagram!: hochunkhenry