Mama

One of the Tsukimi Kai 3 friends with whom Will and I traveled to Cuba wrote a comforting email to me of a lesson she learned after her father had passed, “You will still grow to know your mother and understand her as the years go by.”

Those words struck me because it is so true. In the days, mere days, following my mama’s death, I began to have flashes of her as a woman, what her choices revealed about her as a woman without the mystique of Mother.

My mom was raised to be and do right in this world by her family. Every example she saw, every story shared with her, and those were the stories shared with my sister and me as children, the examples and role models she pointed us toward, were of rightness, of goodness.

However, in her life, she encountered and sometimes even became immersed in things she had never imagined -- hate, violence, wartime hysteria -- all that was not right or good, a side of life she had never been prepared for; no insights to help her de-construct clearly.

Each time "life threw her a big one," she held fast to what she knew to be right and good and without becoming immobilized, walked through the best she could and took her babies with her.

For her, doing right meant to be a single mother in a multi-generational home. Every woman knows what sacrifice of personal worth and independence that choice must have required. At the same time, every human being knows what a gift it is for children to be raised by a mother, and grandmother and a grandfather. Her choice was clearly made for us. Once single and living with parents, always single -- with all the baggage of a single person living with her parents carries in the eyes of the Nikkei as well as the rest society, seen as the perennial dependent and the effects of those dynamics on the rest of her life.

Our upbringing was shared by my mother and grandparents. Definitely we learned Grandma and Grandpa knew best. However, I have a clear memory who taught me how to navigate a school system in which a teacher put me in a closet if I spoke Japanese, god rest Mrs. Finney’s soul. I remember who read Mine Okubo’s book to me as a child and clarified that the Nikkei were not guilty of anything when they were herded into concentration camps and it was wrong. In this way, my mother planted the seed which sprouted fully in me so that when I saw injustice, I knew it by name and could stand firmly on the side of justice and stand with any child victimized by it in the classrooms without fear or hesitation.

Definitely, it was my mother who taught me a very healthy attitude toward protecting myself as a little girl and later, as a woman so I would not be easily victimized. My antenna for 'red flags' are quite sensitive.

Definitely, it was my mother who taught me that becoming involved in public service, civic responsibility was a good thing. I remember the whispered arguments in Grandma’s bedroom between them over me -- whether I should join choir, whether I should run for office, whether I should be involved in so many school activities. It may have been Grandma’s house but those were the battles my mom decided to take on while letting the others go. And when there was a performance or event, both Mama and Grandma would be there supporting us.

I remember peeking in her bedroom -- a.k.a. the sewing room -- her back bent over the Singer, late late at night, sewing something for my sister or me. I remember my spoiled attitude that I had a personal designer of my own. We would go to buy a pattern, and beautiful fabric, but I always wanted something changed -- not a mere hemline -- but the scoop of the neck, the dip in the back, a hemline which draped. And mom would do it.

I read and write for fun because of so many “fun times” with her, my sister and a book and how much praise I received for writing, encouraged to enter into contests. My mom is not so much a reader, so that is something she deliberately did for her daughters. I went to college because it was a given, an expectation from the time we were little girls. We were encouraged to put our pennies in a big piggy bank for college. Now I know that she did this in spite of the “out of reach” costs of higher education so that when the time came I would be motivated to find a way -- national grants, work study -- to actualize what was essentially a dream.

She taught me from the time I was barely walking all through adulthood that all people were equal, including me, even if she may not have been able to believe that fully herself. It was just one of those things she wished for me -- just as she wished for me to go to college when she could not, choose my profession even if she could not, choose my life partner wisely even if that choice was not something she was able to have, to participate in community, run for office even if those options were closed by war and law from her.

She did not wantfor her daughters a life where bad things were thrown at them -- unexpected, unfathomable surprises as her substantial challenges must have been for her -- and she prepared us for life the best she could. She wanted us to have some say about our destiny. I am grateful for the blessings of my life because she thought about what I might need on whatever road I might choose and gave me everything she could to prepare for any difficulty.

Along the way, my mother did follow her daughters into college, became a teacher, and dedicated herself with great passion to a chosen profession. When given bad news about a third procedure for her heart in her 70’s,she moved into assisted active living near my sister and did not allow the prognosis to limit her. In fact, for the first time away from Home, she lived as an independent individual, had her first best friend, went on tours around the world, and lived the life of a popular coed. When she received bad news about dementia, and it became serious, that did not overwhelm her. She moved with me and even with her dementia, lived with personality and grace intact, greeting each person, each new day, and all of nature with love. Finally, as I witnessed it, when faced with dying, she simply left in an instant, her face reflecting surprise and wonder at something I could not see or hear before she shook herself free and took her last breaths.

The blessing from now on, as my friend passed on to me from her own loss of a parent, will be to grow to know more and more, to begin to understand my mother. For this I am most thankful.

Letting Go

Benny and his Aunt Viv' came Wednesday to check in with us. That is, after visiting, he went out to the back and at dusk prepared for and put down a Prayer Fire for us. He and his Aunt took our whole family out there around the Fire and helped us, prayed for us, and we prayed for ourselves, finally letting go -- letting go of any left over bad feelings toward our mother's doctors, toward mistakes which were past, useless what ifs, guilt feelings of wishing we had done this or that differently.

Thursday my Chief emailed. She knew this was the day of the wake and that it could be a hard day for me. She was one of the first to know last week that my Mom had died and one of the first to comfort us.

She wished she could be with us -- but in reality she is taking care of so many at the ranch. She would have to leave two elders who needed care to come all this way. But she went out to the Prayer Fire which burns constantly and prayed for us. She emailed to tell me the words I needed to hear and the directions which would help me keep it together, and also, to let it go, to let my mom go where her heart is.

At the wake, it really did good for my heart to see so many elders of the Japanese community come to pay respects to my mother, to shed tears with me, to bring us a beautiful handmade card of handmade paper, or prepare healthy food, nishime, just for me to eat during these difficult days, or generous beautiful dishes for the guests at the wake. It did my heart good to be with my support group and friends of Many Nations Longhouse, their prayers, always there thick or thin. It did my heart good to be with girlfriends, longtime friends, compadre who I join and work with my whole heart for what we believe in, the fellow teachers of beautiful Jefferson Middle School, kind hearts of the neighborhood, community. It did my heart good to see many many people who helped take care of my mama at Southtowne and share tears with them and to see the love they still hold for her.

My nephew Jeff flew in from New York impulsively to be there and was a great comfort to his parents and us. He would step right in to take care of whatever needed to be done that we were too clouded or confused to deal with. Our daughter was literally the willing extension of my brain, arms and legs. And Will never ever waivered just as he never has through the four years HE and I took care of Mama.

We've been receiving emails of comfort from people way back in the Idaho days, or new friends of mom in this community, from relatives all over the country.

It is hard to let go but for the prayers which lift and support us and the many arms which enfold us and keep us close, close, close to those who are still here and who are here still for us.

This blog is my way of saying thank you. Even if I may not look it right now, I do love life and am grateful for all that we are being given right now.

I miss my Mama. I love her. And we'll be okay someday, much of it because of the kindness of many.

Sad

I have been away from blogging for awhile. I will be away for a bit longer. During the past 30 days many things have happened, life transforming things. My precious mother died yesterday afternoon. Will and I went to Cuba and returned, changed.
I want to blog about Cuba. I have so much to share. But I have not unpacked -- not so much my luggage, but all that we learned and experienced. We went right from Cuba to a nightmare of a culture shock with health care, specifically elder care, upon re-entry home.

Mom was very ill when I rushed to her side. She had gone into a slump just 12 hours after my sister had last seen her, and taken her in for her follow-up check up with her doctor who gave her a thumbs up. It was thumbs up, so my sister returned home to southern Oregon.

My sister rushed back for a couple of days when I called her about mom's condition and how she had a very bad bladder infection which remained untreated due to a FAX error and was severely dehydrated. The doctor refused to order an IV for her and advised against it. The two of us immediately went to work trying to help Mama with some natural medicine and using eye droppers to give her the lifegiving water and broth since she was refusing food and drink. She had developed cold sores which made it painful to take anything. I thought we had worked hard enough to be out of the woods. She revived. Her personality returned. My husband, Mama and I were celebrating with a little joyride. Reflecting on the horrible miscommunication between her doctor and Southtowne resulting in her illness not being dealt with soon enough, made worse by the doctor and some of the med aides and caregivers dropping communication and responsibilities, my husband Will couldn't resist saying, "Mom, when you get well, shall we all run away to Cuba?" Our being so recently there, we couldn't help comparing the fact that there was a doctor for every 100 people -- who made house calls, who talked to patients and family face to face, who knew everything about them and who was connected to a psychologist to get families through crisis -- with what we were facing at home in Eugene -- schedules which did not jive with my mom's abilities and needs, prescriptions lost through the FAX, blood drawn for labs accidentally thrown away, phone calls only and with someone who was once, then twice removed from the doctor, med aides who gave medicine when my mom's dementia interfered with it and wouldn't give it to her when she could take it. It was maddening. This is a crazy way to heal or take care of people. To his question about escaping to Cuba, mom's small voice answered, "Okey dokey."

In the following days, I could not help comparing the care not given in the medical community and what we get when we go to Winnemem, the attention, the whole family in a circle for the healing around the fire, the medicines carefully picked, and prepared, medicine, prayers, the focus of the whole tribe and the spiritual doctor there for the duration. No receptionist guarding the door, no person once removed, twice removed taking the call instead. No reliance on equipment and machine for communication. There is human touch, face to face communication, and compassionate, courageous care, side by side, step by step. We are not abandoned to see if we can make due by ourselves. I voiced a wish several times that my mom could have followed this way. So much would be different. At least she was under care with a naturopath through whose care mom had quality of life even with dementia. She was herself, full of personality, not drugged out with a vacant look strapped into a wheelchair.

To be fair, there were people at Southtowne that stepped forward like the angels we prayed for and took exceptional steps to help mom through this time. Some med aides and caregivers, but also cooks, and people who took care of the rooms. It was their humanity, not their job description that guided them.

I miss my mom. I miss her zest for life and funny phrases. I miss being connected to my parent in that mysterious way. I feel left afloat. It isn't the painful raw ripping of myself from my Winnemem Granny where I literally felt I was torn and bleeding from her when she died. She took care of me and taught me how to live. But my mother dying hurts the same depth. She's my mom, after all. I began living because we were connected by what would one day be separate belly buttons. But I think I found out that separation from the cord is only an illusion. We're still connected in an inexplicable way. She was the first who took care of me and she took care of me the best she could for this world.

Eventually I took another path which led me away from the traps which ensnared us anyway during these days caring for our mom -- the culture which would spawn a disaster of a health care system which exists today. We are living with the horrific outcome of too much being done for the sake of profit and too little vision to protect the human being and each individual's inalienable human rights.

Since Mama died, I don't feel anchored down to anything. She was my mother for all but four years of her life when she became my sister's and my mother/child. When she thought more clearly she told me, "Once I was your mother but now you're my aunt." There is something very complete in an unexplainable way when a person gets to take care for their mother.

She may have acted like a terrible teen when she first moved in with us. She was always trying to escape to have some fun after we old fogies went to bed. We'd catch her trying to climb over the "baby safety gates." She felt confined always wanting to go "find the elderlies" and hang out al day. I'd complain to Will, "Haven't we already done this with Maki and Margaret?"

When we finally started paying with our health for sleepless nights and stress and gave up, taking her to live in Southtowne, five minutes away, where I can visit her as much as I could each day, going on rides, doing things together between her regimens, then she became "mommy's favorite ten year old" and stayed that way for a long time, that or "the entertaining four year old." Anything I invited her to do, she would say, "Okie Dokie Doooooo." She would belt out the songs singing along with the musicians who came in to entertain the elders. If she didn't know the words, she would open her mouth into an ah and do background music. She had that "Little Richard" quality to her voice. She was fun.

And in the last days, as I gave her droppers full of water or broth as if they were lifegiving every 15 minutes, I thought, this must be how it feels to have a baby. They could not live without you staying up and nourishing them, every drop depending on you. And you don't have time doing anything else.

When you've had the privilege to be your mother's caregiver and she gets to be her daughter's little bundle of responsibility, and death comes, when that bond is gone in an instant, although I may not feel raw and bleeding, I felt dangerously afloat. That first night without my cutie pie mama, and my arms feeling very very empty, my heart was stressed and I thought, am I in danger of going too? I turned to my husband and said, "Could you please get Granny's root and smoke me up? I think my heart wants to follow." He got out of bed and lit the root, smoking me up and the pressure began to lift from my chest, and I began to breathe more freely and my head cleared up. It's hard to lose a mother but the death of a mother/child comes with a special pain of its own.

I want to stay and I will. But I am very sad.

TATSUKETE KURE!

August 7, 2009

“Tatsukete kure!”
Save me!
Her plea haunted me
As I sat in a darkened classroom
Watching a film about Hiroshima.
Her words
Wailed in Nihongo
Pierced through my heart.

We watch in the dark
Learning the people
Burning from inside out
Jumped into the river for relief
And died.

“Okasama, Tatsukete kure!”
She had a mother.
She was a human.
She was a sister.
She is my sister.
She is your sister.
Hiroshima is personal.

The Navaho mothers
Spoke up first.
The uranium pits
The tailings are streaks of death
Leaking into the water.
Promises of jobs
Brought death to the children
The sheep
The people.
Raise your voices, they demanded
And stand with the mothers
They are our mothers
They are your mothers

The elderly monk remembers Hiroshima
He remembers the blinding flash
The black rain
The obscene darkness
And the death.
His young heart hardened with hate.
His Okasama rescued him.
“Heal your heart,” she said.
“Keep the flame alive,”
She had captured a firey fragment that had fallen
From the August sky,
“Keep it alive.
That flame will be a prayer
A small flicker of hope
That this will never happen again.
Work hard to
Keep the FLAME alive,
And let the hate dwindle and die.”
That is the way of life she gave her son,
To pray. To keep the small flame alive.
And she said, “Always remember
Hiroshima.”

And this good son
Dedicated his life to prayer
A prayer for humanity
A prayer for peace.
The elderly monk kept the flame from his youth
A firey fragment from the white sky
Now a flame of memory
A flare of commitment for
Nuclear disarmament
All around the world
The monk kept the flame alive
To pass on to a peace pilgrim from America
A descendant of the eastern woodland tribes.

The peace pilgrim kept the flame alive flying home to America
The pilgrim kept the flame alive praying
And walking
Walking, joined by others along his way
Black, Brown, Red and White,
Christian, Jew, Muslim,
Drumming the First Nation Drum
Chanting a Buddhist song
Praying
And walking across America.
They walked together around the empty pit of the twin towers
And prayed.
They walked the Atlantic Coast.
They walked through cities, towns and farmland.
They walked to the Canadian border of Washington
And the evergreens witnessed their prayers.
They walked through our community
In a downpour
And were met at the Many Nations Longhouse,
with a Welcome Song and warm food.
Carrying the flame still burning,
They prayed here
In this valley
They prayed that there be no more Hiroshimas
Or Nagasakis.

They walked
Through rolling hills
Other valleys cut out by rivers
And finally into the desert land of Four Corners.
They joined the mothers of the Navaho nation
And there
They put the flame into a circle on the earth it had come from,
A prayer fire
Back to its source.
The pilgrims prayed with the mothers
of the Navaho Nation
The pilgrims prayed with
The spirits of the ancestor daughters of Hiroshima
Carrying their cries in their own hearts, as a prayer

“Tatsukete Kure!”
Save us!
Save us from war
A prayer for peace around the world.

They let the smoke carry their prayers
To the Great Maker of all things
Until the fire finally burned itself out.

Peace is personal, one person at a time,
Peace is intentional
A commitment
A journey made one step after another.

Walk behind the ancestor-daughter who cried out to her okasama
“Tatsukete kure!” Save me, Mother!
Walk behind the Navaho mothers
“Save our Mother Earth for the sake of the children
And their children for seven generations.
Walk with the peace pilgrims who brought the flame home
Praying, walking on our good Mother Earth saying to everyone they met
“Tatsukete kure! Everyone.”
Save the earth and all that lives on it.

Fire is meant only for prayer
For cook fires
For healing
For warmth
For building
For forging
For light
For bringing us together.

No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!
Tatsukete kure!
Everyone!

Lest We Forget

From his book Hiroshima, written by Dr. Ron Takaki, R.I.P. :

Hiroshima had not been given any warning. People heard an early alert and then an all-clear sound, and they resumed their activities. Then came another plane, followed by the atomic blast.

“A bright light filled the plane,” recalled Paul Tibbets, commander. “The first shock wave hit us. We were eleven and a half miles slant from the atomic explosion but the whole airplane cracked and crinkled.”... “ Then the second shock wave hit and we turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud, boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall.”

“My God!” several crew members exclaimed in horror and wonder. Robert Lewis would never forget what he had witnessed -- the evaporation of a city: “Where we had seen a clear city two minutes before, we could now no longer see it. We could see smoke and fires creeping up the sides of mountains.”

From an altitude of 29.000 feet, tail gunner George Caron describe it as a peep into hell. “The mushroom cloud itself was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple grey smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside. It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city.”

Meanwhile, on the ground that morning, Naoko Masuoka was on a school trip. She and her friends were singing “Blossoms and buds of the young cherry tree” when someone cried out -- A B-29! Even as this shout rang out in our ears, she said later, “there was a blinding flash and I lost consciousness.”

Sanae Kano also remembered seeing a sudden flash of light. She was eating breakfast and had her chopsticks in her mouth when it happened. There was a big bang and she almost fainted. Kano ran out of her house. “At the river, I saw people who were burned black and were crying for water. Some people were in the river desperately drinking the water. The fire wardens were shouting at them telling them that it was dangerous to drink the water but many people went into the river anyway and drank the water and died.”

After the terrific blast fires were everywhere. Instantaneously, Hiroshima had been reduced to cinders. All green vegetation had perished. Yoshiaki Wada found many dead people lying on the bridge. Some were burned black, some had blistered skin that was peeling off and some had pieces of glass in them all over.

The force of the explosion had sent millions of shrapnel shards in all directions. Yoshihiro Kimura asked: “Where is mother?”
“She is dead,” her father answered. Then she noticed that a nail five inches long had stuck into Mother’s head and she died instantly.

Then almost as if nature had come to cleanse the burned city, it started to rain hard. The mushroom cloud had carried tons of dirt into the atmosphere: from the sky fell a black rain. “The wind got stronger,” Yoko Kuwabara reported, “and it starting raining something like ink. This strange rain came down hard out of the gray sky, like a thundershower and the drops stung as if I were being hit by pebbles.”

After the rain, the survivors looked around and saw corpses everywhere. Bodies were cremated every day in the bamboo grove near the house, on the river bed, or in the corners of fields, Megumi Sera recalled “it made a horrible smell and sometimes even the white smoke would come around our house.”

Far from this scene of devastation and death, Truman was on board the Augusta returning from Potsdam having lunch with some crew members and was handed a decoded message. “Results clear cut successful in all respects. Visible effects greater than in any test.” Truman exclaimed: “This is the greatest thing in history.”

Two days later, the Japanese government finally received a full report on the devastation. When the plane flew over Hiroshima, reported Lieutenant General Seijo Arisue, “there was but one black dead tree as if a crow was perched over the rubble. There was nothing but that tree. The city itself was completely wiped out.”

Hiroshima had been a communications center, a storage area. It was not a purely military target as Truuman had intended. Of its population of 350,000 people, only 43,000 were soldiers. 70.000 people were killed instantly and 60,000 more by November and another 70,000 by 1950 from the bomb.

The second attack had been scheduled for August 11, but the timing had been left in the hands of the field commanders and the day had been moved up to the 9th -- weather conditions.

Nagasaki would have been spared had the city been bombed as originally scheduled. The Japanese govt had not been given sufficient time to respond to the “rain of ruin” that had fallen on Hiroshima and to surrender before another atomic attack. “What we had not taken into account,” General Marshall admitted years later, “was that the destruction of the first bomb would be so complete that it would be an appreciable time before the actual facts of the case would get to Tokyo. The destruction of Hiroshima was so complete that there was no communication at least for a day, and maybe longer.”

On August 9, before Japan could fully comprehend the destruction of the bomb, a plane carrying the second bomb, Fat Man, took of from Tianian. The target was Kokura, war production plant. But a thick overcast prevented a visual bombing so the pilot Major Charles Sweeney turned to the secondary target, Nagasaki, a shipbuilding center. Some 70,000 people were killed by the explosion and another 70,000 died from radiation within five years.

Is the President Listening?

The fantasy of "democracy" fades away. Standing with the Winnemem shows me how very very little life changes from one President to the next. President Obama has surrounded himself with a BIA people who keep out many of his Indian constituency, perhaps because Obama is not familiar with Indian politics, perhaps because he doesn't want to be. Indian affairs is complicated in this Empire.

The BIA gatekeepers are big names like the Echo Hawks. I remember the name Echo Hawk when the family of lawyers first started NARF back in the day. And now they are part of the establishment guarding the little piece of cheese earmarked for tribes for government stamped, government regulated, sometimes even government created tribes. In California, and this is the rub, 90 percent -- a great majority -- of the historical Native American tribes, are dismissed by the federal government as "unrecognized tribes." That means 400,000 California Native people have no relationship, no rights in relation to the US government. They are not seen, not heard. I know the Winnemem are not quiet people. They work hard to speak up as sovereign people whenever they must. But they are not respected, no more than the living waters, sacred places, the salmon are nowadays. Of the 10 percent of the California tribes who are recognized, only four percent are historical. The others are groups created by the US government and called rancherias, many of them wealthy casino tribes.

You know about the President's stimulus package. Supposedly, he has not forgotten the Indian people. However, like the President before him, the funds to help California Indians with health, education, economic stimulus will be going to the most wealthy of the native peoples of that state and zero, nothing will go to the historical tribes who have historically been treated with the greatest of human rights violations -- a policy of ethnocide. These 400,000 tribal people will have nothing.

By nothing I do not speak only about the stimulus package, which would be put to such great use. But I also speak of the nation's commitment to these so-called "unrecognized" traditional, indigenous ways of life. Each tribe stands on the brink of destruction and in Washington, the city of great change with this last election, there's a guy, a lower level government bureaucrat, to whom all letters to the President, nation to sovereign people, is detoured -- no matter the question or concern.

If the Winnemem inform their President "about the promises made to the Winnemem by the Indian agent of 1851 and were never kept, and if the Winnemem further inform him that these and other violations were stated by a letter by Norel Putus (1889) to President Harrison, a letter which served as the basis for the US sending Indian agents to investigate the claims of Norel Putus about the plight of all the California Indians," the they are answered by a form letter from bureaucrat Lee Fleming "have you applied for recognition yet?"

If the Winnemem ask their President about the promises made of the drowning of their lands and the promise of like land which is yet to be kept, they get a form letter from bureaucrat Lee Fleming says "have you applied for recognition yet?"

If the Winnemem notify their President "did you know the cemetery we were given for the cemetery which was drowned under Shasta Lake to re-bury our ancestors and to use for our people has, with no explanation, been transferred from the BIA to the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM statute does not allow burials. This change doesn't make sense because now by BLM regulations it has made it illegal to inter our loved ones in our tribal cemetery," Lee Fleming writes "have you applied for recognition yet?"

How does Lee Fleming, whoever he is, keep getting letters addressed to the President about treaties and laws which have been broken?

Lee Fleming wants to talk about forms to fill out for recognition. Let's talk about recognition. Sacramento lawmakers have asked the federal government to recognize the Winnemem Wintu as the State of California does. Last year, at this time, they passed AJR 39 saying that in California, the Winnemem have always been recognized as a tribe and asks the Federal Government follow suit. But Feinstein and Boxer will not carry sponsor recognition of the Winnemem to Congress.

They don't want to step in front of Congressman Herberger from Shasta Lake County who seems to have a long time grudge and ax to grind against the Winnemem and will not support recognition. Mr. Lee Fleming, filling out your forms will not be enough. Beyond that, filling out your forms do not answer the questions the Winnemem are asking their President.

If the President cannot hear his people because as Indians they are funneled to a bureaucrat who says they need to be on a particular list that they are prevented from by their Senators in order to have a question answered, what is that saying? The Winnemem, a tribe of 120 or so people, people who voted in this last election, have no President, no Senator, no rights, no respect -- no one cares.

So I haven't blogged for a long time because I am grieving right now. My tongue is thick. My throat is tight. Only one thing as bad as having an ignorant man for President and that is to have an intelligent man of color who does not have the information, can't get the information, or could it be he chooses not to see his people of the Winnemem tribe. Are only the "children of immigrants" visible to the President in California? Is his heart moved only by the Native people of the Crow Nation, the Navaho Nation, the Cherokee Nation. What about the nations who were encountered and violated, and met with treachery another century or half later in what is now known as the state of California? And Senators Feinstien and Boxer. Do you care about your people who are Winnemem? Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma -- all those states who are proud to be states who have not eradicated their tribal people. Can you be proud that 400,000 Indian people remain invisible? What does this say about California -- that in a mere 160 years you have hardly any Indians that are valued by you and traditional and sacred lands are not valued as well.

Since I follow the Winnemem and they are my family, I see a side of America now that breaks my heart, not the America of immigrants, but the America built on the bones of tribal people and broken treaties, and a world hurtling toward ecological disaster fed by wasteful policies toward the land and waters . Obviously, America is not a country with a national policy informed by tribal input. And in California, sad to say, there is horrific evidence of egregiously arrogant policies silencing and erasing the very people who know and passionately advocate for the land and water. How is this injustice, this blatant violation of human rights carried out? With a tool called "recognition." That's what democracy looks to me now, government by the people, for the people EXCEPT FOR the Winnemem people and the hundreds and thousands of the original people that this government refuses "to recognize."

The Winnemem chief is a young leader. Her aunt whom she succeeded and who lived to be almost 100 years old, into the 21st century, is part of the generation who was kidnapped and put into boarding schools. She survived that. Her parents are the the generation who were chased down like animals and killed for bounty, given diseased blankets as friendship gifts, invited to feast on poisoned meat. The Winnemem have been Winnemem for a long time before the violence and injustice and having survived, they keep being Winnemem even today. Those living now carry on the old ways. The elders taught then. Despite all interference, that line between generations was never broken. Their homeschooled children still do the ceremonies to keep the old way going. They still sing to their sacred springs. They still use the old medicines, and make the acorn soup. They still talk to their Mountain, and take care of their rivers. They are still seen by tribal traditionals all over this country as powerful Indian people.

The lawyers for the Winnemem tribe worked hard on the lawsuit listing the many-layers of broken promises, a human rights case, and as traditional people, the leaders and war dancers took the papers around the Sacred Fire end of April, before going up the Mountain and prayed over beside the sugar pines where the warriors fast. Then the papers were taken to Sacramento along the river on tribal land and prayed for at that Fire and the War Dancers danced into the night and early morning before they assembled to walk to the state capitol.

In July, we weren't surprised that the US Government's response was to ask the court to dismiss . . . . because the Winnemem were not federally recognized!

Our President does not see them, hear them. He is surrounded by tribal people who act as gatekeepers for the federal government's "recognized" tribes and turn a back on their brothers and sisters who came under US government focus after the 1850's. By then the US Congress was secretly hiding these treaties and did not ratify them.

Lee Fleming is the only one who sees the Winnemem letters to President Obama, and I wonder if he even reads them before he shoots out the form letter "Have you filled out the papers for recognition."

Actually, the President who loves all the children of all backgrounds and the First Lady do not even see the Winnemem children. The three girls going through the puberty ceremony were so excited about the "change" Obama's election promised that they sent Michelle, Sasha and Malia an invitation to their "coming of age" ceremony, talking on film shyly asking them to come. Marissa (who will be the next Chief) said excitedly when the letter and dvd invitation was sent in January, after we were assured the Obamas were safely esconced in the White House, "I'm so anxious. What if they don't come?" We laughed, at that time. But I never dreamed that the girls would not get even a small letter congratulating them and wishing them well from the President's office. No Senator to usher the letter through and advocate that three young women receive some kind and supportive words, the next generation of Winnemem leaders were summarily ignored. I don't know why, of all the snubs, this one stung so much. Maybe it's because as a Winnemem tribal member, the children, the future leaders are treasures. Maybe it's because during DNC the Winnemem youth referred to Michelle and the girls like they were acquaintances. Maybe it's because Marissa's excitement was wasted and yet another generation learned they don't matter to Washington even if they mean the world to us. Maybe because the girls never mentioned it when June came and went with not a peep from the White House. Perhaps for me it felt harsh that part of "coming of age" for Marissa, part of becoming adult is to experiene she and her people mean nothing to an American President, no matter how historic the election, how sweet that moment's possibilities.

I am so saddened. I have never met young people like the beautiful spirited Winnemem youth. I have never met a family or tribe like the Winnemem. They are and will always be Winnemem, recognition or not. Their life is hard; it is suffering, but as their former leader said, and as they say today, and as all tribal people who meet them say, "they have a hard life but it is the best life." The Winnemem have something to say and so much to contribute to the quality of the land, to the body of intelligence and wisdom regarding stewardship of the land and the earth, to the proud history of California and this country, to morality and ethics of justice, to exemplary statesmanship and leadership, to the great challenges and priorities facing this nation. But no one who should seems to give a damn.

WW/ Nature Way

Ceremony is part of nature. People say "we're part of nature" as a nice truism, but as Winnemem, we really are. The unfortunate proof is that "progress and development" stops us or causes stress and interference. And we do the best we can. Ceremony whether it is a daily morning prayer and smoking up the house or going around the Fire or the big ceremonies on sacred land, or caring for the land, the songs, the ceremonies, or gathering herbs, or getting water, or raising our youth, caring for elders, all of it, keep us part of the ebb and flow of nature. And nowadays, interferences to the ceremonies and its repercussions -- the sadness and stress on our hearts as well as bodies -- that is a big indicator that we live a life in nature. Like I have said I would not want to be clueless that we live in a time of earth crisis no matter how it feels.

So in these times of upheaval and the end of things, it is natural that part of the "flow of things' includes being stopped at every turn. Nothing is as it was supposed to be any more. And when we are stopped, we may eddy, and then keep on going the best we can leaving behind the stress of worry, regrets, anger and hate, all the other things we pile on hearts which keep us from doing what is needed as part of nature, leave it all behind us, because it can't help. This weekend, there will be a lot of work to do at the Fire together.

But it's not right.