A Fluffy Tree of an Afternoon

Oh, look! That red one . . . so gorgeous!" Mom's hands form the tree's shape, hands that once molded clay into pots and vases. "That yellow one," her arms widen to embrace the view from the car's front seat. We are taking our daily joyride around town. Maple, birch, sweet gum trees, oak are full of fall foliage and on these sunny October days, the view is stunning. "Oh, my goodness!" Mom exclaims, "It's so picturesque!!"

Our mother has had advanced vascular dementia for two years now. From what I see of the other elders at Southtowne, by now our mom should be walking with a fixed stare, robot like, or belted into a wheelchair with an alarm set on her so that when she stands up, a caregiver is alerted. These elders are called "Falling Stars" because they cannot stand and walk long without falling.

Why has my mother escaped that fate? I believe the answer is because Mom is completely off of pharmaceuticals prescribed her for symptoms of dementia. The particular med she was on to calm her fears and anxiety and self-endangering behavior caused her to grind her teeth, shattering them. The grinding distracted the caregivers. One admitted that her husband told her that in the middle of the night she would yell in her sleep, "Mary!! Stop grinding!" The social director who had treated mom as a favorite earlier began to walk by her without noticing her. Defintely mom's fun was being affected. The nurse practitioner who advised Southtowne agreed with us that the drug was not working. I felt I had a clear road now to seek other ways to help mom with the fear, confusion and anxiety that plagues people with dementia.

We had a sacro-cranial masseuse working with mom with some success in reducing her anxiety, and asked if he had any ideas. We talked to my naturopath. My naturopath had given mom a successful remedy to calm her sundown syndrome so her mind would slow from its anxious high speed at night and she could sleep. Homeopathic remedies do not have any side effects so we often turn to them for mom since our mother is already on eight prescription medications for her heart.

For example, this year mother had a bladder infection, which for elders is a very dangerous thing. The usual symptoms do not occur. She may or may not have a fever. I had asked for a urinalysis when I first noticed her confusion and tiredness. I had to keep asking about it and was finally told that the test result came back negative. Five weeks later, my mother stopped eating. The medical doctor said this is all part of the process in dementia but just in case they would give her a urinalysis; in some cases a bladder infection affects eating. Alarms went off in my head. When we returned to Southtowne, I confronted the med aide about the possible bladder infection and asked if the urinalysis was really done. I learned that the nurse had been let go when it was discovered that she had let many things go including my request for a urinalysis.

It is a very scary thing when a person stops eating. I plied Mom with food Japanese give to sick people, rice gruel. I chopped up fresh shiso leaves, chicken with garlic to sneak in protein and add flavor. Mom would eat a bit of it while dramatically suffering and whining. I gave her a protein drink which she drank with an anguished look on her face. "I caaaaaan't" she would wail! Her weight plummeted. Again, I went to the naturopath for advice and she suggested we try Chinese bitters. Administered 15 minutes before a meal helped the salivary glands to do its work and it can jumpstart appetite.

Now a month later of constantly checking and the help of Katrina, a very vigilant and diligent caretaker who took it on as her crusade to address this eating problem, and the caretakers who worked with her idea, mom eats 100 percent of all her meals. I name Katrina because she is remarkable. Another person might remember or might not remember about the tonic. Some excuse their inattention so easily. But Katrina stands out. I do credit Katrina and the Chinese bitters with giving mom her present peace of mind and happy days. Food and the enjoyment of eating are important to quality of life.

Returning to the story of our search for a non-pharmaceutical treatment for our mother's dementia, I turned to the sacro cranial doctor. Benjamin suggested alpha-stim treatments, a simple device being successfully used by many who have depression and now being used by some for Alzheimer’s and dementia. The electrical impulses stimulate the part of the brain, which controls anxiety, apparently. The medical doctors have used alpha-stim to help athletes with muscle problems. Locally, a psychologist dispenses the alpha stim, which anyone can learn more about by going to mindbodyelectric.com.

Now, through the successful alpha stim treatments and my naturopath's correct analysis and prescription of a homeopathic remedy, my mother has reduced her grinding and has not only maintained her own personality but is calmer than she has ever been in her life. She goes with me on rides with the alpha stim ear clips on her ears looking like a youthful version of herself listening to tunes on an ipod. Her high water pants show off her flashy socks (which I choose so I can clearly see if her socks are being changed daily) and we have kept up her bright and flashy style revved up a bit more. That day she wore her black straw hat with the big bill which protected her eyes from the sun, sunglasses with leopard designed frames, a slick slim jacket bright reds and pinks with flashes of blue floral set off by glass rivets forming designs around the cuffs and collar. We were ready for our ride!

We round the corner onto campus. Lots of trees line the street. "Oh, marvelous! Did you set those up like that? It looks like those are the ones you did."

"No, our neighbors did that, mom,” I have given up with true answers like "those are trees." or "Creator did that." "They grow that way."

Mom nods, accepting my answer, "It does look like your style, though." I accept the compliment.

"grit grit grit grit"

"Mom, please stop biting," I remind her using the words the sacro cranial doctor suggested.

"I'm not biting. I'm crunching."

"Please stop crunching then, mom, it hurts your teeth." I work to keep my voice sing song as I grit my own teeth.

Mom always boasted that Grandpa used to call her "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" for a good reason. Now at this stage of her life, that contrariness definitely keeps her youthful.

She's always surprised when I drive up to Southtowne bringing her home again. Each time she exclaims over the tall shrubs, which are trimmed into a spiral design. "I've never seen anything like it! It's so artistic!" she says each time. As I push the open button for the gate, she wanders away, hands on her hips surveying all the trees lining the parking lot. Then her attention is drawn upwards. "Look at those!" She points at the blue sky with cumulous clouds building up. 'Those white ones! Those trees are so fluffy! I've never seen that before!"

What would you say? "Those are clouds, Mom" or allow yourself to step into her incredible fall afternoon? It's anyone's guess because any answer will do. In fact, the truth is I have answered in either way so many times, I can't remember which I used the afternoon of the fluffy trees. It seems an appropriate way to end this story, our family version of Alice in Wonderland as we tumble into the magical rabbit hole with Mom.

Thank you!

I humbly thank you for logging on to TBAsian. This morning I learned that there have been 100 viewings of TBAsian. I've always wanted to write. I taught my students what Ursula LeGuin said about writing. How to become a writer is simply to write. Write every day. Just write. And that writing was a very solitary activity. I confess I used LeGuin, partially, to prevent writing to become social hour. Life is social for middle schoolers. They would all go to their own separate little corner and write. Sometimes I would write with them. But most of the time, I became 'editor' and first reader of their pieces.

I had thought I might want to write a book when I retired -- maybe for young readers, maybe a mystery with a real life mix of people -- but it was daunting to think of publishers and editors and especially that pile of 100 books gathering dust in a closet.

Now I am writing in my own little corner of blogspot. It is indeed a solitary activity -- except for a bit of blogger technology which allows me to peek every once in awhile to see if anyone has logged in. Maybe everyone doesn't log in to read. Maybe everyone doesn't read a lot of it. Or maybe it's a couple of people related to me logging on 50 times apiece. Whatever the case, I thank you all for making TBAsian a little less solitary. If I were techno-miraculous I would have a blog party!!! Thank you again.

Campaign 2008, Will It Be Our Big Bachi or Not?

It has crossed my mind observing the 2008 Presidential Campaign between Democrat Barak Obama and Republican John McCain, and McCain and Palin's racialized attacks in the last month that we could be in for a big bachi.

When I was a young and would trip or stub a toe causing me to yelp with pain, my Obachan would not spoil me, but would say "bachi ga atatta." It wasn't mean. She didn't gloat. It was just part of life. She explained to me once that bachi kind of meant that negative begets negative -- although "bachi" was something which was more accidental and universal than a direct consequence or punishment.

Sometimes, evesdropping, I'd hear her say "Ii-bachi" about something -- and that was like "Good one!"; probably she wouldn't approve of my sharing with anyone this most normal of human responses she would allow herself to enjoy from time to time. So I apologize to Obachan.

This country was built on two evil policies. One was the colonization of 1000 sovereign nations of this continent, the land stolen through wars, treachery and violence, all illegal according to any international human rights code, and the second was slavery specifically of African people. The American form of slavery is quite unique in the history of the world. It was based on color -- not on enmity. Slavery was a life sentence and beyond; in other words, babies were born into slavery. Who enslaves babies? Slavery, generally, was through war or enmity and enslaved people could even marry into the enemy's family or would eventually become free. But American slavery was quite different. In this country, enslavement was purely for economic reasons. It was not about enmity; it was all about cold cash.

American slavery was distinct in that it treated people like chattel, work animals. The human beings were auctioned, brutally beaten, branded, "bred," separated from their families, forbidden to anything that human beings do -- learn, pray, speak their own tongue, marry, have families. The babies were kept naked, fed from a trough. In spite of being born in all this evil from generation to generation, African people had the incredible strength to keep their humanity, create tradition and keep family structure of some kind. In spite of generations and generations born into slavery, African people and their descendents have always been the first ones to stand up for freedom. That is awe inspiring to me. That's why I told my students, I would never refer to people with such a strong commitment to the ideal of freedom as "slaves." I don't know what I would have done, as a "sansei" enslaved for three generations. Would I have believed the slaver that I was just chattel? Would I be broken? Would I have even understood what freedom meant without tasting its sweetness?

This deeply evil form of slavery cannot be ended simply with the stroke of a President's pen. Its legacy twists all hunan beings. It twists up the slaver too, the quivering fearful so called "masters" in the big house who have to surround themselves with thugs armed with chains, dogs, whips, guns to keep people down. It twists up the bankers the slave ship builders, the captain and crew, the banker and lender, the slave auction, the lawyers and legislatures, judges , the ministers and teachers, every person who kept this evil system in place. The whole US economic systen was built on the cash brought in by slavery and aggression against sovereign indigenous nations. I asked my students -- so who is the slave? The person in chains whose hearts are set on freedom? or those who fetter themselves to a rotten system despite what huge compromises it requires of the country's ideals.

I remember we had a simulation in my class once, my attempt to make studying the Constitution less deadly for eighth graders. I still remember Sari Gomez, delegate from Rhode Island, and her passionate speech against slavery. The other delegates gave her a standing ovation and rewarded her by voting slavery down unanimously. They agreed slavery had absolutely no place in the new union based on democratic rule by the people. I was the only one surprised by the vote. My instructions had been to use the text as a guide to their speeches and their participation. Their resounding no to slavery moved my heart so much that I had to stand up and walk to the front of the room as their teacher, interrupting their simulation. I told them that because of their historical vote, the US will avoid the bloodiest of wars, the Civil War, there would be no segregation, and there would be no racist divide in the nation. I told them I was very proud of them. I cannot describe how these young eighth graders glowed. They felt their strength. They had inspired their teacher, made her tear up and they had changed history that day, in their classroom. They felt proud for what they had done for the country.

I know it was a simulation, but that is the power of the tool. As a teacher, who would I have been to say, "No! You can't! History says that the delegates must compromise on slavery. Your vote is incorrect! " Big red check mark by the teacher. What kind of future would that have prepared them for? It was more important they FELT what they could do if the power to choose were in their hands. As for historical factoids, they can read about the sorry history of bad compromises, official mistakes and policies based on greed in the textbook because, after all, that's all history is -- a chronicle of actions, not an instruction book. This day, it was important to let them know, as Maya Angelou says in her poem for Clinton's inaugaral, "Good Morning!"

Lift up your eyes upon this day breaking for you
Give birth again to the dream.
Women, Children, Men
Take it into the palms of your hand.
Mold it into the shape of your most private need.
Sculpt it into the image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings.

This brings us to the Presidential election of 2008, after eight years of the disasterous Bush administration which leaves his country embroiled in an illegal war, his people's Constitutional rights diminished, on the brink of a recession even a global depression, high unemployment, huge budget deficit of trillions which our heirs are going to have to pay. The Presidential candidates for 2008 are like characters in a parable. One, intelligent, coolheaded, one could say dignified, speaking about a change from eight years of disaster, the other, a part of the failed Bush team, waging a campaign on personality, openly and clumsily racist, and somewhat confused. One African from Mother Africa, the other white, rich and a soldier of the Vietnam war who hates Gooks and always will (his words).

Whom will America elect to be their President after the devastation of the Bush years -- a devastation so broad it is apparent even to the party faithfuls? Will they choose Barak Obama, African American, intelligent, cool headed, whose presidential run is clearly a response to America's yearning or will they choose John McCain, who supported the Bush administration’s failed policies 95 % of the time, who has waged a campaign of personality rather than answer questions which weigh heavy on each American’s mind. Whom will America choose?

My two cents is this. If John McCain and Sarah Palin win the presidency, we are in for a hard time. Four more years of the Bush Cheney program can mean the demise of this empire we call home. A McCain victory during a time of such pessimism toward his party and its president means only one thing for me. A "more of the same McCain" victory over the Obama phenomena points to racialized thinking, a legacy of 300 years of slavery and segregation. Four more years with McCain and its disasterous results will be our big bachi for slavery. Or maybe the youth will make a difference. I have witnessed it. And their influence was so strong it remains with me today.

We will reap what has been sown unless we think as my eighth grade students did -- unfettered by a history text book -- and taking action in response to the dire needs (moral needs) of the present for sake of our future. I pray we have the will to lift our heads up and mold and sculpt our own piece of history. As Maya Angelou, elder and poet says, Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings.

Back to the Longhouse, 2008

This weekend was Homecoming at the University of Oregon. My friend Marcy was asked to organize a Homecoming weekend for the NASU alumni. The club had a long history, beginning in Fenton Hall. BSU and the Chicano students also began clubs during that time in the early 60's. NASU's proud history also includes organizing the first Longhouse on a college campus. James Florendo traveled to an early NAIA conference bringing home hundreds of signatures of Native students all over the country supporting NASU's endeavor. I joined with others to show that NASU had alliances, but this was before there was an Asian American organization on campus. All of this was part of my education -- one how to make a vision a reality, but also, how visions such as these grew beyond what one could ever imagine.

When I came to campus, I was Japanese American sansei, part of my generation's anti war movement, and alone. Far from my Idaho family and the Japanese American community and the familiarity of a small town in Idaho, I felt very isolated in this college town. Every time I saw black hair, I would do a double take looking for familiarity.

On campus, the concept of differing world view was introduced to me. It was a giant shift for me. My self concept of treasured weirdness was replaced by something which felt to be much truer I learned that being the only Japanese American family in small town Caldwell, Idaho, did not make me weird; I learned that I gew up with a cultural set and more importantly that my white classmates also grew up with their own cultural set. One was no weirder than the other and both were acquired at such a subconscious level, we never questioned it or looked at culture critically. We lacked the perspective to analyze it and get beyond my feeling weird or their feeling normal. You can imagine the powerful tool knowing about world view was for me.

During this time, a friend I met in class invited me to a pow wow sponsored by a Title program and for the first time in Eugene, I truly exhaled. Listening to the drums, watching a circle of traditional people of all ages, elders and children, dancing to old songs touched that part of my heart which hurt and I felt better. I would go even by myself the following years, sitting alone but not feeling alone. It felt good to watch the little ones grow up; I especially remember girl twins I later learned were Les and Bonnie Houck's girls. What I had missed so much in Eugene were the elders, the children, and the feeling of watching children grow up.

In the university daily I read about a class "Asian American Experience" by John Beckwith. I couldn't wait to meet the Asian people of Eugene! We all signed up. Half of us were young students. Half of us were older, community members. I was in between -- a teacher returning to earn a graduate degree. Two groups were organized in that class -- the AASU, a student organization now called APASU and still remains on campus, and the Asian American Community Group which included older students, and community people. I belonged to both. We were very busy. The two groups worked together. We supported the events organized by the student group. And we fed them and sponsored outings and other events which brought them a little bit of home. The community group remains morphing into other groups along the way -- Asians Together, and now PanAsian Community Alliance, a community group focused on justice.

It was only a matter of time, as it always is in Eugene, that the Asian American student group became closely allied with the other student union groups, a natural evolution in Eugene for people of color. My friend Debbie Osato dubbed our city with a new name -- Hakujin, Oregon. Hakujin is the term for white people. To get anything done, you worked together. And in working together, so much experience and wisdom came our way. As the experience came our way -- it is called diversity nowadays -- my world transformed to what it is now. It is such good work to work together.

Back then, we worked together to bring our stories, ancestors, poets, philosphers into the university classes. We designed our own classes. We wrote the books if there was none. We found monies set aside for students of color buried in remediation programs and designed a new program which had our college success as the goal. The Council for Minority Education was built on a Native American model, because the mentors of the movement were most Native, and the way things were done was by concensus, in a circle, with respect for every person. We supported one another's events. The Asian American Student Union and Native American Student Union did a lot together. For the pow wows, we volunteered to fix the sandwiches and lemonade for the visiting drums. Oftentimes, we would help with the housing. When we did our spring conference, the NASU students helped us get things ready, and came to all the parties to make it a good time, as did MEChA and the BSU students. These Asian American presenters and musicians from Seattle to LA and NY were always impressed by the Eugene welcome and do not remember this as a Hakujin town at all but as a town of a beautiful mix of hosts and friends. A lot of the planning work was done at the Longhouse.

So, this weekend was homecoming. And I'm still in Eugene. It must puzzle some people why this Asian person is at the Longhouse for homecoming. But it would be even more puzzling and awkward if I didn't go because my friends are like family coming back for homecoming . We shared the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and even if much that we built has systematically been torn down by this President, we've also shaped a family and became our childrens' uncles and aunties, been through thick and thin, kids grown up and having kids. We have also gone all over this country and through our work and involvement in community wherever we landed, we continued the vision we picked up at the University of Oregon, together, transforming our own world.

The Longhouse, without exaggeration, was our college experience. It was the part of the university which welcomed us, which supported us, which included us, which nurtured us. A tiny WWII building, a hall and a small kitchen was our memorable campus experience. We could be sure to have a place to meet even if we were the Asian American union if we needed a place a bigger than the small sliver that the university provided us, right up against the bowling alley. Why do Asians so often get stuck right by a bowling alley? On Wednesdays, college students of all backgrounds knew there was a place they could go for homecooked meals at the Longhouse potluck. If we needed to study with a group, we could go to the Longhouse. All of us began to model our world after the Longhouse experience.

The boundaries of the Longhouse had nothing to do with the roads encircling this campus. They Longhhouse was connected to all the reservations, Indian people everywhere. One of my closest friends and someone I refer to as my younger brother, Roger Amerman, Choctow, although he was 12 years younger than I was like a teacher to me. Through him I learned how important it was for the student to go to the reservations and ask personally for support, and the support would be there such a deep and powerful way. I learned what happens to a small space (campus) when these elders and spiritual leaders, and tribal leaders came on campus to support the students and talked to them reminding them of the richness of responsibility they are inheriting as tribal college graduates. Indian Country, I learned, will never be for me again the small dots of land across this country, but will always be the heritage, promise and possibility of this whole continent. As immigrants we could have accepted our part in this heritage. Those who came as colonizers stamping their mark on this land missed it. The legacy of colonization, slavery, and point of view of overdevelopment and excess have become a destructive force. At the Longhouse, we all from many backgrounds were able to learn enough of the responsibilities we carry as descendents of immigrants. So to Roger Amerman, the Longhouse -- a new structure which is called The Many Nations Longhouse -- and NASU alums, thank you. To Rudy, first Native American recruited to play UO football who traveled so far and shared his heartfelt words, thank you. To all who shared the stories -- Bob Tom, Stuart Whitehead, Roger, Tom Ball, Wilma Crowe, thank you. To the hosts, NASU students, vice provost Tom Ball and Marcy who spearheaded this, to the new Alumni Association steering committee which includes Frank, Twila, Rudy, Roger, Colette and Marcy, with Alicia and me, thank you. I guess it's not a surprise that this is the first homecoming I've attended since graduating from the UO and that, in fact, it is the first I was invited to. The Longhouse, small though the old building may have been, was the whole campus for a multicultural community of students. That's not a small thing either. We look back, all of us, to the UO days -- or Longhouse days -- as a giant experience. We remember it as happy times where much good work came from our being together. That certainly is a lesson to me that it isn't magnificent buildings, the attention of powerful administration, being part of the right clubs that make the experience worthy. The humble sweeps away the grands everytime.

I will post the address to access the pictures Marcy's husband Dean took during the reunion on the blog. Thank you, Dean! BTW, the Ducks won!

A Call to Action

Caleen Sisk Franco, who is Chief of the Winnemem Wintu, and her husband Mark Franco, Headman, just returned from Washington DC. They spent a week ore more meeting with Senators on the Hill advocating for restoration of the tribe. During August the California legislature had successfully pushed forward a state restoration of the tribe. Politicians and lawmakers have always dealt with the Winnemem as a tribe, but when in the ‘80’s the Winnemem were dropped from the “list of recognized tribe” without warning, (they were told it was a “clerical error”) government did not remedy the mistake.

The next step for federal recognition lies in the hands of the Senate. Senators Barb Boxer and Diane Feinstein are being asked to sponsor the Winnemem Wintu Restoration Bill. We need everyone’s help. If you are reading this blog, please help the Winnemem get justice and their due attention as a sovereign tribe.

The Winnemem have been told that although they are a small tribe, that if they tell their story, the good people of the world will listen and help them. Caleen Sisk Franco's young son,
Michael Preston, has issued a Call to Action for allies and tribal members of the Winnemem Wintu.

Please write your senators as well as the California Senators, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein or call them urging the California senators to sponsor the legislation (and other senators to co-sponsor or support the legislation):

Senator____________:
We urge you (to sponsor) (to co-sponsor or support) the legislation for federal recognition of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe of Northern California. We ask for your leadership to bring justice to this traditional, non-gaming Tribe that has been subjected to more than 100 years of injustice.

The Winnemem were omitted from the list of federally recognized Tribes in the 1980's. The Winnemem received benefits from the federal government prior to this omission, such as housing and educational assistance. The abrupt cessation of benefits ended access to local Indian Health Service care, housing assistance, and the ability of tribal members to apply for Higher Education Grant funds they had only years before used to pursue college degrees. Please let them know that their assistance with this restoration effort will allow these benefits to come back to the Winnemem and right this egregious wrong.

We need everyone’s help. We especially need letters to come from tribes, so if you are tribal, please let that be known. Many tribal people may not know that in California, 90 percent of the tribes were not recognized. And of the 10 percent, only six percent are HISTORICAL recognized tribe. The Winnemem and all the other historical unrecognized tribes are not people who were torn from their way at a young age and are seeking their identity. The Winnemem have never stopped doing what they were put on this earth to do. They take care of their sacred sites, active sacred sites. They retain the ceremonies, songs, medicines and way of life. They stubbornly continue on despite non-recognition, and snubs by government agencies, Bureau of Reclamation, corporations. Many of their children are home schooled for much of their school age life, and they all take their part in ceremonies, training to carry on their sacred duty to care for the land. The Winnemem are not a gaming tribe. They carry a full load by keeping their way of life going. Please help the Winnemem Tribe, small as their numbers may be, they are a strong and tenacious people; help them to regain their tribal status by contacting your senators.

WW/ Praying for the World

If a natural disaster is averted there just might be a traditional Indian praying for the world. That is what I’ve learned.

Grandma called me once to say I needed to get down to the ranch to help pray. She told my husband to start up the Sacred Fire in back of our home and keep it going. I drove down as soon as I could. She had assembled a small group together. My friend from Oklahoma was there. We quickly went into the Prayer House around the Sacred Fire and prayed.

Grandma said that there was a beautiful plain under the ocean on the east side that the Ocean really loved, and it had finally died because of all the human being had put into the Ocean. The Oceans were sad. The Oceans were angry. And the anger reverberated from one Ocean to another around the world. Already lives had been lost. I remembered the ferryboat full of passengers that had recently sunk in the Atlantic. Grandma said that there was a big tidal wave headed to the coast up by where we lived in Oregon and she was going to pray to ask the Oceans to calm down and not to take anymore lives.

We prayed all night. Grandma would talk to the Great Mt. Shasta and the Creator. She listened. And so it went back and forth to the oceans, back and forth Grandma. Grandma prayed for the human being, prayed that no more lives would be lost, prayed to hold back that time of destruction.

Finally, Grandma said that everything was going to be all right. I don’t remember everything that was said. I don’t really need to. I know enough to realize that it is the prayers and ceremonies of the indigenous traditional people all over the world -- who know these lands from ancient times and keep the old ways going -- that is holding the Whole Thing together.

All over the world, traditional people all pray for the earth, for all beings and for all human beings. The spiritual people sacrifice, they suffer to make prayers strong, interceding over and over again for all of us. The prayers are not just for themselves, their lands or their people only. It is a mistake to trivialize the Worldwide significance of indigenous sacred ways of life because theirs is not a world religion spreading outward but a earth based way of life with a personal tie to one place. These traditional ways may be the very ways which personally benefit each of us. I often think, if the old ways die, who will pray for the world in the earth’s language?

The next day, I traveled back home. A few days later I read in the Register Guard, our local newspaper, that the Japanese meteorologists had warned us of a tidal wave hitting the Oregon coast. A lot of curiosity seekers had shown up to see it. I am mind boggled why tidal waves are a tourist attraction. The short article, as I remember it, took it lightly and reported it was a big mistake of the Japanese scientists and the disappointed onlookers just went home. The tidal wave did not happen.

WW/ The Sacred Spring on Mt. Shasta

Luisa told me that our precious Sacred Spring on Mt. Shasta is beginning to dry up again this year as it did last year. Last year when we got the news, we were devastated, and we all drove up to meet at the Mountain. As prepared as we were, it was still shocking to view the devastation. The meadow was dead, everything brown, and the small hollow where the spring has always bubbled up from the earth was cracked and dry. The sacred spring of Mt. Shasta has been here from the very beginning of time. That is where the Winnemem came from, and when they die, that is the way they pass through. Joining us was filmmaker Toby McLeod and his guests from Alti by Mongolia. The Altians included a holy man, a throat singer, also said prayers and sang for the spring. Each of us prayed tearfully, and tried not to grieve, tried to have faith our precious spring would come back.

When Luisa told me that it was happening again, I am just as devastated but I admit feeling numb when she told me. We were at a funeral of a precious tribal elder. Our leaders had stayed up days and nights ministering to her through her last illness and then during the wake. Everyone was very worn out. Mark Miyoshi and Luisa intimately know the spring. They live near the Mountain, and tirelessly keep watch over the mountain and the sacred spring. It’s interesting that years before when I first met Grandma and she doctored me, I had that brief glimpse of Mark’s face smiling over Mt. Shasta. It is interesting because he and his wife Luisa’s responsibility today is to “watch over” the Sacred Mountain. Luisa felt sorry for me that I was not able to visit the spring one more time when I had driven up and back the week before to take my shift with our elder. And now, it was too late.

On our long trip back to Oregon, I began to think about the spring again.

I remembered that when I first started going to Grandma’s ceremonies at Mt. Shasta, we would always visit the sacred spring and pray there. The spring bubbled up out of the ground in a quiet meadow on Mt. Shasta. The meadow was filled with bright wild flowers, and from there we could see the purple mountain range on one side, and on the other, the peak of our sacred mountain with its snow packs jutting up into the sky.

On one of our visits, Grandma Florence looked up and down the line of us standing along the spring, her eyes sharp. “Someone here has seen something.” she said. Grandma said they were to tell her what they saw. A young Potowatami woman who had traveled from Kansas to the ceremony started crying and saying that she saw something. She saw the spring as it was once. The meadow was full of flowers, flowers she hadn’t seen before. There were so many spirits of the spring and the spring was happy. The animals would come to the spring. The deer would dip their noses into the spring to take a drink, just barely touching it. The spring said that is how it is supposed to be treated. Everyone is supposed to be like the deer and not interfere with the sand, just dip into the water if they need the water.

Then the woman said she saw other things. She saw people coming to the spring, putting their dogs in the spring right where the water was coming up, damming it up and putting their children in it to splash around, digging into the sand. People were putting all kinds of things into the spring. People dying with diseases were put in the spring to soak. As all of this was happening the spirits were going back farther and farther into the rocks. And when the spirits finally all left, the meadow turned brown and everything died, and the earth died too. That story stayed with me. That far off day described by the woman is here now. What have we done to this precious Mother.

As my husband and I drove farther north past Weed, with one more look at our Mountain, I felt anger at those who had physical authority over our sacred spring. This civilization still acted like brutish encroachers, detached from the earth. They have never found their "way home" on this land, forever rootless. I was reminded of Columbus with his sword and banner stuck into the Arawak shores laying claim before the destruction. The visitors to the Winnemem’s sacred spring on Mt. Shasta, the ones who leave their debris in the spring, their crystals, their plastic tiki gods, even those who dump the cremated remains of their own into the spring are just as arrogant and confused.

Again, it had been Luisa a couple of years ago who scooped a handful of sand from the spring a little below the headwaters to examine something unusual which had caught her eye. Could it be possible? She asked me what I saw and I looked closely. Among the gravel were white chips that looked like small pieces of bone. Both of us could hardly utter what we suspected. Such desecration seemed so unlikely. It was reported to the Forest Service and on their examination, our fears were verified. These encroachers so separated from the earth and tradition, create their own sad rituals using their own dead, throwing them into a fresh water source. Some sprinkled a pattern of a peace symbol with their loved ones ashes and the forest ranger’s uneducated guess is that it’s a Shinto shrine. Ridiculous. Chaotic rituals like that do not come through the ages. It seems that these with authority are no less confused than the encroachers. How simple it would be to levy a hefty fine for desecration. How simple would it be, under the circumstances, to make the spring inaccessible. How simple would it have been not to advertise the sacredness of the little spring like carnival hawkers exhibiting exotica.

The heavy responsibility to clean the trash from the spring, to remove the cremated remains was given to the Winnemem, as the traditional caretakers of the sacred spring. There is no ritual from the ancestors to take care of this kind of "over the line" desecration. Caleen had to spend a lot of time in contemplation at the Sacred Fire for spiritual direction how to take care of what had been done to the spring, and how to protect her people designated to do the defiling work of cleaning out remains for these times.

The Winnemem worked for weeks unearthing layers and layers of trash. They worked hard to gather the layers of cremation ashes and dispose of respectfully. How easy it would have been just to get rid of all of it quickly. I felt awe for the tribe’s heartfelt pity for the confused and chaotic encroachers and their dead. The Winnemem formed a new wider bowl for the spring to discourage damming. The Forest Service built a path that would detour around the desecrated spring and we had to obliterate the first path.

Still, people continue to come to the spring with more of their pathetic offerings and cremation ashes. These encroachers, having no memory of their own ancestral sacred sites, no historical memory of what to do at a sacred site, no common sense of how to take care of sacred sites in general, like Columbus before them, leave a huge imprint of their chaos and confusion everywhere they step, particularly if the place should inspire reverence and gratefulness.

Then there are the corporations. In the past, the Mountain has shaken off the attempts to develop the sacred meadow into a ski resort. Today, Nestle seeks a bigger foothold on our Sacred Mountain for their water bottling company. At first, they attempted to forego any environmental impact study. I had heard of Nestle’s mistakes in other areas, drilling into the volcanic shelf that held the water, an error that caused the water to disappear forever. The townspeople are left with the damage while the company simply moves to another spring.

We are boycotting Arrowhead bottled water and any other Nestle brand. Beyond that, we don’t buy bottled water. We carry our own water in stainless steel containers. If in an emergency I need to buy water, I buy purified water. Spring water, pure water is endangered. The bottles themselves are not safe. The concept is wasteful. And the industry encourages greed. Someplace, someone can’t wait for the day there is only one drop of water left so they could sell it for big money.

We don’t know why our spring is drying up. Is it over use of the mountain’s water by Nestles and the Forest Service for their campgrounds? Are there secret geo thermal drilling operations going on on the Mountain? Is it the desecration? Is it because fewer and fewer people pray for the water, sing for the spring?

The people officially “in charge” of the spring come from a society which has become used to a disposable environment. Nothing in policy honors historical traditional stewardship of the land, a relationship with the land. Because policy does not look to those who have historical relationship and traditional ways that have been successful for eons, we are losing our most treasured parts of nature.

For the Winnemem tribe, we are not in the first days of environmental crisis. We are looking, within our own short lifetime, at the last days, and in these times we must stand and act with our lives to protect what remains.

Postscript: Today, venting my anger has left me with a question. Part of me wonders, what would I have done at the spring if I had not learned from the Winnemem? I would hope that I would not have left things or taken things from the place as my issei grandfather always taught us. I know that we have strict taboos that our loved one's remains are to be interred in a gravesite; grandpa was Shinto. I hope I wouldn't have gone in out of curiosity. But I wonder. Would I have? and would I have known that the spring wants us to treat them as the deer do? Those questions left in my mind made me ashamed of my anger and I will try to put my anger aside, my judgementalism. Would I have known what to do? Or would I have bumbled and been another encroacher?

I have learned in the past twenty years by attending the ceremonies and being part of the village things I did not know before. I have learned that there are special songs the Winnemem have sung from the beginning of time, a song which the spring understands. It makes the spring so happy when the Winnemem gather and sing because it knows that the people are still following the old way. I have been blessed to have witnessed the spring happy.

I have learned that nothing is to be left with the spring except for heartfelt prayer for the sacred spring, it's people and the way of life which takes care of it. That is the greatest gift anyone can leave. I have learned to go downstream for water so I do not interfere with the spring as it bubbles out and to walk carefully not to disturb the plants which grow there. I will try to balance my harsh anger with the knowledge that without being taught I cannot be absolutely sure what I would have done, and it was my luck to follow Winnemem which made all the difference.