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Odyssey of the 8th Fire accelerates in 2025

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      Mythic, illuminated Sirens sing out from eras ancient, present, and forthcoming, We are all being invited once again to make a journey through time, space, and spiritual fire. Big changes are afoot.
    Beginning on Christmas Day last, 2024, the hashtag #Odyssey went viral. Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) had just announced his next project: a film of Homer’s enduring classic, The Odyssey.
      The Odyssey hashtag came immediately alive on the Internet, and will likely remain astir at least through 2026 when Nolan’s film will be released. My hope is that in their personal digital journeys, many Net pilgrims will, by use of the hashtag, also come upon the true, online story, Odyssey of the 8th Fire .
       8th Fire is an epic tale of a inspired, contemporary journey by people of all colors and faiths. This odyssey tells of an eight-month walking pilgrimage. The multicultural band of men and women were guided, eventually, by dozens of traditional spiritual elders of North America.
     The long walk took place 30 years ago in 1995-96. It took 230 days to take the steps from the Eastern Door at the Atlantic Ocean toward the Western Gate at the Pacific. Along the way, from sea to shining sea, elders met with the 8th Fire walkers and gave them messages to carry.
     Over the last 30 years I’ve remained steady in the view that the long walk of the 8th Fire pilgrims can be regarded as a sample, or an archetypal expression of the great challenging journey that all of us alive are on, right now as the Earth shakes, the winds howl, and governments mutate.
    This is an odyssey that we are all on, everyone on Planet Earth. Moving fast now. It appears we are going to go a lot faster, Soon.
      What the written story of the  8th Fire Odyssey offers to readers is an opportunity to grasp some of the foundational teachings of this Turtle Island  American continent — teachings that have been tried and tested on this continent not just for five or six centuries, but over many thousands of years.
     Through this freely-offered nonfiction saga, readers will engage an opportunity to hear and to consider the words of many traditional elders of this Turtle Island continent we now call America.
      That has always been my devout intention: to create a bridge of communication and understanding between the ancient, core knowings of this land and our current, forward-leaning civilization. The forthcoming Odyssey film from Christopher Nolan and creative company will help with this, my intuition suggests.
     With the wisdom of the elders for support, we are readied for what lies in the present and future. Onward now along our individual and collective odysseys, to and beyond 2025 along the Beauty Way that is indigenous to North America. ?
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Sparks for the 8th Fire: a podcast

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Thanks to an invitation from The Celebration of Santa Fe, I had an opportunity earlier this month to offer a 20-minute talk about the Odyssey of the 8th Fire. It’s the first public talk I’ve offered in many a year, and it felt just right. As captured in the podcast recording  linked below, I began with a classical invocation, then commenced to sing the song of this epic true tale–an ongoing saga involving all of us.

FROM THE PROGRAM –
My bio and talk description:  
A delayed reaction to sweetly stinking clouds of Raid ant bomb, along with a pitiful pile of peony petals, set me on the spiraling path of my soul mission. Having kissed a chip of the Blarney Stone, I became engaged with The Gab. Visions arising from summit fasts added focus and passion. Elders offered keys. With patience, steadfastness, and spousal support, I’ve been able to weave ancient teachings, present realities, and future knowings into a shelf of non-fiction books on farming, food, and the core, enduring, illuminating knowings and mythologies of North America. My works include Legend of the Rainbow Warriors, Odyssey of the 8th Fire, Farms of Tomorrow, Deep Agroecology, and more than a dozen other titles.

About 30 years ago I was part of a group of pilgrims who walked from the Atlantic to the Pacific to Save the Planet. As you know from your own life, we were highly successful. The world has not ended…yet. No need to thank me. Survival is its own reward. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that there may be more to do. At any rate, I’d like to begin telling the story of that epic journey.

 

 

 

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Native Knowings now in paperback and eBook formats

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Many years ago I compiled a concise eBook with some key native knowings about the earth, and about the era of transition we are living through. Much of that book came from my notes about meetings with traditional native elders, and other people learned in the ways of earth and spirit. Our current national and global circumstances prompted me this past month to update the eBook and slso to publish it in a paperback edition for the first time.

With that background and intention, Light and Sound Press, LLC hereby announces an important addition to the Soul*Sparks collection of gift books–-small treasures recognized for their enduring insights. As of late May 2023 Native Knowings is now available in a slender,  handsome, and impactful paperback edition as well as the eBook edition.

Indisputably and on many levels of experience and understanding, profound changes are underway in the world. My hope is that this small volume will in some ways help us to move through the changes more wisely. The root teachings of North America—native knowings—can truly help. This I know in the core of my being.

The words of contemporary leaders in particular bear notes of urgency. They share a sense that the time for us to make profound changes in our attitudes and our behaviors is short. As Native Knowings makes explicit, they encourage us to consider their voiced offerings promptly and carefully.

The back cover of this small treasure gives a sense of what lies within:

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Does Breakthrough in Fusion Parallel an Evolutionary Leap?

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“All the prophecies of the world, all the traditions, are converging now. There is no time for games…High magic is at work on both sides, the light and the dark.” – Carlos Barrios

At precisely 1:00 a.m. on December 5, 2022, America initiated an act of nuclear fusion. That act within the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California signaled a historic breakthrough for science. It may also have signaled, both metaphorically and experientially, the ongoing process of a breakthrough for human spiritual development.

In that dark December hour after midnight, in less time than it takes to blink an eye, the scientists in charge of the fusion experiment applied 2.05 megajoules of laser energy to hydrogen atoms, thereby fusing and transforming them into the element of helium (Atomic number 2, abbreviated He – from the Greek word for the Sun, Helios).

At that same instant, as part of the fusion process, the atoms released 3.15 megajoules of energy and heat—a net gain.

Fusion is the process of liquefying a material substance by applying heat. Fusion also denotes the merging of different elements into a union—the fusing of diverse, distinct, or separate parts into a unified whole

Scientists, policy makers, and corporations have high hopes that the scientific fusion breakthrough will open pathways for advances in “clean energy,” and thereby help ease the rate of climate change, while strengthening national defense.

NOTE: About three months later in early 2023 a US-Japanese team of researchers announced a successful pilot test of an innovative nuclear fusion technology that uses no radioactive materials whatsoever, and is calculated to be capable of providing power on an industrial-scale.

The Time In-between
The headline news of the scientific breakthrough in fusion put me immediately in mind of an interview I conducted in Santa Fe, New Mexico some 20 years ago, the autumn of 2002. I spoke at length with Carlos Barrios of Guatemala. As he explained, he was born into a Spanish family, and over the course of his life he became a historian, an anthropologist, and ultimately a Mayan Ajq’ij (spiritual guide).

Barrios talked with me that day about fusion, and about spiritual developments in the Americas as he saw them. The story I published was soon widely plagiarized. Still, years later when writing chapter 8 of my nonfiction soul*sparks book, Tales of the Whirling Rainbow, it felt important to include segments of the interview.

Carlos Barrios died July 5, 2020. His words from 2002, however, carry resonance into the present moment, especially in context of the fusion breakthrough.

As we talked two decades ago, Barrios said that from the time of a 1987 date noted in the Mayan calendars, we’ve all been living in an era when the right arm of the materialistic world is disappearing, slowly but inexorably.

“We’re no longer in the World of the Fourth Sun,” he said, “but we are not yet in the World of the Fifth Sun. We are in a time in-between, a time of transition.”

As we pass through transition, Barrios observed, there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing Earth changes.

Emergence
Meanwhile in the midst of this transition, Barrios asserted, the emerging era will steadily bringing attention to a much-overlooked element. Whereas the four classical 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 a rarefied element, a medium that permeates all space and transmits waves of energy in a wide range of frequencies: from cell phones and Wi Fi signals to the subtle patterns and colors of human auras, and waves far finer than that. What is “ethereal” is related to the regions beyond earth: the heavens. Ether — the element of the Fifth Sun according to Barrios — 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,” Barrios told me. “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…”

We are at the cusp of a new era, he said, when peace begins, and people actually do live in harmony with Mother Earth

“…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 whirling spiral Fifth World.”

“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…

“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,” Barrios said. “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 emerging World.”

“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 preserve life.”

As we concluded our conversation, Barrios offered a final observation on our era of transition: “The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It’s not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It’s encoded in the whirling spiral of 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.”

N.B. Astrologers will note that the scientific fusion breakthrough occurred in 2022, the year when the USA is experiencing the return of Pluto (nuclear power, etc.) to the exact degree of the zodiac (27+ Capricorn) where it was transiting at the nation’s birth, July 4, 1776.

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New cover, renewed spirit for Tales of the Whirling Rainbow

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Dear Readers, I’m pleased to announce a facelift for an old book that is, I feel, acutely relevant to all that’s going on in the world. It’s the slimmest of volumes, but it still goes right to the heart of the matter. As of today the new cover and format edition is readily available as either print or eBook.

Here’s an image of the new cover, and below you will find the updated text from the book’s back cover:

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 to our 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.

“Absorbing, engaging, thoughtful, thought-provoking, exceptionally well written…unreservedly recommended.”~ Midwest Book Review 

 

 

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Descansa en paz – R.I.P. Maestro Alberto Taxo

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Don Alberto Taxo crossed into spirit on the cross-quarter, February 1, 2022.  That’s the moment each year when the Sun crosses the point in time and space that dwells halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

In passing Taxo left a legacy of kindness, respect, and spiritual intelligence. He also left illustrious teachings for all of The Americas.

To acknowledge Maestro Taxo’s death, and to honor him for all he gave to the world through his years of life, I offer a story.

It’s the story of the day that Taxo walked upon on the great plaza that sprawls before the entrance to the House of Mica (United Nations Headquarters) on the island of Manhattan. A man of respect, gratitude, and natural grace, don Alberto generously helped bring those qualities forward through an important ceremonial day.

It was Wednesday, August 9, 1995. I remember it vividly. It was the 48th day of the Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth, a dedicated band of travelers on foot from the Atlantic toward the Pacific. I was among a small group of those Sunbow pilgrims that day. We journeyed to the UN specifically for ceremonies marking the first annual occasion where member nations of the UN would—at least on paper—formally recognize and honor the indigenous peoples of the world.

Whirling Rainbow

As the ceremony began mid-day, the murky Manhattan sky above the gleaming facade of the House of Mica, brought forth a sunbow, the rare, natural phenomenon of a circular rainbow hoop around the Sun. The whirling rainbow held its form and presence in the sky for over 90 minutes, the entire duration of the ceremony.

Altogether about 250 human beings—representing all nations, all ways—gathered on the UN’s plaza. But note: not one official from any of the world’s incorporated, industrialized nation states showed up to acknowledge, to listen, to engage.

Chief Oren Lyons, Onondaga Faithkeeper and professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo, served as master of ceremonies. He offered a gracious welcome. “For many hundreds of years,” Chief Lyons remarked, “it has been a daily struggle for the indigenous peoples of the Earth to survive. So we are happy to be here. We are happy to have survived.”

Delphine Red Shirt, Lakota, Chairperson of the NGO Committee on the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, led a moving pipe ceremony. As she stood on the plaza before the UN and under the rainbow hoop around the Sun, she lifted her pipe high to honor everything, all relations, the sacred hoop of life.

Then Maestro Alberto Taxo came forward. He was a middle-aged then, about 40, hailing from the Andes Mountains of South America, a master Iachak of the Atis (Kichwa) people in the Cotopaxi region of Ecuador. An Iachak is someone who embodies and shares the wisdom of his tradition for the benefit of others, a leader for the community.

On the broad UN plaza, singing in Spanish, Taxo lifted a lilting, enchanting song honoring all Creation. As his final notes faded, everything became deeply still, a moment of grace.

Then Taxo began a brief oration. He spoke of the condor of the south and the eagle of the north, a reference to the widely-known teaching that one day the great sacred birds of both North and South America would fly together, cooperate, and establish a healthy, sustainable future that merges high intelligence with full, open hearts.

Often it is said, “when the eagle flies with the condor a lasting peace will reign in the Americas. It will spread throughout the world to unite humanity.”

As author Michelle Adam notes on her blog, “…like many native elders, he (Taxo) carried a 500-year-old teaching of his indigenous ancestors to prepare for an immense change for the earth and humanity, a ‘Pachacuti,’ that would occur at this time in history.”

Quetzal – Wiki Commons

The eagle and the condor would unite, some elders say, through the agency of the ethereally beautiful Central American quetzal bird. “Those of the center will unite the north and the south,” Mayan elder don Alejandro Cirilo Perez has proclaimed for decades. He also has worked to make this particular vision real.

The teaching foretells the coming together of two great powers: Eagle (the power of the mind as exemplified in the industrialized nations of the North) and Condor (the power of the heart, and connection with nature as expressed in indigenous ways of the South). Heart and mind.

House of Mica (UN)

Standing before the House of Mica in August 1995, don Alberto said the condor and the eagle have already met. The time for the fulfillment of this teaching is now.

He said the eagles of the north cannot be fully realized without the condors of the south, nor can the condors ascend without the eagles.

Taxo commented directly on the relationship between the technology-based cultures of the world (yang, or masculine, eagle in character), and the earth-based, or native, cultures (yin, or feminine, condor in character).

As he succinctly explained, profound social, political, and spiritual currents are at work in indigenous nations all around the globe. These dynamic currents parallel the vividly obvious dynamic currents in the technology-based cultures. The currents parallel, but do not generally intersect.

Mass, corporate media shuns this knowledge and these parallels, don Alberto said. Consequently, the public remains deprived of information about these crucial parallel developments, and thus the two sacred cultural currents of North and South America (eagle and condor) have difficulty finding each other to fly together.

But, Taxo said, they will find each other. In time eagle and condor will fly together in cooperation and peace.

A few weeks before Taxo’s death, in concert with natural rhythms on the Winter Solstice of December 2021, anthropologist Shirley Blancke published her book, The Way of Abundance and Joy: The Shamanic Teachings of don Alberto Taxo (Destiny Books).

In her new book Blancke writes, “The Condor gift that don Alberto (brought) to the lands of the Eagle is Sumak Kausay, which means Abundant Life in Kichwa. It is the indigenous Andes’ basic principle of living. It requires a kind of awareness, a living in the moment that entails a deep ability to feel connected to what is around us and appreciate the gifts nature and life bestow on us constantly.”

We all have that ability, Taxo taught. We need not behave automatically, like robots.

Kaypimi kani, kaypimi kanchik, elder Taxo taught: here I am, here we are. Fully present. Fully awake. Fully connected.

Through the example of his life, through circles and books, and through Shaman’s Portal and other communication vehicles, Maestro Alberto Taxo shared his teachings for many years. He encouraged all people, all nations, all spiritual pathways to cultivate a high level of awareness, respect, and gratitude. He taught that what is necessary for now and for our future is an authentic and graceful connection with the whole, the great hoop of which we all are part.

Now don Alberto Taxo has crossed to spirit. He rests. Descansa en paz. May he rest in peace.

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Light 2022: Notes of the Holy Ones

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In this season so busy—things changing so fast—I happened upon this dark passage: the cautioning utterance of a spirit long departed:

Everywhere the wasteland grows;
woe to him whose wasteland is within.

                ~ 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 the Eastern Door is open…

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INVITATION: Engage a heroic journey along a wisdom trail

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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

 

 

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Telling the Tale: Lincoln Journal Star reports on Odyssey of the 8th Fire

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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..

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Part 4 – Odyssey of the 8th Fire Memes now live on Youtube

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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.

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