What Is Our Purpose?

I am posting this because I want to hear it over and over again, and also share it with you. I believe the speaker is Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation. It answers the question, what is life's purpose? I remember once when I was talking to our Winnemem Elder, Emerson Miles, and asked him what the human being's work? He answered our purpose on earth was to support Life. Granny would say, 97 percent of the world is evil. I found it interesting that she had it down to a number. After listening to Emerson, I thought to myself, that is probably what percentage of "jobs" or goals do not support Life. I hope you enjoy this:

WW/ What does RACE have to do with it?

Attending the NOAA meeting regarding the Winnemem and Maori interest in introducing salmon into the McCloud above the dam, something NOAA is interested in also was eye-opening. Around the table sat scientists, fish biologists, people responsible for the national salmon recovery plan, people responsible for carrying out the nation's environmental preservation programs, lawyer, Winnemem leaders, Maori leaders, a New Zealand fish and wildlife person. The focus was the New Zealand Winnemem partnership to bring back the McCloud River Salmon back to the Home Waters. John Wilkie, Waitaho Maori of South Island made it clear that this was a tribe to tribe venture, that the salmon would be given from New Zealand to the Winnemem. It was the decent thing to do since the fish came from the Winnemem run hatchery to the rivers of South Island back in the late 1800's in the first place.

The concern of the American biologists, administrators, and advocate was genetics, something which made the New Zealand Fish and Wildlife expert, Dirk ________, bristle. He is a passionate voice for the salmon of New Zealand. He had spoken up at the first NOAA meeting at ceremony when the NOAA people first said that the genetics may be a problem because there were more than one introduction of salmon eggs to the rivers. He interrupted, "You're talking about statistics, aren't you? the bad runs?" The NOAA people nodded.

Then Dirk passionately spoke, "these so called good runs and bad runs -- it's all about numbers, isn't it. A certain number and it's considered a bad run. But I know this fish. The California Chinook Salmon is very strong, and with these low numbers of return, they will never give up. They are survivors. I have seen lower runs and the next year and the next year, the numbers go up by great numbers. We know that the New Zealand salmon is from here. These fish are hardy. They are the same fish as swam in the Mc Cloud in the 1800's."

At this second meeting Dirk was still willing to speak to the genetics issue which stumped the American biologists and administrators in charge of the salmon restoration projects.

I think our jaws dropped as did his when the scientists began to describe the runs -- winter, spring and fall runs -- as Races of Salmon, and saying they do not want the races to mix.

They asked Dirk what races were the salmon in New Zealand. Dirk said, we say that they are all salmon. He explained to them that the coloration which Americans use as a marker for race depends on many factors, all environmental. He explained that even in the same batch of eggs, some of the salmon will be fall and some will be winter and some will be spring. The salmon determines the run. In New Zealand and the tribes both in New Zealand and the US distinguish the runs by when they arrive to spawn. Therefore, the fish who travel farthest will be another run than the fish who spawn closer to the ocean. The US label them by when they enter the river system.

Dirk then said, Isn'the important thing that the salmon you put in the McCloud are salmon which have the ability to return to the McCloud, not what run you think they are?

Good point. Light bulbs flash in the minds.

To be fair, NOAA did not make these regulations. This is about money. Funding. There is funding for winter and spring run but not for fall for NOAA. Some other agency takes on the fall run. NOAA is stuck with these regulations. However, NOAA is also responsible to reintroduce above the dam on the McCloud and we believe, and it will be borne out that the salmon in New Zealand have the DNA, tenacity and strength to make it back. No guarantees that any salmon in the Sacramento now can do that.

New Zealand common sense and tribal knowledge eventually became the directors of the conversation. NOAA's openness and commitment to the goal was framed by the woman heading the environmental protection direction. She said that she welcomed being at the table with people who also wanted the salmon to come back. NOAA over and over again faces people who do not want the salmon and the protection laws they bring reintroduced anywhere. Bottom line, NOAA is ready to work with us, to see the proposal.

But back to that pesky little word . . . that pesky little concept Made in the USA -- RACE -- and the prohibition of mixing. It has nothing to do with species or fish because the Salmon is Salmon. This separation of runs is wholly for the purpose of accessing funds. We can see how silly miscegenation laws regarding salmon is as wrong headed as miscegenation laws regarding human beings. It is a human construct, not a natural one and it is manipulative. Interesting, aye?

Common Sense. Knowledge of Nature. And possibilities bloom.

WW/ "Life is good in so many ways""

I haven't written on my blog for quite awhile. Something has rocked Will and my world to its foundation. But it would not be cool to talk about it. We just have to endure it. In crisis is opportunity, though, as sages have said. And it seems that in this crisis, which has to do with a crisis in leadership, our Chief has stepped up to the challenge, and takes one day at a time, doing what needs to be done, keeping her vision clear, and her spirit connected to the Old Ones and the Sacred Places.

The opportunity is that the Winnemem lineage reveals what their women Chiefs are made of. It is not difficult to imagine Granny, alone in her leadership, going through the killing time, going through boarding school assimilation, going through Shasta Lake Dam and the drowning of her people's homes, sacred lands, and the extermination of their salmon, going through the criminalization of her ceremonies and medicines, and yet keeping it together, bringing her people through. I imagine she did the same thing, took every day as it comes, go step by step. There seems to be almost an instinctual way of knowing what needs to be done -- much like their beloved salmon, a sort of navigational device imbedded, which helps them even if they meet a crisis which is an anomaly to their people. Dams, hatcheries, bounties, boarding schools, racist laws, influenza and today, dams, assimilation policies, federal unrecognized status, privatizing of water, cremation remains in the sacred spring,Harmonic Conversions, 2012 crazy madness, and on and on it goes.

Because of their active relationship, the unbroken historical tie to sacred land, to leadership by lineage, a tradition of spiritual doctoring, holding on to language, songs, ceremonies, even bringing them back with the help of the ancestor spirits and the sacred lands, they endure.

Will and I are so lucky to know how because we are under the wing of the Winnemem.

Did you know that everything does not come from a human being? knowledge, songs, language, ceremony, medical knowledge? If you pray and you've kept that relationship strong with the sacred places and your ancestors, you can get it all back through communication, through faith, through walking step by step behind them. Did you know that even if there is scientific finality that a species is terminated, you may find out if you are still tied to the land, if you are still tied to the ancestors, if you bring back the ceremonies, Olelbis will hear you, the salmon will hear you, the bear and all the Sacred Mountains will hear you, the Oceans will become one to turn that extermination, that killing time around? The ancient ones anticipated great disasters and losses and took care of it, laying their faith that far in the future when it was safe, when it was ready, the Winnemem will still remain, and then, the work can begin with that new Chief to restore what was exterminated, like the Nur, the sacred Chinook salmon which the Winnemem follow still, 70 years after they last swam up the McCloud, a good 20 years before Chief Caleen Sisk Franco was born.

Thank you Great Olelbis, the great Mt. Shasta, that our current Chief still carried on so that she could be there when the salmon was ready to come back to their Home Waters, before time on the wild salmon ran out. Thank you Great Olelbis that she carried the faith and hope of her ancestors over that time so that there will still be Winnemem. She made things ready. She brought her people back to the village, she taught the next generation, she listened to her dreams, her spiritual people listened to their dreams, and they made everything ready for the miracle of the Nur's return to happen. They did not lose one step.

I have seen it. I have listened, witnessed, felt, touched an been touched by the Winnemem way of life. This is how it happens, these everyday miracles. No scientist, inventor, President, or Parliament, no lobbyist, no strategist, no CEO can restore as the Olelbis would restore except the faithful and humble who know their place and responsibilities no matter how hard it is, no matter what crisis is thrown in front of their path. Step by step. Prayer by prayer.

We are witnessing the legacy of Caleen Sisk Franco through her hardest time, her biggest crisis, OUR hardest time and biggest crisis, and we'll just continue the old way and get there a day at a time, a prayer at a time, one everyday miracle at a time. As she says no matter what has happened, "Life is good in so many ways." We can't give in to grief and loss.

Dedicated to the Waitaho Maori family, the Kingdom of Hawai, the Hoopa Tribe the Kiwi allies for standing with us, 100 percent and to NOAA who is drawing up their papers to seal the relationship. We will bring home the Nur.

What Granny Said

At the Fire a couple of weeks ago before ceremony, before all our guests arrived, during a crisis in leadership, the Chief gathered us around the Prayer Fire. Toward the end, securing the commitments from her people, we continued saying things at the Fire which needed to be said.

Then Dale spoke up. He said that some years ago he gathered herbs for Granny to be given to a patient (cancer). She told him "She's got a strong heart. She's going to make it." He kept gathering herbs throughout that year. Then he finally met the person he'd been gathering for at Grandma's and he was surprised because here was this cheery person named Misa.

When he shared with me what Grandma said about me, it was such a gift and a nudge that that cheery person is the stronghearted one.

It came at the right time when I wasn't remembering my essential cheerfulness which comes from a faithful heart. I need to remember faith.

WW/ Dedicated to the Relationship of Winnemem and Maori and the Stories, Prayers and Sacred Duties which Tie Us Together

Oh, my!! Our South Island and Ngai Tahu family read my blog! I hardly ever look at comments because I don't get them, but recently, I have. I shared with Rosina from Maori something I would like to share with all of you -- to Wendy, to Pauline to Barry and all the others.

More and more our Chief is telling this story in public. It is what we believe to be true about our salmon, the Nur in the Rakaia and other river systems in Aotera.

The Chief received an email from Aotera asking if she was familiar with the story of the Ice Waterfall which the Maori know. She had heard about the Ice Waterfall. Back when the US was building the fish hatchery on the Winnemem, the tribe's leaders were concerned. The spiritual people at that time sent some of the Fish through the Ice Waterfall of Bohem Pyuk, the Great Mt. Shasta, our Sacred Mountain, and the place of origin of the Winnemem as well as the Winnemem (McCloud) River. The email from one of our Maori family reverberated in the Chief's heart and and stirred up memory.

We could believe that the US sent eggs around the world and they only survived in New Zealand, a fluke of nature, a conundrum. Then there is the story more miracle than mystery of spiritual Winnemem sending the fish through an Ice Waterfall on their Sacred Mountain to stay until they it was safe to come home. The old spiritual people could not imagine what the future held, but were prepared by the spirits for a dam which would flood their Homeland, destroy sacred places, kill their Fish runs and possibly exterminate their way of life. This story does not end with Shasta Lake Dam. This is a story of two sacred mountains Bohem Pyuk and Aoraki, both with ice waterfalls, a story of a warm belt in the ocean which keeps the salmon in New Zealand from mixing protecting the DNA which would enable them to remember the hard and long trip back from their salt water home, acclimating in the estuary of Glen Cove, tasting the sweet water of the McCloud or Winnemem River, remembering the three water falls, the hundreds of miles back Home. Sacred Bond or Fluke of Nature? Winnemem and Maori and their extended family already knew in our hearts when we met that there was more to the story than an odd scientific conundrum, did we not? This is the story of two peoples who still pray to their Sacred Mountains, share a story of an Ice Waterfall, despite trauma and progress still keep a spiritual responsibility for fish who know both ocean and river, who still pray, still know the stories, still dance, still know their language, and will never give up their old ways, ancestors, and sacred duties no matter what. Fluke of nature? or sacred compact coming to fruition because the Winnemem and Ngai Tahu Waitaha people did not stray from their paths and stayed close to the Mountain, the Rivers, their Fish, and never forgot their old stories and never forgot how to pray, holding them in place so they could complete their ancestor's prayer just as the fish were held so they could return Home someday. Ko te Nur te tipua oranga. Ka whaiwhai tonu matou! Beedi Yalumina! It is all one prayer!

WW/ "It Can't Ever End"

We couldn't go up to our ceremonial grounds in Dekkas. The rains had turned the road into slick mud that only a tractor could get us up to the grounds -- and the tractor tracks would ruin the road. When we sat around the Prayer Fire that rainy night, the Chief had told us we were going to support the Spiritual Encampment to bring attention to what damage development would bring to Glen Cove near Vallejo if the city went forward with their plan to spend federal monies on a park there. The city was in the process of securing support from three other tribes whose new city councils were willing to reverse their former leaders' position to protect the cove. It was only ten years before that all the tribes had convinced the city to agree that the cove, the shell mounds, all the evidence that that area was Home for tribes for generations before contact, was an important historical place. Condos were built around the area -- a pricey sight to look out onto the cove. Perhaps it bothered the city politicans to still see tha anise blooming, the willow just because of a ten year old agreement made with tribes. Perhaps the original grass did not go with the palms imported and planted there, the eucalyptus trees. It didn't go with the theme, perhaps. And it may have seemed to be a good idea, a rolling lawn out to the bay, designed by putting people to work with new jobs provided by federal funds digging out what grew there as medicines and food, replacing it with something else that needed pesticides to be lush, pesticides which would wash into the bay -- a bay which is the estuary for the very Chinook runs the Winnemem are trying to bring home from New Zealand. This estuary is where our Chinook would grow until they were ready for life in the salt waters of the Ocean, and strong enough to make that journey. This estuary is also where the salmon would return to acclimate to the sweet waters of the river for their long and arduous journey back over the falls, back to their spawning grounds to complete their cycle, spawning, then dying, then feeding and nourishing all that lived and grew in and out of the waters.

The Chief watched the rain for the next two days. She had told the Glen Cove people we would be there but the outfits could not be worn if it were raining. It was touch and go. Sunday morning, the leaden sky didn't really give us clues but at least it wasn't raining. "We're going!" she announced when I went up to her trailer to check. She was plaiting her long hair into braids.

"We're ready!" I replied and headed down to give Will the go sign. By then other plans had been made by many. Some had to return to work. The small respite in the weather was not promising, but by faith, a small group piled into a small van, followed by a couple of cars and we headed off on a four hour trip to the bay.
This video will show you how small our group was, but it was enough. The Chief was there and the next Chief was there. The Sacred Fire was there placed by the few dancers who did come. Several singers were there. We had a fire to pray at. We could sing our songs that the waters there and the fish, the trees could hear and know that there were still people who knew their way of life. And there were still leaders who were connected to the ancestral ways and knew the way of these trees, the water, the old rocks and were still teaching the old ways, who could still speak for the salmon at such an important place for them. There was still a doctor there to help out the leaders of the encampment, and take the difficulties and chaos off their weary shoulders.

I thought you'd like to hear what our Chief said and how important the message she brought there was to the committed tribal people who were going into the 50th day at the encampment. Those words gave great support, to understand that not only were they standing for old agreements manipulated by politicians, both municipal and tribal, not only were they standing for the protection of a valuable historical site, but they also were standing against a crisis of global significance right now, this very moment, the preservation of Life on this Earth, represented at this stage by whether or not salmon will survive -- salmon, the climate changers, salmon who cleans and purifies the water, salmon who knows the rivers and the oceans, salmon who, even in death nourishes all that lives in the water and out.

This is a spiritual cause. I remember Emerson, the elder and Granny's translator, saying to me that the human being's purpose was to "support Life, help Life." I remember Granny saying the world was about 97 percent evil. She had it down to a percentage. Putting the two together I thought to myself it is probable that only about 3 percent of us are engaged in life supporting, life helping work. The small group of Glen Cove protectors, the small group of Winnemem gives me hope of what 3% can do against such odds, if we all did it.

The Chief answered the question WHY do this -- Why do we even show up when 97% are bent on destroying Life. Why do we do anything? She answered that omnipresent question when she said that we must teach the young ones that although it is not in the books they read, they must learn from the water, the ancient rocks and the trees to protect the earth. We do this because "it can't ever end."

No matter how small a group becomes, no matter how huge the challenge, even if the world as Granny described it became 99.999 percent destructive, Nature and the few human beings who still hold to their spiritual responsibility can make the difference for Nature. That is what is most important that Nature sees and the Great Olelbis knows and the ancestors have people who are with them -- that we still stand, sing, pray, learn and support Life. We must still be counted like all the rest of Nature does automatically, no matter how bad it gets. Otherwise, as Granny says, the human being becomes a big zero.

So today, I am thinking of all the good people going into their 100th day of the spiritual encampment at Glen Cove very soon, I am thinking of the Winnemem, especially our Chief who will always follow Nature and leads her people to do so -- and I am particularly thinking of the Salmon. Sawal mai u mu's baales bom! Sacred is the teacher. That is the way it will be forever.

WW/ Thoughts about Granny and Caleen

I'm thinking of Granny again today, Granny and Caleen. I met Granny 23 years ago at her ceremony at Mt. Shasta. My Kickapoo doctor and friend took my newly adopted daughter and me there to get help. My daughter had just taught my husband and me humility to last for our whole lifetime -- to know we could not do this parenting thing or anything else, for that matter, without a lot of help from Great Olelbis and that is what we came to Florence Jones for, drowning people needing help to make a family.

Granny's helper, Emerson Miles, smoked me up with the root, and smoked a pipe as Florence helped me. I remember midway, her words to me, "I am your mother." I felt shock but only paused for a second before I pushed away any doubt -- that I already have a mom -- and without thinking took a deep breath in as if breathing in her words and accepted it with all my heart saying "thank you" under my breath. I believe that made all the difference in the world because from that moment, that is how I treated her and within a year, Granny began to mother me. Invited by her to come anytime we wanted, I took Maki and later Maki and our foster daughter Margaret to visit the little ranch and three elders at least once a month and for a month of each summer vacation. Granny taught me everything she thought I would need to live a good life. She took care of me curing me of small maladies to life threatening disease, and she took care of my family. She scolded me, she showed me how to do lots of things, she shared her stories and remembrances, her lessons of life, she loved me. We spent hours sitting side by side, shoulders touching or I would drive her on her joyrides, reaching for her hand and we would sit like that comfortable. I did whatever she asked me to do and for her part, she was always there for me.

In her 90's, as she began to do less, sometimes she would talk to me about what to do after she died. She prepared me by telling me she would always be with me, and even told me where she would be when we went up on Mt. Shasta to go to the Spring. She instructed me how to pray and she would be there for me. She knew, I would need these reassurances after she died, I believe. She knew how devastated losing her on the earthly plane would mean. I literally felt the loss physically. I felt like a piece of me had been ripped off, and I felt raw and bleeding along my right shoulder and arm. My fingers would feel listless with no shoulders or neck to rub anymore. No more backrubs. My fingers would twitch and bring back that memory and the emptiness would be so intense. I felt like half of me was gone. And for awhile, her instructions were all I had to feel some comfort. "Think of me and Bohem Pyuk and I will be there."

It was at War Dance that things changed dramatically. As our Chief, her successor, Caleen Sisk Franco stepped up to the challenge and brought back War Dance which we took to Shasta Lake Dam, when the new Chief literally walked out into the unknown and followed Granny's instruction, "step out and help will be there" I began to feel Grandma without following the aides she left behind for me. Granny is right there with Caleen! It is very comforting that the line of leadership works out that way. No one does things individually and alone, even the Chief.

Since War Dance, I only had to focus, and I can feel her there with me. Or should I say, I can feel me WITH HER. I know I would feel her absence strongly if I strayed from the path of "right is right and wrong is nobody." It is like an automatic navigational device. I know I won't stray. When you are mothered by someone, especially someone like Granny, for 23 years, your heart changes. My heart changed by becoming whole. What Granny added to my heart, molded into my heart was a way of life she followed all her life. I am rooted, no longer a fluff going here and there wherever the winds of change will take me. I feel steady. I am assured as long as I follow the way of life given to me by her.

Everybody goes through a time of confusion sometimes. Things go well, and then circumstances happen and one could get derailed. That is when I realize Granny's influence and how embedded it is in my heart. I walk with confidence right behind Granny and Caleen and know without a doubt that she is with Caleen. They are together. What a gift for the descendants that we still have a Chief in these troubled time who is so connected, who is right there with Granny's spirit and the Winnemem ancestors. The Winnemem way still goes on another generation through this Chief. I know because I see it with my spirit's sight. I know it because where she leads us opens door for the salmon. I know it because although life is hard, we are still free and we are still doing our sacred responsibilities for the Earth, Water and Nur.

Sometimes I feel as if I can walk into Granny's bedroom and sit down beside her to have those long conversations like the old days. It's comforting. The other day, I felt like that. My mind meandered to this room in which there is Granny and sitting in a chair there is Caleen by herself, right with Granny. They wait calmly in the room for the rest of us to gather there. We all are out someplace else doing this or that. I thought to myself, I hope in those times that Will and I, as long as we live, will be in the room sitting with the calm of knowing we are where we're supposed to be and when enough people come in and sit and when we are ready to stand together, whether it is a few or many, we will be enough. Of that I am sure.

All this is to say, the Winnemem tribe may be small but they still have their old way to take them through modern chaos. The Head Man is a good and strong man. The family has love for one another. Other tribal members who don't live at the ranch are dedicated. This is what I see in each of us and pray for, that we are all of that because the Earth, the Salmon, the Water, Life itself needs goodness, strength, love and dedication from the human beings. So today, I am thinking of you Granny and our Chief who stays with you through thick and thin and say thank you for the mothering and this way of life. You said it's a hard life but the best life. You said that your sacred land is the Univeristy of Life. And I have found it all to be TRUE.