Text to NY Spirit Article in progress

UNTITLED DRAFT TO NY SPIRIT ARTICLE BY WILLIAM MEYERS as of Feb 14th, 2006

Readers: This is an earlier draft of an article posted on this blog on March 9th. It will be published on April 1st in New York Spirit, probably edited yet again. There is alot of interesting details in this version not included in the March 9th version so I will keep this posted here for a while. By the way, the March 9th is very skillfully edited by William Myers, and journalism students can learn alot by comparing the two. The loss of these details is par for the course. On line the length doesn't matter that much, but in print, it matters a great deal.

Are there any thematic resonances in your book -- i.e., Native American culture -- that would correspond to and reinforce James Lovelock's prophecy of environmental doom? Are there any that would counter it with some measure of hope?

These stories were created at a time when the land and the people were one, but already the elders were seeing the signs as to what happens when people treat mother earth with disrespect. There were already prophecies stating that treating the earth poorly would lead to the destruction of mankind, and these stories in the book were intended to help children (and adults) find the right balance between what they wanted and what actions should be avoided in order to prevent this terrible destruction. If we had listened to these stories all along, we wouldn’t be in this position as Lovelock describes today. The stories still exist. I spent a lot of time in the Library of Congress looking for the earliest transcriptions into English of the most popular stories, and most have been easily accessible for over a hundred years, but not enough people listened or understood. What happens next is up to us. Lovelock says we now can only buy time, but in the ancient stories, the animals and supernatural spirit beings (raven) often come to the rescue of the foolish humans at the last minute to bail them out. It is hard to predict what will happen, but global warming will cause crop failure, leading most certainly to war, famine, disease, and pestilence, the four horsemen of Lovelock’s apocalypse. The pestilence is already happening, as new types of infestations and infections such as Lyme’s Disease are spreading due to environmental causes. Perhaps the pestilence itself will be enough to drive us to rethink our position on the Kyoto and other worldwide agreements. In this way, it could be said that “animals” came to our rescue. But if it isn’t enough, the next is disease, such as bird flu, (brought by raven?) then famine, then war with China, and other countries that know full well that 25% of the dioxins that caused the global warming that wiped out their crops came from the United States. The Hopi prophet Massau predicted this possibility 1000 years ago, and said we need to go back to the earth.


When and where were you born, into what kind of milieu and with what ancestral heritages that would explain your devotion to the Native American spiritual path?

My mother is of Native American descent, with a mix of Scottish, and my father is a Celtic scholar, but my mother was always present, and raised us kids from an Algonquin perspective. My childhood was in the Washington, D.C. area, not such a bad place to grow up during the Kennedy administration, but an area short on Native awareness. When I was fourteen I was left with my great aunt Helen, an outspoken Mi’kmaq activist, and ended up spending part of my summers with her on her animal farm, where she raised and used herbs to heal people of the community for free. She was quite the environmentalist and back in the 60s was always recycling everything that moved, and went on TV and radio talking about the environment and I was a part of that. There were two consecutive articles about her in Reader’s Digest in the 1980s. She also painted great landscapes in oil, very original, and some are still in museums in Maine. She often told stories of her father William Mewer, a champion of the Natives of Maine at the turn of the century, a mystic and community builder whom I apparently reminded her of . Later, after her death I learned that we were also equally Wampanoag, and descendants of King Phillip, Metacomet, and therefore also of Witamu, Wamsutta, Passaconaway, and Wannalancet, that great family of Algonquin leaders. I played Wamsutta in an off-Broadway musical Queen of New England, by Phoebe Legere, the romantic lead as it were, with Phoebe’s lyrics inspired by my own book No Word For Time. I really enjoyed that experience. I like to think of myself as the Aunt Helen of New York City, but in fact, I don’t have a tenth of her knowledge.


"Native American Stories of the Sacred." What exactly is "sacred" for the native American? Isn't all life? Isn't the whole manifestation? Perhaps the question is, what is not?

In my use of this word sacred, I refer to that which is eternal, that which is beyond human improvement, that which should not be changed. I chose stories that were not sacred stories per se, not to be interpreted or changed, but those that referred to the sacred, everyday fun stories. However, the Algonquin elders say that everywhere you stand is sacred, and every day is sacred, in fact, that all life is sacred, and I also believe this, and feel that everything that lives has a place in the hoop of life.

Nature is sacred in a different way; not exactly eternal, not exactly beyond human improvement. Part of our purpose is to interact with nature, to be a part of it, to “comb the mother’s hair” by collecting fallen branches for our hearth fires, to collect acorns, and to keep the deer and beaver population in balance. However we are not to dig out or remove whole sections of the earth, or destroy any species of local plant or animal. All holes should be refilled eventually, even subway holes, in the long run.

Human life is sacred in a third way. Its sacredness lies in the four gifts which are always changing and growing; our name, which tells us of our mission in life, (of which we are always learning more) our free will, (which changes expression every day) our language, (which we should be free to use creatively) and our peace of heart and mind, (which we must re-win every day.)

These three levels of sacredness to “the way” can also be found in the descriptions of the Tao and of Dharma, and of the Islamic Shari’a; there is the way of the eternal, aka the Way of Heaven. There is the way of Nature, aka the Pure Land, and thirdly the Way that Humankind Should Live. All three are sacred in different ways.

When you speak of the Red Road teachings -- or the Native American spiritual philosophy -- and equate it with the Mi'kmaq "way of truth," the Cherokee "way of good," the Navajo "beauty way," and beyond the native American culture, The Way of the Tao, the Buddhist "dharma," the Islamic "Shari'a," along with many other examples from world cultures, what is the thematic thread that you see running through all of them? What are the essential characteristics of this universal Way that all its variants have in common?
(See and combine with above)

What role does storytelling play in the native American spiritual life? (I know you go into that in depth in the book, but a capsule summary would be good to have here.)
Stories are the essence of mythopoetics, which is the essence of culture. The history of the human race is nothing more than a story told to a child. Stories must have conflicts between characters, good and evil must be addressed in some way, ignorance and knowledge, innocence and experience. Without story, we remember nothing. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, all used stories to convey their teachings, its how children learn, and adults too. Stories are lessons in 3-D, they present objects and events, without direct evaluation, and it is up to us to look at them from all sides, like a sculpture in our minds. We learn these stories before we have the faculties to reject or censor them and they become part of us, they mold our values and opinions. But stories generally do have values to impart, and we have to be careful what we are teaching through them. My Mi’kmaq mother often warned me about the Three Little Pigs story, that this was not a teaching tale, and that if I ever heard such a story to be very wary. In it, wolves are bad, evil in fact, and that people who live in brick houses are smarter than those who live in thatched houses or wigwams. I’ll never forget that. This is why when I look at blueprints for “green architecture” high rises, I say, “Oh, that makes sense!” I have built a number of wigwams in my day, “houses of stick,” and so far no wolves have blown them down.


Do all native American stories of the sacred have a moral or practical point to make? Are they expressions of the Red Road teachings, or only in some cases? Which ones best express this higher concept of the right way to live? What are the major lessons to be learned from these stories?

All the stories have moral and ethical points to make. All are expressions of the Red Road teachings, only many of them are presented in the inverse, a very effective teaching tool. For example, one of the best ways to teach about the Ashtangikamarga or Eightfold Path as taught by the Buddha, is to teach of the consequences of its opposite. What if we were told a terrible lie about our friend? We would not have right understanding, and would therefore not have right thinking about him. We would then speak badly of him, and then this might lead to actions that weren’t right either. This situation could only be corrected by the eightfold path, more carefully followed. Likewise, the Native American stories often show us the right way (which the Mi’kmaq call Agoolamz) in reverse in order to show us the chain of unpleasant events that can follow, so that we can make our own decisions and not feel lectured at. There are no eight steps along the Red Road, but there are four directions, corresponding with four parts of the self, the body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit, all of which want to be in balance. All of these stories, either directly or inversely, teach of respect for mother earth, and for all beings (creatures, plants, rocks) upon it great and small, and this definitely includes human beings of all sizes and shapes and colors. It also includes ourselves, with all our flaws.

Would you say that "The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth" expresses the essence of the the right way to live? If so, could you elaborate on the implications of this statement -- the consequences of not living life according to this principle, and the state the earth might be in if we did live according to this principle?

This saying was originally attributed to a certain speech by Chief Seattle, however the historian at the National Archives claims to have proven this phrase was not in the speech, but inserted later, by a newspaper. In fact, it has been said for thousands of years by elders across North America, in every language of this land, and I ask everyone to say it, so that we can make up for Seattle’s momentary oversight. This is the message behind each of these stories, and it does indeed express the essence of the right way to live on the earth. We have minds and hearts that are connected to the earth, and spirits that live on somewhere beyond this earth, but our bodies are of the clay and soil of this planet and we cannot live long without respecting that fact. While we live, if we ignore or think harmful thoughts about our bodies and the connection we have with the mother earth, we will soon lose our hearts, we will eventually lose our minds and when that happens, we will lose our souls. It’s that simple.

We have already seen individuals who lose their minds and souls by forsaking their mother earth, but it has only been a few. Some have actually lived in New York City. This number is growing, and may soon include millions. What we are seeing now is that large numbers of people are afraid to speak up in defense of mother earth, a strange silence. The consequences of not belonging to the earth are that the earth will no longer continue to serve us and help us. Whether this reversal will seem like “revenge” as foreseen by Lovelock in his new book, or whether it will be more of a crippling, a falling away of the beauty of the earth remains to be seen. Our prayers will show us the way both as individuals and as a race. We can’t rely on mass communication alone to end this silence, we must communicate what we know to our friends and family.

Were the pre-Columbian Amerindian cultures living in a kind of state of grace in which this principle was widely or universally observed? Or was it as little or sporadically observed as it is now? What lesson might be learned from the destruction and subjugation of cultures living the Way by cultures dedicated to an opposing way of life?

I always make a distinction between “Traditional” Natives and all Native Culture as a whole. The old stories are filled with characters such as “The Boy Who Got Mad at the Sun,” (aka the Boy Who Snared the Sun) who do not follow the traditional teachings and get into lots of trouble. We laugh at his efforts to snare the sun; meanwhile we build dams that snare the rivers, we make nuclear bombs and power plants that snare the atom, and launch ships that snare whales and dolphins. When we finally learn to snare the sun only through solar panels, we’ll have learned a traditional lesson. Respect and proper use of our resources.

Traditional teachings about how to leave no traces on the earth, in Native culture are very exact, and I think, sound a little extreme to those entranced by 21st century culture, but those are the teachings. They are getting harder and harder to live by in their pure form. I don’t live up to them, but they are constantly on my mind. I don’t step on ants intentionally, but I’m sure its happened, and I don’t dwell on it , because I know the spirit world is beautiful too. There have always been Native Americans who felt those rules didn’t apply to them. We all are semi-traditional to varying degrees, but the traditional teachings don’t change.

The first explorers were often crazy people who weren’t welcomed at home. (Verrazzano was an exception). They were welcomed here, by and large, and wore out that welcome in record time. It is that restless conquering spirit, implanted in the New World at that time, which has led to some of our problems. Enron’s motto, “Get in, get out!” which led to trillions of dollars of damage to the economy, can be traced back to the wild west, and to the conquerors of this land like DeSoto and Columbus. Environmentally speaking where else are we going to go? The Native culture, which takes things slow, is a good balance to that. Some of those that followed the conquerors were often kind, with good intentions, and it was these salt of the earth working immigrants who often intermarried with the Natives, and whose earth-minded descendants are still here today. They know that “the earth does not belong to us,” and are not the problem, regardless of ethnicity.

What kind of future do you foresee for our children and grandchildren? How likely is it that we will be able to turn around climate change and gain some measure of preventive control over the loss of species and the degradation of all forms of life? Will we ever regain some ecological balance? If not -- what kind of world do you foresee over the coming centuries?

I think we have time to turn it around, if we change the way we live now. I also foresee that great effort will be spent to slow the process down. I foresee a great Renaissance of human culture worldwide as people realize that they might not be able to accomplish anything in thirty years hence, similar to the inspired writings of a dying man. We think of Beethoven’s Ninth and the late quartets, which the man wrote, supposedly shaking his fist at the thunder and staving off death, and of Mozart’s Requiem, mostly for himself. But I think of New York’s own musical immigrant Gustav Mahler, who wrote Das Lied Von Der Erde (Song of the Earth) and then the 9th and 10th symphonies, only after learning in 1907 that he had a fatal blood disease, all of which were incredibly original and beautiful. He moved to New York City to conduct the New York Philharmonic, and lived long enough to hear his previous symphonies played, but not the new ones. It makes me wonder if our greatest achievements as humans will only be heard thousands of years later by visitors to this planet as they sort through our remains. I think we can do better!

I support the junglification of New York and other cities, and I think that the “green architecture” as developed by Jack Todd, the Native American architectural pioneer Douglas Cardinal, and New York’s own award winning Makrand Bhout, (the other kind of Indian) [I need to check spellings here, but don’t have time today!!!] will help us avoid this “dying man” scenario. New York should be at the forefront of this amazing movement. We have the resources, and we know how to make living buildings that do not add to, but actually help alleviate pollution. However, we must overcome the technical problems of electric cars, and use even more public transportation than we do now in and around New York. We need to think years ahead, not just punish people for using what salespeople are selling them. The spirit of the Algonquin landkeepers is still strong on Manhattan island; we can find inspiration in them as to how to make this transition, to get ourselves off the dead end road we’re speeding down, and onto the Red Road again, which, as the Hopi say, leads to a world where children will be safe to grow up.

In Lovelocks’ worst case scenario, we only have a hundred years until there are only small groups camped out on Antartica. People are shrugging their shoulders and saying, “We all die eventually.” But this scenario implies a horror of mass extinction that no human has ever witness before, not even at Auchwitz, not at Rwanda, or anyplace else. Global warming is not a day at the beach. In the worst case scenario, bugs will go crazy, then animals, then people. Tornadoes and hurricanes will make homes suddenly disappear. Food will become scarce, water will become tainted. People will fight each other, armies will go on the march. When Verrazzano discovered what is now New York City, he saw a terrible storm approaching and set sail on a different course, unintentionally reducing the impact that smallpox, carried by his crew, unaware of the danger, would have. The prophecies, in their most terrible aspects, could indeed come true if we don’t change our course in the face of the storm that is already upon us.

What do you see as the force which contributes the most to the loss of life and the decline of wisdom? What can we do to oppose it and turn it around?

As seen in the story Cono, The World’s Greatest Gambler, addiction is probably the most dangerous elements of our nature that nature has placed inside of us. Addiction gets worse when fed by loowaywoodee, an Algonquin word meaning “Bad things in my heart.” We say that poor communication leads to confusion, confusion leads to fear, fear to anger and anger to violence. These all are loowaywoodee. We also know that, according to “The Way of the Heron,” the Algonquin path of conflict resolution and one of the four paths to wholeness I teach about at New York’s Open Center each year, we can find ways to resolve all conflicts through good communication skills. This will reduce the inner emotional pain that feeds addictions. We have a lot of inner pain these days and it leads us into further addictions to materialistic solutions, to entertainment, oil consumption, junk food, alcohol and drugs. All of these things weaken our connection with the spirit which is the true source of wisdom, of which a warm heart and clear mind can only be good servants. Addictions can cut us off from spirit, and can also destroy our hearts and minds as well, not to mention the medical problems caused. In fact, we need them all working equally well together in order to walk the path of wholeness. The solution is as old as the hills, it is communication. We need to ask for help for our addictions and we help those who are lost in addiction. We need to back this up with action as well, in a loving way. Addictions cause us to lie to ourselves. We need to meet lies with facts of truth. We need to say that global warming is a fact, and that there isn’t much time, even if Lovelock, Hansen, and Lovejoy and others are wrong. We need to point out that 25% of the dioxins have their origins in the USA, and that everyone but us knows that, and that the underlying cause is an addiction to oil and power. One of the strongest cures for addiction is passionate devotion to something we love, (religion may not always be rational, or even wise, but it is a powerful cure for self-destructive addictions of all kinds; sometimes a less destructive version of the same) and this has been the salvation of millions. If we are as passionately devoted to nature as we are to our addictions, it could really help us break the yoke of addiction to refined oil and all the other unnatural things we crave.

Could you comment on Prof. James Lovelock's concept of Gaia -- the earth as a self-perpetuating living organism -- and what it shares in common with native American philosophy; also what Prof. Lovelock's most recent comments on the state of the planet portend for the future?

Every Native language has a different way of referring to “Mother Earth.” (Do you want a long list?) They all basically mean the same thing. This word mother implies that we are little children, that we are from her womb, that we depend on her for our food, and for wisdom as to how to live our lives, and that she loves us as a mother loves her children. All these things we attribute to the earth, the planet on which we live. It also implies that she is a living being with thoughts of her own, and a being with which, at certain sacred moments, we can talk to, share with, and give gifts to. We can cry on her shoulder, raise our arms in defense of her, and lament for her unhappiness. In spite of this wonderful relationship, prophecies of countless tribes and nations foretell of the possibility of a day when she can no longer sustain us, that if we do not follow the old teachings, she will make certain adjustments in order to balance herself that will not be to our liking. Some elders say it is like a dog shaking off so many fleas. The stories of the Water Babies of the Washo, for example, imply that the forces of nature are not to be taunted or tested; that the earth has guardians that are so powerful that they can level whole villages with a thought. We are not the only ones who belong to mother earth, there are millions of species, our brothers and sisters, in fact. If we are beating up on our brothers and sisters, we will be sent away from this beautiful home like prodigal sons and daughters. Whether it is wisdom or anger and revenge that cause a loving parent to make this decision is not for me to say, but it is done to protect the rest of the family from harm. The animals, trees, reptiles, fish, and frogs, are all family to us, and yet they are being born deformed and we don’t change our behavior. Is it so unimaginable that a loving mother such as Gaia would not spank us, or even send us out into the cold to die in order to protect the others? In the old stories, it is the other animals who find a way to reach us humans, to convince us to stop and think about what we are doing. We come from a good family. We need to listen to their advice, and it doesn’t come in words, but in non-verbal ways.

February 28th looking back

(check this section for edits)
Tuesday February 28th, 2006, I slept in a little, but made some key phone calls, talked to David Kahn for a while, who plans to televise my talk at the Pequot Museum on the 22nd of Marsh. We talked about the war between the Pequot and the Narragansett, both the old and the recent. Then I headed for class. I talked about how stonehenges developed, and how time was invented. In the end we did a PRO CON listing for the development of agriculture, and they were very keen on the CONS, which takes cultural insight to do as we are an agricultural people still. Then in one hour I created the new blogbook Wax Poetickle, pasting in seven chapters, whole books actually, from my USB thingy. People came in so I went to my office and used the phone to straighten out complicated plans with the Pequot Museum regarding the sale of books, and made several other calls. Then I checked over blogs, and called Kate Treworgy at Skylight Paths and we talked a long time, and she told me how to access the Author Links page, and there were all the links I’d created! There are about 100 authors listed, and I seem to have the most links, but that’s partly because I am really interested in learning about the internet right now, and knew that links were important, so I dug up lots of them and created new ones. People of Manitou was already up as a link!

I met an Algonquin friend at the computer lab and read the Algonquin poetry from Take the Red Road off the Wax Poetickle screen. It was a great moment in Algonkian literature. Then went to dinner at favorite buffet and then saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for a dollar! It was 2 and a half hours long, and the audio at the theater was poor, but for a dollar I loved it. It was …magical? I thought about the challenges poo Harry had to face and realized my Inwood Hill project would be harder than I thought, my own Goblet of Fire and went back to the lab and downloaded the rest of the pictures for the powerpoints.

Talked to DLP, he’s working on writing essays for scholarships. Said he was interested in seeing my screenplay, Night at the Pissoire. I just have to write it.
I taught class on geomantic cultures. Today was the day that I first posted the blogsite Waxpoetickle, and basically made five volumes of my poetry available for free, with little ads on how to purchase the print versions. I read it out loud to E. in the computer lab.

Monday, February 27th, was driving home from Canada, and was in a bathroom stall at a Walmart along the way, and looking down under the partition I saw feet and heard a harmonica playing and it gave me a great idea for an easy to make short independent film that was minimalistic enough to win a prize. I called it Night at the Pissoire.

I met with Georges Sioui today at 2:30, but took a wrong turn, got confused between Laurier and Rideau Streets, got there 15 minutes late, but I was packed and ready to return home. There was a Dutch gentleman there, husband of the professor of religion and anthropology. I said, you mean theo-anthro-pology. He agreed. They showed me a beautiful book she had written in French about shamans of the Dene. I asked him when he came over from Holland, he said 50 years ago. I said, “I just saw a movie “A Bridge Too Far,” about World War II in Holland. Do you know it? He said that his family lived through that battle! He said the whole campaign was rather foolish, but that they all survived somehow.
I was in an upbeat mood, happy to see Georges, and his friends, and unveiled my People of Manitou blogsite, starting with a picture of Georges with Steve Augustine. He thanked me, and then said I’d better note that he is not Algonquin, but Huron. He also noted that Gary Farmer was not Algonquin. I said I’d regretfully have to take him out but that his wife is Anishinabi and he often plays Algonquins.

I met his assistant, who is working on The Huron and the Algonquin paper, and I asked them all what they knew about Brownstown Michigan. Nothing, but she knew Fort Malden across the river on the Canadian side. I explained how Tecumseh had major councils there, but further research showed that the Huron kept the fire. Georges said that it was part of their oral tradition that the Huron, more sedentary and politically organized than the Algonquins would keep their fires going for them, in exchange for shamanistic services, as they felt the Algonquins were closer to the magical world than they and that their prayers were stronger.

I went through the entire book with them, and everyone was very happy, and ….the assistant said it was amazing I was giving that all away for free. I said I really believe in the cause of Algonquin recognition, and the text kept changing anyway, as people write new books, change their name, or die, and I have to put them in past tense. This was much easier. This book is my ethnic Algonquin Hall of Fame, and should be shared with anyone. If I built an actual museum, that would be different.

On the drive home I learned that the actual Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown had inducted a record 17 players from the Negro Leagues, another underappreciated ethnicity, at the same time as I had unveiled my blogbook. It was a moment that had taken a long time in coming in both regards, and a great day for baseball and Native education as well. And I suspect a lot of those black ballplayers had more than a little Native American (Cherokee for the most part) ancestory as well.

I won the golden engine award on the way home, but could not stop. I had some trouble getting gas, I guess its becoming scarce.

I called the parents of a certain baby to ask if her birth went well. The answer made me laugh. There is a certain expression in American business used to denote something with a top priority and a strongly aggressive approach, we say, "Nine AM, DAY ONE!" Well this little baby was born at 9 AM on January 1st, 2006 and she is here on this planet to change things and she means business! I had a dream this summer about her opening the hearts and minds of many people at a young age. I made an appointment with Georges Sioui and was ten minutes late. I showed him People of Manitou, for the first time, in a rough form. It was good that I rushed ahead and did this a few days ago, because I was able to demo it to Georges when I was in his office at the University Of Ottawa and other people were there as well.

Sunday, February 26th, 2006, again people were talking about a second earthquake, hit 8:30 PM the same time as the first. Again, Ottawa was at the center. We were gathered in circle at the time of the quake yesterday, but did not feel it! But everyone felt the first one on Friday which was a 4.5 on the Richter scale. Some one said it started like a truck passing on the street, then a truck going by the house, then a truck inside the house. There was a long “tail” to it, a long long after-rumble. Of course it was very dramatic, because we were there to talk about earthquakes and how prayer could help in situations where nothing else could. They said that God was helping me by illustrating my point nicely, in spite of the fact that Ottawa doesn’t usually have big earthquakes. I said this season had shown few large earthquakes so far, but a lot of little ones in places where they usually weren’t which showed that the crust was loosening up. We talked about the possibility of new hydrothermal vents opening up on the ocean floor, and agreed it was a real possibility that this is what has been happening, and a St Augustine volcano in Alaska. I stressed that it was tricky for a human to make informed prayers about these things, as some of it is very important for the earth to express herself, but that we can pray to the Creator, or pray to angels or the Landkeeper Spirits and give them a boost of energy and support to help them in their highly skilled labors. It’s a little bit like lobbying; you figure they will remember your village when it comes time to pull out all the stops. Earthquake kickback.

RTA workshop in Gatineau Quebec on Landkeepers. I was able to show People of Manitou to William Commanda and Ramola on R's computer, and I set William C up with a blog site of his own, where he will keep a diary of his rather exciting life (at ninty frigging three years old I should have such a life) in 2006.Just days ago, on the phone, William Commanda had told me about Manitouwiziwak, the name for a group of people that follow the great spirit in all things. That was the word I was looking for.

Saturday, February 25th, 2006; I had a number of delays this morning, and then the blizzard hit, all the way from Saugerties to Montreal, and had to go 40 mph the whole way. One car I saw was on its roof, another had gone straight into the woods and crashed. It was also very foggy, and at times a white out. I had to keep up a steady pace, as the meeting in Ottawa was a 7 PM. I hoped to get there at six and called ahead. The question is, what kind of shape would I be in? Just before the border crossing I checked my car and found that I had stashed away a large box full of unfinished CDs! A lot of them. This was a bad blow. This placed me in litiginous limbo because I’m supposed to declare the value of sale items and pay taxes on them, and yet I could not sell unpackaged CDs, but they were products nonetheless as they had music on them. So I decided to tell the guard at the booth, who knew me. She said she didn’t know what the ruling would be and told me to pull into parking lot one and wait.
I waited a very long time, in a howling blizzard might I add, and then the guard came and I told him the story and he said, “Why was that box there?” I said I forgot it was there. He said, “What else did you forget? Let’s take a look. I must search your car!” And he did! And I stood there in the blizzard to watch him. He took the box of CDs in to his bosses office and was in there a long time. I wondered if he was playing each CD to see if there were secret messages…there weren’t . Finally he came out and was all smiles, and handed me the box and said, “You don’t have to pay taxes, we trust you. They are….” I said, “Useless from a marketing perspective?” “Yes, but if you put the inserts in, you would sell them of course..” I said, “Yes, and I wouldn’t bring so many, and I would present a list to the guards!” We shook hands. I went to the car, and found my keys were gone. I called to him and he tossed me the keys and I was off in the blizzard. I said, “What is the weather report?” He said, “Lots more snow” I said “That’s what my day has been like!” And drove off.

The snow disappeared after Montreal and I had clear sailing and got to the workshop at 6 on the nose. The snow in Gatineau was piled very high.

Saturday, February 25th, I left in the morning, pretty late, and the snow was blinding, and I had to go 40 or less the whole way to Montreal. It was the most difficult drive so far.
I believe I wrote the diary up for this whole section, but it seems to have vanished. I don't know if I can remember all the details now. I think that's a first.

Friday, February 24th, 2006 Pathfinder papers due, lectured on Geomantic cultures throughout the world. I taught a guitar lesson after and it went really well. We set up a tape recorder and I taped blues guitar changes and called out what lead guitar scale forms to use and in what positions. I went home and slept in preparation for the trip to Canada, not feeling that well. There was a surprise blizzard and an earthquake in Ottawa!


Thursday February 23rd, 2006: 1 AM, movie finished, A Bridge Too Far, cant sleep, no messages.
I did some grading and some writing, and then went to Marist for Ethics. I showed the main part of The Insider, which is truly a great movie. There is still 20 minutes left, but it doesn't impact the students' papers that much.
I think this was the day of the great basketball matchup between Niagara and Marist, most of whom is in our ethics class. I let class out a few minutes early by unanimous vote to see the second half, and it was for me a highlight of the year. Unfortunately not all of their classmates made it all the way from Fontaine to the McCann sports arena to see All Stars Jared Jordan James Smith Ryan Stilphen et al. They must have gotten lost and ended up in McCoy's Bar and Grill instead. Amazing what a few letters can do to confuse the weakminded. I found a shuttle bus, and got on, and a little boy and his father got on after me. The boy, a priceless little sports fan, said, "Oh boy we're gonna see Jarred Jordan tonight!" I said, "Oh, are you his relatives?" thinking of the guy who sits in the back of my class and leans way back in his chair and stretches his legs. The father said, "Oh, no, that's his favorite basketball star in the world! We're big fans!" (Are they confusing Jarred with Michael, of the Wizards, who I once saw scored 53 points in the first half at MCI arena? No resemblance there!) That really made me realize what a celebrity JJ had become. I ran into Marist President Dennis Murray after the game and he was all smiles and shook my hand and said "Great to see you come out to the game, professor!" I said, "Great game, Dennis! I loved it!" They won soundly, the details of which were in all the papers, mainly the POJO. The only open seating was at ground level behind the bench, so that's where I sat. I had my long grey coat on. I tried to be inconspicuous, as I have a long history of making my students nervous when I watch them in sporting events (not my kid however), so I tried not to stare at them, but acted serious. Towards the end of the game James Smith was doing a second foul shot of two, and in the spirit of fun I couldn't resist yelling out "Get in the zone, James! Get in the zone!" referring of course to our discussion of the indescribable and ineffable principle of Tao the week before. Well, guess what? He muffed the shot! I felt bad. It was like that time with Johnny Damon where I freaked him out by chattering at him in Thai. What if it were my fault? The scorer near me said, "That was his only miss this WHOLE GAME!" Ryan Stylphen saw me and waved and smiled, and asked how I liked the game. I gave him the thumbs up, careful not to jinx the team yet again. They crushed the Purple Eagles and James had 23 points in the game, tying his career high. However if he had sunk that shot he would have set a new career record, just as if Damon had beat the Tigers in that game, the Sox would have won the pennant.

Washington’s Birthday. Scooter says I shouldn’t trust Zane Grey’s account of Washington and the Indians, he was a great storyteller. I was watching TV while in retreat and saw that the World Baseball Matches were scheduled from March 2nd to March 20th, and wondered if they were timed to keep the media from covering the Lovelock book’s USA release. (In fact the Lovelock book was simply not released in the US as planned. This is unusual for Penguin. Venk said on March 8, “What happened to free speech.” “But you did expect this to happen…” I said, “Yes, but only in a darkly cynical way!”

March 2nd is the day the Lovelock book is due to be released in the US, and a three week black out would do a lot to hinder public knowledge of the book. I thought about a blog called perhaps OneGreenEarth chronicalling the climate-related events following the February 2nd release of Lovelock’s book in England. For me, Jan. 17 was the pivotal day in my life as an environmentalist, the date William M sent me an email with the cryptic RE: Can this really be the end? I clicked the link and read lovelock’s statements, and his prognosis giving us 100 years to live as a species.

I went to bed at 2 and had an amazing dream. I was lying on my back and a big pure white bear, the Bear of the North walked up and stood over me. It seemed to be a she. It was sort of cute like a teddy bear, but realistic. It had a small silver keg around its neck. As I recall it lifted its paw to its chest and I touched the paw and if holding hands. It stayed for a while. I was afraid of the bear because it seemed to be a real bear, and real bears can attack if spooked. But I wasn’t afraid because the bear was radiating an incredible aura of love. It caused an amazing transformation within me. I wanted to give it an offering, but all I had was a book I’d written. I believe it may have been a copy of Native American Stories of the Sacred, but I’m not sure. I offered the book and the bear seemed to accept somehow. It reminded me of the white bull reindeer in Pathfinder; it might mean that I am entering the shaman’s path on a new level; perhaps I am at my peak. The other possibility is that I am nearing the end of my time.

When I woke up I was still filled with awe and love for the bear. Even in the dream I was trying to figure out the meaning, and thought of several possibilities.

Wednesday, February 22nd, I watched A Bridge Too Far, Brits and Americans stuck inside Holland completely surrounded by Jerrys and they lose big due to bad planning. Obvious reference to Iraq, but for me it also reflects some of what is happening in the green wars. Lovelock’s book is the first major offensive in the green war, and this is the enemy’s counter attack.

We went shopping today for stuff, I got a Senators hat for $5 with a big W. I said George W would understand about the Senators thing. It’s a cool hat. I also got two shirts as Im a little short here of supplies, and got materials for making a new cloth Algonquin map. I spent at least two hours on the project and got the outlines of the states and provinces down, which is one of the hard parts. There is still a long way to go.
I also got headphones for my home recording unit and had a conversation with the attendant (this was in Montague NJ) about Nine Inch Nails.

It took several trips with Scooter to replace the battery in the Nextel cell phone. We went to NJ to get one for $30, but we got home and it didn’t work, so we drove all the way back to NJ to get another one. This one worked. I spent the whole time soaking up the winter sun and reading Sorrow In Our Hearts, trying to figure out what was going on with Brownstown Michigan. A woman is blasting me on an internet site called Tripod about my mention of Brownstown in Native New Yorkers. Reading Sorrow for several hours I realized that Brownstown was a great council fire…..of the Huron! They gradually identified themselves as Wyandot. During the war of 1812, Tecumseh did have councils there, but it is hard to prove they were related to the Mohican one at Schodack as I had suggested in Native New Yorkers. Plus it was on dry land and not on an island. A few days later I talked about this with Georges Sioui, who is Huron and an expert on Huron history, and said that the Hurons maintained Algonquin council fires in exchange for shamanic ceremony, because the Huron were sedentary and more able to keep a fire, but the Algonquins as hunters and gatherers were closer to nature and the spirit world. So he said it was still possible that the fire at Brownstown was an Algonquin fire, as well as Huron.

We were supposed to go to Shohola, but could never get the battery problem straightened out. Later I found out there was a bridge from Shohola to Barryville where the old powwows were. My ex (who is Munsee) used to take me there for powwows, on top of a steep hill. There are no more powwows, but I heard the Cherokee took it over and do more traditional ceremony there. Ray knows the people.

Right in town I noticed a waterfall under a bridge near the Sunoco station on 6. We got out and explored it in the sun, which was relaxing.

I got a message from Kim, she gathered together three opera singers and they sang the water song over and over and fell in love with it and would like to do it often. I had gotten a message from Thunderbird Tuesday just before the movie New World that the ceremony was at 7 Tuesday, but the following week.

We watched Beware of Mankind for the first time. Towards the end, Joanne Shenandoah is singing Reason To Live at the Woodstock 94 Music Festival, a beautiful song sung by a great voice, performed in front of 250,000 people as part of the opening spiritual blessing ceremony.

I suddenly remembered a few days after seeing that, that the ceremony was partly my idea. Mark Lang was extremely resistant to the idea, and Betsy Stang said to me, “If you send him a very strong email at such a time and place and day, he will read it. But make it strong, and we might have a chance. I wrote him the email, and I said that the reason why Woodstock 69 went so well and acquired such fame was because Swami Satchitananda had given his blessing beforehand, and that if there was no blessing at this one, bad things might happen. I begged him to reconsider. Well, according to Betsy, that email completely turned him around and we had the ceremony, with lots of Tibetan monks and Rinpoches and me and my band of 36 Native Americans (at least half came upon my invite, the other half came with them) and other spiritual folks on stage behind Joanne Shenandoah. I didn’t know that there were going to be so many Tibetans, but later, after seeing “The Cry of the Snow Lion” I realized how very important it was. Chatting with Rinpoches about peace and contemplation, its easy not to know how horrible the Chinese persecution in Tibet really is. I have been in the vicinity of Tibet and yet I was amazed at what I saw in Cry of the Snow Lion! Horrible!

In the movie Beware of Mankind I can be clearly seen for a long time standing close behind Joanne Shenandoah on stage, just to the left of her on the screen, as if guarding her (which I guess I was) and occasionally looking left. That was funny because I’d been talking about that concert a few hours earlier in the day with the guy I bought the headphones from, and on Sunday when I showed Scooter the footage of Ilfra at my Evstock Festival the year after.

Notes from Sorrow in Our Hearts, by Allan W Eckert. I marked important pages in Ellis’ copy of Sorrow In Our Hearts with pieces of paper as follows: 590 Fort Malden and Brownstown.
P 611picture of the slab, on display in Anne Arbor MI. p. 624625 George Floyd, Grouseland and Vincennes, 630 meeting between Harrison and Tecumseh. 639 Brownstown in 1812, major gatherings. p 688 Brownstown as mainly Huron; P 694 St Josephs Island, 695 Lewis Cass, no fear 696 map of brownstown; p. 711 August 4th 1812 they came into Tecumseh’s camp at Brownstown. 712 T’;s camp close to Brownstown; p. 874 Freemont Ohio was the Wyandot village at Sandusky. Note 257 IOF Manchester Island 1 and 2 lower bend of Ohio, spot not clear. P 880 note 290 Washingtons’s secret plan to destroy the NA civilization. 881 John Adams was the one saying to Britain that our US boundaries go to the Mississippi, not the Ohio, the brits said Ohio, one of the fighting points of the revolution. No wonder NAs fought with British. Treaty of Paris 1783. note 325 “Blue Jacket (was at) the Grand Council that was at the mouth of the Detroit River.” (1788) 355 origins of Cincinatti relate to St Claire as Indian fighter. He was a member of the order. P 891 note 350; Chicago the place of onion smells. 351 Proctor at Malden; note 356 order of Constitution (Melanchton Smith) p 8983 note361 the incredible leap, use for Wawarsing story. note 433 p 906 Gen Knox quote for Washington and the Algonquins. P 920 T Jefferson note 519, Jefferson not really helpful to NA. p 921 note524 For IOF Tecumseh crossed river at Lachine, met Papineau. P 925 note 543 for NNY, Wyandot not Delaware as grandfathers.; p 933 note 568 the great slab is on display at the Milford Chandler loan in Anne Arbor, U of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.p 970 note 737 Brownstown, also T running up and down a beach on a horse. P 974 752 Matchemeneto, just mentioned by William Commanda.


Tuesday, Feb. 21st I taught her the water song and she sang it back to me and it sounded beautiful. The guy called back from Accelerated Credit and I didn’t hang up on him but explained why I called NY state about him, and what they had said in response. I explained that the gray areas of the “prepayment” situation was over my head, legally speaking, as it seems they intentionally pushed it and manipulated the situation into a very grey area. They say you don’t prepay, then you prepay by credit card on the trust that by the time they are done, it will be the day before the billing hits your credit card. And we’re talking lots of money here. In God we trust, I say.

I did a lot of unpacking packing , hanging up clothes, etc and working on downloading the emails from John Wells at Inwood Park.

Class went really well today, and all the loose ends came together and I could feel a positive feeling return to the class. Sometimes the complex art form of teaching as art gets bogged down in problems, today it was like a successful opera! Everything in harmony. I read the first verse of the Tao Te Ching, and explained that having the Tao is like being in the zone; you don’t try to analyze it too much. Some times you have a great dream and you wake up feeling magic, and that you can do anything. You’re in the zone. How long does it last? One person said 2 Minutes. I asked Wally, he said “It all depends on many factors.” Wally is so analytical some times.
So I explained the first verse this way, if you lose the Way, then all you have is integrity. If you lose integrity all you have is humaneness. If you lose humaneness all you have is righteousness. If you lose righteousness, all you have is etiquette. I tied that in with the fact that so many societies that believed in and taught the Tao eventually made rules for being in that graceful “zone” and then enforced it and punished those who didn’t follow. I said, that when a group of people fall out of “the zone” what else can you do? You can’t learn to be in the zone from a book. I said to James Smith, who was very tired from losing a close game to Old Dominion in the MAAC, I asked, “You’re involved in sports. Do you ever get into the zone?
He said yes, sometimes. Does it really work? Can you visualize those baskets? “Yes”
I said, “Have you ever experienced feeling like you were in the zone but things still didn’t work and you couldn’t score?” Yes. I said, “That happens to me once in a while too.” If you fall out of the zone, how do you get back in? You can’t, he said, it has to find you.
Then Larry who is quiet spoke up very excited. He said, “I was the quarterback on my high school football team, and I experienced the zone a lot, and it really works. When you’re in it you don’t want to get anything to throw you off.
I looked at Wally and I said, “Does the name Keltner mean anything to anyone? That was the Cubs third baseman who stopped Joe DiMaggios 54 game hitting streak. He made a surprise catch and stole a hit from DiMaggio late in a game and it broke the streak. (But DiMaggio stayed in the zone for several more weeks!)
We agreed that ball players are really superstitious trying to stay in the zone.
I said, that Wade Boggs was one of the most superstitious people who ever lived, but he batted .330 several years in a row, so it worked.
I started the class by reading from Ivan from Cossack Folk Tales. It was a rare Euro folk tale that was filled with oracles, offerings, sacrifices, spirit world travel and magical beings. They loved the story. I reminded them that they all admitted to using wishing wells, and were all shamans. I said Ivan literally offered gold coins as offerings to god, and fully believed in his prayers. I said, “How many are in business administration? Several raised their hands. I said “They don’t teach you stories like this do they?” No!
I said, “How many believe in the power of prayer?” All raised hands. I said, “So Ivan wasn’t so dumb, he was wise. If you really believe that prayer will work you would be very careful what you pray for. He had to choose between being Czar of all the Russias, or lots of money or a wonderful relationship. How many people would pray to be Czar of Russia? No one responded. What about lots of money? No one raised a hand. I said, “But we all want a wonderful relationship right?” Yes.
Near the end of class, they made internet presentations on various forms of Taoistic teaching around the world. We finished just before the end of class. Wally went ahead with Fi Rhinne, quoting Finn McCool. Lisette had Maat, as I recall.
I also had the meagus shells with me, and demonstrated. I told them to ask a question. “Is it daytime.” I rolled 5 and 2. “YYessss!” I exclaimed. It is daytime! Then kidding around I said “Is this a good and interesting class?” I got 3 and 4, but quickly cleared off the shells from the table. Someone said, “What did it say,” I said, 3 up 3 down and one standing on its end!”
I also read the anthro report on the Saami which backed up everything we said about the movie Pathfinder, and they agreed to go one minute past the end of class to hear it.
One big lucky victory: Last week L had complained ending class late on Valentines Day, to get to the stopping point in the movie, we both lost our cool. She said my watch was wrong, I said I set it to the radio every day. I researched the situation and found that I had been acquiescing to the clock in the desk and it was quite late. She exaggerated the lateness, but I was making a mistake by trusting that little clock. Today I explained the source of the problem and announced that from now on we would start on time, not by the desk clock, being careful not to make it start today, since they were in the habit of starting late, but I made it start next class. Then L’s presentation on Taoistic thought had to do with admitting mistakes, a pointed teaching which could have applied to either of us. By the time she had the floor at the end of the class, I had already resolved the problem and also admitted my part of the mistake. So by the time I had to go over the end time by one minute, I looked at L and she nodded. Very neat!!! In fact, that one minute really helped prepare them to write their papers on the Sami!

I am slowly, step by step increasing my presence on the internet. Tuesday, I was reading my 04 diary at Peacefile, and saw June 4th through July 24. My eyes dried out doing all night computer work and have had bad headaches for two days. Can’t seem to get enough water. I enrolled in world of blogs and linked my blog to everyone on that site. Many of them are “positive thinking” sites. I consider myself a positive thinker, but I deal frankly with so many grizzly subjects, I wonder if certain readers appreciate how positive my little light really is. At this point, influenced I suppose from Scooter who runs her jeep of life on a rocky road without springs or suspension and no oil, I tell it like it is, but with a smile.


I practiced the two pieces in the chapel until 4:00 then walked to the library and immediately saw Igor and I sat down. I sat and talked to him for a long time, about his book, in fact til 5:00. The cell phone went off and then the caller disconnected. As it turned out it was Ellis, cell phone died. I called back at 5:15 very confused, everything crazy. I was in the lobby from 4 to 5 with Igor, trying to pump his spirits back up about his book Right Under Our Noses. I offered to help after Robert Jay was squared away. He showed me in return how to do links and use counters.
I went to my car and had no gas, drove almost to Hess and found the envelope in the windshield, it was a note from Ellis, meet me at the movie. It was already starting time. Traffic was snarled. I found Elllis’ car in Rhinebeck on the right and parked next to it, and ran to the theater. I apparently missed 10 minutes of the film, but it wasn’t too bad. New World was very good visually, but they kept playing the theme from Elvira Madigan, which Mozart did not write for 100 years. Some of the music was a little like Philip Glass only flowing. Pretty interesting.
A lot was left out but nothing terribly inaccurate.
The guy from Alexander played John Smith, very hard to understand.
I later asked Ellis how she felt when Pocahontas gave water to the prisoner in the stockade; even during the movie I whispered “that’s you!” There is a resemblance between the actress and Ellis. There was a clear difference between the life of the Europeans and the “Naturals.” The Naturals were much more likeable, the Euros rather awful and stupid. The Evangelist was literally foaming at the mouth!

Afterwards I talked to Ellis, who said he was in the lobby between 4 and 5, waiting for me. I said that’s impossible. I have witnesses that you were not there, as Igor knows you. I asked permission to do a shamanic journey to get an answer as to why movies are such a problem.

Then we went to Mugal Raj, and had one of the finest meals of our time together. We talked with the waiter about India and Bangaladesh which is where he was from. I talked Ellis’ ear off, about everything, my various projects, about “the zone” and Tao.

I wanted very much to take E to the chapel and play the keyboard for Ellis, the new piece, but E was very reluctant, didn’t want to get home too late. I insisted, then ran out of gas, yellow warning, and suddenly was having all kinds of problems getting gas. Stations were closed and one place had two tanks that gave you 20 cents and stopped. That cost me 15 minutes, then found gas at that Hess station. We arrived later than expected to the chapel, 10:30 and it was locked, an unusual event lately. It was pretty sad, and I wondered if it had just been locked, and if the gas incident made the difference. We stayed up talking til 2 AM. There is this curse with movies and music where Ellis and I are concerned.

I have an idea of making an online scrap book, scanning all these objects at work.

Monday, February 20th, 2006: I worked a lot today on the Mets site and posted the Tigers Baseball Clinic article. Ellis remembered that Tiger Stadium was on Michigan Ave. I looked up Trumbull. I had rewritten some of the article, not too bad. I also searched all the Mets fan blog sites and made a list. Cerrone’s is the most sophisticated. I offered to supply him with Mets Yanks IQ tests, exclusive for two weeks, in exchange for a byline/link. He later responded saying he’d look at my site in a month and see if I was still up, and then would enroll me in links. Sunday night into Monday I worked on that IQ test.
I also edited and updated Algonquin Eagle Song, and posted it as a new weblog site/book, very exciting, calling it People of Manitou. Later I found that Google had discovered me for the first time as a blogger, crawling my profile. Late on Monday went through the students papers on great Algonquins and clipped the photos and bios they had found. I saved the clips on the stick, but have not had a moment to import them yet. I took a walk in the afternoon, and went into the woods and discovered Chief Awissawa’s hideout, a natural rock shelter by a stream I had never seen before. I rested beside it, and it felt good to be cold. Raymundo had always believed that Awissawa, Chief of the Renneiu and of the Family of Amorgarikakan (and the Behike of the Matouac) had a camp near that spot.

Sunday, February 19th, 2006: Hung out with E. We watched an hour of highlights from my first annual surprise 40th birthday Evan’s Little Woodstock concert. Wws very moved by it and loved Hugh Brody, not surprising. I was thinking of how to make it into a DVD. In dubbing I had cut off a lot of important stuff and figured I’d have to find the complete reel masters to continue. I don’t know where they are, but they are in beige containers from Jim Davis.
Then we ate snacks, doing laundry and errands, and went to the Saugerties diner for breakfast and I had a BBQ chicken. I read the baseball history IQ in the Post and it gave me an idea. I took her to see the Saugerties water fall at 9W, which is huge but noone knows about. E was trying to reach D who wanted her home even though the power was out. I said there’s just a little bit of sun left, lets spend ten more minutes, and we went to the beach and two swans swam up to me and she took a bunch of pictures. After she left I worked on various computer projects. I don’t remember.

Saturday, February 18th, 2006: I sang a practice concert for Ellis, went through most of the songs I planned to sing tonight. Ellis still wasn’t sure she was coming along until 3 and then she was going to go by Fishkill, and so I raced home, got there at 6, unpacked, packed, concert at 7. Showed up 6:15, Nextel worked even in Saugerties! We left immediately. Long way to Pine Hill. We got there at 7 PM and there were cars everywhere! No place to park. We tried the side door, closed! We went through the front, a good crowd gathered. There was no opening act, no introduction, I had to introduce myself. Ellis helped set up the mikes and PA and the books in the next room. To save heat they had us in the small front room. Young Eagle the Unquachaug was helpful.

The people simply waited as I tried to pull the stage equipment together.
We were up and running in about 6 minutes, and I mixed stories together with music and gave a full scale concert, lots of sing along and new original material, and then signed books at intermission, and then gave another half hour to hour concert and storytelling. Things went rather well. My voice was better than ever. I was using Ellis magic guitar, and the PA worked pretty well. Of course it would have been good to tape it, but it wasn’t possible in the time. I brought regalia I didn’t use. Great audience.

I had to ask Mary Lou for $25 for gas, but overall took in $200 on that and book sales, so it was worthwhile from the business perspective, but it was the best original song concert in a very long time, and the first time in 3 years Ellis got to hear me really sing without everything going wrong.

Also at the concert was David Carerra, but he left early on. Also I met J whom Farah had been talking about for years. Id say J is fully my height and rather large. kept clear of me, and Ellis kept J at a distance. J would like to come to the March 25th concert.

Claire Danielson came with Bob and it was his birthday, so I sang my birthday song. Then I sang Cheyenne for the first time in public, going through various keys, and it came out really well, except for one lyric pause. Ellis seemed happy. J enjoyed it too. Bob seemed to like it the best of anyone and I sort of made it a birthday offering. Later I gave him a copy of Miss Leeds catalogue, and after the event was over I autographed it and read him some of the highlights and everyone was laughing out loud, one woman could hardly breathe. It was a really fun moment, but Claire seemed to think Bob needed to get home. There was a feeling of warmth and good will there.

I also talked about the coming earth changes, but in a subtle upbeat way.

I dedicated the song No Word For Goodbye to the memory of Archie Cheechoo, who had just died of a heart attack. As I sang the song, the real relevance and timeliness of the song was more than I expected, and I started to cry, but it came out in my voice in a musical way, rather than the usual way, which isn't so great to listen to.


Young Eagle gave me a sharks tooth and a crystal and spoke to me in Unquachoag, and then gave a speech about the Unquachaog and the Algonquin history of Long Island, and praised me before all the people saying that I was chosen by the Great Spirit to carry a great burden in this world of the history and wisdom of the Algonquin people, and that I spoke the truth. He hugged me several times.

Was in Pa and almost didn't make it to Pine Hill for the big concert. There was no opening concert act, no MC, or introduction, just lots of people waiting for me to start. As we knew, James Audlin had already cancelled the appearance. It was a very cold night. Ellis took a lot of pictures ,which I will insert here eventually. I rehearsed the songs with guitar for several hours earlier in the day and was ready musically, but the logistics were not worked out right. Young Eagle spoke to me alot in Unquachoag, and said some words of praise at the microphone. The audience was super, plus Claire Danielson was there and Ellis and Claire got to meet for the first time, having heard of each other.

Here is a picture of me and Distant Eagle James Audlin at the Tibetan Center in Wappingers Falls NY.



Friday February 17th: Ellis had scheduled leg surgery but it was cancelled due to some dumb paperwork glitch. We had a full class at WV and V, read from Sami research to back up movie, people read Taoism/Dharma papers, went over rules for term papers, I read from Tao Te Ching, a highlight of the class for me.Caught up somewhat with correspondence, was online alot, found gas for 2.26 a gallon and filled up. It was very warm today so I took a walk. I worked on the quartet, now an organ solo, moving the sections around. I made a phone call and soon found myself alone in the Dutch Reformed First Methodist Episcopal Church of Fishkill, playing the piece, and then got an organ lesson, and played (parts of) the piece on the organ, bass pedals and all. It sounded just like I had hoped--like a religious meditation. I hadn't played a pipe organ in 30 years, and it was quite the experience. I prepared for Ethics class, but got stuck in traffic. I felt inspired to show The Insider today to class, the high tension ethical drama starring Russell Crowe as tobacco industry whistle blower Jeffry Wygand and Al Pacino as Lowell Bergman the producer of 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace, who was played I think by Christopher Plummer. Wygand has to decide between honoring his contract and hurting people or breaking the contract and saving lives. The students have to write a paper showing how they would have decided and why. If they chose to honor the contract they must quote Thomas Hobbes as their authority, and if they choose to break the contract they must quote John Stuart Mill.
As we began there were still six students who had not given their movie rhetoric presentations yet, and one was quite in depth and went on for a while (an A student, who wrote a long paper and did a lot of research, I certainly wasn't about to stop her!)So the movie didnt start til 7:15, but I went ahead anyway. As it turns out we couldnt' have seen the whole movie anyway, but got to a good stopping point.
One of the reasons I show this movie now, (I havent in three or four years) is because Wygand is much like today's James Hansen at NASA, who is under terrific pressure to shut up about climate change, and won't shut up. He is considered NASA's top expert in the field, and he is supposed to speak on behalf of NASA, but he goes out into the public and says he is speaking for himself and presents NASA/his research, about the dire environmental situation we are in. This morning I read the Rolling Stone article, another smash scoop by RS, on how NASA is giving up on earth as a reliable location for the human race and is betting all the marbles on Mars, which is a cold poisonous planet. My take on this is that if we can live on Mars we can live anywhere, including under the ocean. The same technology we need in New York's architecture is the same we need in Martian architecture, it needs to be that self contained in order to not add to pollution and climate change. But its alot of gas money for that commute (not that my commute to Marist doesn't take up gas money( and we need that money to survive here at home.

Friday February 17th, 2006: I got on the phone in someone else’s office, and talked to Robert Jay and he says his sale of his property in MD has been interfered with, and he has no cash flow. I agreed to do the rearranging of the structure of his rather large and complex book for four hours on credit, $100 credit. I also talked to the tour people at Metro International and said I wanted $200 to give a tour, they later called back and offered $100. Painfully, I accepted their offer for $100, knowing that I would not make much after expenses and that date would then be taken, so that if someone else came along, I’d be obliged not to take it. And then they called back and said that they wanted me to do it for free. I said “call me back some time later with $100 and I’ll be happy to do it for you.” Well it turned out that two weeks later I was offered a splendid gig in NYC for that very day. It would have been a rather awkward situation for everyone if I’d accepted the $100, or even the for free deal.

Thursday February 16th; forgotten day.

February 15th, I worked out a class assignment schedule for the whole semester for world views and values and printed it out. I went on a research trip around the Minisink Island region, for a thousand years the capitol and stronghold of the Munsee, to whom my Native New Yorkers book (coming to a paperback store near you) is dedicated. I found Milford's "The Columns" Museum, only open Wednesdays, and found several items worthy of the Smithsonian. They have the flag that Lincoln's head rested on after he was shot, authenticated, and with quite a stain of blood. And they had what looked like some really old Iroquoian regalia in fine condition from Francis Clark, who fought in the Civil War. He apparently inherited the war club and regalia from his grandfather. He claimed to have been made chief of the Brules by Spotted Tail. There was a beaded pouch and it had letters beaded in WANBLI CINA AHLAHPAYA, which they translated as Hovering Eagle. I believe wanbli means spotted eagle. They had an old flute that belonged to Judge EJ Baker and a document signed by DeWitt Clinton. There was an old poster of a town celebration honoring "Tom" Quick, although he is famous only for being a murderer, of Munsee. His father had a gristmill in town before the revolution. When his father was killed by Indians, little Tom, who had been friendly with the natives before, went on a rampage of revenge, a very famous story, but a bit grizzly.

Visited the Magagkamack cemetery in Port Jervis, one of the most colorful cemeteries in America, featuring hand hewn gravestones of people like Jake Squirrel who fought in the revolution, and other colorful characters. Some of the headstones had original poems, some simply bore initials scrawled into the stone with a knife. Some truly look all the world like Halloween lawn decorations. Magag is pumpkin and kamack is field in the Munsee language. In that dark Munsee humor heads are referred to as pumpkins, and as the bodies were in the early days simply interred without coffins, just some bark wrappings, they rise to the surface after a few seasons, skull first.
Found alot of really interesting headstones there, certainly some of the best. My favorite is that of Tunis Quick. The famous Tom Quick was born 1734 in this region (often "Tom" is in quotes) this Tunis was born 1787, over 50 years later.
Also visited the Port Jervis library historical room and found a book Tom Quick, The Indian Slayer by James E Quinlan, and a book called Along The Waywayanda Path by Donal Melville Barrell pub 1975 by T Emmett Henderson Middletown. 1975.
I may later add my notes and findings here. Alot of great info. Nice people.
In the library was a young Native American man with raven black hair down to his waist and a big hole in his jeans at the knee. He looked Wappingers to me, but I didn't feel like I should interrupt him.

Tuesday February 14th, I had class in the morning and showed the first part of Pathfinder. I gave an intro and then looked up and the screen was all the way inside the ceiling which is at least 14 feet up. I knew I couldnt reach the cord even standing on a table. Some of the students in the back giggled, and I said, "I wish Jim (the basketball player) were here!" Just then, he walked in, coming in from practice I assume, and stepped up on the table and was just able to grab the cord and hes at least a foot taller than me. He drew it down and we watched the movie. The five or ten minutes lost trying to find a way to bring the screen down meant we couldnt get to a meaningful stopping place. I gave it an extra minute or two by the clock in my desk, but we weren't close enough and I had to dismiss class at a downward point. A student was complaining about the 2 minutes and I was unhappy to break up the movie so absurdly. I now realize that the desk clock is a minute slow.
I went to the piano at school and made some changes to the string quartet score.
I worked on the Mets website, and finally finished the research piece on Mets VS Yankees comparisons, which is one of the larger pieces. I'd started it three years ago and then put it away. Its alot of work looking up all those team stats, but its a part of New York history that is almost totally unknown. Finally I had a complete comparison for all team stats between 1999 and 2005. Each season, the Mets usually have more extra base hits and stolen bases with lower ERAs than the Yankees. Mets fans realize the significance of this, as the city press (dare I honor them by calling them tabloids?) is always making unfavorable comparisons, assuming people don't know any better, and in fact they don't. I showed it to Ellis, a Yankee fan, who recommended just one or two literary touches and edits, and it was done. My purpose is not to insult the Yankees but to poke a little good natured fun at them from a Met perspective. Ellis helped me see it through the eyes of a Yankee fan. DLP says our goal in that baseball blog is to encourage fans of all types from all over the world to look favorably on the Mets and their plight in the spirit of brotherhood. Yes, we are doing that, but I still want some good Yankee jokes in there.

Feb 13th, looking back to Feb 11

February 13th, Updated this blog offline. I need to really clean up my writers studio, so I can find things. I once made a tape diary of my experiences at William Commanda’s 2005 Spiritual Elders Gathering, a memorable exprience, which now is a sort of hole in my blog (I can probably find it online at help!theresaholeinmyblog.com) until I find it. Since last Friday, I keep hearing that string quartet (usually played by a huge string orchestra) in my head, and it is very calming and peaceful. I started hearing that in my dreams when I was 16, which was before I first heard Albinoni's great Adagio in A. (That's alot of A's) When I first heard that I went into a trance for an hour or two and felt transported in a kind of ecstatic religious state. Every few years the strings would come back, and lift my soul again.
This afternoon after working a while on this blog, the music got yet more intense, so I grabbed a book of blank music paper and started to write it down in pen. As I wrote I could hear all four voices clearly, and in about three hours had completed the 40 measure quartet section, in ink, without access to a piano. I had just started to learn Finale, but its not easy, and I was not proficient yet to attempt to use it as a composing tool. It was a lifetime dream fulfilled, as when I was studying composition at Catholic U and later Juilliard, I was always striving for this type of fluidity and clarity, to write four independent contrapuntal voices without using a piano, and have them come out perfect, and also beautful. When I was younger, I'd find that when I played the piece on the piano I had to change a few rhythms and notes to make it work better. I then wrote out a 160 measure version (writing out the four voices in various combinations) as a pipe organ Meditation in A minor, (but with lots of modulations) which came to 8 pages of piano staves. (I will edit it down in a few days) Then I got to a piano and played it. I found that it didn't realy need any changes after all. I played it for a fellow musician,over the phone who said it was amazing. I thought, "This is how Handel must have felt," but of course his Messiah was longer by far, but it sounded more like Bach, or more exactly like Albinoni. I felt I was in that dream the whole time, and felt like it was a gift from God, and I was very grateful and happy. That song still sings inside me. I went outside to walk and the moon was even more amazing than the night before. It was sitting on the end of my road, due east again, a bright red hazy ball sitting on the horizon. I watched it as it rose up into the sky again, going through many beautiful colors. What a truly mystical experience, looking at that vibrant color with all those strings playing in my head. I mentioned it to a friend who said that a famed french horn quartet was going to be playing, and there was a connection with a mutual friend, Ted. I thought, now that would be a miracle. To write a quartet and then hear it played three weeks later with french horn ensemble. It would sound great!

February 12th, Snow hits overnight, not much here, but 26 inches in Central Park and 21 in PA. I had plans of meeting a friend at the UU in Rock Tavern, but they were cancelled. I set up a portable recording studio at home and cleaned up the room a little more. My friends are sooo psychic. I don't have to call them, they call me the minute I walk in the door. I may be away for weeks, and no messages, but I walk in the door, and there's one call after another. Today was like that. We talked about the coming earth changes and global warming. Ellis and I talked of green architecture, and described to me off the internet all the ecological features of the new Bank of America building at Bryant Park. There are many! It sucks pollution, catches rainwater, collects solar energy, and probably takes a bow at the end of the day.
Meanwhile I worked on polishing the section of Evansearthwalk written in summer of 2005. Its important stuff too. If you look to the lower left of the screen you should see an entry for January and before. Eventually that will go from June 05 to the present, probably completed by the time my kid is living on Mars. I went outside and saw the full moon and it was astounding, rising on the eastern horizon. I called Ellis and said “put your coat on and go outside and look for the full moon on the eastern horizon. I’ll be back in an hour.” I went out and took an hour walk towards the moon, ending up at my favorite tree, and wrote this poem in my head.

Moon, full on the eastern shore of my horizon
Clouds like mother of pearl floating in a sea of mist
Rising powerful and lovely, the moon filled me with the desire to live
I threw sunflower seeds in the snow
Threw them downward, eastward, forward
Hoping for a sign, there in my special place.
The moon kept rising, straight up like a phoenix,
Raising the spirit of endurance within me,
As if expecting an eclipse to mark the day with fire.
The wind felt cold and good on my face,
Waking me to the moment,
Telling me to face the facts of this dying world without fear
A wind solo
Stating the haunting theme
of winter’s final movement in A minor.

I called Oannes Pritzger, my Penobscot friend down in Florida, host of Wolf Mountain Radio to thank him for sending me cassette copies of the interview we did earlier in January. It is four cassettes long, and will be divided into several broadcasts of 58 minutes.

Oannes was in the Peace Corps in Asia in 1979, and returned to Indian Island, in the Penobscot River in Maine, and someone at the campus radio station at the University of Maine in Orono, asked to interview him. After the interview he asked what was involved in having a radio show on the campus station. The answer was nothing, if you’re a student, you just sign up and do it. He fell in love with radio and never looked back. He has now been recording and broadcasting interviews for 25 years, all in service to native people and mother earth. He started out very simply, announcing births and deaths on the reservation, local news, weather…(snowsnake scores and standings? LOL) He thought of it as Wabanaki Radio. He traveled around a lot and began to wonder how he could find a way to broadcast his environmental message to the whole world. He prayed about it one day in 1992. A few days or weeks later, on March 26th of that year, he found himself at a symposium in Eugene, Oregon called Peace on the Planet: Native Wisdom, Native Rights and Mother Earth. It was there that he met up with the folks at RFPI, Radio For Peace International, and began to broadcast Wolf Mountain Radio on worldwide shortwave. It was around 1997 he was invited to broadcast from the Belonging to Mother Earth symposium in Virginia Beach, VA.
I was there, and saw Richard Schneider, the organizer of the event, walking in the lobby proudly carrying a beautiful medicine pouch. I said, “Wow, Richard, that is the most beautiful Penobscot medicine pouch I ever saw. Where did you get it?”
He said, “How do you know its Penobscot?”
I said, “The style is absolutely unmistakable. That is a very fine traditional style PENOBSCOT pouch! I’d put money on it.”
He answered, “I will introduce you to the maker. He is indeed Penobscot, and he will be extremely happy to hear that you recognized his tribe from his work! His name is Oannes Pritzger and he is broadcasting live on RFPI (Richard was/is deeply involved in the station) from the lobby as we speak. Perhaps we can arrange an interview for you.
That’s how I met Oannes, and did that interview the next day, and several more besides. I ended up being a host and interviewer for RFPI myself, and presented a 24 week series on “The Indigenous Roots of World Religion,” as part of RFPI’s University of the Air. Oannes played an advisory role in that. I was traveling that summer and was able to hear my broadcast from various locations in the US on the shortwave.
As we spoke today he had not heard about Lovelock’s book, but his environmental group at the college he works with is sponsoring a global warming lecture later this week by David Orr, a professor at Oberlin on environmental studies and green technology. I asked him to ask Orr about the methane releases, if he thought they were happening or just a theory, to what degree, etc. and if they would contribute to the warming.
One can now hear Wolf Mountain Radio for free on the internet. One way is to go to www.yatkitischee.org and follow instructions. You can also go to www.radio4all.net , there are about 60 programs, search Honoring Mother Earth Indigenous Voices, click Evan Pritchard and click play and you can hear the show we did if you have Realplayer, which most new computers do. You can also hear Oannes on RFPI, also on line.
Tonight I made my first recording on the ministudio, (Cheyenne) it was complicated. I could not figure out yet how to add tracks. I read most of the instruction book, mindboggling complexity. It had taken me two days to figure out how to turn it on, and another day to figure out how to turn it off!

Saturday, February 11th, 2006; I cleaned my room, a constant battle between priceless information and useless garbage. I pick up one piece of paper after another; “Priceless or useless?” “Priceless or useless?” It’s a hard life being a writer. Some days they’re all priceless and I get nothing done, other days they’re all useless, and I throw out what I later regret not having. Shawna called at 11 to remind me of my workshop later that day. I said of course. The bad news was, with all the threats of snow, there was little preregistration, and I had not heard from the one person on my comp list.
I rushed out to be at Mirabai Books by one, and set up as quickly as I could. Then Shawna came in at one and said, “You’re here rather early. The workshop is at two PM you know!”
Well, that was okay, I needed some time to think. Patty came in first and was telling me how her husband’s Hotchkins disease comes and goes and how she takes care of him all the time and wondered if there was a Native American story about that. I could not think of one. Then AE came in, and her father had just died, the funeral was going to be Monday and she felt that stories were the only thing that could help her. She came in feeling that maybe there was no God, no spirit world, and that all our longings for visions of the spirit world are in vain, and that there was no way to communicate with her father. She herself had seen visions in the past, but now doubted them in the intensity of her loss. I said there was always a closeness with the spirit world at times of someone’s passing, and that winter was the night of the year when the spirits were especially close. She rejected that and said, “Do you know absolutely that this is true?” I smiled and said, “No, I am not absolutely sure about anything. Visions are good as long as they are helpful, and for the most part they are about consciousness. I am speaking of traditions of my people, and it’s a fact that the ancient ones believed this way. I’m not asking you to believe.”
Later on I told several stories about how Native elders communicated through phenomenal means with their loved ones at the moment of their death. I told of Aunt Helen and the Owl and the Blind Woman, and also of Albert Lightning’s messenger, who found me in the woods of Montreal on a trip from Alberta to Nova Scotia, to tell me he had just buried Albert Lightning, (my guru’s guru as they would say in India) and only because my son took his nephew’s blue ball.
Then MG showed up, not the first time in my classes, and her departed husband was on her mind. She said she, a lifetime peace activist, was born the day Hitler came to power. What a balance. She has been dedicated to peace ever since. I had a very sore throat and could hardly talk, but kept trying, and read The Stone Canoe from Native American Stories of the Sacred, which is about death and mourning, and then asked them to tell the saga of their own lives, or at least a thread of it. Patty told a story of a woman, standing at the edge of a great cliff, and weeping. Just then a great eagle comes and flies over the abyss before her. She closes her eyes and turns into a bird and flies above the abyss. AE told a more earthly story about an outcast American girl who finds a pot of money and goes to Europe and meets wonderful people, having wonderful conversations everywhere she travels.
Then just as we were wrapping up, Sarah from Ithaca shows up. I told her our theme today was death, and asked her to share the story of how she came across No Word For Time. She said her best friend had died suddenly, and she went over to the house, and found a copy of No Word For Time and the family said she could keep it. We had a closing circle that was very wonderful, and I realized that my blogs were an attempt to make mythology out of my daily life, and I gave the url to Patty.
Then I did a short session with Sarah, the one who’d written the songs based on No Word For Time. Then Sarah sang a jazz song she’d written, a capella, and it was amazing; I could hear the chords behind it. She had a voice like Billy Holiday singing a high, soft lullaby. I had just received a letter from her that she wasn’t coming. But then this morning she had a dream of the Iroquois Peacemaker Deganawida, and she went to this place where there was a T in the road, and a bridge (log bridge) and an empty cabin. I said, “That was my house!!” She said there were these male elders in the dream and they told her to come to my workshop. (Talk about celebrity endorsement, that's probably the best PR I'll ever have!) Ithaca is four hours away, and apparently her car had just been fixed after a long time in the shop, and she knew she’d have to drive back in the snow. She sang me another song, a more bluesy song, and it too was amazing. I gave her an Unquachaug prayer book mark for her No Word For Time and signed it and the name Sarah Windsong came into my mind, so that’s how I addressed the autograph. She left. I sat in the store and rested, talking with Shawna about the new book by Lovelock, Revenge Of Gaia, and then AE walks in again, and wants to talk. So we went back to the meeting room and talked and she wanted to talk about how to protect herself from electricity and harmful electrical fields. I said, "You came to the right place." So we talked about a half hour on how to ground your own energy as well as that which comes in. She started getting very agitated, writing in her notebook, putting it away, then taking it out a minute later, putting it away. She said she was getting too wound up, and had to go away and slow down. I realized she was still in shock from the death of her father, and still had to face the funeral arrangements. Several asked if she was in pain, she said, “no, its all too surreal right now, and that’s fine.” I asked if she was going to be okay, and she said yes.
I went to the Little Bear and dined alone and had some spicy food to heal my throat and it worked. No snow at all! I went home and did more chores. I fell asleep for a long time and was wakened by a call, but I was too groggy to make business decisions. It had been a full day, but beautiful.

February 8th,
Read Mirellas wonderful new book, and wrote a blurb, just making deadline.

Lost Angels: An Alternative Approach to Autism by Mirella Zanetti-Laporte is an eye-opening guide and inspiration for those dealing with autism from the outside looking in. Written with emotionally-gripping authenticity from real-life experience with a truly challenging mother-son relationship, it stresses alternative, energetic healing solutions to dissolving some of the barriers between our world and that of the “lost angel,” including a heaping tablespoon of the most difficult medicine to come by, understanding.

Evan Pritchard, author of No Word For Time, From the Temple Within, the Fourth Book of Light, Light Workout, Secrets of Wholehearted Thinking, and Native American Stories of the Sacred.

February 10th looking back

Friday, February 10th I had World Views class, but no voice. The sore throat had turned to laryngitis and was staying put. I taped the Algonquin map to the wall, and talked about some local Native American history and then students read their presentations on modern Algonquin figures, and it went well. I read from the Unquachoag Prayer at the end of class. Today was the deadline for the Global Warming article in New York Spirit, emailing back and forth with William Meyers, using tracking etc. I made alot of changes. I pretty much made the deadline. I got a msg from a scientist Donna Blackwell, Scripps Oceanic Society, saying that there does not seem to be an increase in hydrothermal venting. This is a huge relief--if true. I sent a reply asking about the hesitations in the gulf stream currents. Later I got directed to another expert for that one.


I went to Staples to pick up the web business cards for amazine1.blogspot.com and they were there, even though no one had called me. They had just arrived! They looked pretty good and I was excited. The library was closed so I went to the lab to work on the baseball site and this one, inserting some pictures. I am learning about ads for the baseball site, and about linking. I have rarely trolled the web, but now I do. It takes time but I learn about what other people are doing. I read part of an interesting novel Bear Tribe something futuristic, ties in with global warming.
I taught a long guitar lesson for LV at her house. Her father was eager to look at the Mets site but forgot the url. I taught LV at home and then fell asleep on the way to Marist. Fortunately I pulled over. I was so sleepy I had a good nap. In the dream I was swimming in a sea of music, a huge string orchestra. It was very relaxing. When I woke up I remember staring at the dashboard of the car, and still hearing the music, hearing all four voices distinctly. As I was waking up, I heard this string orchestra in my head, very slow peaceful Baroque music in ¾ time to heal me. It has been in my head ever since. I wrote it down in the car in my logbook.


Today was the deadline for the global warming article for NY Spirit, and I just made the deadline before class. Today we talked about the nature of Tao, one of my favorite subjects, but also the students read their papers on modern Algonquins, which went well and took up much of the class time.

Thursday, February 9th, 2006: I believe it was this night after class that I called DLP on the cell and he told me he might get to go to England this summer to study abroad at a very old school with lots of gargoyles. I was tempted to say, “Hogwarts?” People always used to kid him about his Harry Potter Lookalike problem. This Christmas I was buying him some Harry Potter Glasses at the Scholastic Bookstore at the publisher’s headquarters on Broadway, but turned around and put them back. I thought maybe it would not be so funny from his point of view.
One of the courses offered was Shakespeare. I said, “Do you know the Psalms?” He said, “Yes I read the Bible for literary inspiration.” I asked, “Do you have a King James edition there?” “Yes, right here.” And he opened it to Psalms. I said, “Now look at Psalm 46. Shakespeare was 46 in 1611, the year that they were finishing the King James Bible, the first English bible. The story was, everyone had high expectations of the Psalms as poetry, but the translators were having a hard time making it zingy, peppy, wowwy, cool. So they hired Shakespeare, who was known for his associations with that abomination known as theater, but who could write some smokin’ verse. So they asked him to beef up a few Psalms, and he did. But they told him not to tell anyone he had been involved, whatsoever, on penalty of death. Being an artist and proud of his work, and also knowing some of the codes Da Vinci used, he signed the 46th Psalm in code. The 46th word in from the beginning is Shake, the 46th word from the end is Spear.
So of course in a way he broke his oath. The Globe Theater mysteriously burned down within two years, and then Shakespeare himself died three or so years after that under mysterious circumstances. Of course, this is how they teach literature at Hogwarts.

Many excellent scholars have endorsed this theory, and in fact the Hebrew words are in a very different order in the Pentatuch.
DLP was skeptical and counted and found the word count off by one. I noted there is also another word inserted which has never been translated, which throws off the word count. It was, needless to say, an interesting discussion. We talked about where he could go on weekends, and I suggested Paris rather than Rome, much quicker trip. He thought of Ireland, maybe Berlin where everyone speaks English. It was a fun discussion in any case.

Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 I read all of Mirella's new book Lost Angels and created a blurb/endorsement for the back cover. (See separate entry, it is about autism) Its due out very soon. She will be selling some at Lee Carroll's next extravaganza. He is very supportive of autistic or "Indigo" people, as am I.

I had an autistic student at Marist recently and I didn't say anything, I just knew, rather high functioning and intellectually gifted 20 or 21 years old, and very clever. She would ask questions, one after another until I was blue in the face and the other students were getting very annoyed at her, so I had to say "see me after class." They were good questions; she caught places where I assumed common knowledge that for her did not exist. Afterwards one of the students was very angry. He stormed up to me, "Why do you spend so much time on her? Do you know what she is? She's a...." I cut him off, and said, "I know what she is and I know others like her, and sometimes they do very good work! But they do things in thier own way, as you see." He couldn't believe it.

The other day I saw her sitting in the student center with her "travel bear" in her lap, just staring off into space. I nodded to myself, and kept her secret. She has the green starry eyes associated with Williams' Syndrome. It is a rare syndrome that doesn't have that many obvious drawbacks and often brings with it a gift for music, but those with this syndrome have weak hearts, literally and figuratively. I must know a million people with this rare syndrome.

I went wandering around Woodstock today. Its not that large a town. Tourists come here and say, “Hmm…excuse me…is there another Woodstock?” Well in fact there’s Saugerties, Bethel, White Lake, and also there’s Phonecia and Shady, and all are part of the Woodstock archipelligo but no, this is all there is! It was a good day. I was driving and looked down at the floor and there was the tape of my WNYC interview with Leonard Lopate lying there. I hadn’t seen that in years. That live broadcast reached tens of thousands of people with the Native New Yorkers message, and sold a lot of copies. He was a tough interviewer, but we all rose to the occasion. I had been warned by another author that he can kind of sneak up on you with these hard questions, even personal questions, after all its New York, so I was prepared, and we did a little mental gymnastics, a little intellectual Sumo wrestling, but both shook hands at the end so to speak. I listened to the tape on and off as I drove during the day, and it was mostly history, and not as contentious as I remembered. But I had fond memories of the place. The studio is at Number One Center street, where the Boro President’s office is, and there was tons of security on the way in, since it was just after 9-11. I believe it was that day that I met Virginia Field, Boro President of Manhattan and gave her Native New Yorkers and a dream catcher made by a Munsee still living in the state. I offered it to all the people of New York in her care, and she accepted it gladly and said, “Thanks, we need all the help we can get!”
I went to the post office, and there was a note for a package. I picked it up and it was a package full of tapes from Oaness at Wolf Mountain Radio, tapes of our latest interview. However, it arrived with no postage and with no postage due or COD sticker on it. The new director there is very strict, and chewed out the employee who didn’t send it back or throw it away. In fact, the meter tags are often put on in haste and don’t stick too well. His wife Betty had mailed it, and I don’t think that the postal workers in Florida would have accepted it without postage, so I suspect the distain I received was orchestrated. The director sneered when she had to write out Yat Kitischee by hand in her documentation book, but hey its not an Algonquin word so what do I care?
I also received a letter from Sarah saying she wasn’t sure she was coming to the February 11 event. I got a poster from Mary Lou at Pine Hill for the upcoming event, the one James David Audlin was going to speak jointly at. I saw that she had only put my picture on the poster, not his, and I felt that wasn’t right, and I wondered if that’s one reason why he cancelled, and I wouldn’t blame him. I believe that event would have been the first for his new book. As it turns out he will have his book launching at Oblong on March 25th, which gets more traffic among book dealers, and we will try again for a co-signing later in March.
I sent Brian Wilkes (www.standingbearfoundation.org also can be reached brian@wilkesweb.net )a copy (finally) of Native American Stories of the Sacred, along with the gallery brochure from Ramapo College. Brian was extremely helpful in providing most of the Cherokee information in the book, which is all real cutting edge stuff, and authentic oral tradition. Thanks Brian!
I went to visit Shiv Mirabito at Dharmaware, but he was in India until April. Eric, a local legend in Woodstock and organizer of many great events greeted me. They said I could organize an event for NASS when Shiv gets back.
I went to Golden Notebook, a famed bookstore in Woodstock, and talked to the owner for a while. He too had never heard of Lovelocks’ new book, but knew of some other fairly new releases on the subject. He said that he had Stories of the Sacred in stock, but was not in a position to do a signing right now. He asked when Native New Yorkers was coming out again, and I was able to say within six months, soft cover revised, and that I was the distributor for the hard back as author. He had arranged a book signing and reading for me for Native New Yorkers when it came out, and made some important connections for me then. I believe it was through that event that the book ended up at the bedside of our remarkable congressman Maurice Hinchey (one of the most "green" reps in Congress). The owner said he would like to arrange a signing for the release of the new Native New Yorkers, and I agreed.
I was feeling sick, and was losing my voice. I went home and was so tired I fell asleep with the light on. I was supposed to appear in court about a traffic incident, and when I got there, the officers related to the incident had already left. The judge could see how sick I was and said he’d set up another date. That was really quite considerate. I went to a Chinese restaurant in Saugerties to have some spicy food to heal my throat (which helped). I didn’t get too close to anyone, but I wasn’t sneezing. I sat there thinking about this crazy global warming scare, wondering if it was really possible, no less irreversible. I overheard people saying that the casino really would come to Saugerties. I thought that was pretty strange, why here? I knew it would stir up anti-Indian feelings here in town, such a small town to host a casino. I had no regrets personally, as while I was writing Native American Stories of the Sacred I came upon material I’d never seen before that explained the mythical importance of gambling and also its dangers, and included both in the book. It establishes a way for informed readers to be for traditional native customs and against modern casinos at the same time. However not everyone wants to have that kind of discussion when they are fighting for their community’s integrity. But mostly I was thinking sober thoughts about Hansen, Lovelock, Lovejoy and others, about this doomsday scenario, so close that if they are right I will probably see the beginning of the end. I went outside into the parking lot to stand in the cold air and think about these heavy things, and I looked up and there was a huge ring around the moon, which was not quite full. The ring was gargantuan in size and very awe inspiring, it encompassed the full scope of my vision. Inside the ring it was clear and outside it was cloudy. It was stunning, like the mother ship in Star Man. I had only seen that once before in my life, with my ex wife Patty. It was the day we were talking about the future and possibly getting married. Then we saw that ring, and she said it meant good luck, a big yes from the universe, especially regarding rings, etc. So based on that I decided to marry her and we were happy together for ten years and yielded a beautiful son who is smarter than me and more diplomatic, and who likes the Mets and music. Out of that bond came Resonance Magazine and Resonance Publishing which is where I got the nickname REZMAN. See, you thought it had something to do with being Indian and working on reservations saving endangered languages. So to see it tonight at what my friend Madeliene L'Engle would call an "hour of darkness.." as I contemplated the fall of mankind, it seemed like an exceptionally positive sign.
Maybe those hippies in Woodstock who say the aliens will come to rescue 440,000 are right. Hey, you gotta believe!
I also got some paperwork in the mail today from the Pequot Museum, a fine group of people who use casino money in a very constructive way. I guess the timing was ironic.