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Valiant Pilgrim Paths Will Cross in Memphis

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This month a small band of women from the Ojibwe native nation is walking the land in prayer from the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca in the north, more than 1,200 miles in a south direction along the shore to the point where the great river spills into the sea at the Gulf of Mexico.

Pilgrim paths form a cross.

Pilgrim paths form a cross.

The Mississippi River Water Walkers sang the Water Song when they began their walk on March 1, 2013. By now they are many hundreds of miles further south, still in ceremony, still walking on to fulfill their vision.

When the Mississippi Water Walkers reach Memphis, Tennessee in a week or so, their north-to-south trail will intersect with the east-to-west trail of the Sunbow Prayer Walk, which was guided 2,500 miles across the land 20 years ago by Grandfather William Commanda, now in spirit.

The trails of these two pilgrim bands will intersect in space and across time, forming a Four Directions wheel anchored in prayer and ceremony on the land at the Memphis shore of the Mississippi.

The eight-month long, male-driven Sunbow Walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific crossed the Mississippi River from Tennessee to Arkansas on the ninety-eighth day of the journey (Sept. 28, 1995). They traveled then under the teachings of the Seventh Fire and the skysign of the Whirling Rainbow

The women who are the Mississippi River Walkers, now on foot in real time 2013, are approaching intersection with the Sunbow trail in Memphis.

You can friend the River Walkers and support them on their Facebook page, a page which is growing as the walkers make their way to the south, stopping at key points along the way to offer ceremonial blessings.

“We want the walk to be a prayer,” says Sharon Day, walk organizer, on their Facebook page. “Every step we take we will be praying for and thinking of the water. The water has given us life and now, we will support the water.”

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Step by Step Along the Mississippi River

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“What they greatly thought, they nobly dared.” – Homer, the Odyssey

prayertstepsRight now a small band of women from the Ojibwe native nation is walking in prayer from the source of the Mississippi river at Lake Itasca in the North, to the point where the great river spills into the sea at the Gulf of Mexico.

They sang the Water Song as they began on March 1, and they are by now well into Iowa and walking on.

If you would like to follow the Mississippi River Walkers, you can friend them on their Facebook page, a page which is growing as the walkers make their way to the south, stopping at key points along the way to offer ceremonial blessings.

As I read about the powerful spiritual deed of these sisters, I was reminded of the 8-month long epic walk from sea to sea in 1996-96 guided by the late Algonquin teacher, Grandfather William Commanda – the Sunbow Walk many know as the Odyssey of the 8th Fire.

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Let us now Praise a Worthy Man: Grandfather Commanda at age 90.

© – Copyright 2003 by Steven McFadden

William Commanda marked his 90th birthday on Nov. 11, 2003. He is worthy of honor for having attained great age in a sacred manner, and for having accomplished great good over his many years.

Grandfather William Commanda (author photo, 1996)

Grandfather William Commanda (author photo, 1996)

Grandfather Commanda is a traditional Algonquin Elder from the Kitigan Zibi Reserve in Maniwaki, Quebec, Canada. He is the Keeper of three Wampum Belts: the Seven Fires Prophecy Belt, the 1700s Belt, and the 1793 Jay Treaty Border Crossing Belt. I’ve known Grandfather since 1989 when I met with him then related part of his story in Chapter 2 of Profiles in Wisdom: Native Elders Speak About the Earth.

At many times and in many ways, Grandfather has expressed his understanding that it’s crucial for all the children of Mother Earth to come together at this time with one heart, one mind, one love, and one determination — to create a fitting legacy for all our children and our children’s children.

Among his many accomplishments, Grandfather provided guidance to the 1995-96 Sunbow 5 Walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean — an epic pilgrimage under the sky sign of the Whirling Rainbow.

As the Sunbow 5 Walk made its way from East to West under Grandfather’s guidance  in 1995 and ’96, I kept a daily journal.  Over the course of eight months, the pilgrims walked south from First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod, Massachusetts to the Qualla Boundary-Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina. Then the walk turned west for the long stretch to Los Angeles, finally turning north to end in Santa Barbara, California, on February 2, 1996.

By way of a 90th birthday tribute to Grandfather  Commanda for his sure guidance throughout that long walk and far beyond, I offer below some written sketches of him as I recorded them in my journal along the way.

The journal begins with an account of a Thanksgiving Day gathering, seven months before the first steps of the long walk:

Day 0 – Thursday, November 24, 1994 – In the last few moments of a weakly illumined night, tar-dark clouds roiled and raced over all. Then just before the Sun pulled above the horizon on this piercingly cold Thanksgiving Day, a west wind raked across the hills and valleys of Massachusetts.

stor-creative-commonsThe wind spiked out over Cape Cod Bay, frothing the blackened waters into angry, spitting caps. A great, bitter wind was upon the land and the sea. Still, the people came. In the face of icy needles cast by the unrelenting gale, 40 people broke from their cars into a wild, scattered search for a place with a scrap of windbreak. They needed protection, for they had arrived to light a sacred fire at First Encounter Beach, just five years before the Millennium.

We found a low place, a depression about four feet below grade of the road on the West, and marked by a wispy picket of marsh grasses to the East. The people gathered and piled driftwood shoulder high in a tipi form, then held up blankets and huddled close around Tom Dostou, sheltering him as knelt to strike a spark. The wind raged, the spark struggled against the screaming elements. Then the fire came. Within moments it was big, strong, and wild. ?Under the guidance of Algonquin Grandfather William Commanda, the group of about 40 people — representing all the colors and many of the spiritual traditions of the world — formed a circle and began the ceremony.

We had come to help open the Eastern Door, one of the spiritual gateways to North America, and to pray for a planned prayer walk of some 3,700 miles that would start from this same beach, and from this same sandy hollow, in seven months. In the minutes after sunrise on Thanksgiving Day, 1994, as the people huddled in blankets about the wildly blowing fire at First Encounter Beach, a sacred song was sung. Pipes were filled then lit. Grandfather Commanda prayed in the Algonquin language. Then Tom Dostou called on four people to speak: one person representing each of the Four Directions, the Four Colors.

Months later the Sunbow pilgrims walk west. (author photo, 1995)

Months later  the pilgrims walk west (author photo).

When the ceremony ended that cold, windy Thanksgiving morning, we hurried back to the shelter of our vehicles, and fired them up to travel 15 miles to the home of Tom Dostou and Naoko Haga on Bank Street in Harwich, Massachusetts. A river of coffee awaited us, to wash down a wild smorgasbord of turkey, squash, doughnuts, pies, sweet rolls and butter.

After we feasted, Grandfather Commanda settled into an arm chair by the fireplace in the sun-filled living room. He laid out on the carpet a prayer cloth. Upon the prayer cloth he set some of the ancient, elegant Wampum Belts that he has been entrusted to keep since the 1960s: the Seven Fires Belt, the Jay Treaty Belt, and the 1701 Montreal Treaty Belt.

The belts are about four inches wide, and perhaps three feet long. Two of them are beautifully crafted of beads made from wampum, the white and purple shell of the Quahog clam. The softly colored cream or purple beads are strung together with rawhide to serve as records of important agreements, occurrences, or understandings. As I understand it, an elder who reads the wampum does more than faithfully remember what the symbols woven into the belt represent. He or she also communes with the spirit of the wampum beads — for each bead bears its own living vibration, the quahogs being among the Earth’s oldest creatures.

Together the linked wampum beads form a coherent field of meaning that is alive in time and carries authority. The wampums not only serve as records of the past, but also reflect the present and the future. They are a link to Creator’s mind, Grandfather said to the 30 people crowded into the living room. “I don’t own these belts. I just keep them for the people.”

With the support of his helper, Frank Decontie, Grandfather Commanda told the story of the first belt, the oldest belt, the belt of the Seven Prophets and the Seven Fires. His understanding of this has been deepened over the years, as he has interacted and shared with other Anishinabe elders such as Eddie Benton-Banai. Part of the teaching of this wampum belt, the part about the Seventh Fire, indicates that “new people” would arise at a time of great troubles. These new people would have an opportunity and a responsibility to retrace the footsteps of the ancestors to find the sacred ways that had been left behind long ago.

It was at this time, as I heard Grandfather recount it, that the light-skinned race would be given a choice. If they choose the right road, then the seventh fire would light an eighth and final fire: an eternal fire of peace, love and brotherhood. But if the light-skinned race makes the wrong choice of road — the road of greed and materialism — then the destruction which they brought with them on coming to this great Turtle Island continent will come back to them, causing much suffering and death.

“It is time to walk,” Grandfather Commanda told the gathering that Thanksgiving Day in 1994. “It is time to retrace the steps of the ancestors and find what was left by the side of the trail. It is time to walk now.” ?When Frank and Grandfather finished speaking, Tom Dostou (Nabesse Pishum) huddled with guest after guest, making plans for the long cross-continent pilgrimage that would start in just seven months, in June, 1995. Tom was to be the head man. He had been afire with the idea of a long walk since the Cry of the Earth Conference in New York in November 1994 — and since he had participated in a second walk for native rights in Canada. The walks had stirred him deeply.

Sunbow - Whirling Rainbow

Sunbow – Whirling Rainbow

With his wife Naoko Haga, Tom shared a vision of the Sundog, or Whirling Rainbow. When this natural phenomenon occurs, a full 360-degree circle of a rainbow appears in a wide ring around the Sun. Tom and Naoko spoke of it as the Sunbow, and added the number 5 to it to signify five colors of human beings: Red, White, Black, Yellow, and Brown. The long walk, Tom said, would be called the Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth.

The Sunbow, or Whirling Rainbow, represents an emerging understanding. In some indigenous communities, it is considered a sign from the Creator. It has long been held that a time of great change, or transition on the Earth, would be signaled by an increase in the number of visible Sunbows.

These full-circle rainbows around the Sun, elders say, may be understood as a sign to people of the necessity to live a life in respect and harmony with all the creations that make life possible: plants, animals, waters, minerals, winds, and other human beings respecting all races and religions. But there is a lot to learn about the Sunbow. We are just at the beginning of our understanding.

Day 14 of the Sunbow 5 Walk – Thursday, July 6, 1995 – As they were making their steps today the walkers realized that they had covered a far stretch of road over two weeks. They had walked across Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and then West along the shore of Connecticut toward New York City. This day — the 14th on the road — the walkers covered about ten more miles across New Rochelle and the Bronx, ending at the Willis Bridge on the margin of Manhattan.

Though the walking distance was short, it took over five hours for the walkers to make all the steps, for the way was congested and the road was hot to the point of torment.

koyaanisqatsiValaine Lighty and Erika Haga looked about them as the walk approached New York City, and they discussed their experience. Reaching for descriptors, Valaine asked: “Have you ever seen the film Koyaanisqatsi? That’s what it was like.”

Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word and concept. It means chaos, or “world out of balance.” From 1975 to 1982 a film was made under this title depicting traffic, pollution, hatred, and the desecration of the earth, air, and water — all set to a musical score by Philip Glass that intensifies the experience to an excruciatingly painful degree.

Throughout their long day on the road, Valaine, Erika, and the other walkers, heard horns honk and various machines ratchet, throb and grind. They saw jagged stretches of pavement, burned-out buildings, graffiti, trash, people engaged in furious argument, and drug dealing. They saw unattended children bawling on the street, beggars, and not a few people just sitting and blankly staring. They saw a woman try to cross the street and almost get run over by a car. They heard her cry out: “What? Do I not exist?” For the walkers this overheard cry of frustration and despair seemed to epitomize the voices of far too many souls in the modern world.

The walkers prayed as they went. They put down tobacco in places where they saw trash, decay, or suffering. They contemplated their visions, and their mission. They kept walking. ?Meanwhile, Grandfather Commanda and Ned Pashene (Naskapi Cree) arrived in New York via Air Canada, to accompany the walkers to their meeting with officials at the United Nations on Friday.

After Grandfather and Ned got off the plane and greeted the walkers, they told everyone the story of their difficulties in crossing the international boundary from Canada to the United States.

They had been detained and hassled at the border by immigration officials — as they often are — because they are not citizens of the US or Canada, but rather First Nations people. In being stopped at the border, Grandfather said, there was for him always a bitter irony. That’s because, in addition to the other sacred artifacts he keeps, Grandfather is the keeper of the Jay Treaty Border Crossing Belt.

Aa_Jay Treaty Belt 1793A belt of beads is the traditional Algonquin device employed to record the solemn and binding agreement they entered into in 1793 with the US and Great Britain. This was a time when the newly formed government of the United States was defining its corporate existence upon Turtle Island and the Canadian nation did not yet exist. Native nations were full and equal partners to the treaty, with the same standing as the United States and Great Britain. But the Algonquins did not use black marks upon paper to keep important records; they used beads woven into beautiful, long-lasting belts.

The Jay Treaty has many provisions. One article stipulates that First Nations peoples would always have the right to freely cross the border between the US and Canada. After all, the native people had never drawn lines on the earth to define regions, but rather had accepted the natural boundaries of the earth. Native peoples considered the idea of drawing lines on a map, and designating them as “real boundaries,” to be both artificial and arbitrary. Many of their traditional tribal homelands overlap what is now the US-Canada border.

As agreed upon by all parties, the Jay Treaty states explicitly that Native Americans may travel freely back and forth across the U.S./Canadian border, and that this is a permanent understanding: “The Indians dwelling on either side of the…boundary line… {shall have the right} freely to pass and repass by land or island navigation…and to navigate all the lakes, rivers and waters thereof, freely, to carry on trade and commerce with each other.”

The way the Algonquin people recorded this permanent agreement — as with all important matters — was to fashion a belt of beads in a pattern that would plainly symbolize the understanding. For the most important agreements, they used beads fashioned from the shell of the Quahog clam (venus mercenaria), known as wampum in Algonquin. ?Grandfather Commanda is the contemporary keeper of the Jay Treaty Belt — but that is of scant relevance to US or Canadian officials when he crosses the border. He gets hassled anyway, just as Native American people often are when crossing. As Grandfather put it, their right to recognition as Native people is often not respected.

On this July day, after a long delay and intensive questioning by border officials, Grandfather Commanda and Ned Pashene were finally admitted to the United States, and traveled on to New York to join the walkers at the United Nations.

Day 15 of the Sunbow 5 Walk – Friday, July 7, 1995  – At 9 AM  the walkers met at the Willis Bridge and began walking down Second Avenue to 44th St. and then over to United Nations headquarters, which sits close by the shore of the East River.

The House of Mica - UN Headquarters

The House of Mica – UN Headquarters

As the walkers passed through Harlem many people offered warm smiles, and said “good morning.” It was an easy journey, and their spirits were peaceful as they walked and prayed. The walkers soon reached the technological and bureaucratic wonderland of the United Nations (UN), perched upon the fabled $26 island acquired through an infamous 1626 trade between the Manhattan peoples and a company of European merchants.

While at UN headquarters the walkers met with Delphine Redshirt, the chairperson of the UN’s Committee for the “International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (1995-2004),” and with Elsa Stamatopoulou, an official of the UN’s Centre for Human Rights. The Sunbow walkers and Grandfather Commanda had come to reiterate the messages presented during the prophetic and historic “Cry of the Earth” conference in 1994.

Grandfather Commanda opened today’s meeting with a prayer, and then Ms. Stamatopoulou welcomed the walkers to the UN. In her remarks she outlined what the UN was doing for the Earth and for indigenous peoples.

Tom Dostou responded with a brief speech. “Many of the nation states that belong to the UN are afraid of indigenous peoples. But we have no guns, no money, and no systems of power of the kind that they need to be concerned about. We have our spiritual basis. That’s about it. We don’t want to overthrow the nation states and create more fear, hate, and harm. That won’t help anybody. We don’t feel we ‘own’ the land, but rather that we are all — every color, and nationality, and religion — tenants on the Earth Mother. Indigenous people are trying to help show the industrial-commercial nation-states how to live on the land, how to be in good relation with it. That’s something that we all need to know. It’s important, and it’s important now.”

Grandfather hold the belt.

Grandfather holds the belt.

After this statement Tom rested and Grandfather Commanda opened his medicine bag and withdrew the Seven Fires Wampum Belt to show it to the walkers and the UN officials. The Seven Fires Wampum Belt is primarily dark, purple wampum beads, with a pattern of seven white diamonds, each diamond representing a ‘fire,’ or epoch of time. The middle fire is represented by a double diamond, indicating the promise of an Eighth Fire, or epoch, if people heed the foundational lessons of honesty, love, caring, sharing, and respect.

Grandfather Commanda explained to everyone about the belts, briefly telling the meaning of each of the seven diamonds shown on the belt (representing the Seven Fires).

I noted the core of his message during a phone conversation later that day that day, Grandfather told the officials: “We are in the time of the Seventh Fire now. That’s the reason for this Sunbow walk. We need to maintain our honesty, and to bring things into keeping with the way the Creator intended. That way we can bring the double-diamond at the center of the belt together, to make one diamond representing the lighting of an Eighth Fire. That fire does not have to burn or destroy, but can illuminate this world that we are part of. It’s up to us which way it burns. We have the choice now, and can use our will as we want. It’s up to the people.”

“The first key in this healing,” Grandfather said, “is forgiveness: to forgive those people, and nations, and races that we feel have done us harm. We may not forget, but we have to forgive. That will begin to heal the hurt. We have to forgive ourselves, too, for the harm we have done to ourselves and to others. It’s very difficult. It’s not easy. But that’s what’s required. Those are the teachings that have been handed down to me. That’s part of what the wampum belt is about, and that’s what I have to share.”

“If all the races will come together,” Grandfather Commanda said at the UN, “and stop doing what they are doing, it can begin. Forgiveness, peace, love, respect — those are the four important things. With all of that, then the waters can again be pure, the air can be clean, the Earth can be healed, and the children can live. Whether it will happen or not, we don’t know. The people have the choice. The time to choose is now. We pray for the good things. That’s why the walk.” Many months later.

Day 224 of the Sunbow 5 Walk — Thursday, February 1, 1996 – The rain kept coming on and off. We all sat on logs and chairs and tarps around the main campfire at Circle K Ranch, in the hills just to the East of Santa Barbara, California, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. From the coals they cared for, the firekeepers had built the blaze up big. We talked for a while, getting ready for the closing ceremony that was planned for the next day, and we looked around the circle at ourselves, soggy and tired.

Sitting by the fire near the end of the odyssey - Ned Pachene, Joe Soto, Grandfather Commanda.

Aroundthe fire at odyssey end: Ned Pachene, Joe Soto, Grandfather Commanda.

Grandfather was wearing his silver cowboy hat with beaded band, and a black vest as he sat by the fire, with his daughter Evelyn at his side. Someone had placed a blanket on his chair. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter he had brought with him, dated January 26, 1996.

He read the letter aloud: “Greetings Walkers, It is very pleasing to hear that you have completed your walk. It has been a difficult journey, and you have certainly sacrificed yourself for this sacred purpose. This walk is a history that will be remembered, respected, and honored…You have done your job, the message is delivered. May the California Sun shine into your hearts and minds. – Frank Decontie, Algonquin Nation.” ?Grandfather folded the letter back into his pocket, and looked up. “No more walking after this,” he said. “Let nature talk to us. Observe it. We’ll see if the people will listen.”

– end –

Note: By the time of his death at age 97 in August 2011, William Commanda held many honors from both Native and international nations. He was holder of a Key to the City for Canada’s capital of Ottawa, and had also been recognized with the highest civilian honor the nation offers, Officer of the Order of Canada.

Some teachings from Grandfather Commanda’s tradition can be found at this link.

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Steep Uphill Climb: Messages from the Mayan Milieu

©- Copyright 2002 by Steven McFadden

In early Autumn 2002, Carlos Barrios journeyed North from his home in Guatemala to the Eastern edge of the Four Corners. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the tail of the Rocky Mountain spine of North America, Mr. Barrios spoke in a knowledgeable manner about the Mayan tradition and the fabled Mayan calendars.

The Mayan calendars are an object of intense interest for many thousands of people right now, because they focus upon the watershed date of Dec. 21, 2012. Everything changes by then, it is said.

With a cultural heritage including thousands of pyramids and temples, and a calendar that has proven itself to be astronomically accurate over millions of years, the Maya tradition is widely considered to be a mystic key to the soul of Turtle Island (North America).

Carlos Barrios

Carlos Barrios

In public talks and in private interviews, Mr. Barrios laid out his account of the history and future of the Americas, and the larger world, based on his understanding of the Mayan tradition as both an anthropologist and an initiate. He spoke also about the path he sees ahead from now until the Winter Solstice of 2012.

The range of teachings and insights offered by Mr. Barrios must be considered in the context of the realpolitik in his American homeland. The Maya of Guatemala, their pyramids, and their calendar have endured not in a new-age Shambhala of love and light, but in a milieu of treachery, beatings, torture, rape, and mass murder. Mr. Barrios himself is viewed critically by some knowledgeable about the calendars and teachings, including some traditional elders who feel he has betrayed them.

Decades of Darkness
For 30 long years right-wing Guatemalan governments — supported both overtly and covertly by the US government — waged a terrorist war against the people of the land, murdering over 200,000 citizens, many of them indigenous Mayan people.

small.guatemalaWhen the war finally wound down in the 1990s, the United Nations Truth Commission conducted an 18-month investigation.* The UN found massive violations of human rights by the government of Guatemala with the complicity of the US government. The UN report stated that acts of “aggressive, racist and extremely cruel” violence descended to the level of genocide directed against the country’s indigenous Mayan population.

When Amnesty International studied the Guatemalan situation in recent years, they came to an arresting conclusion. They wrote that real peace could come only through confronting Guatemala’s “Corporate Mafia State.”*

They described this corporate Mafia state as an “unholy alliance” of certain national and international economic actors, who work alongside sectors of the police and military and common criminals to control ‘black’ industries such as drugs, arms trafficking, money laundering, car theft rings, illegal adoptions, and kidnapping for ransom.”

About the great dark shadow that has hung over the south-most part of Turtle Island, Mr. Barrios observes: “These injustices began five hundred years ago and continue to this very day in all the Americas. The Indian Wars have never ended…I think the power holders in the developed world see it as necessary to destroy the indigenous peoples, or at least to destroy their culture, because they are not ‘consumers.’ The American Dream is built on the back of the Third World…But that is a false distinction for there is no Third World. There is only one world. We are all part of that one world, and we are all due respect.”

While Guatemala has ostensibly been at peace for the last eight years, it is a disturbed peace. The war continues to have a residual impact on the people. Human rights violations still occur regularly, and even international human-rights monitors have been under threat.

Still, in the view of Mr. Barrios who came of age during the war, there have been improvements. “There are no armed guerillas, and the police and army are more decent, more respectful,” he observed. “Because there is more human respect now, we can try to find a new life.”

One eventual consequence of Guatemala’s long-enduring climate of terrorism, has been mistrust and criticism. From this few are immune. Accusations are often aimed at people who purport to speak of the Mayan traditions. Mr. Barrios is enmeshed in this matrix of uncertainty. He criticizes others, and he is criticized himself. He has become a figure of controversy for some traditional Mayan elders.

The World will Not End
volcanguatemalCarlos Barrios says he was born into a Spanish family on El Altiplano, the highlands of Guatemala. His home was in Huehuetenango, also the dwelling place of the Maya Mam tribe. With other Maya and other indigenous tradition keepers, the Mam carry part of the old ways on Turtle Island (North America). They are keepers of time, authorities on remarkable calendars that are ancient, elegant and relevant.

According to Mr. Barrios, he is a historian, an anthropologist and investigator. After studying with traditional elders for 25 years since the age of 19, Barrios says he has also become a Mayan Ajq’ij, a ceremonial priest and spiritual guide, Eagle Clan.

Years ago, along with his brother, Gerardo, Carlos initiated an investigation into the different Mayan calendars. He studied with many teachers. He says his brother Gerardo interviewed nearly 600 traditional Mayan elders to widen their scope of knowledge.

“Anthropologists visit the temple sites,” Mr. Barrios says, “and read the stelas and inscriptions and make up stories about the Maya, but they do not read the signs correctly. It’s just their imagination. Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012. The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed. The indigenous have the calendars, and know how to accurately interpret it, not others.”

The Calendars
Mayan comprehension of time, seasons, and cycles has proven itself to be vast and sophisticated. The Maya understand 17 different calendars, some of them charting time accurately over a span of more than ten million years.

The calendar that has steadily drawn global attention since 1987 is called the Tzolk’in or Cholq’ij. Devised ages ago and based on the cycle of the Pleiades, it is still held as sacred.

Mayan Cholq'ij - an image of the Mayan Tzolkin calendar used on the Altiplano

Mayan Cholq’ij – an image of the Mayan Tzolkin calendar used on the Altiplano

With the indigenous calendars, native people have kept track of important turning points in history. For example, the daykeepers who study the calendars identified an important day in the year One Reed, Ce Acatal as it was called by the Mexica. That was the day when an important ancestor was prophesied to return, “coming like a butterfly.”

The One Reed date correlates to the day that Hernando Cortez and his fleet of 11 Spanish galleons arrived from the East at what is today called Vera Cruz, Mexico. When the Spanish ships came toward shore, native people wereS waiting and watching to see how it would go. The billowing sails of the ships did indeed remind the scouts of butterflies skimming the ocean surface.

In this manner was a new era initiated, an era they had anticipated through their calendars. The Maya termed the new era the Nine Bolomtikus, or Nine Hells of 52 years each. As the nine cycles unfolded, land and freedom were taken from the native people. Disease and disrespect dominated.

What began with the arrival of Cortez, lasted until August 16, 1987 – a date many people recall as Harmonic Convergence. Millions of people took advantage of that date to make ceremony in sacred sites, praying for a smooth transition to a new era: the World of the Fifth Sun.

From that 1987 date until now, Mr. Barrios says, we have been in a time when the right arm of the materialistic world is disappearing, slowly but inexorably. We are at the cusp of the era when peace begins, and people live in harmony with Mother Earth. We are no longer in the World of the Fourth Sun, but we are not yet in the World of the Fifth Sun. This is the time in-between, the time of transition.

As we pass through transition there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing Earth changes. All this, Mr. Barrios says, was foreseen via the simple, spiral mathematics of the Mayan calendars.

“It will change,” Mr. Barrios observes. “Everything will change.” He said Mayan Daykeepers view the Dec. 21, 2012 date as a rebirth, the start of the World of the Fifth Sun. It will be the start of a new era resulting from — and signified by — the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator, and the earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy.

As John Major Jenkins has written in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, at sunrise on December 21, 2012 — for the first time in 26,000 years — the Sun rises to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic, describing in the sky a great cross of stars and planets. This cosmic cross is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life — a tree remembered in all the world’s spiritual traditions.

Some observers say this alignment with the heart of the galaxy in 2012 will open a channel for cosmic energy to flow through the earth, cleansing it and all that dwells upon it, raising all to a higher level of vibration. This process has already begun, Mr. Barrios suggested. “Change is accelerating now, and it will continue to accelerate.”

If the people of the earth can get to this 2012 date in good shape, without having destroyed too much of the Earth, Mr. Barrios said, we will rise to a new, higher level. But to get there we must transform enormously powerful forces that seek to block the way.

A Picture of the Road Ahead
otneroadFrom his understanding of the Mayan tradition and the calendars, Mr. Barrios offered a picture of where we are at and what may lie on the road ahead:

The date specified in the calendar — Winter Solstice in the year 2012 — does not mark the end of the world. Many outside people writing about the Mayan calendar sensationalize this date, but they do not know. The ones who know are the indigenous elders who are entrusted with keeping the tradition.

“Humanity will continue,” he contends, “but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human.”

“We are living in the most important era of the Mayan calendars and prophecies. All the prophecies of the world, all the traditions, are converging now. There is no time for games. The spiritual ideal of this era is action.

Many powerful souls have reincarnated in this era, with a lot of power. This is true on both sides, the light and the dark. High magic is at work on both sides.

Things will change, but it is up to the people how difficult or easy it is for the changes to come about.
The economy now is a fiction. The first five-year stretch of transition — from August 1987 to August 1992 — was the beginning of the destruction of the material world. We have progressed ten years deeper into the transition phase by now, and many of the so-called sources of financial stability are in fact hollow.

The banks are weak. This is a delicate moment for them. They could crash globally if we don’t pay attention. One critical period is October and November 2002. If the banks crash in these months then we will be forced to rely on the land and our skills. The monetary systems will be in chaos, and we must then rely on our direct relationship with the Earth for our food and shelter.

The North and South Poles are both breaking up. The level of the water in the oceans is going to rise. But at the same time, land in the ocean, especially near Cuba, is also going to rise.

A Call for Fusion
fusionsunAs he met with audiences in Santa Fe, Mr. Barrios told a story about the most recent Mayan New Year ceremonies in Guatemala. He said that one respected Mam elder, who lives all year in a solitary mountain cave, journeyed to Chichicastenango to speak with the people at the ceremony.

The elder delivered a simple, direct message. He called for human beings to come together in support of life and light. Right now each person and group is going his or her own way. The elder of the mountains said there is hope if the people of the light can come together and unite in some way.

Reflecting on this, Mr. Barrios explained: “We live in a world of polarity: day and night, man and woman, positive and negative. Light and darkness need each other. They are a balance. Just now the dark side is very strong, and very clear about what they want. They have their vision and their priorities clearly held, and also their hierarchy. They are working in many ways so that we will be unable to connect with the spiral Fifth World in 2012.”

“On the light side everyone thinks they are the most important, that their own understandings, or their group’s understandings, are the key. There’s a diversity of cultures and opinions, so there is competition, diffusion, and no single focus.”

As Mr. Barrios sees it, the dark side works to block fusion through denial and materialism. It also works to destroy those who are working with the light to get the Earth to a higher level. They like the energy of the old, declining Fourth World, the materialism. They do not want it to change. They do not want fusion. They want to stay at this level, and are afraid of the next level.

The dark power of the declining Fourth World cannot be destroyed or overpowered. It’s too strong and clear for that, and that is the wrong strategy. The dark can only be transformed when confronted with simplicity and open-heartedness. This is what leads to fusion, a key concept for the World of the Fifth Sun.

Mr. Barrios said the emerging era of the Fifth Sun will call attention to a much-overlooked element. Whereas the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire and water have dominated various epochs in the past, there will be a fifth element to reckon with in the time of the Fifth Sun: ether.

The dictionary defines ether as the rarefied element thought to fill the upper regions of space, the Heavens. Ether is a medium that permeates all space and transmits waves of energy in a wide range of frequencies, from cell phones to human auras. What is “ethereal” is related to the regions beyond earth: the heavens.

Ether — the element of the Fifth Sun — is celestial, and lacking in material substance, but is no less real than wood, wind, flame, stone or flesh.

“Within the context of ether there can be a fusion of the polarities,” Mr. Barrios said. “No more darkness or light in the people, but an uplifted fusion. But right now the realm of darkness is not interested in this. They are organized to block it. They seek to unbalance the Earth and its environment so we will be unready for the alignment in 2012. We need to work together for peace, and balance with the other side. We need to take care of the Earth that feeds and shelters us. We need to put our entire mind and heart into pursuing unity and fusion now, to confront the other side and preserve life.”

To Be Ready for this Moment in History
Mr. Barrios told his audiences in Santa Fe that we are at a critical moment of world history. “We are disturbed,” he said. “We can’t play anymore. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action.”

“Everyone is needed. You are not here for no reason. Everyone who is here now has an important purpose. This is a hard, but a special time. We have the opportunity for growth, but we must be ready for this moment in history.”

Mr. Barrios offered a number of suggestions to help people walk in balance through the years ahead. “The prophesized changes are going to happen,” he said, “but our attitude and actions determine how harsh or mild they are.”

  • We need to act, to make changes, and to elect people to represent us who understand and who will take political action to respect the earth. Meditation and spiritual practice are good, but also action.
  • It’s very important to be clear about who you are, and also about your relation to the Earth.
  • Develop yourself according to your own tradition and the call of your heart. But remember to respect differences, and strive for unity.
  • Eat wisely. A lot of food is corrupt in either subtle or gross ways. Pay attention to what you are taking into your body.
  • Learn to preserve food, and to conserve energy.
  • Learn some good breathing techniques, so you have mastery of your breath.
  • Be clear. Follow a tradition with great roots. It is not important what tradition, your heart will tell you, but it must have great roots.
  • We live in a world of energy. An important task at this time is to learn to sense or see the energy of everyone and everything: people, plants, animals. This becomes increasingly important as we draw close to the World of the Fifth Sun, for it is associated with the element ether – the realm where energy lives and weaves.
  • Go to the sacred places of the earth to pray for peace, and respect for the Earth which gives us our food, clothing, and shelter. We need to reactivate the energy of these sacred places. That is our work.

Many Mayan elders and knowledge keepers may be eliminated in the next few years, Barrios said. For the first half of the current Katun (20-year period) the dark side has a lot of power. But that will pass 3 to 4 years from now. The tide can turn. Amazing things are going to happen.

One simple but effective prayer technique is to light a white or baby-blue colored candle. Think a moment in peace. Speak your intention to the flame and send the light of it on to the leaders who have the power to make war or peace.

We Have Work to Do
According to Mr. Barrios this is a crucially important moment for humanity, and for earth. Each person is important. If you have incarnated into this era, you have spiritual work to do balancing the planet.

He said the elders have opened the doors so that other races can come to the Mayan world to receive the tradition. The Maya have long appreciated and respected that there are other colors, other races, and other spiritual systems. “They know,” he said, “that the destiny of the Mayan world is related to the destiny of the whole world.”

“The greatest wisdom is in simplicity,” Mr. Barrios advised before leaving Santa Fe. “Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It’s not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It’s encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.”

– END –

Carlos Barrios is the author of Kam Wuj: El Libro del Destino, a book published in Spanish that explores Mayan teachings.

For background see these reports:

UN Truth Commission Report on Guatemala

Guatemala: Twenty Years Crying for Justice

Guatemala’s Lethal Legacy:
Past Impunity and Renewed Human Rights Violations

General information on 2012
http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk

 

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Ceremonial Protocol

rug
Protocol for
The Reunion of Mother Earth with Her Children
at Turquoise Mountain on May 8, 2004

Turquoise Mountain (Mount Taylor) — the South Mountain on the Medicine Wheel — has already committed to ceremony under the guidance of Grandfather Martin Martinez and Grandmother Janíce, and many other elders and Medicine People from nearby Pueblos. With Grandfather Leon Secatero, the elders established a Protocol for the Turquoise Mountain Ceremony and made the Protocol available for others to consider.

Leon Secatero

Leon Secatero

The Indigenous Elders are asking us to stop and think with them, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, to reconnect with our Mother Earth as her children. These unified ceremonies are to awaken everyone, to be done by everyone at the beginning of every season in their own traditional protocol.This is only the beginning of the reorientation and reconnection for Mother Earth and her children.

What follows is the traditional protocol for the ceremony on Turquoise Mountain (Mt. Taylor) on May 8th, 2004 as set by Grandfather and Grandmother Martinez, and Leon Secatero, Spiritual Messenger.

Grandfather Martin Martinez’s vision came to him in the spring of 2002 when he and other medicine people visited the sacred spring on Turquoise Mountain to offer gifts to the mountain and its holy ones as they have always done.

The warriors on horses of long ago appeared. They were carrying a staff with eagle feathers from many nations. The Thunder called to them, “Why aren’t you doing the ceremony?” Next, they saw rainbow houses and many people camping in the clearing with their drums in a circle to reset the sky roads of the holy ones. The time had come.

When Grandfather came down from the mountain he called all his children (The Five Finger Ones) to tell them that a spiritual gathering is to happen at the sacred site on Turquoise Mountain. In the vision, the ancestors came to tell him that it is time to journey to this mountain for the sacred purpose of reconnecting Mother Earth with her children. Since then, many traditional planning meetings have taken place.

However, there was a question in regards to the participation of many nations and how they are to connect. This connection came together when an Eastern Shoshone Spiritual leader came with a message: Mother Earth is calling all cultures to come together in Sacred Ceremonies now to restore balance and harmony. To help alleviate worldwide concerns about past, present, and future earthquakes and volcanic activities within Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, the elders have envisioned a unified ceremony to include the western territory of North America.

All people from all nations are welcome to participate.

TRADITIONAL PROTOCOL
ojikiwanWhen our Star appears in the East (about 4:00 AM), the mounds for 12 staffs will be marked and put in a circle with an opening to the East. All nations represented with a staff will circle around the center fire for the entrance of the sacred pipes, to be placed in the Four Directions with prayer and song.

After the sacred pipes are in place, cleansing with sage and prayer will begin for the staffs. Once the staffs are placed in the mounds, the cleansing for the people and their medicine bundles will begin.

Morning Songs will be sung until dawn. Everyone will come together with their prayer offerings as traditional flute music is played to welcome the Sun as it appears through the aspen forest.

Breakfast will be on your own. A prayer offering of food will be given to Turquoise Mountain.

Midmorning (10:00 AM) the participating groups will bring their prayer sticks, with their own designs and colors, to the center west of the central fire. The prayer sticks will be placed in a line representing the participating groups. When the time comes, the south prayer stick will begin their song. When they complete their song, the next prayer stick will start and so forth, until the last one in the north is completed.

With with the singing and prayer, two bows -– one a 740-year-old bow representing the ancestors, and a new one representing the Five Finger Ones –- will be used to connect the vibration south to north, and east to west.

Placing of Crystals (11:30 AM) with the prayer sticks will be done before noon. Everyone is invited to place their crystal around the mound of the prayer sticks as the Honoring Song is sung. When the time is right, the Connecting Song will be sung, starting very softly and increasing as more lift the song. All drums, flutes, eagle-bone whistles, and voices will begin with the rhythm of the Medicine Rattle to open up the vibration.

The Sky Path of the Holy Ones is connected at Noon, when the energy is most direct and powerful. The group with the South prayer stick will lead off with their song. They may ask others to join them.

After the last prayer stick at the north has sung their song, the singing is open and all the people will join in the healing dance. This is for Mother Earth to acknowledge you, and for you to acknowledge Mother Earth in renewing your sacred relationship with her. The dance will end in the afternoon to prepare for the next ceremony.

Honoring Mother Earth (2:00 PM), after the sacred water is brought in, a tobacco/pipe ceremony will begin. Mother Earth Song will be sung and offerings will be prepared for the water to be placed near the sacred spring, so her seeds will carry the sacred message to the universe when the plants arrive.

aspathHonoring the Sacred Path for the Five Finger Ones will be done with a Mountain Song, ending with the Blessing Way. The prayer sticks will be taken to the mountain spirits for their guidance and wisdom, as our journey begins here.

Our first responsibility is to clean up the area before leaving for home to share our experiences with our loved ones. Grandfather and Grandmother Martinez have given their permission for a certain portion of this event to be videotaped, recorded and distributed for the Martinez family and the building of the Red Mountain Healing Center.

– Leon Secatero, Spiritual Messenger, 3/27/2004

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Tales of the Whirling Rainbow: Myths & Mysteries

Tales of the Whirling Rainbow is a journalist’s account of some of the key myths and mysteries of the Americas, and an electrifying exploration of how those myths are resounding in real time.

Veteran journalist Steven McFadden weaves the living myths together seamlessly. Like an atom of gold, this wee book radiates deep beauty. It delivers authentic inspiration for our 21st Century souls.

Tales of the Whirling Rainbow conveys critical insights into core wisdom teachings at the heart of North America’s unfolding saga. Respect for these knowings is fundamental to our survival and spiritual development.

As the Sun awakens and Earth changes intensify, our lives attain high velocity. At this time and in this manner, elders across The Americas informed the author, the human beings who are the different colors and faiths of the world will have opportunities to heal their web of relationships with each other, and with the natural world.

You can order print or eBook versions of this small treasure via this link to Amazon.

 

 

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Native Knowings: Wisdom Keys for One and All

Native Knowings: Wisdom Keys for 2012 and Beyond

Native Knowings: Wisdom Keys for One and AllThis original and powerful ebook offers a concise compendium of some North American (Turtle Island) wisdom teachings that are offered to help guide Human Beings through an era of transition.

Smashwords review: “An excellent read. Informative without being preachy. Exactly what I have been looking for. Bravo!”

Native Knowings is available in 10 different eBook and Smartphone formats at Smashwords.com as well as for the Kindle reader on Amazon.com (see link above).

The books is also available for all Apple devices from the iTunes and iBook stores.

Amazon-buynow

ibooks

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On the Road: An Evolving Turtle Island Odyssey

Copyright  © – 2007 – by Steven McFadden

After walking 3,500 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and arriving somewhat south of the place native people know as the Western Gate of Turtle Island, a band of pilgrims encountered the poet Gary Snyder on the last night of January, 1996. We had been walking toward this Western Gate for eight months, so we were paying attention to the portents.

With several other pilgrims, I heard Snyder speak that night at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He said that when he considered modern man’s relationship to the earth, he felt it lacked a conscious spiritual connection. “The fire of catastrophe,” said he, “has burnt out all.”

turtlislandSnyder revealed himself as one the many elders we had set out to find on our prophetic quest across the back of North America. He’d sounded a steady incantation for decades on behalf of the earth, his words finally reaching our pilgrim ears at the end of our epic walk specifically in quest of sacred places and steadying voices.

As it happens, poet Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize for authoring the collection, Turtle Island. He summoned his title from the creation stories native to our North American continent – the old, old name.

That night in Santa Barbara, Snyder said that ,as he saw things now on Turtle Island, people have organized themselves by race, gender, belief systems, and so forth. But we have not yet organized ourselves by ecosystems – the actual places where we live, and the actual resources native to these places.

“Nature is no social construction,” Snyder said. “The land sees no colors.”

Using high language and artful rhythm, Snyder told us that when we come to comprehend this, it will help us all to finally and truly become Native American in the full spiritual sense that embraces all the land and all the people, the plants and the animals. 

Through hearing the poet’s lyric, I came once again to a basic realization about why we had walked, and what we – a multicultural, all-faiths band of pilgrims — hoped to accomplish with our procession on foot across North America to meet some of the contemporary elders of our land. We were striving to help establish the kind of authentic spiritual connection with the earth that Snyder invoked with his words.

Eleven years after the end of the walk, in 2007 shortly after I finished writing the story of our walk in the form of an epic nonfiction saga (Odyssey of the 8th Fire), Gary Snyder reappeared. This time the poet came to Santa Fe to speak about his late compatriot, Jack Kerouac, the writer who crafted an undulating, enduring paean to America and freedom with his novel On the Road (1957)

Snyder was invited to Santa Fe by the Museum of New Mexico and the  Palace of the Governors. They asked him to speak as a complement to their exhibit of Kerouac’s work, including the original, continuous and amazing 120-foot teletype scroll that Kerouac used for writing On the Road – a novelized account of open, mad, freedom-expressing rushes across the back of Turtle Island in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with beauty to behold and creative souls to encounter.

Poster for the Santa Fe events.

Poster for the Santa Fe events.

On stage in downtown Santa Fe at the packed Lensic theater, Snyder told the audience that back in 1956 he had use of a cabin near Homestead Valley, just north of San Francisco. It was a rude structure, lacking glass for the windows. In this country abode, Kerouac moved in with him for 5-6 weeks – a place to crash.

Very much in command as he stood center stage, Snyder spoke directly of his friend Jack Kerouac as a man who was well intentioned, sweet, playful, sometimes goofy, non-judgmental, and imbued with the spirit of compassion. He said Kerouac was keenly intelligent, well read, and had a mind for words. One of Kerouac’s prime spiritual gifts, the poet said, was his ability to confront the immediacy of his imagination.

I listened to Snyder attentively. I wanted to understand more. In preparing to write the nonfiction saga of our long walk across Turtle Island —  Odyssey of the 8th Fire — I’d been informed by books telling of our human journey: Homer’s Odyssey, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie, William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways,  Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and Paolo Cohelo’sThe Pilgrimage. Inevitably, Kerouac’s On the Road also touched me with its entraining cross-America accounts of reaching outward, inward, downward, upward.

The miles that Kerouac’s Beatniks traveled in cars and buses and by hitchhiking, we odyssey pilgrims later traversed on foot – as if that were an era wanting speed to break free of bonds, and the era of our  walk a time to slow down, to take measure of the vast, multi-faceted spiritual landscape sprawled out before us, to proceed across it at a more deliberate pace.

With the overarching thrust of their works, Kerouac and Snyder were among a multitude of inspirations for me. In Odyssey of the 8th Fire, the actual Turtle Island emerges from the depths of North America with immediacy and relevancy. Spiritual elders of North America step forward by the dozens to share teachings of our land.

The spontaneous, howling, Beat pilgrims Jack Kerouac wrote about were, in one conception, on the road for truth, freedom, and spiritual realization advancing in their time and place. Our on-the-road walking quest some fifty years later was, in part, a natural extension and evolution of this fundamental quest, and also a part of the overall, amazing, grand, hope-lifting odyssey of all of us: multicolored, multi-faith masses of people over centuries of time striving awkwardly, unceasingly to establish a conscious, realized connection with the spirit of this beautiful land that we might finally be truly at home here on Turtle Island, and that the land and water and air might cleanly support our children and grandchildren in health and freedom.

We odyssey walkers stretched out our legs and strode toward what we felt could help. We did what we could. We walked to a great many of the holy sites of Turtle Island, and there enacted ceremony for all of the sacred hoop of life on Turtle Island, respecting all spiritual traditions and all colors of humanity – as had been the agreed-upon philosophy of our pilgrimage band, some 40 or more multicultural souls.

As it happened, as it happens. Circumstances impend. Roadways exist.  Poets sing.

END

Resources

Jack Kerouac – On the Road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road

Gary Snyder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Snyder

Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, NM, USA
http://www.palaceofthegovernors.org/

Odyssey of the 8th Fire
http://www.8thfire.net

 

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Final Embers of Hiroshima Peace Flame Expire in Ceremony at Big Mountain

Copyright 2002 – by Steven McFadden

hiroshima1The fire that was ignited 57 years ago on August 6, 1945 when the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, was ceremonially extinguished by a band of pilgrims May 27, 2002 at Big Mountain on Black Mesa in Arizona, in a high desert range sweet with the smell of sagebrush.

In 1945 when the “Little Boy” bomb detonated 2,000 feet above Hiroshima, the city was instantly shrouded in an awful cloud. Witnesses beneath the cloud remember that they “saw another sun in the sky…” When the wave of light, heat and wind from the flaring atomic sun reached the ground it roasted to fine ash all that came before it. The wave raced outward until it reached the mountains on the edge of Hiroshima, where it was reflected to roar again through the city center. Over 140,000 human beings died during or shortly after the blast. Many more lingered — dying later, or developing genetic mutations.

Aftermath of the nuclear bomb.

Aftermath of the nuclear bomb.

A man named Tatsuo Yamamoto recovered embers from the Little Boy blast 57 years ago. His family, with the help of a nearby monastery, has tended the flame continuously ever since, feeding it with prayers of forgiveness, understanding, and peace. This is the source of the flame the pilgrims carried across America, the flame they recently extinguished on Big Mountain.

The Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage brought the flame to America in January, 2002 and then carried it cross-country, walking West to East. They began in Washington State at the grave of Chief Seattle, and took their final steps toward the East in May in New York City at UN Headquarters and the site of the World Trade Center disaster.

(To read about the background of the walk, and the walk’s earlier pilgrimage to the emergence point of Los Alamos, New Mexico, click here).

While led by Japanese Buddhist Nuns and Monks, the prayer walk included people of all colors and faiths. They walked not in protest, but rather with prayers of hope to end war and destruction. The walkers concluded their epic pilgrimage with multicultural ceremony, including traditional elders of the Hopi and Dine’ (Navajo) Nations at Big Mountain, one of the high sacred places of North America.

Four Corners: Spiritual Center of the Continent

While the Hiroshima Flame borne by the walkers has notable significance as a living representation of a redeemed spirit, the place where it was extinguished also carries immense importance.

Four Corners is a sacred region in the Southwest, long appreciated and honored by traditional peoples. Although the relationship between the larger Dine’ and Hopi governments, and between those nations and the US government and corporations, has often been a morass of conflict and confusion, the sacred teachings about the Four Corners handed down from antiquity echo — at some level — in the soul of every person involved.

Dine’ tradition holds that at the start of the present epoch of world history (Glittering World), the Holy People put four sacred mountains in four different directions: Mt. Blanca (Colorado) in the East. Mt. Taylor (New Mexico) in the South, San Francisco Peaks (Arizona) in the West, and Mt. Hesperus (Utah) in the North. In this manner, they established Dinetah, readily knowable boundaries.

Within the bounds of the Four Corners lies the formidable and imposing Black Mesa, and the ridge that runs along part of it, called Oyama by the Dine’, also known as Great Mountain or more widely as Big Mountain.

To the casual observer, Black Mesa seems a barren and inhospitable place, devoid of value. But to traditional wisdom keepers, this is high holy ground, an energy center of importance to the overall balance of life. For others, Black Mesa is a storehouse of natural capital, just waiting to be converted to bankable wealth. Evidence of this material value lies in the gangling high–tension power poles and lines which picket the mesa, the exceedingly wide and deep roadways, and the industrial installations of every description, including a private airport for mining executives.

Ceremony at Big Mountain

When the Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage arrived at Big Mountain about Noon on May 27, the pilgrims walked a half mile out onto the range, scanning the sagebrush and the blue sky, and chanting their familiar Namu Myo Ho Renge Kyo. Their combined voices sent the chant ringing widely across the mesa.

The pilgrims spiraled sunwise around a center point on the range, forming a multiracial hoop of about 50 human beings. In the center of the hoop, the native elders and walkers kindled a small wood fire from the Hiroshima Peace Flame. It roared to life.

When the fire was burning and buckets of water had been blessed, the pilgrims spiraled single file into the fire and to the bucket of water. One at a time, they anointed themselves with the water, and then with prayer each flicked a few droplets on the slowly dwindling flame.

The hour when the Hiroshima Peace Flame was extinguished, 57 years after it was sparked to life in an unprecedented nuclear conflagration, was a quiet, sweet, solemn moment in the high desert. It was marked in the distance by birdsong and children’s laughter. The Sun was high overhead. The people in the circle were relaxed and at peace in friendship. They walked off the range quietly, and down a dirt road.

Then came whirlwinds. The breeze had blown freshly all day, sweetened by the newly sprouted sage, and it made standing in the open sun comfortable. But after the ceremony things changed. Powerful whirlwinds arose in succession and presented themselves directly before the pilgrims with a harsh, dusty moan. Just as the Wind Nation had spoken dramatically weeks earlier as the walkers carried the flame into Los Alamos, New Mexico, so it spoke again through mini–tornadoes that swirled right up to the walkers, then changed direction. The whirlwinds did no damage, but demanded attention.

Until Human Beings Live in Harmony

After the ceremony the walkers and several residents of Big Mountain gathered to share a simple feast, and to talk among themselves in the shade of a shed. Several traditional elders addressed the walkers at this time, to thank them for coming and to speak of how they see things in the world.

Hopi Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma

Hopi Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma

Hopi Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma, 78, spoke briefly. He reminded people of the crucial importance of the Four Corners Region, and of Black Mesa and Big Mountain in particular.

As he had explained at UN headquarters in 1993, and on many other occasions, Grandfather Martin told of how, at the beginning of the present–day 4th World, by Hopi tradition, the people who had survived the great flood that cleansed the Third World assembled at Four Corners. From there they spread out in the Four Directions to live out their destinies.

Before the human beings parted ways, Creator established Four Nations, told them they would come together again towards the end of this Fourth epoch, and gave each the responsibility for one of the Four Elements: the Black Nation to keep the water; the Yellow Nation to keep the air; the White Nation to keep the fire. The Red Nation was instructed to caretake the Earth, hesaid,to hold fast to traditional ways, and to protect Four Corners at all costs, and without violence.

They were told that there is great power under the land. If this power is allowed to escape, he said, it would result in great destruction.

Traditional elders recall in their ways that the Hopi were instructed to remain as custodians of this region while war still stalks the world. Four Corners is a microcosmic image of the entire planet. There are specific knowings that refer to Black Mesa and Big Mountain, teachings that warn they should not be dug into. 

Still Under Siege

There is an ongoing war for Big Mountain, a war older than a generation that is waged with legal edicts and bulldozers on one side, and prayer, song, and dance on the other. Because Black Mesa is a key center of spiritual energy for North America and the world, and because it represents a hornet’s nest of crucial karmic and environmental issues, it is an issue that should be of intense interest to everyone.

It is a bitter irony that American corporations and government have targeted one of the principal sacred sites on the continent, and exploited it with technology, ripping it open to fulfill explicitly material intentions.

Speaking in the Dine’ language (interpreted by a relative), Grandmother Louise Benally told the walkers, “Here we are still at war with the U.S. Government over energy. I feel like I am still living in the 18th Century, when the cavalry started harassing us. Dineh people remain on Black Mesa, and oppose the forced relocation of traditional peoples so this place will not be taken over for the coal and uranium that are here. We have a spiritual responsibility to this place.”

Black Mesa

Black Mesa

For over 20 years, Peabody Coal Co. has been strip mining Black Mesa for coal, and consequently, residents believe, reducing the water table and causing radioactive pollution as uranium deposits are disturbed. Over 30 billion gallons of water have been sucked up from the aquifer at Black Mesa by coal company pumps, then mixed with pulverized coal, and used to slurry the mixture to a power plant in Nevada, where the guts of sacred Black Mesa is burned to provide power for the Las Vegas strip. Meanwhile, family wells on Black Mesa have dried up. So have the springs. Some elderly people in the Black mesa region must travel up to 50 miles to get drinking water.

Crisis is upon the Four Corners again this summer. The fire element is wildly out of balance, and that has impacted everything. No one has ever seen a year like 2002. Wild fires are burning hundreds of thousands of acres throughout the Southwest. Elderly Dine’ who have herded their sheep, goats, and cattle here for generations, say they have never seen a drought so ferocious. More than 7,000 stock ponds have dried up across the Dine’ reservation. Thousands of head of livestock are dying or expected soon to die from lack of water and grazeable forage.

bmeldersThe assault on the material resources of Black Mesa continues. Peabody Coal Co. is planning on expanding operations by opening a new mine, which will ultimately infringe upon Big Mountain itself.

“It hasn’t changed,” Grandmother Louise Benally told the pilgrims. “The feds still want our energy, and they still want our land. There has been coal mining here for 20 years. Now the land is drying up. We feel ourselves drying up, too.”

Black Mesa elders remain determined to stay on their ancestral lands. They need support to hold this spiritual center. Some of the strongest support they have received over the years has come from the people of the Yellow Nation.

Spiritual Friendship

Twenty–five years ago a friendship was inaugurated among the traditional Dine’ and Hopi at Big Mountain, and the Monks and Nuns of the Nipponzan Mihogi Order. The friendship began during “The Longest Walk,” a pilgrimage organized by various American Indian movements. This walk journeyed from the Pacific to the Atlantic to call attention to a host of issues of concern to indigenous peoples.

Pilgrim Tom Dostou

Pilgrim Tom Dostou

Traditional elders from the Four Corners region decided that the Big Mountain issue should be a part of this effort. Over the course of the walk they informed all the Indian nations about coal mining on Black Mesa, and the relocation of Dine’ people. Traditional people have been resisting government–mandated relocation for over two decades. Despite their resistance, thousands of Dine’ men, women, and children have in recent years been forcibly removed to a barren area, far from their ancestral homes.

Buddhist Monks and Nuns joined the Longest Walk, and they were touched by what they learned about Black Mesa. They walked and prayed the whole way alongside the Indians. Later, through the 1980s and into the 1990s, several Buddhist people lived at Big Mountain to help defend it. In this way traditional Dine’ and Hopi and the Japanese people became a family. As portrayed in the newly released film, Windtalkers, earlier in history, during World War II, they had been enemies.

The friendship deepened when people of the Yellow Nation joined people of the Red Nation at Sundance. According to long–held Lakota tradition, the Sundance ceremony was to someday travel throughout Turtle Island, and to bring many Nations into the Sacred Hoop of Unity. The first Big Mountain Sundance was held in August 1983.

The intention of the Lakota Sundance in Dine’ country was, and remains, for purifying body and mind so that the people of Big Mountain can defend the ancient lands. The people dance to strengthen themselves spiritually. Although harassed and challenged, the Big Mountain Sun Dance still happens every summer.

Steps Along the Trail

With this background of friendship, it was natural that the Hiroshima Flame carried by the walkers should, in the end, guide them to Big Mountain, not far from the place where the uranium used to build the Hiroshima bomb was long ago dug from the Earth.

After the feast and the remarks of the elders, the walkers had an opportunity to reflect on their pilgrimage. They said that, as a group, they felt good about what they had accomplished. They said they had been faithful, and that they listened to spirit the whole way. They never made decisions on any other basis.

flamrThe Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage had its origins in the year 2000 under the inspiration of Tom Dostou while he was in Japan. At that time he was entrusted with a spark of the Hiroshima Flame (the source flame remains burning in Japan). Tom conceived the vision of returning the flame to where it had come from — not as a protest, but as a necessary deed of spiritual redemption, because not only the people of Hiroshima had died, but also many native peoples were poisoned by the uranium dug up, without spiritual permission, on their lands.

Tom passed his vision to Jun Yasuda of the Nipponzan Miyohoji Buddhist Order. Then they started walking. They walked 1,300 KM in Japan, and then brought the flame to America. Over the months and miles of the walk, there were many remarkable developments. At the start, they could find no plane willing to carry the flame across the Pacific to North America. But at last they secured a boat ride to Hawaii, and by serendipity arrived at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 2001 — 60th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing.

Sister Jun Yasuda at Oyama

That bombing raid by Japan killed over 2,400 people, crippled the US Pacific Naval Fleet, and radically accelerated the world war which later ended at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Kahunas at Pearl Harbor

Kahunas at Pearl Harbor

In Hawaii the pilgrims were welcomed by a delegation of Kahunas, the traditional Medicine People of the islands. The Kahunas took them to the former site of a sacred shine on the island of O’ahu, overlooking what had once been an uninhabited tropical lagoon. This quiet lagoon, held as deeply sacred for generations by the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, was dredged and bulldozed to create the military base of Pearl Harbor. For the Kahunas, there was an obvious karmic link between the desecration of one of their sacred sites and the bombs that later rained upon the military base.

The Kahunas and the walkers also journeyed to Mount Kilauea, carrying the Hiroshima flame into the volcano’s caldera. The pilgrims arrived in Mexico on Dec. 15, for the major spiritual festival honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Hiroshima Peace Pilgrims after the final ceremony.

Hiroshima Pilgrims at the final ceremony.

Then they walked for months from the grave of Chief Seattle on the West Coast past nuclear installations in Hannaford, WA, Los Alamos, NM, Huntsville, AL, and elsewhere. Walk initiator Tom Dostou rejoined the walk in May in New York City for the UN and World Trade Center vigils. Thus the walk finished with the circle completed, the hoop whole.

“We followed the flame,” the walkers said. “We were not carrying the flame, but carried by it.” At the end, the flame led them to Big Mountain to add the awakened forces of their pilgrimage to the defense of the Earth and the cause of peace.

– 30 –

Nota Bene: Roberta Blackgoat, respected Big Mountain elder and lifelong defender of sacred lands, died in April, 2002 at age 84. For obituaries check the Big Mountain web sites

 

To learn more:

Black Mesa Indigenous Support

Hopi Notes

 

 

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Cachora Comes to the Holy City: Don Juan in Santa Fe

Copyright 2002 - by Steven McFadden

Saturday night, January 12, 2002 — two days before his 88th birthday, a man named Cachora, spoke with an audience of about 170 people at the Church of Religious Science in Santa Fe, NM, a city noted for its spiritual history and destiny.

cachAn elder of the Yaqui Indian Nation, and a Nahual (man of power), Cachora has remained a mystery figure for decades. But now he is coming forward from his homeland in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico into the public realm. It is time for this, he says. Chachora says says he is the real man who is portrayed as the enigmatic shaman don Juan in the series of books by Carlos Castaneda: Journey to Ixtlan; The Teachings of Don Juan; and so forth.

With a bright canopy of stars in the night sky, and just hours before the Capricorn New Moon, the Santa Fe teachings began with a Chief’s song offered by Golden Eagle (formerly Standing Elk). He is an Interpreter and Chief for the Yankton Lakota Sioux peoples of South Dakota. Golden Eagle drummed and sang to honor Cachora, and to honor all the Chiefs who serve the Sacred Hoop.

Cachora appeared dark and intense at first, his eyes shaded from the light by a black sombrero. The hat was formed with a humble downturned brim, and crowned with a single golden eagle feather set in the right side of the woven band. He stood straight and strong through the night. Except for when he was speaking, Cachora kept his hands joined together over his solar plexus, above his red tunic, but behind his deerhide vest edged with cowry shells.

Even the shade of a hat could not long conceal the elder. He showed himself to be radiant in health, lithe, open of heart, filled with deep sincerity and hearty humor, and welcoming to all the people. One observer said he seemed “as solid as a beam of mesquite,” a famously tough tree. A human being of attainment, he demonstrated throughout the evening his faith that this potential rests in every human.

Cachora said that he knows 4,000 plants, and how they can be used medicinally to help people heal. He said he spends his time in the mountains, to study and to gather plants, and to teach his apprentices. But recently, Cachora said, he had been guided by Sprit to come forth and teach more widely in the world.

After a few brief introductory remarks, spoken in Spanish and translated to English, Cachora invited any and all questions. “Come on,” he said over and over, “ask.’

Here is a synopsis of Cachora’s translated remarks through the evening, as paraphrased by this reporter:

  • He was asked his thoughts and feelings about the earth and humanity right now, with everything that is going on in the world? I believe the future of humanity is opaque, he said. We are not seeing much in the way of peace and harmony.
  • Earth changes will continue to come upon the Earth, and a comet, too.
  • Santa Fe is sacred. Remember this. There would be plenty of water here, no crisis, if the people take care of the land and perform their ceremonies and prayers — no matter which spiritual tradition — and respect the earth. “If you give offerings, there will be plenty of water.”
  • The plants and trees are sad. Dry. They are not respected by the people for the crucial contribution they make to our lives. Gather and use them with respect, always offering a prayer. Don’t mistreat them. “Plants are our life. We must care for them.”
  • Cachora mentioned that his father had long ago worked in the mines near Santa Fe, and so he knew the area well. I know the caves and the mines here, he said. They are sacred.
  • Through the evening he several times made dismissive remarks about the books of Carlos Castaneda and claims that they might in some way accurately represent him or his teachings. Of Castaneda, Cachora twice said that he was “un pinche loco.”
  • Cachora answered yes, when asked if there were traditional teachings in his culture about people of different faiths, colors, and nationalities coming together at the time of global crisis, and uniting in mutual respect to work for the health of the earth and all that lives upon it. He said this process — what many would call an unfolding of the legend of the rainbow warriors — is happening now.
  • There’s not too much we can do about government, and wars, and harmful corporations, but we can work on ourselves. Pray and purify yourself. Don’t be ashamed of yourself. Love and accept yourself. Follow your vision.
  • Thank Creator for the day, every day. Sunrise is the best time to do this.
  • Purify yourself. Do it with prayers at sunrise. And do it with Purification baths (Sweat Lodges) at the time of the Full Moon. Meditate and pray in the mountains. This is necessary in the world now.
  • It’s better to meditate outdoors, where you can be in direct contact with the forces of nature.
  • Keep your diet to natural foods, with no chemicals and no genetically engineered components. For health, food should natural and clean, as Creator designed it.

At the end of the teachings, Golden Eagle closed the circle with his drum and a spirit song that, he said, Lakota people sing to honor Pte San Wi (White Buffalo Calf Woman). We have had this song a long time, he said, it was given to the Lakota the first time White Buffalo Calf Woman came among the people: 16,000 years ago.

— 30 —

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