May 16, 2005 St. Paul, MN
Up in the LAX Radisson at 3AM Hawaii time. I pray, wash and stumble around to dress and repack what little I’ve taken out in the six hours I’ve been in the room. I used to say each moment is ripe with possibility, but this morning I understand some moments are overripe and drop to the ground, other moments are dry and already crumbling to dirt or ash. Some are stillborn. This morning it’s a full suitcase, a small bag for overruns, my carryon and sax bag. It’s relatively easy to checkout, catch the shuttle and run the airport security gauntlet to my gate. I felt sorry for the terminal 1 passengers. Their check-in line ran all the way to terminal 2. Must have been a security breach as the news channels were getting the story.
Time does collapse and expand. One moment I’m standing on the lanai in Honolulu , the next I’m deplaning in LAX, and soon I’m checking into the St. Paul Hotel in Minnesota. Isn’t that how we experience and know time? It becomes memory.
Along the way met Wayne Bergeron, trumpet player, an LA studio musician on his way to Grand Rapids, MI. He’s played with everyone from Paul Anka to Queen Latifa. Check out his new album, You Call This a Living? , from Wag Records, available at his website: www.waynebergeron.com. . Great horn. Sassy and elegant. Soars. Wonderful human being, too at the center of it. That isn’t always so. Great art often comes through lousy human beings. Go figure. Proves it’s beyond us.
May 17, 2005 St. Paul, MN
It’s always a question about where to start and end on these missives from the road. No sun this morning. It’s there, behind mist and clouds. The Mississippi River appears touchable from the window. It is. Where eyes alight an energy exchange occurs. It’s a reciprocal act. The Café in the hotel is new:, flat and unimaginative decor, tables and booths set down in a seminar room. The food is decent and the company even better. Sandra and I visit for the first time in a few years. She’s still as beautiful, her eyes compassionate and sharp. We’re both dragging from the travel, and we’re both dressed in black this morning. Funny how the challenge of the Iowa writing workshop urged us to our own visions of what it means to be artists. We’ve gone on to forge our visions from our community experience. And what we carry with us to the table this morning is the struggle for home, within our souls, within the writing/artistic community of America. We talk of family, community regeneration and phobias. Here we are, thirty years later, almost thirty years exactly since that sojourn in Iowa City. Today we will discuss all this with Garrison Keillor from 8-9:30 PM in the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. I’m sure tickets are still available if you’re anywhere near this city that always reminds me of Meridel LeSueur. Otherwise, check your NPR radio station(s).
Below is a Suzan Harjo story forwarded to me by Indian Country Today. I’d heard out the re-appearance of the chvkvulv from my cousin George Coser. We are all taking note. There is a larger cultural movement in the works. It has been building in the heart of the people all this time. And the vision consists of the visions of birds, other creatures, the plants, planets and souls of the elements.
Harjo: Never give up on anyone
© Indian Country Today May 12, 2005. All Rights Reserved
Posted: May 12, 2005
by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today
The honorable ivory-billed woodpecker has returned from the dead and is living in a wildlife refuge in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. It seemed to disappear in 1944 and was long presumed extinct.
This spirit bird's reappearance 60 years later reinforces a wise instruction by Native elders: ''Never give up on anyone.''
From time immemorial, the handsome, broad-shouldered bird thrived in the bottomland forests and bayous of what is now the southeastern United States. After 50 years of developers clear-cutting old-growth trees in its habitat from North Carolina to Texas, the ivory-billed woodpecker was left with few places to live.
In recent decades, the federal government and private parties have declared certain ecosystems as Important Bird Areas. The ivory-billed woodpecker re-emerged in one of these areas, which should encourage the Bush administration - whose strong suit is not environmental protection - to establish more such safe places for the homeless.
John James Audubon painted this bird in the early 1800s, comparing its stylish chiaroscuro markings to a ''great Vandyke'' painting. Audubon described it as 21 inches long, with a 30-inch wingspan and three-inch bill, and a ''dark glossy body and tail ... large and well-defined white markings of its wings, neck, and bill, relieved by the rich carmine of the pendent crest of the male, and the brilliant yellow of its eye.''
Muscogee artists have been depicting this bird for thousands of years. A flurry of e-mail and voice messages spread the word among Muscogee people that the ivory-billed woodpecker lives.
My friend Rob Trepp, a Muscogee researcher, sent three images of the bird that Muscogee artists etched on shell and in clay over 2,000 years ago. He says the bird ''is found in many iconographic settings, sometimes pictured alone, wings spread; other times pictured in fours, heads only, at the four cardinal points around an inner image.''
I had lots of questions about this important bird. Rob checked with Muscogee cultural experts George Cosar, John Fixico and Ed LaGrone; and I asked my dad, Freeland Douglas, who's always my first call on Muscogee language and cultural matters.
Here are their consensus answers about the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Woodpeckers - toski in the Muscogee language - are medicine birds, respected for their persistence and power to ''pull things out.'' Singers of toski songs ''take on the power'' and gain the ''ability to pull things out of their patients.''
The largest and strongest of the toski is cvkvlv, the ivory-billed woodpecker. Traditional Muscogee medicine practitioners still use ''songs about cvkvlv.'' Its own song was recorded only once, in 1935. Prior to the release in April of video footage from one year ago, the last documented sighting of cvkvlv was in 1987 in Cuba.
Cvkvlv is pronounced CHUH kuh luh - ''kind of like chocolate, if you need a mnemonic,'' wrote Trepp. The word is a ''progressive contraction'' that references the ''fine feathers at the back and the color of the bill.'' Cvkvlv is preserved in a Muscogee/Cherokee family name, Chuckluck or Chuculate.
Cvkvlv is called a rather rude name by scientists: Campephilus principalis, which is Latin for grub-eater. Audubon observed that its main food consists of beetles, larvae and large grubs, but it eats ripe forest grapes ''with great avidity,'' along with persimmons and hagberries.
He also noted that the ''ivory-bill is never seen attacking the corn.'' I think this respect for sofkee (corn) must have further endeared cvkvlv to Muscogee people.
I never met cvkvlv, but I feel as if an ancient, beloved friend has come home after a long absence.
I had a similar feeling 10 years ago, about a butterfly. I had checked into a conference hotel and turned on CNN to see what news I'd missed during the flight from D.C. to Albuquerque.
The news anchor was saying that scientists in northern California were elated at the re-emergence of the formerly extinct teal blue-tailed butterfly that disappeared from the Plains in the late 1800s.
This caught my attention for several reasons, not the least of which was the phrase ''formerly extinct.'' Now that is news.
But the big news to me was that the teal blue butterfly was real. During my first Sun Dance in South Dakota, the ceremonial leader told me to listen carefully to the messages of the blue butterfly. I looked for blue butterflies for years and finally decided they were magic beings, and maybe I'd see them and maybe not.
Hearing that they vanished for a century made me imagine that the blue butterflies saw what was happening to the Indians and the buffalo on the Plains and said, ''We're outta here.''
The news that they traveled to the West Coast and were presenting themselves to elated scientists made me laugh and cry at the same time. I felt as if I were greeting a familiar stranger with an important message. I could hear my respected elders saying, ''See why you should never give up on anyone.''
Then and now, I think how Native peoples have been pushed out of our natural homelands and how long we have lived at the edge of extinction. The Native population hemisphere-wide was over 100 million in 1491. By 1900, it was under 1 million.
In the U.S. at the turn of last century, there were fewer than 240,000 Native people. The good news is that there were 2 million American Indians by 2000 and that Native populations are increasing in every country.
It is a miracle of survivance that there are Native people alive in sufficient numbers to assure a future as Native people.
It still is touch-and-go for Native heritage languages, traditional religions, sacred places, salmon and myriad other precious treasures, but no one should count them out.
Native people are revitalizing heritage languages as fast as humanly possible, even some that have been pronounced extinct for 150 years.
More and more Native young people are living within traditional religions, one ceremony at a time.
Native sacred places and salmon remain viable, despite the best efforts of government and developers to destroy them.
So, hail, cvkvlv. Hail, blue butterflies. Hail, all the formerly extinct living beings that refuse to die and stay dead. Never give up on anyone.
Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for Indian Country Today.
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So wherever you are on this day, know that what matters, what has meaning will continue to emerge when we need it.
JH on-the-road
5/17/05
5/11/05
Announcements
Radio Interview with Galway Kinnell, Lawrence Ferlingetti and me will be aired at 2 PM (PDT) on Saturday, May 14. It can be heard live on your computer at www.kclu.org, or on 102.3 FM in Santa Barbara and 88.3 FM in Ventura.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A reminder: May 17th
JOIN GARRISON KEILLOR
as he hosts a brand new series:
he's invited an outstanding group
of American writers to talk about
their friendships with one another—and with one another's work—in front of a live audience. The series promises to be sparkling, enlightening, and possibly contentious.
What really happens when two writers become friends? Literary Friendships features poets, mystery writers, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists exploring the solitude of writing and the company of friendship.
Sandra Cisneros and Joy Harjo
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Met in graduate school and became fierce allies
Sandra Cisneros and Joy Harjo met in graduate school in the 1970s at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where both faced extreme skepticism from their teachers and peers: a poetry professor actually refused to include their work in class discussions. Cisneros and Harjo became allies, supporting and encouraging each other and each other's work. A novelist, poet, and MacArthur Fellow, Cisneros' many books include the best-selling The House on Mango Street, which is now required reading in classrooms around the country. She lives in San Antonio, Texas. Harjo, an Oklahoma-born member of the Muskogee tribe, is a poet and saxophonist with the band Poetic Justice. She has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Her books of poetry include, most recently, How We Became Human: Selected Poems. She lives in Hawaii.
Fitzgerald Theater / 8–9:30 p.m.
10 E. Exchange Street / Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101 (Map/Directions)
Tickets: Box Office 651 290-1221 or ticketmaster.com
$20 / $17 MPR members / $10 students / Special series price: $75 /
Group Rates: Discounts for groups of fifteen or more. For details, call 651-290-1496.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Announcing new book by Catherine Wald
Author of THE RESILIENT WRITER: TALES OF REJECTION AND TRIUMPH FROM 23 TOP AUTHORS, Persea Books, Spring 2005.
Interviews with Elizabeth Benedict, Mary Kay Blakely, Chris Bohjalian, Wesley Brown, Frederick Busch, David Ebershoff, Bret Easton Ellis, Janet Fitch, Arthur Golden, Joy Harjo, E. Lynn Harris, Kathryn Harrison, Bill Henderson, Wally Lamb, Betsy Lerner, Elinor Lipman, Bret Lott, M.J. Rose, Esmeralda Santiago, Bob Shacochis, Amy Tan, Edmund White, and William Zinsser.
P.O. Box 443
Shrub Oak, NY 10588-0443
914-528-3309
www.writerwald.com
www.rejectioncollection.com
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A reminder: May 17th
JOIN GARRISON KEILLOR
as he hosts a brand new series:
he's invited an outstanding group
of American writers to talk about
their friendships with one another—and with one another's work—in front of a live audience. The series promises to be sparkling, enlightening, and possibly contentious.
What really happens when two writers become friends? Literary Friendships features poets, mystery writers, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists exploring the solitude of writing and the company of friendship.
Sandra Cisneros and Joy Harjo
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Met in graduate school and became fierce allies
Sandra Cisneros and Joy Harjo met in graduate school in the 1970s at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where both faced extreme skepticism from their teachers and peers: a poetry professor actually refused to include their work in class discussions. Cisneros and Harjo became allies, supporting and encouraging each other and each other's work. A novelist, poet, and MacArthur Fellow, Cisneros' many books include the best-selling The House on Mango Street, which is now required reading in classrooms around the country. She lives in San Antonio, Texas. Harjo, an Oklahoma-born member of the Muskogee tribe, is a poet and saxophonist with the band Poetic Justice. She has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Her books of poetry include, most recently, How We Became Human: Selected Poems. She lives in Hawaii.
Fitzgerald Theater / 8–9:30 p.m.
10 E. Exchange Street / Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101 (Map/Directions)
Tickets: Box Office 651 290-1221 or ticketmaster.com
$20 / $17 MPR members / $10 students / Special series price: $75 /
Group Rates: Discounts for groups of fifteen or more. For details, call 651-290-1496.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Announcing new book by Catherine Wald
Author of THE RESILIENT WRITER: TALES OF REJECTION AND TRIUMPH FROM 23 TOP AUTHORS, Persea Books, Spring 2005.
Interviews with Elizabeth Benedict, Mary Kay Blakely, Chris Bohjalian, Wesley Brown, Frederick Busch, David Ebershoff, Bret Easton Ellis, Janet Fitch, Arthur Golden, Joy Harjo, E. Lynn Harris, Kathryn Harrison, Bill Henderson, Wally Lamb, Betsy Lerner, Elinor Lipman, Bret Lott, M.J. Rose, Esmeralda Santiago, Bob Shacochis, Amy Tan, Edmund White, and William Zinsser.
P.O. Box 443
Shrub Oak, NY 10588-0443
914-528-3309
www.writerwald.com
www.rejectioncollection.com
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Human Being Training Season
In heavy training for spring season at Hui Nalu Canoe Club. As someone said the other night, we’re probably the only club in which the Senior Master Women (50 and over) train with the Open Crews (20’s and up). We have an excellent coach and it’s probably the first time I’ve had real and sustained coaching training. Because the senior master crew has several members who have paddled together for many years, and this is my first training year with Hui Nalu (last year I paddled off-season, which I miss) I often get put in other boats. Last night I was in an awesome canoe of Junior Master women. We flew. The key in all of this is rhythm, moving together, and most of all, being WITH the boat, being WITH the water. And when it’s together, as in a good band being together; you make music. Last night the music spoke of muscle, sweat, mana, grace and struggle. It’s usually dark by the time we return to the shore. Then we carry the canoes up, one-by-one. They’re heavy and require several people to carry, together. Struggle is part of it all. Working together is absolutely necessary.
______________________________________________________________________
Sometimes I think that the U.S. population has been hypnotized by television, Disney and other American filmmakers that each life is supposed to unfold be with little struggle, and whatever happens will all turn out with the perfect ending: the protagonist wins the race, the girl, the man, the country, the fight and is feted for the accomplishment and everyone lives happily ever after. Depression sets in because life doesn’t work this way. Hence, the proliferation of happy drugs to fix the sadness or depression (and if you read the small and getting smaller print, or listen to the fast auctioneer read of the side effects: “…liver disfunction, paralysis and death…” The whole country appears to be depressed. Seems that most of the country suffers from attention deficit disorder. Too many movies, too much tv…
________________________________________________________________________
The stories in each canoe, in each stroke of the canoe carry divorce, histories of cocaine, alcohol or meth addictions, rape, deaths, molestations, self-doubt, and just about any other social and spiritual problem you can find in any community. Politics in the boat can be as lethal and consuming as politics in a university, tribe or other entitiy.
Each stroke with intent, focused rhythm, connection with the spirit of water is an affirmation of what is called pono, a coming together, a fusion of compassion, hope and inner power.
_______________________________________________________________________
And finally from News of the Weird, collected from the mainstream press by Chuck Sheperd, P.O.Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679 and found in one of my favorite periodicals, The Funny Times, two insights from studies featured in current issues of Current Biology that prove boys will be boys, no matter the species. (Human beings aren’t the only human beings):
“…researchers studying the dance fly and the rhesus macaque monkey concluded that males will be males. The male dance fly was found by a team from the University of Western Australia to sometimes present a female with worthless tokens for the opportunity to mate with her, but by the time she discovered their worth, he had already hit and run. A team from Duke University found that the male monkey will forgo his own rewards (juice) in exchange for being permitted to view pictures of female monkey’s bottoms.”
(Maybe I’d better go back to school…)
______________________________________________________________________
Sometimes I think that the U.S. population has been hypnotized by television, Disney and other American filmmakers that each life is supposed to unfold be with little struggle, and whatever happens will all turn out with the perfect ending: the protagonist wins the race, the girl, the man, the country, the fight and is feted for the accomplishment and everyone lives happily ever after. Depression sets in because life doesn’t work this way. Hence, the proliferation of happy drugs to fix the sadness or depression (and if you read the small and getting smaller print, or listen to the fast auctioneer read of the side effects: “…liver disfunction, paralysis and death…” The whole country appears to be depressed. Seems that most of the country suffers from attention deficit disorder. Too many movies, too much tv…
________________________________________________________________________
The stories in each canoe, in each stroke of the canoe carry divorce, histories of cocaine, alcohol or meth addictions, rape, deaths, molestations, self-doubt, and just about any other social and spiritual problem you can find in any community. Politics in the boat can be as lethal and consuming as politics in a university, tribe or other entitiy.
Each stroke with intent, focused rhythm, connection with the spirit of water is an affirmation of what is called pono, a coming together, a fusion of compassion, hope and inner power.
_______________________________________________________________________
And finally from News of the Weird, collected from the mainstream press by Chuck Sheperd, P.O.Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679 and found in one of my favorite periodicals, The Funny Times, two insights from studies featured in current issues of Current Biology that prove boys will be boys, no matter the species. (Human beings aren’t the only human beings):
“…researchers studying the dance fly and the rhesus macaque monkey concluded that males will be males. The male dance fly was found by a team from the University of Western Australia to sometimes present a female with worthless tokens for the opportunity to mate with her, but by the time she discovered their worth, he had already hit and run. A team from Duke University found that the male monkey will forgo his own rewards (juice) in exchange for being permitted to view pictures of female monkey’s bottoms.”
(Maybe I’d better go back to school…)
4/29/05
And so it is
Began the day with an hour and a half paddle from Anuenue in Waikiki to Keeihi Lagoon. The surf was up. We paddled beyond the break and then over. Beautiful. Could see the bottom most of the way over. When I first paddled out from Anuenue seven years ago the water was clear and blue. This morning as we launched the canoe it was filthy. Sad. And no turtles. When I first went out we'd see several. The last few times I've paddled out in this direction haven't seen any. Did see tourist boats, plenty of surfers.
The regatta season training has started so we're paddling every chance we get. And hitting the gym. Makes a good contrast with writing, practicing and doing business in my room up here on the hill. A little balance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It's late. Just returned from hearing LeAnne Howe read from The Shell Shaker and her new book, Evidence of Red at UH at the Center for Hawaiian Studies. Nice to have another Mvskoke person in the neighborhood, though the Choctaws and Creeks are old enemies. The thing about enemies is that they can become very familiar. You start to know them as well as you know your close beloved relatives. If you didn't care you wouldn't think about them at all. I think that's how it works. With the calamity of colonization we became allies.
All through the reading I kept hearing frogs. After went out behind the halau to the lo'i where the frogs were chanting in the waning moonlight:
The songs of frogs are compelling. They live between earth and water, are transformational figures. Come and I will show you how to move between here and there, out of your mind.
Tonight, behind the halau in the waning moon you were calling me. Being human was no longer as compelling as the lush, singing world.
The sound of making love are the same as giving birth and sometimes dying. All cries of longing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And so it is.
The regatta season training has started so we're paddling every chance we get. And hitting the gym. Makes a good contrast with writing, practicing and doing business in my room up here on the hill. A little balance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It's late. Just returned from hearing LeAnne Howe read from The Shell Shaker and her new book, Evidence of Red at UH at the Center for Hawaiian Studies. Nice to have another Mvskoke person in the neighborhood, though the Choctaws and Creeks are old enemies. The thing about enemies is that they can become very familiar. You start to know them as well as you know your close beloved relatives. If you didn't care you wouldn't think about them at all. I think that's how it works. With the calamity of colonization we became allies.
All through the reading I kept hearing frogs. After went out behind the halau to the lo'i where the frogs were chanting in the waning moonlight:
The songs of frogs are compelling. They live between earth and water, are transformational figures. Come and I will show you how to move between here and there, out of your mind.
Tonight, behind the halau in the waning moon you were calling me. Being human was no longer as compelling as the lush, singing world.
The sound of making love are the same as giving birth and sometimes dying. All cries of longing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And so it is.
4/27/05
Home
April 25, 2005 Honolulu Tuesday
A blessing rain awakens me in the dark before dawn. I lift into the spirit
Of rain. It’s like the sweet urgency of sex with a beloved, this rain.
We are home I tell my spirit who has momentarily become the rain.
We are home my arms tell my beloved who rolls close sweetly to seal the absence.
Yesterday I traveled in the sky, over houses, businesses and churches,
Over cornfields. And over rolling hills of brush, trees and rivers
And through the principalities of birds, animals and various elemental kingdoms.
And above snowy mountains and wide palms of desert. I flew over my mother’s house,
my sisters’ and my brothers’ houses. And over my daughter’s house. I flew over babyhood, childhood and the wilderness of bad decisions. The last hours of the flight were through an eternity of blue to make it home to this island.
This morning I woke and I know where I am.
Yesterday I stumbled up in a grand old hotel room in Des Moines at four a.m.. A few days before I arose to greet the dawn in Evansville, Indiana in a hotel out
on an American strip of junk food.
Before that it was a b and b in Albuquerque where I lay for two days crashing from exhaustion. Sunrise came to me then in a poem and I was renewed when I went out
into the crisp dawn.
Before Albuquerque was Mesilla, New Mexico and I woke in the room thinking I was at my cousin’s duplex in West Hollywood and then I dove back under and found myself in that desert motel under refrains of doves and other birds and clouds of family.
Before Mesilla it was a rundown hotel in the middle of Berkeley during a cold snap. The ridged back heaters threw off a little heat around their middles. I froze. I was in and out of that place in a snap.
And before that it was my cousin’s in West Hollywood. That house knows it will be torn down in the next few years, knows that everything is changing and its spirit heaves
with the knowledge. I landed there from L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in D.C. from smack in the middle of a testing field. The cherry blossoms were perfectly aroused.
I was given refuge before that at my cousin’s in my home in West Hollywood. It was perfectly spring. Spirits congregate in that house.
And before that in a motel in Newark, Ohio where I saw a groundhog chewing breakfast at the side of the road as I was driven from the hotel to my first class at Denison University.
And before that I left this island for this journey. I knew it would be a long one and walked the yard and the house, gathering what I needed along the way.
I return rich with stories, with new friends, with renewal of friendships, with disappointments, with accomplishments, with a resolve to keep moving beautifully no matter where I am. On this trip more than any other I realize how much assistance I am given to make it through this world. I see the faces of everyone who has picked me up from the airport, returned me, carried my bags, cooked meals, greeted me, shared stories, poems, songs. We have laughed and cried together. Sat silently together. Walked the grounds of old Mississippian Mounds in late afternoon. Talked the stuff of poetry: which is more about heartbreak, survival, loss, and self-deprecation than it is about who’s who or the mechanics of poetry. Yesterday morning stood in the dark in Des Moines with two poets I had met along the way. Our small knot of beingness was a prayer for poetry. We traveled off to our different directions. I turn back to acknowledge all this. I look forward into the dawn.
Green, broad leaves of plants are sprinkled freshly from the light rain. Plumeria blossoms are bright with love. The sun is rising above Ko’o’laus. I am home.
A blessing rain awakens me in the dark before dawn. I lift into the spirit
Of rain. It’s like the sweet urgency of sex with a beloved, this rain.
We are home I tell my spirit who has momentarily become the rain.
We are home my arms tell my beloved who rolls close sweetly to seal the absence.
Yesterday I traveled in the sky, over houses, businesses and churches,
Over cornfields. And over rolling hills of brush, trees and rivers
And through the principalities of birds, animals and various elemental kingdoms.
And above snowy mountains and wide palms of desert. I flew over my mother’s house,
my sisters’ and my brothers’ houses. And over my daughter’s house. I flew over babyhood, childhood and the wilderness of bad decisions. The last hours of the flight were through an eternity of blue to make it home to this island.
This morning I woke and I know where I am.
Yesterday I stumbled up in a grand old hotel room in Des Moines at four a.m.. A few days before I arose to greet the dawn in Evansville, Indiana in a hotel out
on an American strip of junk food.
Before that it was a b and b in Albuquerque where I lay for two days crashing from exhaustion. Sunrise came to me then in a poem and I was renewed when I went out
into the crisp dawn.
Before Albuquerque was Mesilla, New Mexico and I woke in the room thinking I was at my cousin’s duplex in West Hollywood and then I dove back under and found myself in that desert motel under refrains of doves and other birds and clouds of family.
Before Mesilla it was a rundown hotel in the middle of Berkeley during a cold snap. The ridged back heaters threw off a little heat around their middles. I froze. I was in and out of that place in a snap.
And before that it was my cousin’s in West Hollywood. That house knows it will be torn down in the next few years, knows that everything is changing and its spirit heaves
with the knowledge. I landed there from L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in D.C. from smack in the middle of a testing field. The cherry blossoms were perfectly aroused.
I was given refuge before that at my cousin’s in my home in West Hollywood. It was perfectly spring. Spirits congregate in that house.
And before that in a motel in Newark, Ohio where I saw a groundhog chewing breakfast at the side of the road as I was driven from the hotel to my first class at Denison University.
And before that I left this island for this journey. I knew it would be a long one and walked the yard and the house, gathering what I needed along the way.
I return rich with stories, with new friends, with renewal of friendships, with disappointments, with accomplishments, with a resolve to keep moving beautifully no matter where I am. On this trip more than any other I realize how much assistance I am given to make it through this world. I see the faces of everyone who has picked me up from the airport, returned me, carried my bags, cooked meals, greeted me, shared stories, poems, songs. We have laughed and cried together. Sat silently together. Walked the grounds of old Mississippian Mounds in late afternoon. Talked the stuff of poetry: which is more about heartbreak, survival, loss, and self-deprecation than it is about who’s who or the mechanics of poetry. Yesterday morning stood in the dark in Des Moines with two poets I had met along the way. Our small knot of beingness was a prayer for poetry. We traveled off to our different directions. I turn back to acknowledge all this. I look forward into the dawn.
Green, broad leaves of plants are sprinkled freshly from the light rain. Plumeria blossoms are bright with love. The sun is rising above Ko’o’laus. I am home.
4/20/05
Sunrise
Oh sunrise, as you enter the houses, minds and fields of everyone on this hemisphere, find me here.
I have been crashing for days or has it been years beyond the medicine of eagles.
Find me beneath the shadow of this yearning mountain, hovering near newborn roots planted for nourishment.
I made myself sick with sour longings, the poison of enemies and the jangling of fears against my thigh I carried for protection.
My spirit rises up in the dark because it hears the sound of doves in cottonwoods calling forth the sun, and sees the play of light starting over boulders of tears.
I struggled with a monster and lost. My body was tossed in the pile of kill around his terrible feet. I rotted there with the rest.
I was ashamed and told myself for a thousand years or more that I did not deserve anything but this.
But one day in relentless eternity my spirit discerned the precise movement of prayers carried toward the sun.
And this morning I am able to stand and cry with all the other beings who welcome you here.
I begin to move with the lightness of your being.
And I will go in the direction for which there is a place for me.
c Joy Harjo 4/20/05 Albuqueque
I have been crashing for days or has it been years beyond the medicine of eagles.
Find me beneath the shadow of this yearning mountain, hovering near newborn roots planted for nourishment.
I made myself sick with sour longings, the poison of enemies and the jangling of fears against my thigh I carried for protection.
My spirit rises up in the dark because it hears the sound of doves in cottonwoods calling forth the sun, and sees the play of light starting over boulders of tears.
I struggled with a monster and lost. My body was tossed in the pile of kill around his terrible feet. I rotted there with the rest.
I was ashamed and told myself for a thousand years or more that I did not deserve anything but this.
But one day in relentless eternity my spirit discerned the precise movement of prayers carried toward the sun.
And this morning I am able to stand and cry with all the other beings who welcome you here.
I begin to move with the lightness of your being.
And I will go in the direction for which there is a place for me.
c Joy Harjo 4/20/05 Albuqueque
4/17/05
Report from the Desert, or Celebration is Contagious
I keep thinking of the amazing audience last night. A warm sold-out crowd at the Border Book Festival welcomed Sherwin Bitsui and me in the Mesilla Community Center. So much history packed there. My first book “the last song” published in Las Cruces. And now I’m in effect introducing Sherwin as I was so many years ago. So many fine poets and mentors, like Joe Somoza and Keith Wilson. There is no poetry, no music and no performance without the audience. The audience is an inherent part of the process. (We might write poetry or music “for ourselves” or “of ourselves” but what does that actually mean? What is the self? Is it a spirit occupying a body, a community? The physical shell animated by the spirit? Is it a cascade of many or multi-selves dazzling us from eternity?) I listened backstage as Sherwin took the stage. I’d done my sound check (great soundman, Kenny—absolutely matters), shaved an extra reed, warmed up my voice and horn, lined up the selections, then took the audience, mc and performers into my heart. That is, I recognized that we are in a ceremony of meaning together in that particular place and time. Meanwhile my nose was running with exhaustion overload. I didn’t know where the energy, the inspiration would come from, or how, but I’ve learned to trust it, communicate with it and remain in awe of it. And it arrived just in time… Each audience makes a unique soul. This one was electric. We all recognized each other; then flew. In the middle after I read the poem for rain, the rain came down, with a riot of thunder. There is no elixir like the smell of the desert drinking rain. In the end, there was singing, horn playing, poetry and we all round danced.
This contrasts with an audience back east last week (not NMAI). I could have been a huge spider on stage. There was no visible joint response from the audience though I saw a few lights here and there. Nothing seemed to work at all, though I performed well. Yet, how can I say that if I didn’t “get” the audience? Or they didn’t “get” me?
I will let it all go now. And get some sleep. And remember, science is a religion.
This contrasts with an audience back east last week (not NMAI). I could have been a huge spider on stage. There was no visible joint response from the audience though I saw a few lights here and there. Nothing seemed to work at all, though I performed well. Yet, how can I say that if I didn’t “get” the audience? Or they didn’t “get” me?
I will let it all go now. And get some sleep. And remember, science is a religion.
4/6/05
On the Road, Washington DC
Beautiful morning. Cherry blossoms in bloom. According to the river it is calm, receptive day. The clock on my computer reads 3:23AM, Honolulu time. Here it's six hours later. My spirit is somewhere inbetween. I put my lower mind to work holding open the door for inspiration and then what happens? The maid knocks and on the door and forces her way in, next the guy who wants to check the minibar that I haven't opened. I can’t think about time. It’s a construction for the lower mind. For the higher mind there’s eternity.
Why is virtue so difficult to cultivate? And why does vice grow and over take even if the seeds are merely tossed on concrete?
It appears more difficult to be disciplined and train my mind in the direction of brilliance and accomplishment and compassion than to read People Magazine and other such ilk all the way across the country on a packed plane. I just have to get back on it, and this morning is it:
--Free write, then write towards perfection and knowing
--Workout in the fitness room
--Practice sax and find a couple of more reeds.
--Catch up on expense log
--Write up schedule for time here. And put on PDA. Today I'm picked up by Howard Bass for a tour of the NMAI, then perform tonight and discussion with Suzan Harjo.
This morning the news is the Death of the Pope. The larger question is, who are the contenders for this powerful position, as whoever it is will wield incredible power throughout the world. Please, a compassionate human being. The likelihood? Is it possible for a compassionate human being to come to power in a time of noxious and nasty currents of police state and war mentality? It’s possible, not likely. Is a time like this prone to run itself out until we are all destroyed or mowed down, give in to the momentum? Or is this the culminating point of years of such a force? And what does this mean at the Mvskoke tribal level?
Thinking of how someone has given their company an imagined Indian moniker. Would be like me calling my company the Kabbalah, or Kwanza-something something like that and talking about how much I love and respect the particular group of people--hence the naming. Well, maybe they were Indian in their last life, or want to be in this one...But I don't think they would really want to be Indian, to live as an Indian person in this land. It's easy to admire an image from a distance, but the packaged image of Indian has nothing to do with us as human beings, nothing at all. Personally, this morning I'm over it. Too much jealousy, infighting, shame, fury--but once we settle down and remember who we really are--before the knife of "civilization" then the gift is amazing. But like any gift, it takes sacrifice, tending and songs.
Now, why do people get away with this false naming? It has to do with how Indians are still viewed in this country. Our dreams, our minds, our history or how they are imagined to be are being colonized.
And is it possible to walk outside that construct, outside linear time and being, outside these expectations? If you do you may walk alone for a long time.
So it is.
So, quit complaining.
Why is virtue so difficult to cultivate? And why does vice grow and over take even if the seeds are merely tossed on concrete?
It appears more difficult to be disciplined and train my mind in the direction of brilliance and accomplishment and compassion than to read People Magazine and other such ilk all the way across the country on a packed plane. I just have to get back on it, and this morning is it:
--Free write, then write towards perfection and knowing
--Workout in the fitness room
--Practice sax and find a couple of more reeds.
--Catch up on expense log
--Write up schedule for time here. And put on PDA. Today I'm picked up by Howard Bass for a tour of the NMAI, then perform tonight and discussion with Suzan Harjo.
This morning the news is the Death of the Pope. The larger question is, who are the contenders for this powerful position, as whoever it is will wield incredible power throughout the world. Please, a compassionate human being. The likelihood? Is it possible for a compassionate human being to come to power in a time of noxious and nasty currents of police state and war mentality? It’s possible, not likely. Is a time like this prone to run itself out until we are all destroyed or mowed down, give in to the momentum? Or is this the culminating point of years of such a force? And what does this mean at the Mvskoke tribal level?
Thinking of how someone has given their company an imagined Indian moniker. Would be like me calling my company the Kabbalah, or Kwanza-something something like that and talking about how much I love and respect the particular group of people--hence the naming. Well, maybe they were Indian in their last life, or want to be in this one...But I don't think they would really want to be Indian, to live as an Indian person in this land. It's easy to admire an image from a distance, but the packaged image of Indian has nothing to do with us as human beings, nothing at all. Personally, this morning I'm over it. Too much jealousy, infighting, shame, fury--but once we settle down and remember who we really are--before the knife of "civilization" then the gift is amazing. But like any gift, it takes sacrifice, tending and songs.
Now, why do people get away with this false naming? It has to do with how Indians are still viewed in this country. Our dreams, our minds, our history or how they are imagined to be are being colonized.
And is it possible to walk outside that construct, outside linear time and being, outside these expectations? If you do you may walk alone for a long time.
So it is.
So, quit complaining.
3/30/05
Groundhogs, Communion and Powerlines
March 30, 2005
This morning a groundhog was shopping for breakfast at the side of the road between Newark and Granville, OH.
I thought I was imagining it as I've never seen a groundhog in person before. I wasn't; it was. Farther down the road a family of vultures circled. It's beautiful out. So far I visited a native american literature class, had a wonderful lunch with women's studies faculty at the Cherry Valley Lodge. What came to me so far is: The connection between community and communion. And powerlines is the word I've been searching for that defines the undeniable power of linkage between grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and so on---that interlocking weave.
Now I practice horn in the hotel...always a tricky proposition. And voice. And prepare for a 4:30 performance or lecture.
I appreciate the welcome here.
I hope I'm not trespassing copyrights to reproduce these stories here. They come from my friend Andre Cramblit's Indigenous News Network. You can subscribe. See info below. All the stories are pertinent.
From: IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com
Subject: Digest for IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com, issue 463
Date: March 29, 2005 2:05:25 AM HST
To: IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com
The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com
Forum: Native American oppression
Published March 13, 2005
It's cheaper to educate Indians than to kill them.
-- Indian Commissioner Thomas Morgan at the establishment of the
Phoenix Indian School in 1891.
In a whiny column (March 5, Page A13) about the American Indian
Museum, Terence P. Jeffrey wrote: "A Native American museum is an
important addition to the Mall, and it should highlight true injustices
Westerners inflicted on Indians. But Christianity is not one of them."
This is one of the most ridiculous assertions I have ever read and
reveals Mr. Jeffrey to be a complete ignoramus (this assessment is very
kind) when it comes to First American culture and history.
Beginning in the early 19th century, the federal government actively
-- and often forcibly -- supported the "civilization" and "Christian
education" of First Americans.
Religious mission activities were supported financially by Congress
and legislative support was enacted for establishing 200 "Indian"
schools where Native children -- often forcibly removed from their
families -- were prohibited from practicing their traditional religions
or speaking their Native languages.
"Christian" education was required, including the mandatory
memorization and recitation of the Lord's Prayer as well as the
Beatitudes, the Psalms, and the Ten Commandments.
Pupils were required to attend Sunday school and services off campus
and to perform church-related service. Students who did not attend
church were subjected to corporal punishment, e.g. whippings. Amulets
and other items of Native religious significance were confiscated and
their possession could result in severe punishment. Pupils found
practicing a Native religion often were beaten to the point of severe
bodily injury sometimes requiring medical treatment.
And, not at all surprisingly, many of these Native children were
sexually abused by their "Christian" mentors.
In 1887, at the behest of "Christian" leaders in this country,
Congress passed the General Allotment Act (more commonly referred to as
the Dawes Act) which -- among other things -- prohibited Native
religious ceremonies and practices in direct contravention of the U.S.
Constitution. This was the law of the land almost 50 years.
Many state laws added restrictions on the practice of Native
religions. Not until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978
was passed by Congress did First Americans once again have a right --
with limits -- to practice their religions.
Even a ceremony as innocuous as the Apache "Sunrise Ceremony,"
central to the cultures of several Apache bands, was prohibited because
it celebrated a "heathen" creation belief that anathema to "good"
Christians.
And even today, the freedom of First Americans to practice their
traditional religions continues to be questioned in the courts and
discounted in federal legislation. As a result, one can only question
the U.S. government's true commitment to protecting religious freedom
for all people in the United States, including Native Americans.
The above is just a hint of the realities. But Mr. Jeffrey still
hasn't a clue, which reflects rather negatively upon the credibility of
The Washington Times and insults it readership.
SUSANA CARDENAS
First American,
Espanola, N.M.
------------------------------
Putting the Sha in Shaman
Rich Lowry (archive)
Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who called the
victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns," is a sign of our times. Not just
because his error-riddled work and reflexive hostility toward American
power reflect the mediocrity and stale orthodoxy of much of academia. He
also belongs to one of the nation's hottest ethnic groups: the fake
Indian.
Churchill has described himself as three-sixteenths Cherokee, or
one-sixteenth Cree, or both. But what's a few sixteenths here or there?
He has never documented his ancestry, and he gained his membership in
the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians when it allowed in people who
aren't Indians. Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee who
has long known Churchill, told John J. Miller of National Review
magazine, "Right away, I could tell he was a faker, because he refused
to talk about his family."
In an article in the magazine's latest issue, Miller documents the
rash of "professional imposters who have built entire careers by putting
the sham into shaman." According to Miller, "Between 1960 and 2000, the
number of Americans claiming Indian ancestry on their census forms
jumped by a factor of six." Churchill described himself as a "Caucasian"
when he served in Vietnam. He became an "American Indian" when he was
filling out an affirmative-action form at the University of Colorado to
become a lecturer in Native American studies.
Churchill is part of a great tapestry of American Indian-related
fraud. Non-Indian arts and crafts are marketed as "Indian made," a
practice Congress has tried to discourage with the Indian Arts and
Crafts Act. The possibility of opening casinos sends lily-white
opportunists scouring for any drop of Indian blood. Then there are the
affirmative-action hucksters, like the California contractor who got
preferential treatment on account of his one-sixty-fourth Indian
ancestry.
There is no marketing quite like faux Native American status.
Forrest Carter wrote a book in the mid-1970s called "The Education of
Little Tree" about being raised as an orphan by his Cherokee
grandparents. "Students of Native American life," said the introduction
to the paperback edition, "discovered the book to be as accurate as it
was mystical and romantic." In 1991, the book became a cult smash and
hit the paperback nonfiction best-seller list. Then it was switched to
the fiction best-seller list.
It turned out that Forrest Carter was Asa Carter, a former white
supremacist with a vivid imagination. A recent edition of "Little Tree"
explains that it is "autobiographical if not all factually accurate. For
instance, Granma is based on family memories of Carter's
great-great-great grandmother, who was a full Cherokee, combined with
the author's own mother, who read Shakespeare to him when he was a
child." Got that?
Carter was in the same tradition as Iron Eyes Cody, the "Indian"
actor who made the Keep America Beautiful TV ads so memorable in the
1970s. He had more than a hundred movie roles as an Indian, even though
his real name was Espera DeCorti.
Falsified Native American ancestry and experiences are most readily
rewarded by those who worship multiculturalism and conceive of Indians
as near-mystical beings. Carlos Castaneda tapped into this audience with
his New Age classic "The Teachings of Don Juan," a book based on his
dubious meetings in the desert with a Yaqui sorcerer who taught him
(conveniently for the college market) the marvels of mind-altering
drugs. In response to Castaneda and his many imitators, the National
Congress of American Indians has denounced "non-Indian 'wannabes' and
self-styled New Age shamans."
Indian fakery is reprehensible not just because it is based on lies,
but because it falsifies and cheapens the Native American experience to
which it is supposed to pay tribute. Miller quotes a writer who calls
this "cultural genocide," scoring the fakers for their
"misrepresentation and appropriation of indigenous spirituality." The
author of those words was Ward Churchill. Who knew? He is not just an
apologist for mass murder, but -- on his own terms -- a practitioner of
cultural genocide.
Rich Lowry is editor of National Review, a Townhall.com member group,
and author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:05:37 +0000
From: andre cramblit
Subject: Layoffs (community)
Staff feels left in the dark by administration
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20050315/News/103150018/-1/NEWS
Jo Rafferty
March 15, 2005
Print Email
Nick Coleman: For Red Lake, prayers, then politics as usual
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
Last Tuesday, Minnesota's political leaders took part in an emotional
ceremony on the steps of the State Capitol to pray for the victims of
the school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. When the prayers
were over, they went back into the Capitol and cut millions from a plan
to build a new school for Red Lake.
It was a shocking act of tasteless bad timing and worse politics, but
for people of color and especially for Minnesota's Indians, it probably
seemed like business as usual: Talk is cheap, and politics is all about
money. In that equation, politicians always find praying easier than
paying.
Here's what happened:
Legislators were trying to agree on an $880 million bonding bill that
includes funding for dozens of capital improvement projects, ranging
from new schools to new prisons. No bonding bill passed the Legislature
last year because of partisan wrangling, but things were looking good
for an agreement last week. Until negotiations broke down again.
One hangup was a $24 million replacement for the unhealthy and moldy
middle school at Red Lake. When the session began, Senate DFLers and
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty agreed to fund the school plan but House
Republicans had not. They started at zero but had agreed to spend $20
million on a new school before word reached the Capitol of Monday's
carnage that included Red Lake High School.
By Tuesday afternoon, the Capitol steps were the scene of a ceremony of
grief and prayers as Indians and non-Indians rallied to support Red Lake
and its people. Pawlenty and other dignitaries were on hand, as were
many legislators, most of whom at least paid a brief visit. But when the
prayers ended, the politics started.
After the prayer service, legislators resumed debate on the bonding
bill. After a couple of hours, the proposal for a new Red Lake Middle
School came up. Most legislators expected that after the traumatic
events of the previous 24 hours, everyone would approve full funding for
a new school. So they were stunned when the lead Republican negotiator,
Rep. Dan Dorman of Albert Lea, announced a new plan that included just
$14 million for a Red Lake school -- $10 million short of the estimated
cost, and $6 million short of their previous position.
There may have been warm tears still glistening on the Capitol steps
outside. But inside, hearts were stone.
"I was there, and if you looked at the crowd at the memorial service,
there were just as many Republicans as there were Democrats," said Sen.
Steve Dille, a Republican from Dassel. "Everybody felt very bad about
[the shootings], not just Democrats."
Dille has a photo on his office wall of himself with Thomas Stillday, a
Red Lake elder and spiritual leader who was the chaplain of the Senate
in the late 1990s and who lost a young relative in Monday's violence.
Dille was astonished to find that his party's bonding proposal now
included a huge reduction in the Red Lake proposal. And he confronted
Dorman.
"I said it seemed insensitive to cut them back to $14 million rather
than the $20 million where they [House Republicans] were at," Dille
said. "I told him I thought it was inappropriate."
Sen. Keith Langseth, a DFLer from Glyndon who headed the Democratic
negotiators, also objected.
"It was not only inappropriate, it was bad political judgment," he said.
"Cut the school the same day we had this memorial? That doesn't work."
Shame didn't work, either.
Sen. Sandy Pappas, a St. Paul DFLer, called the House funding plan
"tacky." The Republicans seemed chagrined but held their ground. The
next day, they quietly raised their ante to $18 million. It's still not
enough.
"We all stood out there [on the Capitol steps] together because we are
all Minnesotans and we all need to support each other," Pappas said.
"After what happened at Red Lake, how could they insult the tribe like
that?"
Read your history books, Pappas. Insulting Indian tribes is an ancient
tradition in American politics. For some people, it comes naturally.
So when it was time to put their money where their prayers had been two
hours earlier, the Republicans set aside their grief in favor of
projects nearer to Pawlenty's heart. One was a secure nursing home for
aging sex offenders for which the governor wants full funding even
though a site has yet to be selected. Another is a prison expansion in
Faribault.
In the state we are in, prisons are easier to build than schools.
So good luck, Red Lake Indian Reservation. A bonding bill may yet be
approved, a new middle school may yet be built and common decency may
yet prevail. Why, President Bush even managed to offer a word publicly
on Saturday -- five days after the bloodshed -- about your suffering.
But until you see that new school, watch out. Don't be fooled by the
politicians when they pray alongside you.
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:30:39 +0000
From: andre cramblit
Subject: Chairman Speaks (Red Lake)
Red Lake chairman reflects on shooting and its impact
by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
March 25, 2005
Red Lake Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain spoke at length for the first
time Thursday night about the shootings on the reservation. He reflected
on how the tragedy has affected Red Lake, and how it may change the
community in the future.
Red Lake, Minn. — Chairman Buck Jourdain says the Red Lake Nation is
overwhelmed by support and offers of help from around the world.
Jourdain says what the people need most right now are prayers and
understanding.
"All of the things that are coming out now are indicitive of that
happening. The support is tremendous," Jourdain says. "Bordering towns,
the mayors, have flown their flags at half staff in honor of our loss.
Just the human touch. that's what we need most at this time."
Jourdain says seeing Red Lake in the state it's in breaks his heart. He
says the focus for now is simply making sure everyone is taken care of.
Jourdain says this tragedy is causing everyone to reflect on how to do a
better job of reaching out to all kids on the reservation.
"Good role models are a good place to start. And we have a lot of people
like that here, who will stop a young person and say, 'How you doing?'"
Jourdain says. "And our Indian kids need that. They tend to keep to
themselves, and we need to reach out to them more."
Jourdain says traditional culture needs to play a larger role in the
lives of kids on the reservation. He says they need roots that can only
come from knowing the ways of their ancestors.
In the wake of the shootings, tribal officials restricted access to the
reservation. Chairman Jourdain says that's a reflection of traditional
values, culture and a need to grieve in private. He bristled at
questions that challenged the concept of Red Lake as a sovereign nation.
"A lot of times nobody wants anything to do with us. They never want to
come here. Media doesn't want to come here. People have no reason to
come here and they could care less," Jourdain says. "But now that we
have this tragedy, all of a sudden our sovereignty is a question, and
the way we conduct ourselves and our tribal customs. We're only looking
out for our own, and following our own laws."
After the press conference, a handful of tribal elders shared their
concerns. The national spotlight on Red Lake has been difficult for
Melvin Jones to watch. Jones is a tribal elder from Ponemah, one of the
most traditional Indian communities in Minnesota.
He says Indian people simply want to be respected for who they are.
"Have respect for us. Be for us at this time. Not only at this time, but
come over and see us after this tragedy is over," Jones says. "Don't
just drop in because of this tragedy is here. Come and see us all the
time. That way you'll learn about us. If you seek, we will share."
Jones says people who are not Indian can't understand traditional
spiritual and cultural beliefs. But he says everyone should be able to
understand a simple plea.
"Pray for us. We need that. We have a lot of healing to do here on the
reservation. It's not over with," says Jones. "The elders have a lot of
work to do after the funerals are over. A lot of work."
Funerals begin Saturday for the 10 people who died in Monday's shooting
rampage at Red Lake.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:32:19 +0000
From: andre cramblit
Subject: Quantum & DNA (native issue)
FEATURE-American Indians look to DNA tests to prove heritage
25 Mar 2005 13:00:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO, March 25 (Reuters) - The United States has treated its
indigenous people poorly for much of its history, yet today thousands of
people are anxious to show their Native American heritage and are
turning to DNA testing for help.
Some white Americans have long claimed distant ties to Cherokee
princesses or other legendary figures among those explorer Christopher
Columbus mistakenly called Indians when he thought he had arrived in
South Asia.
Now Indian heritage -- which can make a person eligible for federal
assistance programs or a share of tribal casino profits or just satisfy
curiosity -- can be determined through genetic testing. Advances in DNA
screening have provided new tools to document Native American ancestry,
although some say such data is open to be interpretation.
"If you are interested in determining your eligibility for Native
American rights or just want to satisfy your curiosity, our ancestry DNA
test is the only method available for this purpose today," one firm,
Genelex, advertises.
Although U.S. citizens typically know the broad outlines of their
ancestry, for Native Americans the exact fractions of their heritage can
take on heightened importance.
Nineteenth-century treaties obligate the U.S. government to provide
education, health care and other services to many tribes. Indian
sovereignty also means tribes can set up casinos on reservations, and
Indian casinos now generate $18 billion annually and the numbers are
growing.
Many tribes set as a membership standard that a person must have at
least one Indian grandparent or one great grandparent. Others among the
562 federally recognized tribes require links to members on a tribal
membership roll in past generations.
With individuals seeking to affirm membership in recognized tribes and
dozens of unrecognized tribes seeking federal acknowledgment, commercial
firms have in the last two years stepped up marketing of genetic
ancestry tests. A positive test result is not sufficient to enable
someone to claim Indian benefits because they must prove a link to a
specific tribe.
"Nobody else in this nation has to prove their ancestry except for
American Indians," said Ken Adams, chief of the Upper Mattaponni Tribe
in Virginia which is not recognized by the U.S. government. "It's so
ironic because we were the original ones."
Since Genelex started offering the test more than a year ago, 600
people have paid $395 to learn the degree of their Native American
heritage, said Kristine Ashcraft, director of client relations.
Firms such as Genelex offer three types of tests: on male ancestors, on
female ancestors, and a third to determine a percentage of Native
American, East Asian, Indo-European and African heritage.
A Sarasota, Florida company DNAPrint processes that third
test, and has done it for 12,000 to 13,000 people since 2000, said firm
director Richard Gabriel. DNAPrint uses data from South American Indians
as a genetic reference point, he said.
LIMITS OF DNA TESTING
Mark Shriver, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University who
helped develop the DNAPrint ancestry test, cautions its results without
family history prove little.
"Just simple belief in a test without considering all the other data
is, you know, foolish," he said. "The science is not simply true and
objective...It is one clue in the picture."
He cited one of his graduate students from France whose test found a 14
percent Native American heritage. He said that number was likely the
result of intermixing following the 13th century invasion of Europe by
Mongols, who hailed from the same region of Asia as the forefathers of
Native Americans.
The DNA tests are also unable to differentiate between Indian tribes.
The issue of who is an Indian also hangs over future generations. For
members whose tribes share revenues from casino operations, marrying
outside the tribe could have major financial implications.
As in many cultures, some parents encourage children to marry within
the tribe, but some, especially in smaller tribes, see the request as
very limiting.
"Everyone in the tribe is a distant cousin," complained one 18-year-old
Indian woman who works at a casino in the Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico.
She hoped to marry outside the tribe.
As important as identity is in Native American culture, for some the
motivation for a DNA test is just curiosity.
"It's growing in popularity much faster than any of our expectations,"
said Terry Carmichael, vice president for sales and marketing at
GeneTree, whose advertising asks "Do you have Native American DNA?".
"A lot of people out there primarily want to find out if they have
Native American ancestry, not for purposes of claiming rights to a
casino but more for their own understanding," he said. "They want to be
able to understand their ancestry a little bit more."
------------------------------
This morning a groundhog was shopping for breakfast at the side of the road between Newark and Granville, OH.
I thought I was imagining it as I've never seen a groundhog in person before. I wasn't; it was. Farther down the road a family of vultures circled. It's beautiful out. So far I visited a native american literature class, had a wonderful lunch with women's studies faculty at the Cherry Valley Lodge. What came to me so far is: The connection between community and communion. And powerlines is the word I've been searching for that defines the undeniable power of linkage between grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and so on---that interlocking weave.
Now I practice horn in the hotel...always a tricky proposition. And voice. And prepare for a 4:30 performance or lecture.
I appreciate the welcome here.
I hope I'm not trespassing copyrights to reproduce these stories here. They come from my friend Andre Cramblit's Indigenous News Network. You can subscribe. See info below. All the stories are pertinent.
From: IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com
Subject: Digest for IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com, issue 463
Date: March 29, 2005 2:05:25 AM HST
To: IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com
The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com
Forum: Native American oppression
Published March 13, 2005
It's cheaper to educate Indians than to kill them.
-- Indian Commissioner Thomas Morgan at the establishment of the
Phoenix Indian School in 1891.
In a whiny column (March 5, Page A13) about the American Indian
Museum, Terence P. Jeffrey wrote: "A Native American museum is an
important addition to the Mall, and it should highlight true injustices
Westerners inflicted on Indians. But Christianity is not one of them."
This is one of the most ridiculous assertions I have ever read and
reveals Mr. Jeffrey to be a complete ignoramus (this assessment is very
kind) when it comes to First American culture and history.
Beginning in the early 19th century, the federal government actively
-- and often forcibly -- supported the "civilization" and "Christian
education" of First Americans.
Religious mission activities were supported financially by Congress
and legislative support was enacted for establishing 200 "Indian"
schools where Native children -- often forcibly removed from their
families -- were prohibited from practicing their traditional religions
or speaking their Native languages.
"Christian" education was required, including the mandatory
memorization and recitation of the Lord's Prayer as well as the
Beatitudes, the Psalms, and the Ten Commandments.
Pupils were required to attend Sunday school and services off campus
and to perform church-related service. Students who did not attend
church were subjected to corporal punishment, e.g. whippings. Amulets
and other items of Native religious significance were confiscated and
their possession could result in severe punishment. Pupils found
practicing a Native religion often were beaten to the point of severe
bodily injury sometimes requiring medical treatment.
And, not at all surprisingly, many of these Native children were
sexually abused by their "Christian" mentors.
In 1887, at the behest of "Christian" leaders in this country,
Congress passed the General Allotment Act (more commonly referred to as
the Dawes Act) which -- among other things -- prohibited Native
religious ceremonies and practices in direct contravention of the U.S.
Constitution. This was the law of the land almost 50 years.
Many state laws added restrictions on the practice of Native
religions. Not until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978
was passed by Congress did First Americans once again have a right --
with limits -- to practice their religions.
Even a ceremony as innocuous as the Apache "Sunrise Ceremony,"
central to the cultures of several Apache bands, was prohibited because
it celebrated a "heathen" creation belief that anathema to "good"
Christians.
And even today, the freedom of First Americans to practice their
traditional religions continues to be questioned in the courts and
discounted in federal legislation. As a result, one can only question
the U.S. government's true commitment to protecting religious freedom
for all people in the United States, including Native Americans.
The above is just a hint of the realities. But Mr. Jeffrey still
hasn't a clue, which reflects rather negatively upon the credibility of
The Washington Times and insults it readership.
SUSANA CARDENAS
First American,
Espanola, N.M.
------------------------------
Putting the Sha in Shaman
Rich Lowry (archive)
Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who called the
victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns," is a sign of our times. Not just
because his error-riddled work and reflexive hostility toward American
power reflect the mediocrity and stale orthodoxy of much of academia. He
also belongs to one of the nation's hottest ethnic groups: the fake
Indian.
Churchill has described himself as three-sixteenths Cherokee, or
one-sixteenth Cree, or both. But what's a few sixteenths here or there?
He has never documented his ancestry, and he gained his membership in
the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians when it allowed in people who
aren't Indians. Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee who
has long known Churchill, told John J. Miller of National Review
magazine, "Right away, I could tell he was a faker, because he refused
to talk about his family."
In an article in the magazine's latest issue, Miller documents the
rash of "professional imposters who have built entire careers by putting
the sham into shaman." According to Miller, "Between 1960 and 2000, the
number of Americans claiming Indian ancestry on their census forms
jumped by a factor of six." Churchill described himself as a "Caucasian"
when he served in Vietnam. He became an "American Indian" when he was
filling out an affirmative-action form at the University of Colorado to
become a lecturer in Native American studies.
Churchill is part of a great tapestry of American Indian-related
fraud. Non-Indian arts and crafts are marketed as "Indian made," a
practice Congress has tried to discourage with the Indian Arts and
Crafts Act. The possibility of opening casinos sends lily-white
opportunists scouring for any drop of Indian blood. Then there are the
affirmative-action hucksters, like the California contractor who got
preferential treatment on account of his one-sixty-fourth Indian
ancestry.
There is no marketing quite like faux Native American status.
Forrest Carter wrote a book in the mid-1970s called "The Education of
Little Tree" about being raised as an orphan by his Cherokee
grandparents. "Students of Native American life," said the introduction
to the paperback edition, "discovered the book to be as accurate as it
was mystical and romantic." In 1991, the book became a cult smash and
hit the paperback nonfiction best-seller list. Then it was switched to
the fiction best-seller list.
It turned out that Forrest Carter was Asa Carter, a former white
supremacist with a vivid imagination. A recent edition of "Little Tree"
explains that it is "autobiographical if not all factually accurate. For
instance, Granma is based on family memories of Carter's
great-great-great grandmother, who was a full Cherokee, combined with
the author's own mother, who read Shakespeare to him when he was a
child." Got that?
Carter was in the same tradition as Iron Eyes Cody, the "Indian"
actor who made the Keep America Beautiful TV ads so memorable in the
1970s. He had more than a hundred movie roles as an Indian, even though
his real name was Espera DeCorti.
Falsified Native American ancestry and experiences are most readily
rewarded by those who worship multiculturalism and conceive of Indians
as near-mystical beings. Carlos Castaneda tapped into this audience with
his New Age classic "The Teachings of Don Juan," a book based on his
dubious meetings in the desert with a Yaqui sorcerer who taught him
(conveniently for the college market) the marvels of mind-altering
drugs. In response to Castaneda and his many imitators, the National
Congress of American Indians has denounced "non-Indian 'wannabes' and
self-styled New Age shamans."
Indian fakery is reprehensible not just because it is based on lies,
but because it falsifies and cheapens the Native American experience to
which it is supposed to pay tribute. Miller quotes a writer who calls
this "cultural genocide," scoring the fakers for their
"misrepresentation and appropriation of indigenous spirituality." The
author of those words was Ward Churchill. Who knew? He is not just an
apologist for mass murder, but -- on his own terms -- a practitioner of
cultural genocide.
Rich Lowry is editor of National Review, a Townhall.com member group,
and author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:05:37 +0000
From: andre cramblit
Subject: Layoffs (community)
Staff feels left in the dark by administration
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20050315/News/103150018/-1/NEWS
Jo Rafferty
March 15, 2005
Print Email
Nick Coleman: For Red Lake, prayers, then politics as usual
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
Last Tuesday, Minnesota's political leaders took part in an emotional
ceremony on the steps of the State Capitol to pray for the victims of
the school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. When the prayers
were over, they went back into the Capitol and cut millions from a plan
to build a new school for Red Lake.
It was a shocking act of tasteless bad timing and worse politics, but
for people of color and especially for Minnesota's Indians, it probably
seemed like business as usual: Talk is cheap, and politics is all about
money. In that equation, politicians always find praying easier than
paying.
Here's what happened:
Legislators were trying to agree on an $880 million bonding bill that
includes funding for dozens of capital improvement projects, ranging
from new schools to new prisons. No bonding bill passed the Legislature
last year because of partisan wrangling, but things were looking good
for an agreement last week. Until negotiations broke down again.
One hangup was a $24 million replacement for the unhealthy and moldy
middle school at Red Lake. When the session began, Senate DFLers and
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty agreed to fund the school plan but House
Republicans had not. They started at zero but had agreed to spend $20
million on a new school before word reached the Capitol of Monday's
carnage that included Red Lake High School.
By Tuesday afternoon, the Capitol steps were the scene of a ceremony of
grief and prayers as Indians and non-Indians rallied to support Red Lake
and its people. Pawlenty and other dignitaries were on hand, as were
many legislators, most of whom at least paid a brief visit. But when the
prayers ended, the politics started.
After the prayer service, legislators resumed debate on the bonding
bill. After a couple of hours, the proposal for a new Red Lake Middle
School came up. Most legislators expected that after the traumatic
events of the previous 24 hours, everyone would approve full funding for
a new school. So they were stunned when the lead Republican negotiator,
Rep. Dan Dorman of Albert Lea, announced a new plan that included just
$14 million for a Red Lake school -- $10 million short of the estimated
cost, and $6 million short of their previous position.
There may have been warm tears still glistening on the Capitol steps
outside. But inside, hearts were stone.
"I was there, and if you looked at the crowd at the memorial service,
there were just as many Republicans as there were Democrats," said Sen.
Steve Dille, a Republican from Dassel. "Everybody felt very bad about
[the shootings], not just Democrats."
Dille has a photo on his office wall of himself with Thomas Stillday, a
Red Lake elder and spiritual leader who was the chaplain of the Senate
in the late 1990s and who lost a young relative in Monday's violence.
Dille was astonished to find that his party's bonding proposal now
included a huge reduction in the Red Lake proposal. And he confronted
Dorman.
"I said it seemed insensitive to cut them back to $14 million rather
than the $20 million where they [House Republicans] were at," Dille
said. "I told him I thought it was inappropriate."
Sen. Keith Langseth, a DFLer from Glyndon who headed the Democratic
negotiators, also objected.
"It was not only inappropriate, it was bad political judgment," he said.
"Cut the school the same day we had this memorial? That doesn't work."
Shame didn't work, either.
Sen. Sandy Pappas, a St. Paul DFLer, called the House funding plan
"tacky." The Republicans seemed chagrined but held their ground. The
next day, they quietly raised their ante to $18 million. It's still not
enough.
"We all stood out there [on the Capitol steps] together because we are
all Minnesotans and we all need to support each other," Pappas said.
"After what happened at Red Lake, how could they insult the tribe like
that?"
Read your history books, Pappas. Insulting Indian tribes is an ancient
tradition in American politics. For some people, it comes naturally.
So when it was time to put their money where their prayers had been two
hours earlier, the Republicans set aside their grief in favor of
projects nearer to Pawlenty's heart. One was a secure nursing home for
aging sex offenders for which the governor wants full funding even
though a site has yet to be selected. Another is a prison expansion in
Faribault.
In the state we are in, prisons are easier to build than schools.
So good luck, Red Lake Indian Reservation. A bonding bill may yet be
approved, a new middle school may yet be built and common decency may
yet prevail. Why, President Bush even managed to offer a word publicly
on Saturday -- five days after the bloodshed -- about your suffering.
But until you see that new school, watch out. Don't be fooled by the
politicians when they pray alongside you.
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:30:39 +0000
From: andre cramblit
Subject: Chairman Speaks (Red Lake)
Red Lake chairman reflects on shooting and its impact
by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
March 25, 2005
Red Lake Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain spoke at length for the first
time Thursday night about the shootings on the reservation. He reflected
on how the tragedy has affected Red Lake, and how it may change the
community in the future.
Red Lake, Minn. — Chairman Buck Jourdain says the Red Lake Nation is
overwhelmed by support and offers of help from around the world.
Jourdain says what the people need most right now are prayers and
understanding.
"All of the things that are coming out now are indicitive of that
happening. The support is tremendous," Jourdain says. "Bordering towns,
the mayors, have flown their flags at half staff in honor of our loss.
Just the human touch. that's what we need most at this time."
Jourdain says seeing Red Lake in the state it's in breaks his heart. He
says the focus for now is simply making sure everyone is taken care of.
Jourdain says this tragedy is causing everyone to reflect on how to do a
better job of reaching out to all kids on the reservation.
"Good role models are a good place to start. And we have a lot of people
like that here, who will stop a young person and say, 'How you doing?'"
Jourdain says. "And our Indian kids need that. They tend to keep to
themselves, and we need to reach out to them more."
Jourdain says traditional culture needs to play a larger role in the
lives of kids on the reservation. He says they need roots that can only
come from knowing the ways of their ancestors.
In the wake of the shootings, tribal officials restricted access to the
reservation. Chairman Jourdain says that's a reflection of traditional
values, culture and a need to grieve in private. He bristled at
questions that challenged the concept of Red Lake as a sovereign nation.
"A lot of times nobody wants anything to do with us. They never want to
come here. Media doesn't want to come here. People have no reason to
come here and they could care less," Jourdain says. "But now that we
have this tragedy, all of a sudden our sovereignty is a question, and
the way we conduct ourselves and our tribal customs. We're only looking
out for our own, and following our own laws."
After the press conference, a handful of tribal elders shared their
concerns. The national spotlight on Red Lake has been difficult for
Melvin Jones to watch. Jones is a tribal elder from Ponemah, one of the
most traditional Indian communities in Minnesota.
He says Indian people simply want to be respected for who they are.
"Have respect for us. Be for us at this time. Not only at this time, but
come over and see us after this tragedy is over," Jones says. "Don't
just drop in because of this tragedy is here. Come and see us all the
time. That way you'll learn about us. If you seek, we will share."
Jones says people who are not Indian can't understand traditional
spiritual and cultural beliefs. But he says everyone should be able to
understand a simple plea.
"Pray for us. We need that. We have a lot of healing to do here on the
reservation. It's not over with," says Jones. "The elders have a lot of
work to do after the funerals are over. A lot of work."
Funerals begin Saturday for the 10 people who died in Monday's shooting
rampage at Red Lake.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:32:19 +0000
From: andre cramblit
Subject: Quantum & DNA (native issue)
FEATURE-American Indians look to DNA tests to prove heritage
25 Mar 2005 13:00:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO, March 25 (Reuters) - The United States has treated its
indigenous people poorly for much of its history, yet today thousands of
people are anxious to show their Native American heritage and are
turning to DNA testing for help.
Some white Americans have long claimed distant ties to Cherokee
princesses or other legendary figures among those explorer Christopher
Columbus mistakenly called Indians when he thought he had arrived in
South Asia.
Now Indian heritage -- which can make a person eligible for federal
assistance programs or a share of tribal casino profits or just satisfy
curiosity -- can be determined through genetic testing. Advances in DNA
screening have provided new tools to document Native American ancestry,
although some say such data is open to be interpretation.
"If you are interested in determining your eligibility for Native
American rights or just want to satisfy your curiosity, our ancestry DNA
test is the only method available for this purpose today," one firm,
Genelex, advertises.
Although U.S. citizens typically know the broad outlines of their
ancestry, for Native Americans the exact fractions of their heritage can
take on heightened importance.
Nineteenth-century treaties obligate the U.S. government to provide
education, health care and other services to many tribes. Indian
sovereignty also means tribes can set up casinos on reservations, and
Indian casinos now generate $18 billion annually and the numbers are
growing.
Many tribes set as a membership standard that a person must have at
least one Indian grandparent or one great grandparent. Others among the
562 federally recognized tribes require links to members on a tribal
membership roll in past generations.
With individuals seeking to affirm membership in recognized tribes and
dozens of unrecognized tribes seeking federal acknowledgment, commercial
firms have in the last two years stepped up marketing of genetic
ancestry tests. A positive test result is not sufficient to enable
someone to claim Indian benefits because they must prove a link to a
specific tribe.
"Nobody else in this nation has to prove their ancestry except for
American Indians," said Ken Adams, chief of the Upper Mattaponni Tribe
in Virginia which is not recognized by the U.S. government. "It's so
ironic because we were the original ones."
Since Genelex started offering the test more than a year ago, 600
people have paid $395 to learn the degree of their Native American
heritage, said Kristine Ashcraft, director of client relations.
Firms such as Genelex offer three types of tests: on male ancestors, on
female ancestors, and a third to determine a percentage of Native
American, East Asian, Indo-European and African heritage.
A Sarasota, Florida company DNAPrint
test, and has done it for 12,000 to 13,000 people since 2000, said firm
director Richard Gabriel. DNAPrint uses data from South American Indians
as a genetic reference point, he said.
LIMITS OF DNA TESTING
Mark Shriver, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University who
helped develop the DNAPrint ancestry test, cautions its results without
family history prove little.
"Just simple belief in a test without considering all the other data
is, you know, foolish," he said. "The science is not simply true and
objective...It is one clue in the picture."
He cited one of his graduate students from France whose test found a 14
percent Native American heritage. He said that number was likely the
result of intermixing following the 13th century invasion of Europe by
Mongols, who hailed from the same region of Asia as the forefathers of
Native Americans.
The DNA tests are also unable to differentiate between Indian tribes.
The issue of who is an Indian also hangs over future generations. For
members whose tribes share revenues from casino operations, marrying
outside the tribe could have major financial implications.
As in many cultures, some parents encourage children to marry within
the tribe, but some, especially in smaller tribes, see the request as
very limiting.
"Everyone in the tribe is a distant cousin," complained one 18-year-old
Indian woman who works at a casino in the Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico.
She hoped to marry outside the tribe.
As important as identity is in Native American culture, for some the
motivation for a DNA test is just curiosity.
"It's growing in popularity much faster than any of our expectations,"
said Terry Carmichael, vice president for sales and marketing at
GeneTree, whose advertising asks "Do you have Native American DNA?".
"A lot of people out there primarily want to find out if they have
Native American ancestry, not for purposes of claiming rights to a
casino but more for their own understanding," he said. "They want to be
able to understand their ancestry a little bit more."
------------------------------
3/29/05
From the Middle of the Country
March 29, 2005 Newark, OH
I have two workout tapes with me on the road: the New York City Ballet Workout, and the Tahitian Hip-hop Workout. Both describe me.
It was a miracle I made it into Columbus, Ohio last. And it’s a double miracle that my suitcase made it. And I set an airport sprint record in Chicago O’Hare for “running while carrying two bags and pulling a third”. (That’s a different category than “running and pushing a stroller” or “running with a dainty little purse”—though the “running with a dainty little purse and high heels” is an advanced category. ) It was one of those days, one of those flights. We left LAX with a full flight. Not one empty seat. Everyone was already exhausted and stressed out when we backed out of the gate….We make it out to the queue then have to return because of a malfunctioning light. We’re in luck. The light’s replaced and we’re off, after an hour. The flight is turbulent the whole way, then air traffic control slows us down as we head into the Chicago field. I’m squeezed up against the window in the last row, which means it will take me even longer to make it out of the plane to run to my connection. When we finally touch down I have ten minutes to get from gate L6 to G 15 for my Columbus connection. I breathe deep. Strap my saxophone and a backpack on my back, and pull my computer bag. And I sprint. I wish I could say I kept my grace. I tried. I didn’t. I ran. My backpack opened and spilled. I picked it up. Kept running. My lungs made a racket and hurt, but I made it. After I took my seat I checked the time. I made it in less than five minutes. Then I smiled to myself, pleased with my sprint time, and something about that smile settled everything down. Then we flew into the dark.
Even getting from the Columbus Airport to the Courtyard Marriott via their shuttle service was problematic. The shuttle driver refused to take me to the hotel until some flight attendants arrived half an hour later. Bed was sweet. But I woke up after only four hours sleep to be picked up by 8:30 AM for a 10 AM class visit. So is life on the road. It was a coffee morning and I don’t even drink coffee. The sun broke through the rainy sky and I managed to speak somewhat coherently on a class on Culture and Environmental Knowledge at Denison University. Gladly crawled into bed for four hours then emerged to visit David Baker’s Poetry Writing Class. What a teacher of poetry! He’s dynamic, smart, empowering and tough. And he was easy on me, didn’t turn it all over to the visitor--me. Thank you thank you David. He knows; he’s been on the road.
Every small thing matters and you especially know it on the road: S. S.’s company at lunch, and the thoughtful basket that included soap, my favorite cookies and plenty of water. David’s inspiring class and friendship, Professor Tavakolian’s greeting and drive…
Voice practice, no horn.
In the meantime I’m mulling over the killing by a young Ojibwe, one of our beloved sons. This boy was the messenger of our forgetfulness, of our estrangement from our source. He went down in terrible pain. He needs our prayers as does the family and the community. All of our communities need our swift and urgent attention to these beloved ones, our children. This is our real work. We can do it through our art, but every thought, every small action matters.
So I will take this into consideration as I lay it all down tonight in this hotel room in the middle of the country, as I speak tomorrow, as I attempt to walk carefully through another day.
Mvto.
I have two workout tapes with me on the road: the New York City Ballet Workout, and the Tahitian Hip-hop Workout. Both describe me.
It was a miracle I made it into Columbus, Ohio last. And it’s a double miracle that my suitcase made it. And I set an airport sprint record in Chicago O’Hare for “running while carrying two bags and pulling a third”. (That’s a different category than “running and pushing a stroller” or “running with a dainty little purse”—though the “running with a dainty little purse and high heels” is an advanced category. ) It was one of those days, one of those flights. We left LAX with a full flight. Not one empty seat. Everyone was already exhausted and stressed out when we backed out of the gate….We make it out to the queue then have to return because of a malfunctioning light. We’re in luck. The light’s replaced and we’re off, after an hour. The flight is turbulent the whole way, then air traffic control slows us down as we head into the Chicago field. I’m squeezed up against the window in the last row, which means it will take me even longer to make it out of the plane to run to my connection. When we finally touch down I have ten minutes to get from gate L6 to G 15 for my Columbus connection. I breathe deep. Strap my saxophone and a backpack on my back, and pull my computer bag. And I sprint. I wish I could say I kept my grace. I tried. I didn’t. I ran. My backpack opened and spilled. I picked it up. Kept running. My lungs made a racket and hurt, but I made it. After I took my seat I checked the time. I made it in less than five minutes. Then I smiled to myself, pleased with my sprint time, and something about that smile settled everything down. Then we flew into the dark.
Even getting from the Columbus Airport to the Courtyard Marriott via their shuttle service was problematic. The shuttle driver refused to take me to the hotel until some flight attendants arrived half an hour later. Bed was sweet. But I woke up after only four hours sleep to be picked up by 8:30 AM for a 10 AM class visit. So is life on the road. It was a coffee morning and I don’t even drink coffee. The sun broke through the rainy sky and I managed to speak somewhat coherently on a class on Culture and Environmental Knowledge at Denison University. Gladly crawled into bed for four hours then emerged to visit David Baker’s Poetry Writing Class. What a teacher of poetry! He’s dynamic, smart, empowering and tough. And he was easy on me, didn’t turn it all over to the visitor--me. Thank you thank you David. He knows; he’s been on the road.
Every small thing matters and you especially know it on the road: S. S.’s company at lunch, and the thoughtful basket that included soap, my favorite cookies and plenty of water. David’s inspiring class and friendship, Professor Tavakolian’s greeting and drive…
Voice practice, no horn.
In the meantime I’m mulling over the killing by a young Ojibwe, one of our beloved sons. This boy was the messenger of our forgetfulness, of our estrangement from our source. He went down in terrible pain. He needs our prayers as does the family and the community. All of our communities need our swift and urgent attention to these beloved ones, our children. This is our real work. We can do it through our art, but every thought, every small action matters.
So I will take this into consideration as I lay it all down tonight in this hotel room in the middle of the country, as I speak tomorrow, as I attempt to walk carefully through another day.
Mvto.
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