Bear Dance

Film from the mid-19th century about Japan and the Ainu

http://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/a-trip-through-japan-with-the-ywca-ca-1919

Call Me Human

Click on Call Me Human below to hear Lyla Johnston's new poem by that name. It is breathtaking and transforming.

Call Me Human

Lyla Johnstone is a Freed Soul. She's had many conversations with me about that journey to free herself to love all things. Lyla is Dine, and speaks of her treasured grandmother, her aunties, and loves her father who was a warrior in the movement and still carries, as many of us do, our righteous anger. She tries to help him put down that burden. I met her at Winnemem when she moved in to do her geographical study of sacred places for their use. She had already adopted Helene as her Winnemem Mother, and gave her massages, cooked for her good healthy foods, and took her seriously.

I love Lyla Johnstone. She is a magical person. Google her and you will see why I say that. You will see her dancing in the middle of a plaza at night, in Rome, Italy, lights reflecting, spinning spinning around. You will hear more poetry which moves you, takes your breath away, grounds you all at the same time. You will see an event honoring youth and their potential she organized in New Mexico. She is not predictable. Where will she be? What will she say? What will she do? When will I see her again? And yet she is very predictable. She is an alchemist which turns all suffering, and well earned anger into love which includes acceptance and love of self -- healing -- whereever she goes.

Muraleando!!

My good Sister and friend Judy Castro and little daughter Artemisa are traveling to Havana today! I am so excited for her. She will be visiting her family in Havana. I love Judy. She let me know so that I can send something. We are a little community of people -- we who travel to Cuba -- separated by the blockade, homesick for our friends and family which one makes so easily there, and so no one travels to Cuba without gifts. And in taking the gifts, they connect with others and meet others they would not have met, were they not carrying the love of another to Cuba. So this time, Judy will meet Sr. Miyasaka, of course, our Nikkei bridge to Cuba, and to two special people in La Isla, the intrepid third generation Nikkei woman who grows organic vegetables in Havana. Judy will meet beautiful Muraleando, a neighborhood brightened by art from around the world, pilgrims who come to be part of a vision brought to life by school children of the neighborhood and artists, poets and hip hop performers. When there last we also met the elder who cleans every day the art and art installations which transforms every corner of the neighborhood. So my heart is full of Nikkei Cubans and the artists of Muraleando and Judy and Artemisa who has one boot which is easy to put on, and one boot which is hard to take off, something that she shared with me this morning, her eyes full of laughter and voice full of the silly wonder of it all -- just when she needs to go to Cuba!! She also whispered conspiratorially about her other grandparents. When we went to Italy . .. do you know what. . . . they eat ice-cream EVERY DAY!!! In Cuba, she will also find some wonderful treat every day. She will also meet many Italians! C'mon, USA. Bring down the blockade. The time has past for this grey thinking. We yearn for the bright colors of a Cuban Day!!

Dedicated to Mom, Obachan, Ojichan and Granny

But for my elders, there I would have gone as would my daughters.

I am a "Catfish, " the Movie Fan

I loved this documentary. I love stories which explore the human being, human heart, the road we decide to take and without any of the "why" having to be answered.

Ohlone Occupation of Occupied Oakland

This is the young Ohlone man who remembers the old songs, holds them and sings them. We heard him at Glen Cove. After he participated, he was criticized and shunned by those of his tribe who did not want to step up to protect Glen Cove from development.

The result of the Glen Cove occupation is that the development was stopped and the area protected but people must be vigilant. Ten years ago, an agreement was made and signed with tribes to protect the area forever. A new tribal chair of one of the tribes turned down another road from his father who signed that former agreement and was willing to be one of three tribes to support development. That was stopped.

Caleen Sisk, our Chief, took us to Glen Cove to support the occupation. For one thing, that is the very estuary our salmon fry will grow in when they finally return to the river system. Right now, millions of salmon are killed each month in the turbines there.