Negotiating Ceremony with the USFS, 2013

 You all know what happened during our young women's Coming of Age in 2012 when the USFS law enforcement decided to attack our ceremony rather than protect it as they were assigned when Randy Moore granted us a Mandatory Closure.  I guess after the mess, and after the the citations against Chief Caleen Sisk costing 10,000 dollars or a year in the federal prison were dropped in October, Randy Moore wants it to go well this year as does Tom Tidwell the Chief of the Forest Service in Washington DC.  Or so we have been told by the Region 5 Tribal Liaison.   Thanks to all the supporters who wrote, emailed and weighed in with their outrage that this attack by federal officials could be happening in a country which guarantees the inalienable right to ceremony and religion and recently became the last nation in the world to finally sign on to the UN DRIP.  Well, we're at it again for the Coming of Age Ceremony for Alicia Schofield who just turned 16 this year, a beautiful Winnemem Potowatami woman who is part of a family of dancers, Thundering Moccasins Dance Troupe.  Her Ceremony will be July 20 - 23.  The tribe wanted to work this out back in November so we could guarantee a better working relation ship for the next ceremony and for all those following.  However, Randy Moore has never talked with us.  In May, we finally met with the Tribal Liaison, a likeable Karuk man who seems to want to make this happen but admittedly does not have authority.  Here is how it is unfolding at this point.  He is still trying to get the US Forest Service to understand that the ceremony must have campground and river closed to outsiders and the tribe pay no fee.  I know the closure is obvious to those who are not indigenous, but why the tribe has a problem with paying a fee problem may not be so understandable in a society based on money.  So that is the subject of the blog.

 While the Chief is in Altai, in Russia, we received an email from the Forest Service Tribal Liaison raising the issue once again about fees, impending deadlines set by the concessionaire and Forest Service for turning in the Special Use Permit and Reserving Pine Point Campground.  Fees and deadlines seem to be such important values to the Forest Service, and always, they impose it at will.  They may dawdle months of time away responding to our request for a meeting, they may never make the time to meet with tribe, but they are very serious about their deadlines once they become involved and very much set on determining the issue of fees.  This year they have strict regulations they cannot talk business with the Concessionaire who has set the cost of services dealing with toilet and trash at $990 which they've done for $250 each year for McCloud Campground.  Also the Concessionaire is demanding we reserve Pine Point Campground, and the Forest Service timing of paying for anything is after the event, and they cannot promise they will pay the Concessionare for Pine Point.  The Forest Service, however, is pushing us to reserve a campground we are prevented by tradition to pay fees for usage.  Their rules and protocols are complicating the sanctity of the ceremony which have been clearly explained to them -- and yet they continue to push.  Reserve the campground.  Take a risk on paying the fee or suffering a penalty if you will not.  Criminalizing Ceremony.

I responded to that email:

I've communicated with our lawyer the things discussed with the Chief at the meeting with you and let her know you will be calling Thursday to work out the Special Use Permit.  I understand your concern regarding the timing of reserving Pine Point, and your concern that the  permit be submitted quickly despite the ambiguity around campground fee payment on the Forest Service side and the problems created by working of the old special permit rather than the special permit we finally negotiated with the Forest Service last summer.  We cannot move forward without the progress being noted in the document. 

Regarding the special use permit, Lauren is aware that the Chief shared with you already that she has concerns that we are staring once again with the language which still criminalizes the ceremony.  I've assured the lawyer that you  are looking for a copy of the negotiated permit and will be working from that.  Added to that, the permit designed for "timber sales" which Penny sent along to give to us as a way to address gathering materials is totally inappropriate for our needs and will definitely prove problematic, criminalizing our ceremony.    I've asked the lawyer to give special attention to the language and section which allowed the LEO's to give the Chief that second citation which doubled the citation.  All in all, the permit as it has been worked by you and Penny still criminalizes ceremony.

Regarding McCloud Campground cost for trash pick-up and toilets and the raise from $250 for those services to $990, it's all in the way you look at it.  It looks like, as you pointed out, the Concessionaire is trying to get a percentage of the campground usage fee covered rather than for services for removing trash and sanitation. We can't pay fees.   It's not about how much it costs.  It's a traditional "rule" -- that there is no exchange of money of any amount, no bartering of any kind as part of ceremony.  It is that way all over Indian Country.  For example, in Eugene, people try to have a fundraiser at the Longhouse, and the answer is no.  They try to bring in bingo.  Someone admires earrings and wants to buy it.  No, no. And it is the leader's or steward's responsibility to hold that.

Regarding Pine Point -- we cannot reserve online then be stuck with a campground usage fee there either.   It is a human rights issue.  As you know, the tribe's human right to ceremony should not be withheld, despite the "unrecognized tribe label"  slapped on 90 percent of the California tribes.  Federal government may and do withhold services and grants based on that label.  But can they withhold freedom of religion?  Only if they want the world to judge the federal recognition policy as a human rights violation and bring to question the whole concept.   The human right to ceremony and religion is an inalienable right.  Our ceremonial rights as a tribe, though we may not be recognized by the federal government,  are the same rights as all the rights won by indigenous people in the US Constitution and on the world stage (UN DRIP).  Particularly because  President Obama finally signed it, it behooves tribes of this country to "make it real," to actualize it even though the President's staff minimalize  his signing it as merely "aspirational."  President Obama claims he intends to show his sincerity as Commander in Chief "by action."  If that means he's only got the Winnemem Tribe in his corner, then we need to uphold the rights of indigenous people in that document.   Our Chief sitting on the Permanent Forum has told us first hand that there is no discrimination of federal recognition in the document.   

So that brings us to these camp fees -- the one for Pine Point and the percentage for the McCloud.  Every tribe knows that fees are regulatory impositions which compromise the sanctity or distorts the sanctity of ceremony,  Even though we are one tribe, what we do impacts all tribes, either  by reducing or by emphasizing the basic human right to ceremony.  So the Winnemem and our Chief take that very seriously, being a ceremonial tribe, and a tribe which may not have much materially but at least we have our ceremonies and relationships with the sacred places.   She's being very thoughtful of what we do, even with imposed deadlines.  So we're not pushing her.  Yes, the unknown factors may cause us to worry but we need to wait for Chief Sisk's direction because it is informed by her ancestors.

I take this time to address this to you -- who have already heard it -- as well as to our lawyer who is cc'd in with this email.  Last year, the Chief made some compromises which, in the end, compromised our right to ceremony and compromised her peace of mind and safety.  This year the tribe learned a lot and is absolutely clear that we need to follow the Chief.  She has proven over the years, including last year, that no one knows more than she how to navigate extermination policies.

Chief Sisk has been taught by her ancestors and former Chiefs that paying a fee changes things.  She has been taught through her whole life that ceremony IS the exchange, the "payment" in crass terms, in our relationship with the sacred.  Our obligations are more than the dance, the singing, the teaching, the praying, but it is also all we do to prepare for it.  Paying a fee is not something we should take lightly.     The lawyer and I  are not in the position to make that call.  What may seem sensible to descendants of immigrants and settlers, as we saw last year, may not be good for the history of indigenous human rights.  The laws treat us descendants differently than the laws treat Indian people.  As a follower of the Winnemem way for almost 30 years, I would absolutely not second guess spiritual guidance, tens of thousands years of tradition, an unbroken line of leadership and a tribe which has survived a gamut of extermination policies and still do.    Listening and learning takes a lot of patience, and over the years, I'm growing patience.  So I'm saying we just give our worry about  deadlines and such to the Creator.    The Chief is taking the time to really think about it, and will let us know what it is that we must do about this year's roadblocks.

Thank you,  Misa

THAT DAY, WITHIN A SHORT TIME THE CHIEF FIRES OF AN EMAIL TO US:
Hi, I am in Altai.  They don't have to pay the Russian Government to hold their Fire Ceremony on their lands. 

The good conditions that were achieved last year by permit and costs the FS paid, which were few, needs to continue now.  I don't understand how the Forest Service can say it can't, when last year,  they did.  This included the fees to the concessionaire.  We will not pay for use of our sacred grounds.  The Forest Service is the ultimate manager of our land without our consent.  It is our right to use our lands to promote our distinctive cultural way of life.   Chief Caleen Sisk

Well, I would say that the Chief did ot need much time at all to let the US Forest Service know what she said, and that she meant it and what path we are taking.  The supporters know it.  Our lawyer knows it.  Her communicators with the Forest Service know it.  This year it is one voice, one unified tribe.

I am learning that the issues which arise around  holding ceremony on sacred land occupied by the US Forest Service means struggle.  We must struggle for our rights despite documents which clearly outline that our ceremonies are not to be imposed upon by regulations and rules by the US Forest Service.  Yes, the fact that the federal government does not give 'federal recognition' to so many of the California Tribes who sit on water since Reagan's years-- you know, the President which made corporations entities much like a human being with human rights -- makes it even more difficult.  But it is more than that.  The challenge includes water districts acting like corporations who buy pieces of rivers around the world, also buying the piece on the McCloud which include our sacred lands for many ceremonies, and medicine places.  It includes a Forest Service which is organized in a manner that no one can tell the most poorly trained and the most racist of their law enforcement to abide by their assignment -- to protect our ceremony by enforcing a mandatory closure -- and when they "go rogue" they are still paid overtime for insubordination of their assignment interfering with ceremony and harassing the tribe with no disciplinary action.  In fact,  the leader of the military action against the ceremony can hang our river closure banner which he confiscated from us on the wall of his office -- something that definitely should be considered unprofessional.   Or, was Chad "going rogue."  Did Chad receive orders to attack our ceremony from someone in the Forest Service or in other places with personal interests to terminate  Winnemem presence on the McCloud River, whomever that might be.    

But with crisis and challenge is opportunity.  For us, it is meeting and standing shoulder to shoulder with the good people of the world who come to support us because they care about human rights, they care about sacred lands, they care about the salmon, and young women's coming of age ceremonies.

WHAT NEXT?  The question, "Will the US Forest Service impose upon our ceremonies a rule refsing to allow us to use our motorized boat to transport elder women to the other side to do ceremony?"

As we negotiate with these departments for the right to do our ceremony on occupied land, it always comes down to their deadline and their fees.  When it is an issue of human rights, we can't compromise.  We cannot do anything which leads to compromising our ceremony so much that it changes it -- or mincing away from doing what we need to do because conducting ceremony with sanctity criminalizes us.  So we have to be clear.  As I told our lawyer, it's like a contiuum from Federal Law to Spiritual Law.  We went along with Federal Law as far as we can go.  Now they have stonewalled, and hemmed and hawed, and now we have gone as far as we can with their law without compromising sanctity.  Now we are in the realm of Spiritual Law, and we have to abandon ourselves to the spiritual.  I believe because of H'up Chonos ceremony, the Sacred Fire, the prayers and song, that something good we can't guess is going to happen.  It's in Creator's hands.  We have the support of the old Chiefs and the Spirit of those Active Sacred Places, and we can now witness something which strengthens our faith.  Remember War Dance at the dam?  Because of that ceremony we found out salmon were alive and flourishing in New Zealand.  This is where you find out how it is to work with traditional tribes and the US government.   At some point, if law abandons us, we have no alternative except to do what the ancestors would do.   And I say O Hau to that!!

I foresee a time when things are so different that not only are their war dancers and prayers at a women's coming of age, but that there will be Indigenous Supporters from south, west and north in order for us to have our human right to ceremony -- the river keepers from the west; the American Indian Movement security from the south; and from the north the great canoes to ferry the elders across with their songs echoing down the river, their paddles cutting through the water, their great dugouts gliding across the river.  As the Chief said, "when those great canoes touch this river, something good is going to happen." 

Celilo Falls

 The childhood memory of seeing The Falls lies in my heart as I stand with the Winnemem Wintu on our river, the Winnemem River, pristine and beautiful above Shasta Lake Dam, flowing from streams from Mt. Shasta.  Westlands Water District which is like a global corporation mining and buying up portions of river, also stole from under us and Nature Conservatory a part of our river.  Now our ceremonies along the river at these sites, necessary to continue to keep the sites and are way of life intact,  are attacked by US Forest Service Law Enforcement and our sacred healing sites which help the people and the habitat for our Chinook Salmon are threatened by the same destruction suffered by the Wasco People of Celilo Falls.

The Precious Blessing Rock for young men and the Precious Puberty Rock for young women

How do we carry on without these?  Westlands wants to pay for a dam raise which will make them disappear and lie dormant forever.  They don't care about our people.  We must challenge that crazy plan for the strong Winnemem young men and young women following us:

Edison's Story "Return of the Raven"

Easter Thoughts

These were my thoughts on Easter Weekend.
We are at the McCloud River.  The Children's Rock stands out along the grassy banks of the river.  We walk down the steep incline from the parking lot.  The boys have hidden the eggs while we all ate breakfast, and we women and children follow, the young ones scampering down the hill to find their eggs.  There is not ready set go the Winnemem way.  It's just "GO!"

Our daughter Maki grew up with this around her birthday every year she lived with us.  Sometimes Easter would happen on her birthday.  No grander party, in my opinion, than to be with all her cousins and Granny, Uncle Emerson and Auntie Margie.  Not only was there an Easter Egg Hunt, but a delicious lunch and a run.  Maki loved to win!

I don't write these thought this morning, the day after Easter, to offend anyone.  It's something I wanted to write down for awhile, a journey I personally took, and which led me out and at the same time come round where I ought to be.   It is a story of Christianity and America.

Most Japanese families, Nikkei families, use the term American to mean white Americans.  I suppose that mirrors a certain group of white Americans, those who see only Europeans as Americans and everyone else forever foreign, including the First Peoples of this land, never belonging, not the norm, the "other."  Some would say that this view of American we held is the colonized mind.

Part of living in America and adopting the American way was to adopt Christianity.  Grandma was Zen-shu with her solitary time in the bedroom, meditating.  Grandpa was Shinto, and Shizen was his path of life.  He practiced it every day as far as I witnessed and his followers were his two granddaughters.  He taught us the names of all the living beings.  He taught us that even a small bug or little worm was filled with life just as we were and if we left it alone we could live side by side.  He taught us not to fear nature, not to kill anything.  He taught us the names of the trees, the animals.  He told us about ancient stones in the mountain forest near his village which were sacred, and could help people if they prayed there and left an offering behind.  He taught us about the river which was the name of the village.  Kawai, his name, meant where two rivers meet.  These stories made our foundation.

When I started school at 5, my mother took my sister and I to Christian church -- the First Methodist Church in Caldwell Idaho, a bigger town near where we lived in Marsing by the Snake on our first family farm since the Alien Land Law was lifted.  It was a stressful year, school, then church, with all these American teachers and children staring.  I always felt very unsafe but gritted my teeth to make it through.  Japanese was my first language and I was born right after the war.  Timid, shy, small, I was still 'the enemy.'  An oddity at best.  Where my little sister was in Nursery where there were toys, and focused on the play at hand, I was in Primary and intimidated by the expectation to socialize and burst into tears, my tongue locked down by language.  At school if I spoke Japanese, I was put in the coat closet so how different would it be here, was my thinking.

Going to school and church turned me into an avid Christian and year after year I would describe myself as being emotionally tied to Jesus and the stories of the Bible, reading a comic book style telling of it given to us over and over and over again.  Whenever I felt scared, there was grandma, grandpa, momma, and also Jesus.    I was a little girl of faith, a praying little girl.

In high school while my friends matured into a more abstract understanding of the Holy Trinity,  Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I continued my child's faith in the goodness of Jesus and a grandfatherly, perhaps like my grandfather, God.  Holy Ghost was not really part of my understanding, and I remember my girlfriends laughing and saying, do you think there are really pearly gates too?  No, but there was a place in my mind, a place of light and lots of ancestors.

All of this came crashing down with the rest of my beliefs during the long and drawn out war in Viet Nam.  Really, there is no way to understand how it is to be young at that time to anyone who was not.  For those who lived through it as parents, they do have their own experience, but to be young in the decade of 1963 - 1975, especially 1965 on, the time of the most men drafted and the least trained and the most casualties, had a huge impact on all of us, men and women, whether we were drafted or not, whether we served or left, or dropped out.  I won't go into it, but in my experience it was time of a great crisis of faith, of no praying, of giving up, believing we were not going to survive this.  I remember going to the Methodist Church one dark time, after hours, and somehow, though I should have known, being surprised that the door was locked.  That locked door took on a huge significance for me in the context of the times.

Loss of faith and a national cultural shift to "questioning values" and searching the libraries, and taking classes of new perspectives we quenched a hunger for something right, something just, to make sense of the chaos, turning to Latin American, Africa, Asia, Caribbean, and from First Nations, as well as from the poets, philosophers and political people of the American working class, exploited labor, immigrants, and for many of us who did not see ourselves as the "norm" of Americans, to our own family stories.  The doors to these were open, as were the circles of youth studying together, and the circles of our peoples, multi-generational with "talk story", and sharing, always sharing across the cultural divide, young people growing together into the beautiful mix of America, claiming ourselves -- called pride -- claiming America -- called responsibility.  But that too is another story.  And it is a longer story in which a little girl from Korea taught me that faith in ourselves would never be enough, not only to get justice, but also to do anything in this world.

Along this path, there was a time to meet Jesus again.  And for me it was with Granny.  I had heard that during the Harmonic Conversion thousands of people converged upon her sacred ceremonial area on Mt. Shasta during her annual August ceremony.  I also heard that as she went about her way doing what she always did, being who she truly is, she offended a few of these encroachers.  I believe Granny was talking about her healing history.  She said, "I'm just like Jesus.  I have healed the blind, raised the dead.  I've doctored for 80 years -- cancer, diabetes, all kinds of disease -- and never lost a patient.  I tried to walk on water once, though, and almost drowned."  That is my Granny.  That is the great renowned Indian Doctor of the Winnemem Wintu who took my family and me under her wing who saw Jesus as I always saw him, from the time I was a little girl -- a good doctor who took me under his wing, someone I could talk to when I needed help, was sad, was alone -- but a Jesus, as I grew older, was lost to me through the Christian mythology.

In a moment of stubborness, as a student of a College of Idaho required Religion class taught by our neighbor and Calvinist Professor, Ruth Grob from Switzerland, I just could not answer the finals question she posed "Is it by faith or by good deeds that you are saved?"  I just could not.  It never translated cross culturally to me to even be decent to celebrate that someone else was sacrificed and died for our sins.  Never mind the raising from the dead and ascending to heaven to sit at the side of his heavenly father part.  I felt that there was somehow a cowardly, irresponsible aspect to this by faith and faith alone stuff and I just could not stomach it.  There it sat, waiting for me, in purple and white on the mimeographed test sheet.  I looked at my blue book's blank pages and fretted.  What to do.  Regurgitate back the lecture notes, or just go with my heart.  And so I did.

I was enjoying my first day of spring break when I heard a loud knock at the door.  My mother must have opened it because it was she who came down the hall and said, "Dr. Grob is here and she wants to talk to us."  I felt like a high school child being lectured in front of a parent.  I begrudgingly came out to the living room.  I knew I was in trouble.  Dr. Grob is a very frightening figure when she is angry.  Rather than scholarly professor, she really resembled any child's imagination of a wicked witch, meaning no disrespect.  It seemed with rage, her hair stretch out farther, her eyes seemed more wild behind her thick glasses, and she became very expressive with her arms, gesturing and hitting my blue book to stress her point.  She spoke very distinctly and loudly as if I did not understand English, and there my mom and I stood as she re-did her lecture on by faith and faith alone.  She paused to ask why I did what I did.  I started to answer but it just pissed her off , "The Devil is in YOU!" she screeched, and my mother's elbow nudge shut me up.  Mom looked at me, trying hard to communicate with me with her eyes -- and I got her message.  When Dr. Grob said I was to re-do that essay question, I said I would without arguing, and when the door shut behind her, my mother said, "this is just a test.  Give her what she wants.  She does not want to fail you."

That is when I learned that a Christian needed to believe in one thing and one thing only . . . or else.  All that Jesus did in his life was of little importance.  I know this because I listed them all in my essay answer when arguing the point (which was not to be argued) why good deeds counted to be a Christian.  Courage was not expected.  Social responsibility was not expected.  Right thinking and action was not to be expected.  Love for your fellow beings was not to be expected.  Treating everyone like a brother or sister was not to be expected.  All we were supposed to do, or we would FAIL as Christians was to believe that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried and on the third day arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven to sit by his Father God and by believing that, we gain salvation and all our sins are forgiven.

A caveat is we all know Christians who are good people, giving people, people who live by the example set by their Jesus and there are probably many more than the loud voices of judgement, hate and greed which are such poor representations in politics today.  When I hear them, I do not think Jesus.  I do not even think all Christians.  But I do think the voices of hate, intolerance, ignorance are lesser than Jesus, follow Paul, stealing Jesus' life having killed him to build a imperialistic religion lifting up Mammon by making of Jesus' life a mythical cynical State religion.

So these stories, my original childhood faith and finding comfort under Jesus' wings during a very stressful initiation into American society, my faith forced into a mold as a young adult, silenced, going underground, my faith tested  and lost during a time of upheaval  during the Viet Nam War era, and my relationship with Jesus regained as a Winnemem Wintu through my relationship with and following Granny describe my path with Jesus as well as with America.  It is all the same.

One day while I was sitting with Granny who was resting in her bed, she told me another story.  She pointed up to the crucifix which hung over her bed.  "See that?" she said.  "It bled real blood once.  I saw it, and I reached up like this and touched it.  I looked at it and it was really blood.  I told my friend who was a preacher and asked him what it was and he told me not to tell anyone about this, but wouldn't tell me what it was."
      "Do you want to know Granny?" I asked.  When she nodded I said, "It's called the stigmata.  And if you had told anyone, there would be tens and thousands of people who would have come here from all over the world to be healed because by touching the blood of Jesus on this crucifix, they believe, would have been healed."
      She didn't react one way or another.  It was just an answer to another question.

But through Granny my relationship with Jesus was mended.  The door was no longer shut between us.  There were no Religion professors or preachers in between us telling me what a good believer or a devil person was.  For me it is about believing in the good of Jesus, not being a good believer.  I believe he is a strong spiritual doctor, a healer of the body, heart and soul  I believe he lived with courage and goodness and accepted all people just as doctors are supposed to.  I believe that the State could not abide with his commitment to his way of life and it threatened them, his charismatic leadership and his belief system threatened their empire and their wealth.   They made his true way of life as a Jew criminal and  unjustly sentenced him to die a tortuous death as an example of what would happen to anyone who acted like Jesus.  Unfortunately the State's treatment became the underpinning of Christianity -- do not seek to be like him -- and the symbol of one's faith is the execution method, the cross a constant reminder of what will happen to you (on a subconscious level) if you every try to "be the change you dream."  Don't dream.  He did it for us all.  He is the lamb.  But Jesus was no sheep.  Jesus was an eagle, a warrior, a doctor.  That is as close as I can come as an adult to understand the Jesus who took me under his wing during a very harsh time in my life.  No pearly gates -- but a place where all of Olelbis' beloved creations go -- so many extinct now -- all as one with our ancestors.

A very good friend of mine gave a group of Sisters a bracelet for the holiday.  I treasure it.  One thing only did I change, and this is what brought me to this understanding of myself and my journey with Jesus.  All the little trinkets which dangled symbolizing love, light and goodness, and there also was the cross.  I understand that for my Sisters, most of whom are Catholic, and with deep goodness, giving and personal sacrifice in their hearts as devout indigenous Catholic women, this is a symbol of Faith and goodness.  I honor that.  But for me, I realized at that moment, how the cross plays in my life is very  very different.  It is not faith but fear.  I went to my computer and googled salmon, which came within a week -- a little sterling, jumping chinook salmon -- which I put on my bracelet in place of the cross.  The Nur (salmon) is the symbol of faith and following for me.  I have the faith of its return, and the faith that to follow the Nur and meet the challenge to make decisions which would make the rivers home again to the Nur,  we can make it right again.  It is the symbol because I am Winnemem and the Winnemem speak for and follow the Salmon who gave us voice so we would have a sacred responsibility too.  We share that responsibility with the salmon, and historically our lot is tied to the salmon.  It happens at the same time, the challenges, the destruction, and the ceremonial times, on salmon time, in salmon country.  And like Granny but not as personal because I did not walk with him in his time, Jesus is now for me,  a doctor, my first doctor who got me through the first harsh barbs of racism, who forgave me when I turned away from him at a man-locked man-made door, and who is just like Granny so is found as I found him beside Granny.  I am blessed.

On Easter, we Winnemem go down to the river by the Children's Rock.  The colored eggs, dozens of them are hidden and all the next generation of Winnemem children go egg hunting.  We wonder about people celebrating bunnies who lay eggs, and have our jokes, but celebrate Easter too.  As for Jesus, this good Doctor who was killed by the State, he is an ancestor now -- at least of Granny -- and his goodness is celebrated and remembered by me.  I picture me in Granny's bedroom, the crucifix above her bed, and across on top of the bureau, a portrait of Jesus, her Jesus, my Jesus. 

Red Letter Day!

I call this a Red Letter Day!!  I went to my first medical doctor's appointment.  I'm now on Medicare, and since its federal government and greatly influenced by insurance and medical lobbyists, it discriminates against Naturopaths --and I have been going to one for decades.  What sent me to Dr. Borg, ND, was the breast cancer.  My original medical doctor said that there was indication that I had breast cancer, but the good news was that it would not affect my lifespan.  A small surgery would take care of it and let's make an appointment for that.  I said I'd be back to him on this.  And disappeared.

I immediately called my Doctor, Indian Doctor and Chief of the Winnemem Wintu, Granny, and she told me to come on down and I did that weekend with my daughters.  While they played with puppies, Granny and I sat out by the garden.  She said that most of the time people come to her when they are death's door having gone the medical doctor's way and by then it is very hard, but she has never lost a patient in her 80 years of doctoring.  She was glad I came to her now.  She said I would need to listen to her instructions and do it to a tee.  "Prayers don't cure cancer," Grams said.  "You have to take the herbs, every day."  She told me about incidents where people would quit when they felt better, or would quit a piece of it.  And they didn't make it.  I was determined.

It was hard work, a year of hard work.  I learned a lot of things about our bodies and I learned a lot, ironically, about the medical way of doctoring.  I learned also about the medicines.

After a year, I returned to Dr. Halpert who had in his hand a new mammogram result and he shared with me, "Well I have good news."  He had been concerned when he called me a couple of times and I finally wrote a letter assuring him that I was aggressively working on healing and not to worry about me. 

That morning he looked down at the report and said, "you're fine.  You're clean.  Congratulations.  Whatever you did, worked!" and asked me.  I was vague.  "I took some teas."  He paused.  Then he went on, "Well, I see you're about the age where we need to be talking about hormone therapy."

When I left that day, after saying absolutely not, I left the medical institution forward -- I left pharmaceuticals, 15 minute doctor patient visits, anxiety, gadgets, pills which hurt your liver and kidneys forever.  As the years go on, I realize left behind medicine which may have kept me alive and sick longer than natural medicine but for sure I left behind the hype, the unsaid, hidden info, like the medicine which keeps the heart attack away will also rob your mind.

Now . . . the Red Letter Day.  I am no longer insured through the School District.  I am a Medicare senior and that means I am not covered at all for most things from the healthcare of my choice.  Naturopaths are not covered at all.  I am forced to have a medical doctor.  I asked Dr. Sharon Meyers to take me on because she would allow me to keep on being who I am and using her when needed.  She had to retire, and assigned me to Mary Gabriel, a sticky note in my file "Does not like Western Medicine."  It's really not that personal, but that's the only way it can be described in this framework.

I faced my first visit with Dr. Gabriel with the usual apprehension and anxiety I feel toward American medical system.  When I had called to make an appointment I had been asked why, what would I like the Doctor to know.  So I said, high blood pressure, cholesterol level, I have eczema and was interrupted, "We typically can handle two or three things so that should be enough."  That set the tone -- so different from my ND, Dr. Borg who spends all the time the patient needs, asking questions which will help her make a diagnosis and apply the correct homeopathic or herbal remedies.  Sometimes there are questions about my emotional life.  Sometimes there are questions which are a mystery -- does hot or cold cause it to flare up?  do you like salty or sweet?  And if in talking, I should say some things which are about belief, the spiritual, that is definitely part of the whole.

I drove to the complex, PeaceHealth, and parked in their underground garage, took the elevator up to the second level.  There I stood in line and it was very much like I remembered it, receptionists asking questions, complaining about computers being down, officious, questions about insurance, numbers, names, birth dates.  Then it was my turn.  The usual confusion, my insurance info under my English name from information from the early Sixties.  Why can't I remember to say "Donna" when asked for my name, a name I haven't used for most of my life.  However, it was interesting when filling out my form to see "Any cultural information we should know" or something like that.  For the first, it was relevant information, my culture and everything which comes with it in terms of healthcare.

I sat and waited in the waiting room, and my name was called.  The tall brown haired woman greeted me with a smile, and then as she weighed me and took down information she asked me and once again, is there anything I would like them to know regarding cultural information.  Absolutely.  "I'm Winnemem Wintu so my way of life includes our Traditional Doctoring, and I go to a Naturopath." 
"Winnemem!"  she lit up, "I'm Cherokee and my husband in Blackfeet!  It's nice you still follow your own way of doctoring!"

Then later the Doctor walked in, as tall as I, warm smile, dark skin, curly hair, -- "Asian?"  "African American?"  I will have to ask Mary Gabriel sometime.  She shook my hand and said she had a person who shadowed and assisted her if that would be ok.  I nodded, and in walked a dignified older woman, sharp short haircut, glasses, Anna, Latina.  Exhale.

Dr. Gabriel and Anna spent comfortable conversational time with me getting my information, and even one of this big laughs women of color share rolling up from our bellies, head flung back.  Dr. Gabriel asked about my last mammogram, and I couldn't remember.  Ana looked at the notes and said 2010, September.  "Wow, I don't remember that at all."  Dr. Gabriel whisked over and bent over the file in Anna's hand, "OH!  Wrong person!" as she came back to her seat while Ana reached for the second file as I said, "Whew!  Last time when I saw Dr Meyers she was definitely asking dementia questions because of my mom," and both women talked over me with their cracks as we all laughed out loud.

She could tell by my reaction, mammograms were not my favorite things.  And she told me about another way, which was not so effective as early as mammograms but uses light, not radiation.  It was more expensive and probably not covered by insurance.  I was interested.

She asked me what she could do for me.  I said, cholesterol check, high blood pressure.  Her sharp eyes focused, "Well, you got something on your forehead there."  AH!  number three allowable!  Then we talked about allergies.  She said, "Have you ever considered PCB's?"  I told her I pretty much tried to avoid that but maybe I don't know enough and she explained about canned foods, the seal has that.  Which led to gardening.

As she wrote down notes, she murmured, "I was so disappointed when the President signed that Monsanto thing." And we talked about that.  We talked a bit about the Winnemem struggle.

She gave me the lab request, smiled broadly, shook my hand, as I left, and again, with Anna, we shook hands, big smile, "Very very happy to have you as my doctor.  Very happy to see you!'

I felt light and happy as I went down to the lab.  I walked in, and was greeted by a big smile from the Anglo receptionist, and taken back to the lab by the med tech.  She was my height, dark, black hair, with a distinctive Filipina lilt in her voice.  Of course!  We talked about sisters as she drew my blood.  It did not even hurt.

Red letter date.  Sacred Heart thirty years later has the beautiful Mix and it made all the difference in the world about how 15 minutes with the doctor and the officious way a big hospital must be run worked.   The Mix -- Black White Brown Red and Yellow belong together for a sense of humanity to light things up.

Scott Prouty

Scott Prouty.  47 percent video. 
The fact is  6 corporations own and control 90 percent of the newspapers in America.  But they don't own Scott Prouty, a Florida bartender hired to work a Republican fundraiser where people paid 55,000 to attend a dinner, drinks and hear Romney's speech who videoed Romney saying things opposite of what he was saying in public, like going overseas to buy a company of underpaid, exploited women workers.  Prouty was a proud, hardworking worker so that caught his attention and he filmed it.  He also filmed what Mitt Romney thinks of 47 percent of the American people -- almost half of us -- lazy people who think we're entitled to healthcare, homes, and the good things of life.

Unlike him.  The man born in wealth so much so that the people who put food on the table and poured his drink were mere "hands."  If he saw Scott Prouty perhaps things would have gone a bit differently for him.

So the only good reporters in America -- make that, the only good reporter in American -- was a working class bar tender in Florida.

Thank you Scott Prouty.  Thank you to your parents that you say out loud that you have ideals, you recognize news, you struggled with your conscience and looked in the mirror and said "you coward" and then sent those few seconds of video out in the world, definitely out to the American People, during a time most still were not so tamed that they wouldn't vote their self interest as working people.