On Giving Thanks and A Long December

And there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last (sung to the tune). How was your Thanksgiving? On our end, my Hungarian sidekick and I took the long way to the freeway, found our True North, and ended up experiencing a healthy dose of Winter’s brutal majesty. Significant shifts in our family of origin and major, looming, life transitions had us establishing our own, new Holiday traditions, opening up to a second life that’s wide and timeless in the poetic words of Rilke. Part of our tour took us up into Michigan’s frozen white pinky and right by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. That’s the dune climb yawning above, looking particularly sleepy and readying for Winter’s hibernation.

Before our Winter Break, we have some remaining December Ceremonies and meditation classes along with our annual Aho Ho Ho Down December 19th, originally a casual Holiday soirée that will now include a terrific little talk by our local mycologist Anthony Michael Blowers linking the Christmas mythology of Santa Claus, Flying Reindeer and adorning Pine trees to the fabled Aminta Muscaria Mushroom. We are also happy to gather and get low in Ceremony once more before our own brief dormancy — like Wolverines, crits that actually don’t hibernate and are well-winter adapted, like whittling farmers during the cold season, like Heyokas of old renewing their power under the wintertide. But we have miles as well as weeks to go before we don’t really sleep, so we’ll conclude for now with Keith’s lovely, poetic take on his recent November stay ~

Arriving at the site of the lodge was inspirational

in itself, as it is very much in woodsy, natural lands.

Driving onto the property, I found the written instructions

provided all I needed to find my place.

Paul came down to the guest house as soon as he saw

people pulling up, and instantly I knew I had a great host!

Lunch was provided, and then the guests were encouraged

to explore the grounds for a bit while the preparation for the

Sweat began. What a glorious piece of land this haven sits on!

Acres and acres of forest, clearings, hills, and water. My cleansing

actually began with a long walk through the peaceful surroundings.

We got together in a group in the studio prior to the Sweat, and

meditated and shared and learned from Paul and each other.

Very communal feeling.

Having never done a Native sweat, I knew little

about what to expect. The temperature was a bit on the cold side,

And I was needlessly concerned with having little on in

the crisp air. The traditions surrounding the Sweat were easy to

understand, and added to the experience. Drumming, singing...

blissfully centering.

In the Sweat itself, it was dark and we were seated on the bare

ground. As the steam (and temperature) rose and filled the Lodge,

It was so easy for me to be FULLY present. Honoring my ancestors

and asking for guidance and release in my life. I was never

uncomfortable, as it all felt so natural and of the earth. The drumming

and singing and story in the Lodge was so uplifting! The actual sweating

part was a huge part of the big release I felt... letting the toxic thoughts

and toxins in my body just roll out of me. After the ceremony we gathered

in the studio again and passed the Chanupa in a circle. I felt so close

to all things...

A delightful pot luck meal afterwards gave us the opportunity to laugh,

share, release, and live in the connectedness we had found. A tremendously

peaceful sleep in a house in the woods was the perfect nightcap.

Next morning was a communal breakfast and then a great session in the

studio-- meditation, lesson, songs and review. A perfect way to say

goodbye to new friends, and a wise teacher. Another walk in the forest

and I was on my way. Lighter, freer, less encumbered, and ready with a fresh

heart to step back in to the "regular life" back home.

It has been almost two weeks since my retreat there, and I must mention

that the effects on my heart and soul are still with me. Going to do this again....

Thank you Higher Haven!

"Bully Bully!" My Chat With President Theodore Roosevelt Jr. On Native American Heritage Day

OK not exactly The President Teddy Roosevelt, also known as T.R., 26th Commander and Chief of the United States of America from 1901 to 1908 and known as The Conservation President, who used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land. And not exactly on Native American Heritage Day, a U.S civil holiday observed the day after Thanksgiving to pay tribute to Native Americans for their many contributions to our country, a recognition supported by the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) and 184 federally recognized tribes when President George W. Bush signed the bill into legislation back in 2008. Watch for a hilarious NIGA reference in this space in a future post.

No, Teddy was in reality the outstanding actor Joe Wiegand, bringing back to life the youngest man to ever be made President before our very appreciative eyes during the recent Saturday night show An Evening with Teddy Roosevelt, part of the South Haven, Michigan theatre series. I was front and center, and after booming God Bless America and an amazing one and one half-hour historical recount, when the man manifesting the spirit of TR opened it up for questions, my hand shot skyward. “You sir, down front. We all heard your enthusiasm singing God Bless America” (note: I really boomed it) “What’s your thought there?” “My first thought Mr. President is that I’m very proud to be an American, the inspiration for my singing. My second thought? You killed it up there tonight. WoW. My question, because it’s history I don’t know very well but look forward to learning all about, is: what was your relationship like with the Lakota people?

He began by citing his writings on the desolation of the area that is America’s Badlands, an area horribly bare yet picturesque at times to the extreme, describing them as “Hell with the fires put out.” I wasn’t exactly Paulie on the spot with my camera at first, but I steadied it, and caught the rest of his extraordinary answer. He pointed out that right around the time he began college at Harvard, General Custer made his great sacrifice at The Little Big Horn. “In the first book I published about my hunting and ranch life, I wrote, ‘It has been said that The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian , a quote sometimes attributed to General Sheridan, but he and his brother dispute that. As a a 27 year-old man, I wrote: ‘While this may be true in nine out of ten cases, and we may have to look closely at the tenth, I had many friendships with native peoples. In that region by circumstance of proximaty, there were still settlers who would disappear, thought to be killed by the Indians, by young braves who did not like life on the reservation and so would go out marauding out in the countryside.

In that first book I wrote of being out riding across the buttes — you never rode in the valleys as there was potential for an ambush — so when I was riding across one of those buttes, I suddenly saw three young braves riding very aggressively toward me. I dismounted my horse Manitou and set my Winchester out across the saddle. Those men came close enough that I could hear things like, "Me good Indian”, and inquired if I had any sugar. I replied, “I have nothing for you and you must leave me alone.” They uh, began riding about, encircling me, and eventually showed a familiarity with a certain set of English vulgarities as they rode away, unsuccessful at either waylaying me or stealing my horse and rifle. So those were troubled times to be a rancher out in the Badlands (note: as well as an Indian). You might know that one of my closest companions through my administration, a confidante on issues of the indigenous people of the Americas, was Quanah Parker, the Comanche, the war leader of the Antelope band of the Comanche Nation, the leader who brought the Comanche in from the war path. His Mother having been kidnapped, he himself growing half-native, half-settler.

He rode in my 1905 inaugural parade along with five other Indian Chiefs — the Ute’s Buckskin Charlie, Hollow Horn Bear and American Horse of the Sioux, Little Plume from the Blackfeet and the Apache warrior Geronimo. Marching behind them were 200 cadets of the Carlisle Indian School. You might know this as the school that gave us James Thorpe an athlete. I was of the mind that the Native American needed to Americanize themselves to our Western ways, the ways of capitalism and property ownership. So it’s a mixed record. Lately in the news, the statue outside of the American Museum of Natural History, the one that has me on horseback, accompanied by gun bearers — the museum has said that the hierarchy — that I am above the natives — is troublesome, so is being removed. And it was actually just announced within the last 48 hours that the soon to be built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library that will be in Medora, North Dakota, is going to accept the statue and contextualize it, using it as an opportunity to discuss these issues of race and cultural relations.

So I was a man who’s feet were made of clay. I wasn’t perfect on this issue of race relations. Nor was I perfect on the issue of conservation; I thought we should drain the Everglades, for it would be a great place to settle and ranch cattle. It’s a challenging and difficult issue, but I thought the Native American was entitled to what every other American was entitled to: a square deal. Nothing more and nothing less. But, sir, I am glad that you’ve brought up a challenging issue. Those challenging issues are all about us.” Indeed. While some Native folk call Thanksgiving the National Day of Mourning, believing it is in poor taste for Native American Heritage Day to be on Black Friday, a day of excess, gluttony, greed and aggressive capitalism, here we’ll continue to walk a crooked line between two worlds. Enjoy your Holiday weekend. We’ll be back next week with news on our closing classes and Ceremonies for 2021. Until then, Bully Bully.

The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,
and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,
and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven’s favor,
in spite of the best advice. If I have been caught
so often laughing at funerals, that was because
I knew the dead were already slipping away,
preparing a comeback, and can I help it?
And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed
my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom
had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not
be resurrected by a piece of cake. ‘Dance,’ they told me,
and I stood still, and while they stood
quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
‘Pray,’ they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth’s brightnesses, and then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
When they said, ‘I know my Redeemer liveth,’
I told them, ‘He’s dead.’ And when they told me
‘God is dead,’ I answered, ‘He goes fishing every day
in the Kentucky River. I see Him often.’
When they asked me would I like to contribute
I said no, and when they had collected
more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.
When they asked me to join them I wouldn’t,
and then went off by myself and did more
than they would have asked. ‘Well, then,’ they said
‘go and organize the International Brotherhood
of Contraries,’ and I said, ‘Did you finish killing
everybody who was against peace?’ So be it.
Going against men, I have heard at times a deep harmony
thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what
I say I don’t know. It is not the only or the easiest
way to come to the truth. It is one way.

~ By Wendell Berry