A Great Letter to the Editor

A Dear Reader named "Friend" gives us a heads-up on a great Letter to the Editor in the comments section of our post "Playing Indian: White Racists Try to Hold 'Go Native' Party."

The letter is in response to the East Bay Express reporter's demeaning coverage of the Native American protest of the racist settlers' "Go Native" party in the article "Burners Torched Over Party."

Here is the letter:

Since the East Bay Express didn't print this letter to the editor, nor did they put it online, here is a response to the original article.

From: A group of Native and non-native allies concerned with holding the East Bay community accountable for ignorant acts that perpetuate racism. We envision building bridges, healing, and strengthening this community to support the free expression and survival of all cultures.

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Letter to the Editor

The intention of this letter is not to further fan the flames of the conflict that has arisen over Visionary Village's party theme 'Go Native’ but rather to express concern and disappointment in the East Bay Express for allowing such a slanted, inaccurate, dismissive and historically ignorant article to be published in your paper, hidden in the April fools issue. While the article thoroughly chronicled the "lecturing", "blasting" and "excoriation" of the young Visionary Village representatives, it does little to uncover the reason behind the anger expressed by Native American and allied non-native community members. This lack of understanding, and apparent lack of interest in understanding why 50 or more Native American people would take five hours out of their Saturday evenings to speak to a gathering like this, highlights the very ignorance that angered people in the first place.

The dispute is depicted as though some foolish youth made a simple mistake and were then forced to endure strict punishment that outweighed the original infraction. However the 'go easy on them' sentiment expressed by the author seems to only extend one direction. It is not easily disputed that this country was founded on the genocide of Native American communities. And while Native Americans in this country continue to face the calculated cultural genocide of relocation, destruction of sacred lands, poverty and marginalization, they are expected to take lightly the further dismissal of their human rights by flattening their lives into party themes akin to aliens, cartoons, and fire dragons.

Regardless of the direction the party planners intended their party theme of "Go Native" to take, there must be some responsibility taken by the planners for its contribution to the pervading racist stereotypes of Native Americans common in this country. The article failed to recognize the tremendous restraint and compassion from the Bay Area Native community in generously taking time out to address this oversight with Visionary Village and instead depicted the 'real Natives' as hyper-sensitive or over-reacting.

Where are the hordes of outraged people asking Peabody Coal Company or Newmont Mining Corp to 'go easy on em' as they destroy the ancestral homelands of the remaining Native Americans who have survived over 500 years of genocide? In addition to the historical facts of small pox blankets, massacres of men women and children, broken treaties, Indian Schools, and relocation, the current struggles Native Americans face were not researched and presented as essential background information for the outrage at being dismantled and romanticized into a 'four directions' party theme. Without this information, the anger expressed at the event cannot be understood. It is irresponsible for East Bay Express to publish such an inflammatory, unprofessionally researched article.

The Visionary Village's party theme was a narrow-minded mistake. In all of the web wars that have resulted from this mistake being brought to Visionary Village's attention, little has been done to educate themselves to understand the Native American community's perspective, accept responsibility and apologize for the obvious ignorance, and move on to a place of greater understanding and true support for one another. This article did nothing more than provide a platform for further distortion of the facts by yet another unaccountable contributor to this growing conflict. East Bay Express reporters should accurately cover the history behind the anger, giving a balanced coverage of the tears and frustration on all sides, as well as offering solutions such as supporting the ongoing struggles of Native American communities like the Western Shoshone to defend their sacred places from Barrick Gold Corporation. How many Emeryville residents know they are living on sacred Ohlone ground where developers destroyed a shell mound and named a mall after it? The East Bay Express can spread awareness of the Shell Mound Walk that happens each year and provide links to for concerned people to get involved at websites like www.vallejointertribalcouncil.org, http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com, and www.blackmesais.org. The article also failed to cover the greater awareness and responsibility that is now being held by courageous and humble non-native individuals who stopped defending their ignorance, and have benefited from this wake up call.

Conflict can serve to transform peoples' understanding dramatically. Though the article represents a missed opportunity for that possibility, further pieces that delve deeper and honor the wisdom and experience of Native voices might perhaps offer some remedy to the oversights and misrepresentation in the article that was printed.

Comment by Hillary Violet - May 9, 2009 @ 09:00 PM

Mohawk Nation News: “NEW AGE” PSYCHOBABBLE BEING SWALLOWED BY A FEW

Though not mentioned specifically in this article, Tamarack and the Teaching Drum are very much a part of the racist New Age movement being called out by Mohawk Nation News.

Caveat emptor. Tamarack runs nothing but a glorified reading circle with himself and his fakelore tomes at the center. Now ask yourselves: Do you really want to spend $8000 to join an outdoor reading circle for a year?

From: Mohawk Nation News

“NEW AGE” PSYCHOBABBLE BEING SWALLOWED BY A FEW

MNN. May 3, 2009. A near death experience can cause tremendous fear and trauma and could overrule a person’s will. Such pressure is part of a colonial strategy to break us down. Most resist. A few give in.

The NAFTA Super Highway from Mexico is coming through the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. In June 2009 non-native guards, who have shown hatred for Mohawks, are being handed guns to intimidate and try to exercise absolute power over us in the middle of our community. RCMP, OPP, military and para military agencies are building huge facilities nearby. Cornwall Ontario will be a center for police activity. Nullifying resistance by Mohawks has been a longtime target.

Over the last couple of decades a new age ideology has beset Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island. This new age movement is a tool to bring in one world religion for expediency’s sake. It’s a mishmash of Hinduism, Buddhism, Ghandi, Kabbalah, Scientology, crystals, reincarnation, Raelians, channeling, fortune tellers, seers and whatever else can be thrown into the pot. It’s sprinkled with Indigenous philosophy to give it credibility. This new age religion with feathers, beads and buckskins is being made palpable to Indigenous and others.

This false ideology is geared to direct the masses into the new age of one world government, one religion and one economic system to be run by war lords and their criminal handlers. People have to be indoctrinated to become obedient and to subdue their reasoning faculties.

The Kaianerehkowa, the Great Law of the Indigenous people is opposite to the new age doctrine. Our philosophy is based on a powerful relationship with the natural world. It strengthens our will, which is the watch dog of humanity. Nothing is supposed to enter that can harm, mislead or control us. This is the basis of democracy and can head off fascism. True democracy is equality and everyone has a voice.

To disarm the will, drugs, alcohol, hypnosis, incantations, spells, rituals, seances and trances help nullify the ability to say “no”. Eventually we can lose charge over our “doorkeeper”, our will, so that another mental process can be inserted inside us. It tells us, “I am your friend, your spirit guide, your master. Follow me and I can make you immortal”. It is disempowering. An undercurrent is the message, “I am strong and I can kill you”.

U.S. President Thomas Jefferson got the Quakers to help Handsome Lake whose will was overrun by alcoholism and visions. He started a revitalization movement based on these principles to mess up the Rotino’shonni: onwe, Iroquois.

Indigenous history and traditions have been cleverly mixed with new age concepts. We are told that other people inhabited Great Turtle Island before us, that some of us are extra terrestrials, that everybody should be vegetarians, that one world government is necessary and that, if we want peace, we shouldn’t be critical.

The Raelians say that our human creators from space brought love and peace through a combination of spirituality, sensuality and science. Scientists from another planet created all life on earth using DNA!! The extra-terrestrials will come back to check on us.

We are being told to forgive no matter how bad it is. They don’t suggest change. The victims become confused and weak so that all political, economic, social and military levers of power controlling society can be overtaken.

During the time of the drug culture, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau brought in new agers to run Indian Affairs in Canada. He had visited eastern mystics for enlightenment. Indigenous organizations were infiltrated. Healers and Elders were trained and sent among us and even among the non-native youth. It died out for a while.

After the 1990 Mohawk Oka crisis Indian Affairs set up the Kumik Lodge to train and certify a new slew of healers. It taught Pan-Indian cleansing, healing circles, sweat lodges and confessions. They went into our communities and jails to learn more about us.

Today new age covens are being formed in some of our communities. Ceremonies and meetings are frequently held. CDs on universal teachings are watched, studied and distributed. Some followers say they can’t move products or travel unless the stars are in the right place. The adherents call themselves “universal” persons, humans of another time or reality. Some have given up all their documents like driver’s licenses, birth certificates, Indian cards, medical cards, membership in their community, nation and confederacy. Psyches are being diverted. Their will has been weakened. We don’t know if they are giving up their properties or bank accounts.

Background: The new age movement ensnares susceptible people that are attracted by false spirituality, becoming “ascended masters” and speaking with “spirit guides”. Critic, Lee Penn, says: “New age is a pot pourri of beliefs and practices that fall outside of all faiths”. [www.leepenn. org/LP-NewAgeInd ex]

According to astrology, crystals, weird workshops and psycho babble, the earth will be cleansed of those who refuse to evolve. Traditional morality and families will disappear.

See list of big shots in the movement. At Maurice Strong’s Manitou retreat in Colorado, treatment includes everything being taken away from the follower to suck out the core of their being. Under the guise of meditation and sensory deprivation, they are confined into a small space to strip their identity. A low protein diet is part of this.

Barbara Hubbard says: “Your highest spiritual beings are telling you to access to an inner teacher… that through “initiation” you can transform yourself into an “ascended master”. Once our bodies, minds and souls are drained dry by free sex and trafficking with the spirit world, we ought to chose to die. In fact, it seems unethical and foolish to live on”.

These new age charismatic movements can affect participants in adverse ways. Intensely held religious or quasi-religious beliefs and ideology are imposed on members. They are promised emotional well-being and a sense of direction. They can’t make a free choice to leave the group. They are pressured to recruit new members, break with families and friends and to socialize mainly with the group.

On March 28, 1997, in Rancho Santa Fe, California, thirty-nine young men and women of Heaven’s Gate killed themselves. They believed that their human bodies were physical containers that had to be discarded so that their souls could be transported to a new level of being. Their souls were to meet up with a UFO that was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet passing Earth at that time. In their new plane of existence, they would inhabit new bodies and travel through different galaxies. The charismatic leader was an ex-minister who called himself Bo after Bo-peep who shepherded sheep. He was seen as an omnipotent godlike authority that diminished their anxiety, depression and alienation. Members were recruited personally or through the internet.

The Kaianerehkowa goes back to the beginning of time when we started thinking. We have our own stories about our origins here on Onowaregeh. We should remain with our own principles. This new age has nothing to do with us. We sent away our younger brothers because of their insane behavior and they came back worse than before. Some of us may drift away for a time from what a true human being is. For most of us, our will is our plan for survival. Everything goes back to our connection with the natural world.

Kahentinetha & Karakwine, MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnew s.com kahentinetha2@ yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send donations by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN “BORDER” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepres s.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews. com/news/ subscription. php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitio ns.com/petition/ Iroquois

Biggies in the new age movement: www.leepenn. org/LP-NewAgeInd ex: Robert Muller, former Secretary General of the UN; James Parks Morton, Dean of Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine NYC; Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco; William Swing, Rudolph Steiner Foundation, World Goodwill; Lawrence S. Rockfeller, whose fund has financed new agers; Mathew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard; power brokers ArcherDanielsMidlan d; CNN; Hewlett Packard; Occidental Petroleum; Carnegie Corp.; Kellogg Foundation; Rockfeller Brothers Fund; Georges Berthain, president the Tri Lateral Commission; Desmond Tutu; Gorbachev, Ted Turner; Fredrico Mayer of UNESCO; Maurice Strong and his Manitou Foundation in Colorado, and many other biggies.

Manitou Foundation spirit@manitou. org owned and run by Maurice Strong and his wife, Hanne. http://www.manitou.org/
Raelian Movement www.rael.org

Go To Shell

Every once and a while, it is good to be reminded that beautiful nature is also why we do this work. Our thanks to a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous for these lovely photos and captions.

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came." - John F. Kennedy, 1962 America's Cup Speech

Great Egret and seagulls, Captiva Island, Florida.





How many times in your life do you find a sea shell with something inside? On Sanibel Island it happens often enough to warrant a prohibition against live shelling.



Hard core shellers at sunrise. Fort Myers, Florida is in the background.



Giant Heart Cockle. Yes, there is something alive in there.



Banded tulip. Yep, live shell. Sigh. Have to put it back.



Calico crab. Extremely rare find. Thank you, Sea Gods.



Osprey with fish.



Low tide at dusk. Get in that tidepool and shell like mad!



Heart cockle extends its "foot" to push itself back in the tidepool.









Close up, Heart Cockle's retracted foot is visible.



Florida Fighting Conch. Two eyes are visible at the end of the dark tubes as the conch fights to roll itself over and burrow in the sand.



Boy, Girl, Pelican. Is there anything else?

The Volunteer

A new short story from the aspiring writer in our little group.

The Volunteer

Within this picture, which stands framed in my memory as stark as a gallows, there were many moments that were photogenic, but pointing at them with a cold, blunt object - like an accusatory finger - felt an obscenity. I left the camera in the closet. I am tired of taking.

At the end of a two hour drive to come up to this distant mountain ranch, I am met by a barking dog and a barking mad old woman, who later will persist in calling me “Shelley,” though that is not my name. The other volunteers, trickling in one by one throughout the morning, do the same. Why correct them? On this her first day, “Shelley” would only be learning how to shovel shit and toss out hay. She also might not ever be coming back to this overrated, High Country dump again.

“What do you want?” yells the gray grandmother, twice as loud again in a pink and orange jogging suit, while I wait up the steep drive for someone to do something about the yapping dog.

“I’m the volunteer!” I holler back. “I emailed you last night that I would be coming.”

Damage control moves quickly into the open doorway in the form of a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe. She calls sternly to the dog, while track suit Lacey checks for approval, then waves me forward. The border collie falls silent, trotting back indifferently.

“I forgot you were coming,” the unkempt woman says with a defensive tone.

Tying her robe about her tightly, she retreats away from the open door as I step onto the porch.

“I’ve come down with a cold. Lacey will have to show you the place.”

She glances over her shoulder at her glowing computer as if for reassurance, then weakly waves me inside. Removing my boots before stepping over the threshold, I think - she’s small for a horse woman. I would not, of course, have thought this of a jockey. The wounded herd I spy beyond the house through a bay window waits with hanging heads inside too small and too sloping an enclosure. There is no grass, only mud and remnants of hay. I wince and try not to think - animal hoarder.

Winding up and up from the city through the mountains to get here, I had dreamed of wide open, alpine meadows for them. For me. I feel no real disappointment, though. Years of searching has left me with no illusions of rescue. It’s simply that I am afraid of horses, and I only want to learn not to be again. Powerful and explosive things have captivated me of late, only here on this small farm, hair-trigger decisiveness no longer belongs to me but to beings with far better instincts.

The owner edges closer to her computer. There does not appear to be a television.

“I haven’t styled my hair or put on any makeup this morning,” she says, as she produces a large rag from a robe pocket and blows her nose loudly.

“I wasn’t expecting a beauty queen,” I reply a little too bluntly, which seems to be happening more and more these days.

In the presence of a stranger, the owner does not appear to know what to do even in her own home. She offers me no introduction, no drink or food after such a long drive, nor does she show me where in her house I should stand or sit. My Southern family would be appalled. I hover near the doorway ready to bolt. No one moves.

Apologizing more forcefully than I need to, I take control and beg direction to her bathroom. Three arms come up to point at its location down the end of a long, wood-paneled hallway. Lacey’s two arms drop back to swing gaily by her side as I turn and almost stop dumbfounded beneath the paintings lining the walls. They are clearly the owner’s work. Who else but this closed-off white woman would paint herself over and over again, in garish oils, as a Native American princess surrounded by adoring horses? Buckskinned and bejeweled, her racist projection is the sole human in every one of her tribe-less scenes. The whip of a question sits ready on my tongue.

Why do you have to paint yourself as Native American in order to feel authentic?

I lock the bathroom door behind me and take a steadying breath. This house is suffocatingly warm, but I feel a deep chill down into my soul. The owner has made it painfully obvious that I am just one more in a long series of transient volunteers. Whether I stay for a few hours or for years, she will grow no warmer. Were I not on a mission, I’d confront the woman about her paintings this very instance. Such timing isn’t explosive, though. It has to build.

The two women are practically wringing their hands when I return from the bathroom.

One of them states worriedly “Most of our volunteers come in the summer.”

Her remark is a veiled suggestion.

From the cramped size of the place, it’s obvious they could give the promised tour in about five minutes before herding me back towards my hours-long drive to the city. I have no doubt they intend to do just that.

“I realize my timing is inconvenient, but I’d be happy to stay and help with whatever work needs to be done around here today.”

Crazy Lacey bursts out laughing at “Shelley.”

“So you want to shovel shit? Did you bring a pair of gloves?”

Yes. I am rarely unprepared. There is even a plastic flask of water in the pocket of my black down vest. I reach for it to make a point as both women exclaim surprise at my preparedness, and then delighted relief when a regular volunteer suddenly pulls into the drive.

“Oh, good! Ellen is here. Now she can show you around,” says the owner.

“I’ll introduce you,” chirps Lacey, as she leads me out the door - not towards the dumbfounded Ellen, who stops dead still by her car when she sees me - but towards the herd of horses.

So this is winter in the Colorado High Country. Not a lot of visitors up from the city, apparently. Like I said, my timing is awful. It’s why I passed on handmade bombs.

Lacey moves incredibly quick for a woman her age. “Spry” is generally the word used to describe such elder-motion. It’s the kinder of the descriptors I’m thinking. She’s already under the fence, over to the herd with bags of oats for the older ones, and calling for “Shelley” to come on before I can even work up the nerve to enter the enclosure. This horse rescue operation is renowned for its ability to gentle damaged horses and the humans who own them, but I’ve been given no etiquette or protocol lessons in how to be around the animals safely. I hurry over to stand close behind Lacey. Everybody wants to speed me on my way out of their space. Why should the horses be any different?

Lacey babbles in a stream of consciousness as she weaves through two dozen horses, calling each one by name, and telling me their type and story. Her memory is phenomenal. I only manage to recall that one is not supposed to walk directly behind a horse. The Appaloosas in my father’s field ran my brother and I out of their wide pastures enough times for me to remember to give them plenty of space, and ourselves a good head start. Those horses were sold, along with the land, to pay the debts on my father’s bankrupt smelting plant. I am no longer squeamish about horse manure now the way I was then. The fecund stuff of miraculous growth, it made my mother’s roses soar seven feet tall. She used to wave a shovel high in the bright, Spring air at me when I pulled into the drive after a day at high school. Pretending not to see her, I would bound up the porch stairs headed straight for my attic sanctuary that was plastered with pictures of famous people. Sorry Mother, gotta study for college. Got places to go.

Lacey points to a grey-haired, black-maned mustang that is watching us intently.

“That one’s still wild. A volunteer last summer almost got her gentled, but she’s forgotten it all by now.”

I nod and turn my back on the feral beast to pet a tame Palomino. The wind has come up, and it eerily shishes and creaks the towering conifers overhead. Several of the horses stamp and nicker, then move away from us. I struggle to keep the wind from whipping me blind with my own hair. As I turn to see where the retreating horses are heading, I’m surprised to find the wild mustang standing barely an arm’s length behind me. She has followed us, but Lacey does not notice. She’s cooing to a tall Arabian, covering his nozzle with wet, slurpy kisses. She has forgotten about me for the moment.

Very slowly, I reach out to touch the tender nose of the wild, grey mustang. She retreats just a fraction, and my outstretched fingers are left dangling in the air. She stares at me intensely. I turn to find Lacey; the wild mustang again follows.

Approaching the fence, Ellen - the regular volunteer - says “ I don’t know what’s got ‘em so spooked. Normally they would be all over you, following you around and being very social.”

“Must be the wind,” I offer. “Maybe they know a storm’s coming.”

Ellen does not extend a hand as I come up to the fence. She just eyes me. The wild mustang has moved off now.

“I saw your Native American license plates.”

She lets the statement hang in the air without further comment. She expects me to explain myself.

“Mmmm, yeah. That’s the Native Scholars plate. The fees from that plate go towards scholarships for Native kids.”

Ellen swings a shovel to me over the fence, then squeezes through the boards into the hilly enclosure. That license plate, and why I have it, deserves a lot more explanation, but Ellen clearly is not interested. We work our way around the enclosure, shoveling shit for over an hour, then laying out hay for the horses. The conversation goes fluidly somehow, but no comment I make, no matter how personal, engenders a follow-up question. I’m beginning to suspect many big city volunteers only come for the one visit. Trying to prove something, I shovel shit like a seasoned farm hand, but it does no good. I’ve come too early. I’ve interrupted the way of things.

On the drive back down the mountain to the metropolis sprawled across the winter-brown plains, I determine that I’ve only been tested, that the horse sanctuary will seem less desolate next time. The owner did finally offer me a glass of water and a slice of cheese. One of the women even volunteered to make sandwiches. I took the cheese and declined the sandwich as Lacey drank from both her glass of water and mine, then washed them out and put them away expertly in a kitchen not her own. I drank what little was left in my plastic flask after shoveling all that manure. My skin itched with impossibly lodged shards of hay.

“Bye Shelley” waved Lacey cheerfully from the porch as she brushed sandwich crumbs from her greasy, fleece jacket.

Once more, my battered chariot of a vehicle reliably returns me to my cramped, high-rise lair. Looking out over the wide plains back to the mountains, I watch a brooding storm slowly envelop the peaks and then the city. It has followed me like the black and grey mustang. I nod at the watchful face in the memory. Riveted, receptive, and deathly still, she saw what I am about to do. A warhorse’s knowing.