WW/ What a Match!

Arron and I sat at the dinner table after the wonderful meal hosted by the Waihao Murae friends was finished. We all tended to do that, hang around. People sat in groups here and there talking. I listened to the raucous laughter around the room and confessed, "You know, I've never met people who were so strong spiritually like the Winnemem and also, goofballs like us too."

Arron laughed and agreed, "I know! I was thinking that too! They're like us."

Behind us, Pauline and Wendy, two of our hosts overhearing us joined in, "You're just like us!"

When we first arrived, greeted in the traditional manner, Tia chanting as she walked with us, entering into the beautifully simple room, the light streaming in on polished wood, the spiritual leader,a kind faced young man, spoke and translated a message which touched our hearts. It was wonderful to hear about the sacred mountains, the salmon, to be understood so completely.

Following that, as we all gathered for the customary Tea, the thunder rolled and we were surprised by an incredible hailstorm coming from the mountains and the sacred Aoraki. The young spiritual leader assured us, "This is a good thing" but before he could get the words out, our dancers had already run outside to greet the hail and thunder. Maybe they knew we were being greeted by the mountains and the great New Zealand sky.

Everyone enjoyed the sight, their young people joining.

I don't know when the joking began, but only the heartfelt and serious conversation of Nur and Tu Nah gave it pause. That conversation showed several things. First, both our tribes were actively and spiritually involved in Guardianship of their fish relative -- the Tu Nah and the Nur. Both (peoples and fish) had endured and survived extermination policies. Both had a special connection with Fish, Mountain, River, Ocean. These conversations were deep, heart felt and real enough to forge a connection as warrior guardians. Then the hilarity would start again. "We'll trade for the Head Man!" Pauline joked at one point. Mark sat with mouth-opened surprise. Then the Winnemem, not to be outdone, would make smart comments back of whom the trade would involve. It's not often that our Head Man is left speechless.

That line of hilarity began again after dinner the next day after a day long bus trip with the Ngai Tahu and Waitahu Mamoe Fisher People where we visited the Sacred Aoraki hiding behind his cloak. We'll have to come back again to see the Mountain. We had gone to the sacred lakes. We stopped and saw the dam which stopped the Longfin Eel from continuing the journey to the ocean to spawn. John Wilkie had shown a video the day before of a project he was part of to gather up the eel and drive them past the dam to a point the eel could successfully reach the ocean, even going part of the way across the sand, to reach the waterline. We were moved by the Eel's courage. Looking at the dam, we thought of the Shasta Lake Dam at home which stopped the salmon runs completely and I said a quiet prayer for John and others to continue their work for the Eel. On the way back to the Marae on the bus, at our "comfort stop" we saw oak trees with acorns mature enough to drop and picked up hatfuls wondering if they could be used for "acorn water" which the fasting dancers would need. Several Winnemem women were shelling sitting around the table that evening after dinner. Henny Rongi who stayed with us for most of the trip, 75, sincere, and full of conversation also sat with us with her knife, scraping off the shells.

The young spiritual leader picked up the comedic theme of giving one of their men to the Winnemem to bring us close together, who would pay the fee? Karl, one of their men, was offered and Jill, Winnemem, always game for fun held up $20. When someone else joked about an alternative to Karl, I joked, "I say yes to Karl! We have use for his knowledge of ancient things." Karl had talked to us earlier about the Maori way of skirmishes and war. At one point Karl had described in detail with some of us what was done to the dead enemy in a matter of fact voice ending with, "and then afterward they packaged him neatly up and presented him to his Chief," then pretended to just notice our Chief was listening and said, "Oh, sorry."

So after Jill waved the $20 to everyone's entertainment and laughter, and the offer was accepted by the spiritual leader, Karl with blase expression pulled a chair up to the table, picked up a small knife, and joined the Winnemem women scratching the shells off of acorns to screams of laughter. Jill shouted out, "You'll like it. We all live together, one big family" and gestured with both arms toward the 29 Winnemem in the room. Then she waved to her son James who swept over to hug Karl, "Daddy!" Jill gestured again, and her second son Jared flew into the air and landed in Karl's lap. Jared was quite a few inches taller than Karl.

Meanwhile Karl's son ran over to give Jill a big hug as I referred to Jill's daughter Audrey at home, expecting a baby, "You're going to be a grandfather too." By now the laughter and tears filled the room to the rafters. That's how it was with us. As was said over and over "We're just alike!" This is a match commemorated by strong prayer, good work and from the gut laughter. Unstoppable.

WW/ Who are the Leaders?

I have often said that Chief Caleen Sisk Franco stands out from other modern day leaders. She states what should be the obvious, but is not for her time. These are times when layers of artificial "needs and wants," and manufactured news pile one on top the other and truth is literally buried. The USA represents a particular kind of human mindset which has topped out, creating the false world, the false reality which so many seem to have bought into. The facade is crumbling. A worldwide hysteria over numbers and percentages manipulated by stock market saboteurs exposes the downslide. Fighting over a health plan which has more to do with insurance companies and business executives guarding profit margins than taking care of the people exposes what are the bankrupt priorities running this country. It is exposed. Just a few countries in the world have crowned themselves the god Baal, their leaders' eyes filled with a world made of paper and oil. Five hundred years ago this same continent was conquered for the disappearing gold craved by bankrupt European nation states who had created environmental disaster in their own countries and bankrolled voyages to other lands to seek a way out of poverty to claim lands through war, to enslave, cut off the hands and massacre the great civilizations they met -- civilizations under whose care the Earth retained balance for tens of thousands of years. And now, within 200 years, these lands face environmental disaster again, the gold almost gone, the oil, the water next.


So when Chief Caleen Sisk Franco states the simple truth -- what Waitaha Mamoe Fisher tribal member Alister Wilke calls "common sense" -- that truth being that the key to solving the global crisis is to make things inhabitable for the two endangered species who live in both ocean and river streams (the Nur and the Tu Nah) -- the clear simplicity of the message carries a revolutionary wallop! Here's another truth. The indigenous leaders of this globe, under whose care the earth sustained itself for tens and thousands of years have the smarts necessary to build a true policy for world wide sustainability. The world's leaders should be bringing the indigenous leaders of the world together to plan our response to global crisis. Instead, the nonsense they call Indian Policy in this country wastes valuable time and resources of indigenous leaders who must instead assert their existence and the right to continue to even get into the door. When our Chief, Caleen Sisk Franco answered President Obama’s call for tribal leaders to assemble for a summit in Washington DC, she received a snub: You are not invited. You are not a recognized tribe. That doesn't make sense! Very few tribes in California are recognized. A whopping 90 percent are unrecognized since the 1980’s. Doesn’t that signal discrimination to the President? Important words regarding the health of waterways, the Sacramento delta, the salmon, critical information about the impending Katrina-sized disaster the further raising of Shasta Lake Dam may cause -- things the President should know -- does not reach his ears because he upholds bad policy regarding Native peoples by surrounding himself with BIA bureaucrats keeping an eye on the little bit of money set aside for federally reognized tribes.

Our Chief is a sovereign leader, so it is not a surprise she did not just give up. Protecting the McCloud from a water power plant from being built which would forever shut the door on reintroducing the salmon to the river, advocating for saving the Sacramento Delta, impeding the further raising of Shasta Lake Dam, these and other important issues are important to her. That’s why she inspired her tribal members as best she could to finance themselves or raise donations to travel halfway around the world to New Zealand to speak with the Maori people and do ceremony for the Nur, Salmon. We traveled around the world to say to our fish relatives, “We are still here.” Shasta Lake Dam may have caused the breaking of a promise made a long time ago when the eggs were sent around the world, a promise that they would come back someday. But the Chief intended to mend the break.

The sad truth is some of our brightest, most insightful, experienced leaders are becoming just as endangered as the Nur and other endangered life of this beautiful planet Earth. It is the attention of others to this dire situation which will prevent invisibility and loss of these leaders. These leaders are the ones who carry on the Lifeways of their ancestors, and the long ancient relationship they have kept with the Earth. It is they, in fact, who continue the ceremonial ways which let the Earth spirits know “We’re still here” and we will continue the human being’s part in building a strong relationship and keeping the earth's cycle going of birth and death, and sustaining life.

Chief Caleen Sisk Franco pointed out that now someone can go to school for five to ten years and be called an expert on the environment; another twenty years and some people are called Energy Czars making policies which have worldwide impact. But what about the people who have the knowledge from the beginning of time, who have known the living things of a region personally and have acted as Guardians over eons. Half in jest she said, “Do we have to come up with letters and degrees at the end of our names?”

Over these two weeks in New Zealand indigenous leaders of the Maori and Winnemem, Guardians of the earth, came together. We must double our commitment to the John Wilkies and Caleen Sisk Francos of the world -- as well as their people, relatives, allies -- and continue to honor the Great Nur and Great Tu-nah who still continue despite all which stands in their way in their noble endeavor to continue Life (not destroy it). We cannot afford to rely upon experts paid to watch the bottom line for corporations and who shore up crumbling mega-armed nations. We can't waste anymore time on those unable to say “The Empire has no clothes.” It’s not working anymore.

I am listening to the “Magic Fish,” who live in both fresh water and the ocean. My attention goes to the tribal leaders who pay particular attention to what their life cycles show us and who have never forsaken Guardianship for the earth. The times call for that kind of leadership, leaders who know and follow the Earth, who still remember what their job as human beings are, what they were put on Earth to do.

WW/ Returning Home WHOLE

While sitting in the Sydney airport all day into the night, I had a lot of time to think. Will and I tried to retrieve what we thought in the beginning, long before we boarded the plane to New Zealand, what we expected. Why is the memory so hard to grasp? Because we have spent fourteen days in New Zealand not as strangers or visitors but as family, our leaders respected, our young people embraced. We have heard over and over daily, as a greeting, “We are the same.” We have had our deepest longing anticipated and matched with an even deeper generosity. It’s hard to remember our simple thoughts in the beginning having been welcomed with such depth. It’s hard to remember what we thought before we boarded the plane for New Zealand, before touching foreheads with our hosts at the airport, being greeted with open arms by Coral and Lindsay, or welcomed at the Rehua Marae and certainly long before reaching the Waitaha Mamoe Fisher People, our new family.

As best as we can remember, I think this was our greatest hope: that someone would meet us at the airport. We thought we would be directed in some way, perhaps introduced to someone who could take us to the Rakaia River and have the authority to give us permission to dance for the Nur. Because the Ngai Tahu are tribal people I knew we would be welcomed. I imagined two or three representatives might welcome us. I was so excited to be met by the Maori. That is exactly the way I would want to go to New Zealand.

We thought we’d take a couple of days we would stay in hotels before finding an area and asking permission to go alongside the river, maybe hit a grocery store along the way so we could stock up. We wondered if we could borrow tents but knew we should bring our sleeping bags. We wondered if we could rent a van so Will could go into town to charge his video batteries.

If I thought about the ceremony, I think I imagined we would just be doing it as the Winnemem. If asked, I may have also thought two or three of the Ngai Tahu, being tribal, would be kind enough to be there too. My eyes, my mind was filled with fish -- seeing the salmon, imagining the meeting of the Winnemem and the salmon.

Then, we would be on the plane and back home. Like at H’up Chonas, I knew great things would happen with the ceremony and with salmon knowing we were still here. That is as far as my imagination took me.

What we Winnemem really experienced in New Zealand, compared to our initial expectations goes way beyond our imagination and was infused with so much of the spiritual way of life that it leaves us quite speechless and emotionally moved that there are not enough days for us to completely explain where it brings us today.

Everywhere we went we were met by the tribe -- many people of all ages, greeted with ceremony, welcomed with prayer and song and embraced individually. From that, we were always led to a table beautifully presented with bounty and generosity, and then part of conversations as familiar as Home -- sharing family, checking on health and comfort, uproarious laughter, tears, hugs, calling one another family.

At each stop, the elders would then say it’s time to talk. The elders and our leaders would share what was important to share, and while sharing all of us, from older adults, parents and to the youngest child would listen. The talk was about Creation, where do we fit in the circle of life; what is our duty; what do we believe; why are we on this journey; the sacred mountain, the rivers, the salmon, the eel, and current issues. What is happening to our Mother Earth and what are we going to do about it.

And then there was Tea. Our young dancers began to respond to the word “tea” like Pavlov’s dog. They would jump up out of their seats in unison saying “It’s Tea!” Tea in New Zealand is a wonderful thing. It’s not a hot beverage old people sip. It’s the yummiest concoction of tastiness any teen aged young man or woman or child could dream of.

The elders would gather again and those who wished would gather around them to listen to more discussion of important things, the state of the salmon in California, the state of the Longfin Eel in New Zealand. Of greed and profit based thinking. Of our Mother Earth and what our job as Guardians must be.

And then it was Supper.

We meet in the evening for sharing -- cultural sharing, prayerful sharing, songs, dances, stories -- and then it is time to retire to sleep.

But first, we must have Tea. You get the picture.

There was also time for the young people to get together and have uproarious fun, for us Winnemem to be taken around to see things, for hacky sack, for our war dancers to learn the Haka, and there was plenty of time to laugh.

There was no time for us to help cook or wash a dish, however. We tried. But that is not the Maori way. “No, we will take care of you” we were told each time. Only once when our hosts had to meet hurriedly for a meeting were Will and I able to creep into the kitchen and finish the dishes and slip out before we could be found out!

We stayed only one night in a hotel. Our guests correctly guessed we would need that one night to get ourselves together after a grueling flight. But from that time we spent nights in the Marae, the Maori Spiritual House, in their main room in which spiritual things happened. Each Marae has many mattresses and pillows for overnight guests and we line them up against the walls together and sleep side by side like family. Always there would be up to a dozen Maori friends who spent the night on mattresses with us to help us.

When we reached Waihao Marae, we met our hosts, the Waitaha Mamoe Fisher People. They are the people who organized our spiritual journey -- to meet the Sacred Mountain Aoraki, the Sacred Lake Pukaki, and who took us to the fishery to finally see our relatives, the Salmon from the Winnemem River. It is they who shared that moment with us -- they and the Great Tu-nah - the Long Fin Eel. It is the Waitahu Mamoe Fisher People who did not let us stay out at the ceremonial site by ourselves but helped secure it and who set up a kitchen, who spent nights, got up to greet the sun with us, and very soon joined us in the dances and the songs, the prayers. It is the Waitahu Mamoe Fisher people stood with us throughout the four days, shoulder to shoulder, step by step, in this ceremony for the Nur, the Tu-na, and the sacred lands, for Water.

This story is much longer than this. There is so much to tell. And I will. But this is just a beginning piece to give you a sense of the enormity of feeling with which we return. As you who read my blog know, being Winnemem often means standing alone -- standing alone facing the federal government’s genocidal Indian policies, standing alone facing corporate greed which would devastate life on the waterways, standing alone to get the most simple necessity done. We traveled around to the other side of the world to learn we are not alone. And we never have been. But today, to know the faces, the hearts, the names of the families, the future generations, the mountain, lakes, streams, rivers, the “Magic Fish,” to hear the sound of the Maori sacred prayers, the songs, to have danced together, two warrior societies, all of this changes everything. To have made our commitments to each other, Maori and Winnemem, we are “not alone” in such a transformational way. Everything has changed.

I remember in my last blog written a few days before flying to New Zealand, filled with bitterness and cynicism, I wondered aloud, if going to New Zealand will change things. It has. The facts have not changed. The wrongs are still wrongs. US leaders still do not look with justice or respect our way. But, bitterness and cynicism is replaced by hope and a great alliance of goodness. I see us as joined across the world now -- not just two peoples, but a whole region which circles the globe as Guardians of the Earth, Water and Life. We live on either side of the Pacific, the Salmon and Eel’s World, and we see things exactly the same way.

To me the fact that no one in Washington DC cares about the important collaboration made at the spiritual, ceremonial summit of the Ngai Tahu and the Winnemem, the Waitaha Mamoe Fisher People is not so important anymore. The fact that Obama and his BIA advisors are busy with other priorities than the earth, water and climate, that Feinstein and Boxer join Herger in shortsighted, failed leadership have become a small squeak. My attention has turned to what the Earth requires and the new leaders who have stepped up to answer that call. As our leaders in Maori and Winnemem say -- follow the Salmon; follow the Eel. If we make policy good for them, we will fix the global and climate problems we face. Rather than following failed leadership of human beings who have lost their connection with the Circle of Life in pursuit of a “profit based policy” -- policies which have run our rivers dry, polluted our great oceans and air and turned our precious time on Earth away from Guardianship to wage wars, shouldn’t we follow those ones that still follow the Creator, and still do the job they were put here to do -- who no matter how hard life has become for them -- still follow their spiritual work, returning to the Ocean or the Rivers to “give life.” Shouldn't we follow the leaders who recognize and respect them and listen to what they are telling us? It has become as simple as that. Yes! A resounding yes on both sides of the Pacific! We have together made a WHOLE prayer, a WHOLE commitment. May the winds carry that message around the world!

I want to give a big welcome and shout out to my Maori sister Pauline who has become one of this blog's readers. And with this adventure and meeting of Family in New Zealand, I am inspired to change my Blog's name from TBA to something else more complete. It's perc'ing in my head right now.

WW/ Following Salmon Time

It's hard to believe that day after tomorrow we will be flying into the autumn and another day ahead to be with the Winnemem's salmon relatives, the seventh generation from those who their ancestors sang to. The great salmon runs of the Winnemem River ended that long ago for the salmon but within the memory of our Chief who remembers fish 8 feet long.

I haven't heard the Salmon Song yet, but the words are full of longing. We yearn to see them again. We yearn for that whole way of life, the freedom to be who we are, for the salmon to be free to be where they belong.

I remember our Chief Caleen Sisk Franco telling the story of the poor human being at the beginning of time. All the animals were given life, and direction of how to be. The salmon is such a wondrous example. The male and female salmon after spending a couple of years in the ocean, return home to where they were little salmon with their egg sacs and then becoming fry to begin the cycle again -- growing mature in the ocean and then beginning their arduous trip back to their rivers and streams. The trip is as arduous as any in nature, and when they arrive, battered, with their last breath, the female deposits the eggs and the male fertilizes them then they die. The wonder is, when the little fry are hatched, they grow and know innately exactly what they are supposed to do and how to do it by themselves. At the right time they all start on their long journey to the ocean.

The human being is born without the knowledge of what to do in nature, what part to play, how to do things right naturally. This knowledge, the scientists call "instinct." When I learned about the animal kingdom in Biology, "instinct" was taught as something lower than knowledge. We were taught that only the human could gain knowledge. We were not taught that the human baby was unable to do anything to stay alive by themselves. As babies, we have to be fed and cared for and taught by parents or another human being to make it in life. There is something beautiful in being human -- that original knowledge that one cannot do anything without another. One would think that we would all grow to learn to be compassionate, gentle, nourishing beings. But then "choice" enters the picture. And it seems, with choice has come mischief. What is there in us as human beings today with all that has been done to the Great Circle of Life that still remembers what part we play in Nature, what is the right thing to do? Has the line of true knowledge as it was given to the first of our ancestors been broken? in many cases replaced by confusion? and arrogance? and a deep disconnect?

I have a lot of trust and respect in our leader who is finding a way for her people to make it through this time of Great Confusion in the society we now live in by literally following the fish. She repeats over and over that our way of life is to speak for Salmon, and in doing so, we speak for the water, climate, the earth, the Balance of Life. The Salmon, after all, when they first saw that naked little being, with no claws with which to protect themselves, no fur to keep themselves warm, no knowledge with which to take care of themselves gave this pitiful creature, the human being, their Voice. From that time, the Salmon do not speak. They only ask that in return, we remember to speak for the salmon too. The human being has built their history all over the world by speech, By the power of Naming they have begun to believe they own everything they Named, and by defining, they believe they have created, and by persuasion, wit, by categorizing and diluting, by dividing, they have dominated and deceived.

Excitement for the trip is building so much that I can hear it in the air, certainly for Will and me, as we come nearer to the time we will meet the salmon relatives of our Winnemem family to reaffirm the ancient bond which has always tied the Winnemem to the salmon, Nur, from the beginning of time, and despite incredible hardships, that tie has never been broken. Separated as they have been for the lifetime of our young Chief, her people's debt to the salmon still guides her choices. If all human leaders were to honor the ancient promise made between them and Nature, it is possible for to stop and turn back the destruction. The question is, are there enough -- people, active sacred places -- is there enough will of the people and is there time enough?

Our Chief has answered that with a resounding yes, we are going to do this. Is she noticed, heard, respected by the leaders of the one country which uses more of the world's resources than any other country in the world and any other civilization has from the beginning of time?

WW/ Some Things No Child Should Know

Caleen and I were talking last week, lingering at the breakfast table, about childhood, about children knowing things and dealing with things children should never have to know or see or feel. She reminisced about Granny's generation. When they were children, our precious Granny and her brothers and sisters, they would run for hiding when they saw men riding in on horseback. Caleen said in a normal voice, "some people made a living digging for gold. Some made a living hunting Indians." This is the reality Granny grew up in, a little girl who knew already that there were those whose job it was to hunt humans for money. Hunt her people, women, children, men, aunties, grandmas, fathers, mothers.

The normal tone of voice, her face, nothing betrayed how truly grotesque and weird this concept was, that this society had made legitimate careers murdering children and adults -- not at war, -- but just for profit. The reason for the tone and lack of shocked expression, of course, is because Caleen is telling a family story, a lived experienced, something familiar.

She's shaking her head and softly laughing about the kids at the ranch, seeing a car drive up, they still run for the back of the house. She says, "this is your house. You don't have to run. Just greet the people," but they still run.

I had no words to say, just stared dumbly. My mouth probably dropped open. Yes, I'd read in books that there were bounties on Indian people -- two inches of words in a paragraph. But that didn't carry the depth of meaning as Caleen's choice of words -- "made a living hunting us." People making money hunting our Granny. No wonder the kids run for the back of the house. I remember Caleen's sister, my age, talking about running for the hills because she was afraid of being kidnapped and put into boarding school away from her family. She's my age. I was called Jap. I wasn't invited to birthday parties. But mass kidnapping of children . . . that's another level.

On the one hand, how do you grow up under these conditions. On the other hand, after policies so rotten to the core, how can governments ever change to do the right thing. One generation away, California was allowing the hunting of people, paying killers for proof of bounty. Agreed -- One generation away, Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps. Naomi's mother survived Auschwitz. My friend Paulette's mother and father suffered the inhumanities of segregation, and Jim Crow laws, and people were killed for nothing by the KKK and other segregationists. All inhumanities are equally wrong. But for Granny's people, there has been no respite, no reparation, no shift in policy. Yesterday, less than 100 years ago, Granny's people were being hunted, and seen in that context, today Granny's people are unrecognized by their government as Tribal people with the rights promised all Tribal people. They are called Unrecognized Tribes, just as my American born parent's generation was called non Aliens. Winnemem are tribal but no rights to be a tribe or human being. We were citizens with no rights to be a citizen or resident.

California!!!! Something has to be done about the federal stripping of tribal recognition of the California tribes. In light of that breakfast conversation between my Chief and me, the Amerikan genocide of tribal people is so recent they can still smell the blood on their hands. Amerika! Nowadays you are making tribal people extinct by a stroke of a pen -- who is Indian who is not. Ever since this country went to war over Hitler, it could no longer carry on Hitlarian policies blatantly and so easily anymore. So instead of extermination they use "unrecognized tribe." A tribe is a tribe is a tribe. All tribes should be covered by laws having to do with tribes. Tribes have the right to exist.

Yes, I understand that federal recognition comes with money. A federally recognized tribe can write grants for various projects, economic development being one. The Winnemem ask only for their right to exist as Winnemem, the right to sit at the table and advocate for the salmon, the water, the sacred lands, the fulfillment of promises made their tribe by the Federal government for like land for the land they sacrificed for the state of California to build Shasta Lake Dam, the right to carry on their ceremonies and the way of life. They have absolutely no interest in casinos. Granny said the casino way will rot a tribe from the inside out. All they want is justice.

I don't think I'm going to recover from this little talk at breakfast. I saw injustice before, but now, well, it's personal. There are just some things no child should know. There are some things human beings should never do. I can hear my Granny now, "Right is right and wrong is nobody. There's a lot of nobodies in the world!"

I have one more thing to say. I think why I am struck so deeply is that despite this, all of this, Caleen believes in goodness. She still thinks that if we could just plead our case, that courts may listen, that President Obama might learn, that corporations, councils may still do the right thing. At least she works as if that were the case. She does not give in to vengeance, hate, even anger. She does not let her spirit give in to anger and hate -- just like Granny before her -- and sees only the good, hears only the good, speaks only the truth, as the helpers at ceremony prays for each of us when they smoke us off with the root. She does not bring ugliness into her heart, as Granny before her did not. Granny headed for the hills so she might hide and live as a little girl. The present Chief and Granny's descendant who knows about that then looks today at the little Chief who will inherit the responsibilities of Chief and Spiritual Leader and sees her still run for the back of the house. Instead of giving in to bitterness Caleen prays for the whole world, asks help for all the human beings, prays for all the sacred places, for the water. for the salmon. It is her responsibility and that is if preeminent importance . We Winnemem have a spiritually strong good leader as the leaders before her. She follows them step by step and that's why she can carry on.

WW/ Thoughts before Leaving for New Zealand

The reality of the Winnemem People meeting the Ngai Tahu people is solid now. We have received our itinerary. We will fly into the south island and be met by a gentleman from the Human Rights Commission of New Zealand and a woman from the United Nations. The United States and its present leaders may not recognize the Winnemem, may insist that they are nothing without the government saying they exist and should get no attention, but in New Zealand, it is a different story.

On the first day we will meet at the Human Rights Building and learn about Marae protocol. We will prepare for our trip to the Waihao Marae, and then we will go to the Rehui Marae, nation between nation, and ceremony with them begins, the songs, the cultural exchange. The next day, Tuesday is all about the Salmon and the Water.

Wednesday we will go to the Waihao Marae and again ceremony and cultural exchange there. We're allowed to stay overnight at their Murae.

Then we get up really early to travel to see the ancient rock art of the Waitaha and then to the dam. It seems that day we will travel to many of their places and then back to the Waihao Marae.

On Friday the Fish and Game will connect with us and take us to the area where we can see the salmon spawning. Incredible. We will spend a good time on the river and the spawning area. Then we will go mid-day to the hatchery to talk about salmon fry returning home.

That is also the day we will begin to prepare for the Winnemem Salmon Ceremony, the Nur Winyupus and Hee Chala Olelbis ceremonies. The Winnemem men will be fasting for four days.

It seems like our hosts will also be carrying out the Whakanoa ceremony.

On Wednesday, the fourth day, there will be the Hakari, or feast.

Just reading the schedule, and reading about our departure day makes me sad. I already feel the richness of our time together, Winnemem and Maori, and therefore can feel sorry when it's over. At times like that, you want time to go on and on, days of ceremony, a lifetime of ceremony for the salmon and the waters, never having to return to the time when those who push their authority over the water and the salmon don't care about their continuity and don't see The People -- don't "recognize" them.

Perhaps this time in New Zealand will help me let go of the disgust which has piled layer upon layer over my heart toward the policies, the arrogance, the ignorant brutish attitudes of this administration and all the other administrations before it toward the First People of California, their poor stewardship over the great Salmon of the rivers and ocean, the salmon who are the true "climate changers" for the good, the "protectors of the water." Perhaps the meeting of these Two Great Peoples on the Rakaia will help bring the balance which is so needed to our blind and greedy part of the world.

Right now and for some time now, I feel on the edge of time. I think about the ghost dance days which are described as desperate times for the Indian people in our textbooks, and I think now, those were not acts of desperation but of necessity. Who will pray for the Earth except for those who still belong to the Earth and the sacred circle of life. What does it matter that 97 percent of this country runs on the earth dying? You have to do what you have to do. This small tribe can hear the salmon song, can feel that salmon ceremonial dance, can hear the earth, the spirit of the bear and the eagle, can speak with the sacred water, remembers they were born out of the spring and lives still (in their hearts) on the River, are tied to every stone, and medicine plant, and the pure water gushing from the roots of the sugar pine tumbling down the mountainside. No one in that big White House, no one in the glass offices of corporations hear or feel from the Earth what is happening to it, nor do they see or feel how hard nature is working. They think they are doing everything on their own -- making a mess of it. So those who can listen to all of nature, to their ancestors and whose hearts, spirit and mind are fully connected, they have to carry on the ceremonies whether it is along their river or along a river with each other around the world into Tomorrow and into another season where there's a hint of winter's approaching cold while the sun warms the fields and the red bush trees begin to bloom at home.

I don't know if this is enough to turn the destruction tide which lies just ahead so close we can see it because the greed and arrogance seems so huge. If things were right over here, President Obama would be calling the Winnemem into his office to hear what they learned about salmon, climate, earth and water during ceremony. Feinstein and Boxer would be thinking, it's an embarrassment and a travesty what we've allowed in California -- heaping human rights violations on 90 percent of the tribes in the state. The world is beginning to learn about this. We'd better do something about it. Feinstein would be kicking herself for trying to sneak in something which would basically put the salmon back into extinction by stealing their water to run casino fountains in the irrigated deserts of southern California. If things were right, these people would be able to feel their spirit, their thin and ever-thinning tie to the earth and feel the BIGNESS which is undoubtedly going to come from the meeting of the Ngai Tahu and the Winnemem in ceremony, the link of the Rakaia and the Winnemem River, the Great Mt. Shasta and all the other sacred places connected to the Winnemem River in the cosmology of the tribe. But how can I expect people who don't even see the Winnemem are tribal people to see this Biggness. How can a government who are coldhearted, blind and deaf to human beings born with inalienable rights hear the Fish, the Water, the Earth. So they will miss it. But I have faith. As Granny says, tell the world and the good people of the world will listen. Hopefully, that number of people will be enough.

These are my gloomy thoughts before leaving for New Zealand. I'm recording it here with faith that all of this will be changed by ceremony.

My Funny Valentine

This morning I woke up, remembering that Will was going to New Zealand too! I had spent a couple of months getting used to the idea he would not be able to go because a shoot got scheduled during part of the time we'd be gone. I had adjusted to it. So three days ago when the shoot had to move, he immediately called and got a ticket, a rather expensive ticket now, but he's going!!! Every day since then, it hits me "He's going!" like I just found out.

This morning I say, "I'm so glad you're going to New Zealand!"

He said, "Me too. I just felt I was supposed to go. It needs to be shot."

It's Valentines. I said, "Did going with me have a little to do with it?"

"Uh . . (intelligible sound) uh . . What do you want to hear."

"The truth," and this is how you spell a giggle in Japanese. Gera-gera. All the Gera Gera's are mine.

"Well, I felt I should go (Gera Gera) and I knew you were going to be fine (Gera gera), you're strong. You don't really need anyone or me (Gera Gera) for this trip.
It is really important for the tribe to have this film and I wanted to be sure to do it. (Gera gera), of course I'm happy we'll be there but it's going to be a big job, you know, and I'm not going to be able to really be there with you until we sleep (Gera gera)."

I get up to go to the bathroom and hear him say "But it is nice we're going together"
(Gera gera) but it's going to be a lot of work."

He followed me and said, "So what are you thinking about what I said."

"It makes me so happy, I think I'll blog."

That is how my Honey talks every day every instance, with blunt honesty, and commitment to us and everything that matters to us. It's not a small thing that here at the last minute, the second he has a choice, this Yankee Doolittle dropped $2000 without a bat of any eye (maybe his finger trembled a little hovering over the "send" button before he pushed it for his ticket. He's always been navigated by what he SHOULD do in the big scheme of things. That he is going to New Zealand, and that he's doing it for the tribe, and that he knows it is something he should do and that he even on Valentines Day he can't sugarcoat the truth makes me Gera Gera. That is Valentines for me. He makes me giggle. We're both where we're supposed to be and we are doing it together and for the same reason. This is the only Valentines I ever need.