

In this season so busy—things changing so fast—I happened upon this dark passage: the cautioning utterance of a spirit long departed:
~ Thus Spake Zarathustrua (Nietzsche)
Stark words. From one vantage as we head into 2022, it’s as if this ancient cautionary couplet were engraved in ominous foul-tempered clouds looming over our moment in history. Dangerous rumbling darkness. People in need of light. Woe indeed.
Not really a new sensation. Same as it ever was, going back through our long global history of tragedy, enslavement, rioting, rebellion, fascism, war, and staggering natural disasters. We’ve been here before. Most of us have learned that when we honestly face the inner wastelands, we can create ways to regenerate. These are matters of will and intention. Inner and outer landscapes can be seeded with flowers, fruits, and light.
Observations about light remind me of something the late Grandfather Martin M. Martinez said one day in 2004, another time when seasons were changing. We were sitting with Navajo elder Leon Secatero at the time. We were talking, drinking hot coffee and eating berry pie. Leon translated Grandfather’s words from Navajo to English as he shared something about the medicine songs he had mastered as Hataa’lii, a traditional chanter in the Navajo way.
“Many of the songs are keys to repositioning and setting right vibrations,” he said. “These are what we call the notes of the holy ones, such as the Song of the Mother Earth. Our ancestors have always told us, this is the way…It is known throughout the indigenous world that light and vibration directly connect all living beings to our environment. This first light from the stars and their vibrations are explained in our Blessingway songs.”
For me, this first light serves as a reminder of what we human beings have learned through the millennia about how we can best generate light in times of darkness. We do it through the verities, or eternal verities as they are sometimes called. Basic stuff. Honesty, caring, sharing, respect, and that ineffable attribute which some possess and which all may cultivate—grace.
When we embody and express these virtues, when we sing or chant in beauty, we add light to the world. When we add light we are traveling upon what Grandfathers Martinez and Secatero spoke of as hózhó jí, the blessingway. This is good. Very good.
In 2022 and beyond, with the seasons so busy and things changing so fast, may we all find ways to keep our hearts, minds, and feet traveling forward in beauty on the blessingway. May it be so. ~ Thus spake Steven.
Now that I’ve finished telling the tale a second time, via the supplemental medium of memes, I’m happy to invite you (one and all) to engage the Odyssey of the 8th Fire. Through following the journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific you will meet and learn from traditional wisdom keepers of North America. What they share is directly relevant to this moment in history.
My first telling of the story was through an epic-length narrative. That’s a demanding literary adventure for readers, but also, I feel, very rewarding.
But if you set out on the journey through the second telling—8th Fire slide shows that I’ve created and posted to Youtube—you can engage this true, epic adventure with the wisdom keepers, and complete the journey, in less than an hour. Check it out.
The Odyssey of the 8th Fire meme slide show is now live on Youtube at this link. ~ SM
Photo of author Steven McFadden by Justin Wan, Lincoln Journal Star
I’m pleased to report that my nonfiction saga Odyssey of the 8th Fire is getting some publicity this week, in both formats: online journal and the work in progress slide-show of memes. Both of those formats for engaging the tale are currently live and freely available for readers around the world.
Columnist Cindy Lange-Kubick at our local daily newspaper, The Lincoln Journal Star, wrote and published about me and the long journey that is at the heart of the epic, nonfiction saga in our era of profound change.
“The simple reason for the walk ” as the story reports, was to find teachings that had long ago been left by the side of the trail — and to bring them forward into the present so they can be applied as we go into the future..
Part 4 of the Odyssey of the 8th Fire Memes – Days 120-160 slide show is now live and freely available on my Youtube channel. The memes at this link tell a shorthand version of the longer true, epic saga available at 8thFire.net.
In invite you to undertake this adventure, to check out the tale, and through the tale to vicariously journey from the Eastern Door at the Atlantic toward the Western Gate at the Pacific, meeting and learning from insightful elders. As the tale of true adventure unfolds, the elders freely share a wealth of wisdom teachings. I recommend viewing the slide shows on a large screen.
To give a sense of how the story is told by memes over the 230 days of travel, I’ve posted three of the memes below as a sample: Days 63, 145 and 159. If you click on the images you’ll go directly to my Youtube channel. There you can access Parts I, II, III, and IV. I’ll post the concluding Parts V and VI as they are completed in the months ahead.
It’s been a quarter century since the Sunbow 5 Walk for the earth began it’s epic trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1995-96, under the guidance of traditional elders and wisdom keepers of North America.
The tale of our adventures, and our meetings with the elders, is chronicled in Odyssey of the 8th Fire, a freely available online journal that I authored over 225 consecutive days in 2007-08
I invite you to follow me on Twitter < @StevenMcFadden > as day by day I post memes to help commemorate the walk, and to direct people to the teachings within. I then assemble those memes into slide shows which are freely available on Youtube as Odyssey of the 8th Fire Memes. It’s a journey well worth making.
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A quarter of a century ago—June 23, 1995— a band of long walkers gathered at First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They came on behalf of all the people, plants, and animals of the Earth. From this place of sand and sea at America’s Eastern Door, this intercultural band of pilgrims took the first steps on the epic Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth. In many respects and in a global context, everyone is still walking.
The small, ecumenical band of sunbow pilgrims journeyed from the Atlantic to the Pacific over a span of eight intensive months. They walked under the Algonquin teachings of the Seven Fires, the inspiration of a White Buffalo, and the global skysign of the Whirling Rainbow (Sunbow).
The walkers paid respectful attention to the Sunbow. When this natural phenomenon occurs, a full 360-degree rainbow circle appears in a wide ring around the Sun. The colorful, whirling vortex is said to signify critical understandings.
For the walk, the number 5 was added to Sunbow to signify five colors of human beings: Red, White, Black, Yellow, and Brown. The sunbow pilgrims were walking from the Eastern Door on the Atlantic toward the Western Gate at the Pacific to help unite all peoples and all nations in honesty, caring, sharing, and respect.
Their epic spiritual adventure involved untold U.S. and world history, pressing environmental and social issues, a convoluted web of personal relationships, and a wealth of spiritual insight with direct relevance for our era.
Now as world culture continues on a larger, more challenging journey from an old time to a new time, our long walk together under the whirling rainbow may serve to illumine some of the steps…
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The full blog post is at Mother Earth News
My magnum opus, Odyssey of the 8th Fire is a freely available epic, nonfiction, contemporary saga of The Americas (Turtle Island).
Within the true, unfolding physical and spiritual adventures of Odyssey of the 8th Fire, many of the learned elders of the Americas make a great and generous giveaway of their teachings. I cordially invite you to join the walkers and the elders via an online literary pilgrimage – S.M.
This quote from Homer’s Odyssey felt to me to be the right epigram for the conclusion of my freely available, epic, nonfiction saga: Odyssey of the 8th Fire.