Hello Friends and Neighbors (excerpt slightly paraphrased & condensed),
The possible discontinuation of the Annual Gathering of the Tribes after the recent “The Last Powwow” is more than the ending of an event. It is a call for all spiritually minded communities to reflect on the sacred responsibility of preserving Indigenous culture, elder-guided wisdom, traditional ceremony, ecological knowledge, and intergenerational identity. We appeal to communities of good faith to stand together in respectful support of Indigenous tribal continuity. Let us not allow sacred customs to fade through neglect. True unity does not erase diversity; it protects and harmonizes it. A healthy forest contains a wide variety of trees. A healthy human family contains many nations, languages, songs, and sacred traditions. Let this moment not be a final farewell, but a seed of renewed cooperation. (https://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-Ecovillages-Step-Step-Sustainable-ebook/dp/B0DFXFK1K8)
Well, as those who've followed the Kulana Artist/Goddess Sanctuary journey for years know: we have no intention of allowing sacred customs to fade through neglect! So in that vein, want to let you know that the latest -- & likely final -- Gathering The Dreamcatchers “community”-based novel PIPSQUEAK & THE OLD MAN: WWTWD? featuring an intergenerational friendship between one aged pueblo retiree + one ex-street urchin has been born...since Somebody, Somewhere kept indicating that there was at least one further full-length story infused with diverse perspectives to tell. ;) Can't wait to hear what you think! (And no, none of the other GTD books need to be read first.)A Bit of Summary:
Being an old First Nations man and a formerly homeless new adult, the main characters in PIPSQUEAK & THE OLD MAN: WWTWD? are no strangers to Life's storms, so it is unsurprising that a tip 'o the hat came in the direction of once-upon-a-time gentler human realities such as those depicted within The Waltons 1970's television show.
Just as the fictional Walton family explored dynamics with each other and the larger community of neighbors amidst economic depressions + fights for human civil rights: if someone's going to be any kind of steward for soil, animals, trees, mountains, other human beings (including, say, mass TV viewers &/or fiction book readers!), well, that someone surely must learn to survive not only the happy times...
...but also the kind of unsettling events being experienced by people right now in the 21st century.
So the creation for this particular novel was quite a multi-media affair.
It involved flute playing. Drumming. The hand-crafting of Native American dreamcatchers.
Beyond time spent on native lands in New Mexico, there was the blending of imagery, paint, photography, and other art forms right here in Hawaii.
Explorations were also taken in dreamtime...
In the researching of long-ago writings from fellow scribes...
In the locating of old pictures, and the taking of new ones.
Experiments were made with numerous potential titles & book covers.
A whole bunch of stuff got sacredly framed, and there's been a whole lot of watching and animated analyzing of historic + current television shows from the perspective of this book's older & younger main characters.
Even as humanity itself spins evermore wildly, especially regarding potent questions such as: can young women and old men -- or native people and white folks -- ever actually BE friends in light of what's gone down over the centuries? still there was comfort to be found in the process of appreciating & creating art which takes a look at things from fresh perspectives.
Perhaps readers will find this true as well?
Because if outpourings of creativity + human-to-human kindness still exist, the world can't be all bad or entirely "going to hell in a handbasket," right?
As a gift to our global perma(nent)-culture, kulana-joy-from-within community, here's an excerpt from the newly birthed novel PIPSQUEAK & THE OLD MAN: WWTWD? along with info on where to obtain it + some of the classic material it references...
PIPSQUEAK & THE OLD MAN: WWTWD?
Excerpt (paraphrased/condensed):
The Old Man:
I follow the kid as she continues placing one foot in front of the other, heading into the field where the grasses easily reach her waist. When we near the center, far from where stray potato chip bags or other refuse discarded out car windows is likely to be, I stop and remove from my bag a pouch of blue corn meal mixed with fine tobacco. Holding a pinch towards the earth, and then raising it to the sky as well as offering it to each direction, I finally touch it to my chest and make up a prayer partly in English so she'll get the drift, and partly in what Tiwa words I recall, alongside some random song lyrics.
My maternal line is probably shaking its collective head from the Great Beyond, but these days, those of us still here on earth do what we can.
When the kid hears my voice, her earth walking stops and head turns my way.
"Yíyá', mother, Tádá, father," I intone. "Tewhá Than, house of the rising sun. Phéndi', Ts'ą'i', Ts'áyyi', P'î', black, white, yellow, red. Khųų, łáne, we offer this corn and tobacco in thanks for your many gifts. Holding to what is good as a handful of earth, holding true to what Great Spirit teaches, even as a solitary tree standing alone."
"Whoa, are you a shaman?" the kid whispers.
"About as much as you are," I roll my eyes, lowering my body to place the prayer offering onto the ground.
"What are we doing here?" she asks.
"We're here to harvest," I respond, straightening my old bones upright.
"Harvest what?"
I gesture to the field surrounding us.
"Grass?" the kid says doubtfully.
I shake my head. "Not just grass. Don't you recognize it?"
She looks around.
"Imagine it as a braid..." I suggest.
She looks around again. "No way. Really? Why's all this sweetgrass growing out here?!"
"Some folks consider it one of the four sacred plants." I reach into my bag for a trowel and scissors. "Other folks call it a weed. Seeing how it's useful, and seeing as how areas clean enough to harvest from are becoming rare, we're going to cut some to dry and braid, but we're also going to dig out a few plants by the roots to grow at home."
In back of my brain, a voice is reminding me how sweetgrass was the first plant gifted to The People by the Creator, but I keep this thought to myself because I am really just not one of those kinds of Indians, or those kinds of old men.
"By 'we,' you mean me, right?" the kid grins, reaching for the tools in my hand.
#
Pipsqueak:
"Did you know when Will Geer got blacklisted, he and his family were homeless for a while? Their friends had to help," I tell The Old Man, carefully trimming off blades of sweetgrass low to the ground but still high enough that the plant can regrow itself, just like he showed me, making sure to cut the right batches of grass because there are other types here too.
What we want are the shiny ones, that smell a certain way.
According to The Old Man, there are thousands of types of grass, even some other sweetgrasses like a vanilla one which some people pass off as if it's the real thing, but that one actually came from Europe.
There's really only one Native American sweetgrass.
And some of it happens to grow right here, walking distance from The Old Man's house.
What are the chances?
Later, after we've processed the haul and moved into his living room for dinner and TV, I think about that. What are the chances this old dude has fields of the sort of sweetgrass people want to pay good money for growing wild right near his house? And what're the chances he's got pueblo friends around here who hunt f-ing elk, and bring him some?? And what are the chances somebody like me is now sitting here eating it???
This is like the juiciest steak ever. It's almost a little sweet. And who doesn't like mounds of mashed potatoes dripping in melted butter? Or three-colored asparagus slathered in oily pan gravy?
When The Old Man asks if I want seconds, I totally nod.
"Help yourself," he says, gesturing towards the kitchen. "And get me a bit more while you and your young legs are at it."
He holds out his plate.
I tuck the plastic silverware into my shorts, and when I return to the living room, we go through the whole taste-testing process one more time, which now seems a bit silly because I've gone to fetch both plates of seconds...
And really maybe it's extra silly since this senior citizen has already told me he had a great wife and is actually not interested in me like that at all.
But better safe than sorry.
It'd be just like some creep to get a person all comfortable believing they're nice, only to later catch you unawares once you've let your guard down.
Not that I'm saying this old guy is a creep.
I maybe don't think he is.
I also really don't want him to be because that would change everything; everything that's going great right now. So I hold out both plates for him to sample, and then pass him one, taking the other back to where I'm sitting on the other side of the fake-leather, cushiony coffee table thing. Removing the plastic knife, fork, and spoon from the pocket of my shorts, I dig in again, licking my lips after each bite.
When I get rich, I am going to eat like this all the time.
This idea surprises me.
(Where did it come from?! Hello. I am probably the least likely person to ever make mansion-style megabucks.)
Me and The Old Man watch episodes six, seven, and eight as new characters appear in the Walton world: six-year-old Elizabeth rescues a raccoon...a kid from the CCC country correctional camp or something like that shows up, causing trouble...and so does a preacher, who keeps talking about sin.
There are also two old ladies making illegal moonshine from their dead father's secret "recipe." It's really something called sour mash whiskey, The Old Man informs me. (This, of course, reminds me of stupid Timothy Daniel O'Sullivan telling me and my housemates how Irish people make moonshine out of potatoes.)
At the end of the last show we're watching tonight, the youngest Walton kid asks the oldest if flowers talk. He says: "I don't know Elizabeth, why?" And she tells him: "I kissed a hollyhock today, and I thought I heard something whisper. What do you think?"
Her brother says: "I think if we learned to listen, we could hear all kinds of miracles."
"Goodnight, John-Boy," six-year-old Elizabeth says.
This does make me wonder why these Waltons think it's okay to earn money with a sawmill which makes firewood and railroad ties by killing trees? They seem like people who would care about the environment. Then again, I guess the way everything was set up in the 1970s (or 1930s when this series is supposed to be taking place), they would have to make a living somehow.
I don't mention these thoughts to The Old Man though, since it's probably not anything people from his generation worried about, and I don't want him thinking I'm knocking his show.
***
And some are no longer with us.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Waltons-The-Complete-Series-DVD/20617421340)
or online at MeTv:
https://www.metv.com/shows/the-waltons
PIPSQUEAK & THE OLD MAN: WWTWD?
Good Medicine for uncertain times!
Mind-magic for a mixed-up, mercurial, magnificent millennium!
Homage to great humans/great art past, present, future!
Can be purchased here:
or here:
https://livefromthevolcano.ecrater.com/p/48909201/pipsqueak-the-old-man-wwtwd
* Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-105-08075-3.
Find it here:
* Paperback ISBN: 978-1-105-08072-2.
Obtain it here:
