Tamarack and Lety Want Your Children

These people have absolutely no shame or accountability for their past schemes that haven't worked, so they just make up some new ones, all the while the list of failed schemes continues to grow - the 2002 & 2007 Yearlongs that lost 22 people, the wolf sanctuary, the warrior way website and gatherings, unpublishable books, the yahoo group forum, etc, etc, etc.

Now we ask you, would you really want your children around a writer as bad as Lety Seibel? Or around a woman so desperate to be seen as the eternally-giving, unquestioning earth mother that the first thing we want to do when we read anything she writes is check her basement for decomposing bodies.

What do ya'll wanna bet that her own children aren't in the best state of mental health?

$8000.00?

To: teaching_drum@yahoogroups.com
From: "Lety"
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:43:03 -0500
Subject: [Teaching_Drum] We need your help

Greetings Friends and Relations,

The cozy white blanket of snow over the Mother's bosom keeps getting replenished by one after another Spring snow storm. When the warmth melts snow and uncovers the Earth's skin to the shining sun, another snow cloud repairs the brown holes with new patches of white. The tug-and-pull is fully on! There have been days in the woods when the smell, the light and feel of the air were those of a full-fledged green season day, except that the ground wore a thick layer of white! On another green-season- feeling occasion, the sound of the Spring Peepers filled the air until the realization struck that this was a lucid dream! Under these signs, sugar bush was set up early during a cold-night, warm-day spell which quickly turned to a quarter moon of solid storms.

Eventually, the sap started flowing in earnest and we boiled down over two gallons of syrup. Then more storms, which truly bewildered all the newly arrived and emerged Relations, and now the sap is flowing again. Who says our moods and whims are not modeled after our Mother!

At Mashkodens, the Wild Moon experience continues to flow and evolve as the second group of Wild Mooners say their gigawaabamins. Before long a new group of Seekers will be arriving for their turn of the seasons at the camp where the Old Ways return. And here at the support camp (Nad'mad'ewining), we are revving up the energy to bring a couple more families to complement our budding children's culture.

Would you care to help us? If you do, would you take a look at our invitational link
http://teachingdrum .org/childrenscu lture.html and forward it to families with children that might have an interest in checking out the possibility of being here?

Miigwech and rich transition time wishes,

Lety

A Reader Has Questions

And they are very good ones.

Before we attempt to answer, we think it would be a good idea to allow other readers out there to consider, and perhaps sound off with your own take on the question of white privilege and drumming circles.

Hi, I have a question about drum circles. A lot of my friends - mixed races - like going to drum circles. They take place outdoors and consist of people from the community showing up with drums (mostly djembes; African-derived hand drums), and drumming while others dance inside the circle. Most of the attendees - probably from 60% to 80% - are white. Every time I go, everyone else seems to be having a great time, getting "lost" in the music or whatever, but I just can't get over my discomfort. They don't understand why I can't have fun - most of them are socially and politically conscious, they enjoy drums, they enjoy dancing, they have anti-oppressive politics, so what's wrong with that?

And I can't come up with any good responses. It just feels wrong in my gut. I feel like they're romanticizing the idea of "tribal culture" or something, or that they just want a sense of "tribal community" - but again, as they point out, even if that's the case - what's wrong with that? When white culture is increasingly shallow and consumerist, what's wrong with them trying to infuse their lives with something that feels physically, mentally, and maybe spiritually invigorating? They're good people, and most of them are culturally aware. I'm not sure that they are directly ripping off anything. So I don't know why I can't just get over it.

I feel like if they're going to have a drum circle, they ought to pay some kind of dues to indigenous cultures - but how, who do you credit drums to? And even if they all started standing in solidarity at Native road blockades for land rights, I still wouldn't feel comfortable at drum circles. I'm white, and maybe this discomfort is just overdeveloped white guilt or something, but when I see these drum circles I can't help comparing them to powwows back in my hometown and I just feel sick inside.

I'm also worried that I might be totally racist - that all I really want is to feel like I'm at something "culturally authentic", which would explain why I don't feel uncomfortable at Native powwows. Of course, I don't feel like I "belong", since I don't, but at least I don't feel nauseous.

I'm asking what you think because I guess this has to do with cultural appropriation and you seem like an expert.

Obviously it's totally okay to respond that this questionable is inappropriate and racist or that I'm inappropriate and racist.

I hope all is well.

addicted to your blog,

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