Opening Multicultural Kickoff

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 06, 2006
opening multicultural kickoff
Maydalain (How are you!) From Evan Pritchard...

2/06/2006
This is my new tasteful 2006 fan site (LOL) Evan's Earth Walk. My publishers, Skylight Paths Publishing of Woodstock VT, Resonance Magazine of Woodstock, NY and Council Oak Books of Tulsa, OK, have asked me to post blogs about my whereabouts and Native American/Multicultural/Environmental activities to help plug my books, and other products/creations/causes. Plus Kate Treworgy at Skylight plans to link this site to a new links page at the Skylight site to spread the word about the new book Native American Stories of the Sacred. She said it would be a few weeks! Better get it ready in time for Kate!

I will also link you to other websites as we go along, and tell you about the great literary journalistic and musical achievements of my friends, most of whom are talented Native Americans or descendants thereof like myself. (Am I talented? That's what they told me when I was five and I swallowed the bait!) Of course I also work with lots of great people, coworkers, students, fellow authors, literary blood brothers etc who are just plain wonderful and are doing good work on the planet while they are passing through. I will certainly build them up on this website, because who they are inspires me to be who I am, to be myself.

For those who are unfamiliar with my "earthwalk," I am a Mi'kmaq/Wampanoag and Celtic person, a descendant of Metacomet's family of the Wampanoag, which includes Witamu, Wamsutta, Passaconnaway, and Wannalancet (all pretty much within two generations) and of "King" John Julian of the Mi'kmaq who created 19 Mi'kmaq reservations around 1776 to preserve some of our land in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In that mix are the Acadian French Mi'kmaq, direct descendants of Philip D'Entrement-Muse whose son married Mi'kmaq Marie (?) Pictou to establish the ethnicity now called Acadian. The Mi'kmaq side of that family became the Moose family (a Mi'kmaq word) and my mother is a Moose (spelled Muse, then changed to Mewer) I was named Chipmunk (Abachbahametch) by an elder of the tribe, but many people now call me Sunheart, including Algonquin/Anishinabe elder William Commanda, who adopted me as his grandson and assistant, (with deference due to Charlie Commanda who is his blood relative grandson!) to help him with his work with A Circle of All Nations, A Culture of Peace.

This diary will not just be about Native American Stories of the Sacred, (NASS) or about Native American culture, though, but about everything I see around me that I want to remember. The "miracles" (a natural phenomenon, an expression of the Creator who is in everything) in my life involve everyone and sometimes some of the more mundane earthly aspects, as it should be. I will even comments sometimes on the media and daily news and sports events which touch everyone's lives, and something you and I have in common.

I have been meaning to do this for years, and now finally I'm here. My own daily blog. "Will Pritchard manage to keep the streak going, day after day? Well, in 35 years of trying to keep a diary, he has never gotten through an entire year without missing a day or stopping altogether." HOw's that for a stat?

The thing about this kind of blog is that the date imprinted on the blog entry will seldom if ever match the date of the events. It takes a while to process all the info and get around to blogging. SO what I'm going to do is write in the date that different events happened, and let historians sort it out....

My horoscope for today, Monday 02 06 06 Virgo, New You Needs to Reflect... "Reflection is necessary in order to move you into the the great new self you are becoming."

For the last two weeks I have been making Ground Hogs Day predictions, prophecies about the future, one of which has been "Steelers by Seven!!!" which in an otherwise spiritual context gets alot of laughs. Only the joke was on me, because the Steelers won and almost ended up with a margin of seven, however due to a few referee calls, it ended up being an 11 point spread, 21 to 10.

Sports is big in my life today. Not only do I have a new Mets blogzine at amazine1.blogspot.com, but I have four basketball stars in my classes at Marist, and I am pulling for them this year. (I teach Philosophy, Ethics and World Views and Values, plus occasionally Native American Studies...No favoritism on grades, these people are public figures and need to be smart and well versed with no skeletons in the closet!) Friday, I had a long talk with James Smith, a 6'7" sophmore. He said he planned to play in Italy or maybe Germany for a while. I told the story of how I was rescued in Bari Italy by an Italian basketball player in a VW, and how he showed me around town.
I offered him consolation about the upset loss to St. Peters the night before, a heartbreaking one point loss. I noted that his point average per game (listed in the paper) was 11.2, that it wasn't bad. I asked him how he felt about it, and he said he knows he can do alot better. He said he had a foul called on him early and so wasn't able to score because he was on the bench. I felt he was open to advice. I said that I'd had a lot of sports stars in my classes over the years and the most important thing in pro sports is to adapt to change, not just every year, but every few minutes. I said, "In the middle of a game, if the referees change the foul rules, you change, and fast. Don't think about what is right or wrong about it, just adapt. If an umpire changes the strike zone in the middle of a game, you have to change, you can't argue strikes."

I asked him if he were going to watch the super bowl (I said Steelers by 7) he said he had a game against Iona college, (a top team that advertises on WFAN, my favorite station.) I said good luck, and remember what I said.

Today's headline in the Po Jo, (Poughkeepsie Journal) not only said basically Steelers by 11, the other headline next to it read Marist Men Shock Iona! Smith Scores 27 in Victory!

I was soooo glad to see that after our chat. The story said that Smith got 24 points in the first half! There was even a photo of James. Another of my students Jared Jordan, had a near triple double and the Red Foxes won 87-81. The Foxes are 14-7 overall and two games out of first. Smith was quoted, crediting Brady with some rebound advice that improved his game. "It was an important game against the number one team in the league." He had eight rebounds and 5-of7 three pointers.
There was a photo of Jared Jordan on 3C.

Another one of my students, a sophmore named Ryan Stilphen, made a three pointer as the shot clock was expiring that gave Marist an 81-77 edge. Jordan made two baskets in the final minute. In the same paper, there was a story featuring my student Alisa Kresge, who led Marist Womens defense in victory against Fairfield Stags 59-48. There was a coach on the other team Maureen Magarity, who used to be with Marist, and knew some of the strategies, so they had to change their defense in order to win. Alisa led that change in the second half, guarding the leading scorer and had four steals and several saved plays. "Kresge was everywhere!" She had already learned about adaptation. It was the first time I had four of my students mentioned in one newspaper.

I ran into Venk Kandadi here at school, who did not see the Super Bowl but thought of me when he saw the score. I showed him Rick Jarow's new book Tales for the Dying The Death narrative of the Bhagavata Purana, and Venk, who is Hindu, was very interested in Rick Jarows work and wants to study with him, so I will connect them. He wanted to buy the book too. I showed him the sanskrit inscription Rick wrote to me in the front page of Alchemy of Abundance, and could only read a few words but it was a nice moment. (He said his father could rea d it) Venk is going into community health, his sister is a doctor.
He says that a new golden cross section superhighway in India will add many new cars to the planet, as will a new highway in china, adding to global warming concerns.
He says Marist Mens needs to work more as a team. I can certainly work that message into my ethics class.
By the way< I don't intend to discuss here personal academic issues of these or any other students. But sports is what makes Marist tick, and these are the guys with that weight on their shoulders. I want to support what they do. Venk is a former student soon to graduate who has a bright future and is, like me, interested in everything. He brings me inside news from across the sea which the US papers dont' provide, and he is very interested in things Native American, and "gets it" in surprising ways. Today he said, "Theres no way to sum up Native culture, no way to complete that study.." I said,"I don't have a problem with that! Just like Hindu religion, its really a culture, it was meant to be lived, not studied." He agreed. He held up Ricks book and said, you could write books forever about Hindu religion and never get to the end, just like the Native American. I said, "Yes, I enjoy that about both!"

Sunday February 5th: This was a very big day for me in many ways. I was not even supposed to be in this country, I was supposed to be in Ottawa, but a huge storm hit the entire region, especially in the Adirondacks, where I would have been driving, 100s of miles without people. MSN has the best online weather, and it sounded like this for the Plattsburg/Ottawa region: Warm weather snow melting heavy rain for two days, severe flooding. Flash deep freeze leading to skating rink, then two days of heavy snow, maybe 2 feet, then 50 mile an hour winds on Monday. "Just put skids on my car and tie it to a moose. I'll get there eventually!"
Of course I'd never cancelled a February trip to see Thunderbird and Ojigwano (William Commanda) before, (see photo of William C with friend Nelson Mendella) but I was having second thoughts. There were two signs from the spirit world as warnings. On Thursday night I had created a blogsite for Dr Mar Peter Roul (one of Marist's most famed professors, my former chair/boss) called Mar-in-Calcutta. I put it up on the big screen so she could see what I was doing. For ten seconds the weather channel accidentally came on TV, and I heard "Big huge storm about to hit Canada's capitol city of Ott......" and then it clicked off. Earlier in the day I passed through the toll booth and the weather was clear and warm, but the NO UNNECESSARY TRAVEL magnetic sign had been put in a prominent place by accident and it stood out. I kept thinking about what that meant, it kept buggin me. I was determined to go to Ottawa, ironically to give talks about global warming and chaotic weather (a native perspective). My health did not rally and my wrist did not heal (I have a stick shift) and so there were issues about going into bad weather.

It was quite a productive day (finally!) In the morning, I wrote (from scratch) a three part proposal to Urban Rangers for an upcoming workshop, and emailed it. The event is on March 5th, a month away. Then I had to work on this big article for NY Spirit magazine about how Stories of the Sacred ties in with the new revelations from James Lovelock about Global Warming. William Meyers at Columbia U Press sent me pages of questions to answer, and they were hard. I spent four hours on them at least and just let my thoughts and feeling pour out onto the e-page and then emailed him about 2 PM. I had disconnected the phone because I needed total concentration and the deadline was soon, today in fact. We talked for a little while. He had just gone over the entire tape he made of my first NY NASS talk from the Open Center event in November. he said the timing of my call was precipitious. I told him I had a third important deadline today and then had to meet with Rick Jarow to watch the Super Bowl as part of a 12 year tradition. I was leaving him in the lurch re editing, but he said "That sounds like an important connection." Very gracious for a guy under pressure. He was not familiar with Rick Jarow and I filled him in re Tales for the Dying, The Alchemy of Abundance, The Anti Career Handbook, Creating the Work You Love, In Search of the Sacred. I suggested he do a story on him.
Then I had 3 hours in which to finish Robert J.s book The Awakening. I finished the last line of editing at 5:30 hoping to get to Ricks by 6:30, but emailing and reading emails and showering and shaving, it was 6:10 by the time I left. I heard the first quarter on the radio, not too eventful, and arrived at Ricks at the start of the second quarter. Even though Matt Hasselback had been hit twice by lightning and therfore at least a candidate for shamanic training, we both were pulling for the Steelers and the remarkable young Ben Rothlisberger, (who looks alot like Rick!!!) and it was am amazing game for both teams. Rick had wanted to be a pro basketball player and played in some important games, and looks at sports now as pros tend to do, very gritty business.
During the Rolling Stones lukewarm performance we talked about our writing careers and our philosophical turns, and also during the second half, quite an interesting mix. It wasn't as mixed as...."And the Mahabharata makes the point clearly ....wow look at that tackle!...that the purpose of life is...aww that call was wrong......beyond our understanding, and that......15 yards! Where do they get these refs......in the end things just are......2 time outs left.....as they are, unknowable and unknown as is all eter.....interception! WAAAA!@&#*((%)nity, in the ultimate view! What's the score?" ...but it came close at times.

That was how I'd characterize at least some of the conversation, but we followed each other's dialogue, except in one moment, Rick was about to say something of major importance about his Heart of the Wheel teachings about the twelve aspects of life and keeping our heart connection in the center of all that lila, and just then there was an amazing play. "Do not be distracted, Oh Arjuna!" it says in the Mahabharata, but I found that I was, and did not hear what he said about the ninth turn of the wheel, corresponding to my own sign Virgo. I humbly asked him to repeat what he said. He looked at me. I think he saw it as a sign he was not finished with developing the ninth turn of the wheel. I said, "That was a great play. I was distracted, just for a moment. Could you please repeat?" And then he did and went on, a merciful moment. How many Sanskrit teachers would permit such lack of concentration? It was not like me to do that. Perhaps I'm too old for this game!
Rick and I plan to team up to do a multicultural workshop on death and dying at vassar on the 30th of March.

We stayed up late, talking about our lives as a whole, and about the global warming crisis, which he does not resonate with, as he is something of an optimist. he likes things he can do something about. He has been reading Conquest of America, and had alot of questions. He like William Meyers asks hard questions. We both had amazing girlfriends in High School, amazing singular romances that didnt work out, and both turned to religion in solace. He went to India to the Himalayas and I went to the Rockies to live in a tent and fast and pray to the Creator. We never knew we had this in common and called ourselves brothers, and promised to keep more in touch this year. He said that before he died there were three or even more books he wanted to write, one on The heart of the Wheel, one on Laxmi, which makes sense, the Goddess of Abundance. But there was one in particular that would take his whole life, a translation of the Mahaduta the Cloud Covered Being. That's the one he really needed to write. He had been talking about the Power of Place and how that was dying in America. I said I was working on a four volume series that i needed to finish before I go, that was more or less about the power of place in Algonquin culture and how it affects America. His ears perked up and mentioned I should read books by Algier Hiss' son! That was a surprise.


It was one of the best games, and with just me and him talking it was a more profound experience. Our twefth anniversary as a team. I gave him Stories of the Sacred which he had blurbed very nicely. I wrote "To Rick Jarow, on the 12th anniversary of the Columbia University symposium that led to No Word For Time, and which exchanged my old life for the one that I was meant to live." He said that his wife was taking a course at Empire State and that she already had a copy of Native American Stories of the Sacred because it was required reading for her class!!!! =That was the first I heard of it.
She came home during the 4th quarter with Mieka (5) and we chatted, she looked happy. Things are going pretty well over there. Rick had had a brush with death earlier this year soon after Tales for the Dying was pubd, and it made him value watching his kids grow up even more.

He said that SUNY Publishing is so prestigious that they give no advances and do not pay any royalties on teh first 1000 copies! Yet he got tenured at Vassar the minute the book came out so for him it was worth it. I would not be so interested but at least for once SUNY is honest about not paying people.

There was much more to our conversations during that 5 hour conversation. I showed him the new Mets website so he could see how great blogging had become and he was interested, although a Yankee fan, which is not an issue. We both agreed the Mets need another great starting pitcher.

We talked about how the internet was going to be big this year, how the Ipod was even bigger but totally beyond us old folks. He said that Macs would now have Intel, and that the interaction between Apple and IBM could change everything.

He said that if the fates were good to both of us as authors that we need to do something good for humanity and the Hudson Valley, we need to have a return of Resonance Magazine. That was a nice thought, and a compliment I wasn't expecting. I had published Resonance for seven years but then postage went up and a divorce got in the way. I'd forgotten about it. I said we could do it now on the internet. He wasn't sure about that. He mentioned a Korean guy with a new publishing company. Everything will fall together, trust in the powers.
posted by evan pritchard

February 06, 2006: So many things happened today so fast I'm not sure what hit me, but it was good. I got an email from a write Curt Hoffman inquiring about colonials wrecking sacred Native American sites, and thought I'd written about that. In fact, I haven't, and don't know of any concrete examples where it happened suddenly and while they were in use. It usually happens slowly and painfully.
My old friend Karen G called, but I have yet to call her back.

Ray called to say that after our conversation about the deep history of the Hudson Valley, he agreed with me, that the Waoranecks must have been the more elite group as opposed to the Warranawongkongs who were further inland, mainly on the argument that the Waoronecks had waterfront property and the Warranawongkongs did not. New Paltz, on the Wallkill, was a huge and prosperous center for t he Warranawongkongs for centurires. Dr. Joe Diamond has dug thousands of yard cube excavations and once told me that he has never found an empty yard of soil without lots of artifacts. And yet the Waoranecks must have been even greater at one time, as the movement and migration was definitely northward from Canarsie.
I got a funny email from Deb Medenbach at the Times-Herald Record. I had asked if she knew that February was the time of the Roman festivals of Fornicalia, the honoring of the god Fornax, and the god of corn. Always the historian, she wrote "Lets hear it for Numa Pompilius who invented this wildest of giggle-able names over the best baked cornbread.... Really, I never heard of it before today!" She obviously had done her homework. An article in the making? Maybe? I had given her a free copy of No Word For Time on Sunday January 29th. Today she said she'd already finished it and wanted to hand it on to two others who requested to read it.

I spent some time on the phone trying to get cable installed so that I can do more website and blog design from home, but Time Warner kept me waiting for 25 minutes and then said that Earthlink were a bunch of liars. I don't think so.
I got home and right away Sandy Levine, the program director for the New York Open Center called me and we set up this year's Four Paths to Wholeness in Algonqiun Culture seminars. There will be an open house freebie on May 12th at 8 PM, followed by workshops on May 25 June 1, June 8 and June 15.

Then Mary Lou called to say that James David Audlin, who shared with me the article space in the Times Herald Record in which the February 18th event was announced, had called to cancel his end of the event without explanation! She strongly requested that I keep my end of the bargain and come anyway. I thought of rescheduling Canada for that weekend, but she said she'd already advertised and after all that press... well I agreed. I said James must have had a medical appointment or something.
He rescheduled for March 25th and apparently invited me to share that date also and to sell books, so I guess I get two for the price of one. That's the day before the Danbury signing at 3 at Barnes and Nobles. Then the gig at Vassar on Death and Dying in ALgonquin culture (they cut a hole in the coffin so the spirit can get out)

My open house at the Open Center is on June 12th right after my last final. 8 PM. Then on four consecutive Thursdays I do workshops at the Open Center, May 25, June1, June 8, and June 15. All are at 7:45. We do one "path" each day. All are part of the Red Road. Sandy and I have been working together so long, it took only a short time to work out all the details.

I returned UU Minister Gordon Bailey's call next, and invited him to the open house and one workshop as my guest. I hope he will want to head up some of the new RTA initiatives and Gaiaism projects.

The Open Center workshops run right into my week at the Iskotau lodge, run by the energetic Pauline Brook, a Mohawk elder. I will be elder in residence for one week as guest of the state (well it will be in a confined state but that didn't come out right) I mean, guest of Her Majesty the Queen! That starts on June 19th. On that Wednesday, June 21st I will be assisting grandfather William Commanda with the Summer Solstice gathering on Victoria Island. He is now 92, and in need of more assistance from more people. He often asks me to speak in his place, especially at Victoria Island, at the foot of Parliament, but on native owned land.

Then on June 26th, I can take a breath, but then its time to travel with DLP. This year I'd like to follow the Mets and report about it on our blog. Some years we do spiritual pilgrimmages, which we could cover on this site, but who knows, maybe we'll do both. Most stadiums are built on top of sacred ALgonquin sites by the way, or right next to them. SO we could do the two for one tour.


Makrand Bhoot is the founder of Architecture for Humanity and a Meetup organization for architects. I am plugging him in the article. Green architecture is something big and radical and splashy we can do to feel better about the environment which is a first step. John Todd's work really inspired me as to possibilities I never imagined. He is like Raven in the Raven Brings the Light story, he thinks big and outside the box.

I also googled Gaiaism, which I saw online; this is I believe a church, as well as a movement. I have always forseen this happening, Gaiaism as a world religion in the times of prophecy. They say that name is "taken" but I haven't seen any real web presence for the group other than meetups. I would like to see RTA Roads to Awareness merge with them or form an alliance. I was talking to Reverend Gordon Bailey today about this, and he had similar ideas and had already gotten together a short list of people interested in a new way of approaching "church" but could not find a space in NYC. I said we would work together. I invited him to the Open Center as my guest for one of the "Four Paths To Wholeness" workshops. He agreed.

I found that Makrand had submitted a "green" design for the new World Trade Center, and was a finalist. On the same day I read that the rebuilding based on the plans of the guy who won are going bankrupt. Good time to start everything over.

| 5:42 AM | 0 comments