The Fatherless Child : Homicide By Police

Copyright 2014 Turtle Heart

So many police departments have militarized. It seems nearly epidemic. And each time we hear about another incident, we see clear evidence of what can only be described as murder by police. California, New Mexico, most recently in New York city. For decades I have been haunted by Eleanor Bumpers. An agitated, 90 year old lady, murdered by New York city police officers. Nothing happened to those cowards. Nothing ever happens to police who murder citizens.

Why is that? Why the fuck is that?

The national media is serving us a narrative implying that the problem here is related to fatherless children, specifically fatherless black children. American Indian communities have a rate of fatherless families. (Conversations about people of color usually implies blacks, occasionally hispanic….American Indians are rarely included in MSM rhetoric, but face all, and more of the racially motivated problems of blacks).

On the other hand, so many millions of children were beaten, abused, denied and oppressed by worthless fathers, the fatherless families seem much more fortunate than one might expect. Women are sacred; women have raised more of the world’s finest citizens than any father.

My father was an ice man, a violent, rage-fueled old soldier that was impossible to have a conversation with. My childhood experience, at home, was of a hostile and dangerous silence, until the day came I could hit the door and move out. Getting away from my father was one of the most important moments in my life and probably saved it as well.

In the old tribal communities, everyone raised the children. Even when I was a boy, visiting my mother’s huge family in the south, everybody took responsibility for the children My mother’s brothers told me stories, bought me gifts, taught me how to drive, take a drink of beer and talk to girls. I never had any conversations in this area with my father; he never told his two sons anything about life, anything about himself, anything about the world.

I find, 66 years later, that my father damaged me, deeply. I made a good life for myself, on my own terms. Yet, in the silence of my old man memories his words, used like bullets, and his silences used like a wall, his continuous ridicule and contempt for the subjects I was interested in…..it was hard to take, hard to carry. Even now there are moments when my experience with my father brings big tears and waves of sorrow. When I meet good children who had great parents, you can usually tell right away. There is a balance about them missing from the millions of us hated and beaten and abused by our fathers.

Yes. Overcome. We can overcome the limitations, terrors of our childhood. So many of us do. But we are all the walking wounded.

Perhaps the police stalking black fathers had fathers like mine. I might have grown up as a killer, as an outraged police or a jealous and greedy politician. I once seriously considered becoming a mercenary and trained very well in many violent arts. America will never fully understand how close they came to experiencing an armed revolution overthrowing their government. There were some very determined and powerful men, well known men, who were doing this planning in the shadows. I was part of it for a short time. The old American Indians rescued me. They snatched me out of being fascinated and charmed by rage, seduced into striking back. They carried me into the sweat lodge, covered my bleeding spirit in sacred smoke, carried me with old old songs to a different world. It is a world as ugly and dangerous as this world, with the same broken fathers. But it is a different place. It is a place that set me before a great table of knowledge about peace, about personal responsibility, about how one person can make a difference, about healing, about helping other people. And that is where I have been ever since. Sacred Pipe saved me from the world of my father.

Seeing video of the murder by police of Eric Garner in New York City…..I lived in NYC. Eleanor Bumpers lived in NYC..those cops were determined to fall down on this big black man, this father, you could see it in their body language. Their license was the cigarettes he was selling one by one, for fifty cents. “Losies”. Murder by police. Live. Again. Murder by Police.

I struggle with coherence in my efforts to understand, to express my understanding as if I were actually able to make sense of the death of this man. Just as getting far away from my father saved me a young man, moving away from AmeriKa ten years ago has saved my life as an old man. I moved to Italy. To a little island. Filled with peace. Without guns. The police are polite. A few years ago some police beat a citizen. After a long hearing they were fired and one of them sent to prison. There is no tolerance for overtly violent behavior by the police here. No citizens with arsenals of military weapons. A free and gracious and reasonable healthcare for every citizen. Italy’s corruptions and sins lay elsewhere, in its bureaucracy, in its mafia culture entrenched in business, and food distribution and construction projects. Our criminals are shadows without guns. I like it much better. It is not perfect, but I feel more freedom of actual safety and life here than I ever felt in the USA.

America has a black father. All the white people hate him. He is intelligent, articulate, capable and compassionate even in the midst of several shortcomings as a US President, he is a sterling adult human male father. And those sterling Anglo enablers and protectors of police exoneration for every bullet and legislators of law obstruct and denounce every word that comes from his mouth. And nothing changes.

The yellow police who choke-holed and murdered Eric Garner should be arrested and charged with murder one, in an honest court, but murder two at the least, “reckless abandon of the value of human life”……..until armed police accept responsibility and represent the humanity of our democracy every police officer in the United States is marked by this shame, every day.

Death By Police For selling a cigarette. 

And now more fatherless children, who will be made to carry the guilt of the yellow police rather than the dignity of their father, who was present in their lives  until the police murdered him.

It is not right, what happened to Mr Eric Garner.

Turtle Heart

Pantelleria Island

Men With Guns : Don't Ever Trust Georgia

©2014 Turtle Heart Old WW2 Bullets, Pantelleria

One need only watch any random video of Middle eastern fighters, on all sides, firing automatic weapons into the air, to understand the vile ignorance and nearly pathological absurdity of such behavior. I am talking to you NRA.

The Georgia that gave us Newt Gingrich. And the Georgia that has yet to take him back. The Georgia that gave us Martin Luther King. The Georgia that has now given us "guns everywhere, every day".

A lot of my childhood was spent in Georgia. Near Augusta Georgia. I still have people from my mother's family living in Georgia. I went to my first whole roasted pig BBQ in Georgia. I stayed up all night with a charming black man, whose name I never knew. Together we made BBQ of a 200 pound pig. And sipped whiskey. Everything that man said to me is still in my brain, 50 years later. i was just a kid. he wasn't invited to the BBQ. My friends, that was a really incredible teaching, and a great feast that took place the next day with my nine uncles and 2 aunties.

I know Georgia pretty well. If you look at the photographs of young and middle-aged white men moving around with their rifles and pistols.....are these the faces of people you would trust with your children, your money, or your safety? If you are even a beginner at body language, what we have seen so far is a parade of near losers glowing under all the attention a gun has given them. Excuse me, if I must be excused...just look at them yourselves. they are on google, facebook, the international MSM. In lockets around the neck of Wayne LaPierre.

10 years ago I moved to a country where it is nearly impossible for an average citizen to have any sort of fire arm beyond a simple hunting rifle. They take knives just about as seriously. That country is Italy, and I am in the south of Italy. It is a place associated with the Mafia. And yes, the Mafia in its various flavors is quite well established. But there are not any guns really. Determined professional criminals and hard core survival-vet types can get weapons in any country in the world. Can't be stopped that situation. Ever. But aside from that, this is a truly non-violent, generally murder free culture. I like it. I have finally calmed down after 55 years of American Stress.

Can gun carrying citizens of Georgia be trusted? No way. Almost certainly this little NRA experiment is going to bite everyone in the ass.

Some part of me thinks it is a good idea to have a military grade rifle and a stash of ammunition. Just in case the apocalypse decides to arrive in my lifetime. Another part of me imagines the melting down of all of these guns wherever they may be...into almost anything else. In the Middle East there are so many guns, there must be many families hoarding massive firepower. They will never willingly give them up. Ever. Americans probably won't give theirs up either, at least not willingly. Brings us back to that apocalypse...

American Guns Everywhere People have not yet become as depraved as the men with guns in Africa and South America...there still seems to be actual laws that make it illegal to randomly fire the AK-47 you took to the shopping center to shop for groceries and beer. Is that the next step for the NRA...the right to discharge your military assault rifle into the air? If you can carry it, why can't you fire off a few rounds?

I don't miss the stress that comes from the continuously violent pressures of American Life. Not one bit. You all look quite crazy from over here.

Solstice of Summer 11:51 CET Pantelleria

©2014 Turtle Heart

copyright 2014 Turtle Heart

Near the Edge of the Grey World

Sometimes the answer is no
sometimes the answer is hell no
where should you stand when thunder falls?
how far away must you run
before you understand your shadow cannot be overtaken
disguised or ever closed, or ever empty----?

When I was awakened 
beneath the summer sun
I was all alone
All alone perhaps I wept
All alone I put my foot forward
I started moving
Following the track of the sun
around the earth
resting only with the moon
singing only with the birds
dancing only with the wind

unarmed but not surrendered
free and wild, yet imprisoned by the indifference
of sleeping ghosts and wailing victims
feasting at the long table of their suffering…..
where they count the bullets and list
the insults and name the monsters
who told them hell no

I will sit not so in silence
afraid of my own skin and bones
and dreams
to see the light in the storm
the peace in the thunder
the safety of the truth
noisy and painful and confusing as it all is
my heart, a regular human heart
is on fire with the sorrows and the outrage
of all my relations, all my ghosts
all my monsters have torn that heart
ripped it into four parts
it was taken by the wind
it was burned in the fire
it was thrown into an ancient river
there my bones were sailing
my shadow actually pointed the way
I sailed north
I looked down
tobacco falling from my fingers
I put everything together again

me and my shadow in the long river

Turtle Heart
World Journey of the Four Directions Unity Bundle

A Soldier In the Field: Support Bowe Bergdahl

Update : 13 June 2014 12 noon CET : 
Welcome To Texas Sgt Bergdahl...Welcome Home

Yes. he is now back in the USA, in Texas, good old Fort Sam Houston, if my spelling is correct. I took part of my medical truing there in 1968.

I feel our young people are paying an unacceptably high price for their military service. For all the public "support the troops" that drips like acid rain over the national leadership, something is not right. We are not supporting our soldiers. We are abandoning them. In spite of all the money, organisations and so-called public support for our soldiers, we are failing them. The case of Bowe Bergdahl is the flaming tip, the flawed crown jewel of GOP outrage. The GOP is the beating heart of the disgrace to our soldiers.

John McCain is their point man. Mr Outrage. Mr Bomb Iran. Mr Bring Back The Bush Military Team. McCain stood on the floor of the US Senate yesterday and blamed Mr Obama for the new insurgency in Iraq, being fuelled by insurgents streaming in, armed and battle-hardened from Syria. If his solution involved putting the pilot McCain in an old war jet and giving him a map to Iraq, I say let him go. As a soldier myself, I have come to loathe the plastic warrior and his unrelenting outrage. A wounded and broken warrior, McCain is to big to stop, to big to send to therapy, to big to vote out, to big to ever consider silence. He might also be the only important voice right now who could, who should, welcome Bergdahl to Texas, embrace him, thank him. No one does the right thing anymore, not at the national level, not just straight up. We loose learning and growing opportunities, we lose them everyday.

America could embrace, welcome and forgive Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and great things would happen from that wave of compassion and great common sense. As individuals, we can free ourselves of the poison of outrage manipulated onto us by the GOP and Fox news one by one. Writing this blog right now, I welcome him to Texas. Welcome home Sgt Bergdahl. A grateful nation may yet kill you.

Update: 11 June 3 PM CET : Immediate Intensity Field (IIF)

As to Bergdahl’s platoon? I would like to know more about what kind of platoon was this? The picture so far is not very encouraging. A reasonable person would argue that the context of Bergdahl’s departure must include the nature of his unit. What kind of platoon was this? These other guys were all saints and Bergdahl alone was “different”? Really?

The Chain of Command is required from top to bottom to bring soldiers home. All other due process follows in order.

It is appalling, frankly being exposed to the widely telegraphed  dirtball, provocative, fact-free rants of people like Morning Joe, Hannity and the other bottom feeders in suits who seem to thrive and cherish the lavish and pitiful and hysterical manipulation they provide for suckers like us to consume. Media statistics tell us the ranting invective of the right gets a lot of attention. Time magazine ran a cover this week “Was He Worth It”…referring to Sgt Bergdahl. Time magazine has shown the journalistic integrity of a fish wrapper in this cover. I am done with Time magazine.

The Bergdahl Family Tragedy is about to double down. This over-hyped vitriol is dangerous to him and his family, possibly his entire community. He is from a small town that has all been very active and attentive to the hope to have their local son come home. Now what can happen? The consequences of international media attention has destroyed lives in the past. Though that part of the story does not get covered in such detail. 

The Immediate Intensity Field. A new mortal weapon, disguised as "breaking news". And since those guys are covering it we have to cover it, and in just a few “breaking” moments a digital information tsunami eclipses everything, reason in particular…while what really happened will trickle out somewhere farther down the road. IIF. A new weapons technology brought to you by GOP. 

(Except for Eric Cantor).

Original Post: 

To Ted Cruz, who has had to face nothing more dangerous than looking at his sap face in the mirror, he should shut up and say nothing about soldiers. Ever. Like most of the whining GOP clowns posturing over the returned soldier, they never served in any army. They know nothing. They are not entitled to an opinion.

To the crazy old man, Senator McCain, he is just crazy. A looney old man whose answer to everything is to bomb Iran. No one pays much attention to him anymore. Before he became a fool he was a soldier. But he left that behind. He has disgraced, at last, his own service, his own uniform in my view. No one cares anymore John.

To the bitched out comrades he served with: where were you with your loud and wise-guy observations when the soldier walked out the door? What sort of comrades did he have that saw nothing, knew nothing, did nothing? Your outrage is made of plastic and a desperation for attention. To little to late.

Why was the release of  this soldier not a moment of national unity? Was it the legion of Chicken Hawks in the United States Congress, partisan lap dogs of the GOP who never served in the military.

His father is a sterling, beautiful man. Millions of boys would like to have a father like his. My father was a career soldier. He was also a heartless bastard. Had the same thing happened to me, he would have believed I deserved it, getting captured and held prisoner. He grew a beard to show solidarity with his son. He learned Pushtun culture and language so he could communicate with the Taliban assholes who were holding his son. He learned their history; their hopes and aspirations. He was able to ask them in their own language and by their own customs not to hurt his son.

I am so sick and tired of the reflexive outrage of the GOP to virtually every word and action by this US President. In my long life I have never seen anything so disgusting, so yellow, so hateful. And somehow these empty men get votes, get reelected, raise money and stand before the American People with straight faces.

Cheney, an un-charged war criminal, barks and squeaks like a rat being held by his tail. Interestingly, GW Bush has kept his silence. Cheney is perhaps the most vile and reprehensible white man to ever hold national office, in my view. He tells us the United States President is weak. Why can’t anyone in the GOP speak words of some dignity and support? It is perverse and beyond reason, this reality we have before us…of those men, of that political party, of these values.

Bowe Bergdahl. When he was 22 years old. Walked into the arms of his Taliban captors. 22. Five years later he is coming home. He is just 27 years old. A young man who has been dragged against his will through the looking glass. Emerging at last into the loving arms of his family, he faces the dark hearts of a new lunatic fringe. It may in fact be the case that his long nightmare has just started. Now the American People will replace his Islamic tormenters with American Patriot Tormenters. Well-funded they are. Well organized they are. The have Fox news. They have famous and influential faces in the United States government. They even have their traveling clown show headlined by donald trump.

It all seems so familiar. Benghazi. White Water. Oliver North. Aluminum Tubes. Bowe Bergdahl. Mitch McConnell. Waterboarding. And don’t forget Jesus and Hitler. And the political party throwing around the trash: the Republican Party.

I was a combat soldier in Vietnam. 1969. I am grateful, as a soldier, that America has brought Bowe Bergdahl home. Thank you Mr. Obama. We soldiers serve a political machine dominated by cowards, liars and fools. How rewarding it has been.

I support the “deal” that brought him home. I support the Quatar billionaire diplomats that brokered the deal. I support his family and his little Idaho hometown. I hope they let nothing throw a shadow over the pending homecoming of their native son.

I support the bullet (or Drone) that waits for these five “terrorists” ….. a little farther down the road....if and/or once these men, imprisoned for a dozen years, decide to return to battle...by which time the US will be out of that country. On the other hand, the US will be required by international law to free all imprisoned persons taken in the war. Taliban soldiers are not classified as and are not considered "terrorists". they are legitimate soldiers fighting, in their view, an army of occupation.

Did Bowe give "intelligence" to the Taliban? Almost certainly. Every study of soldiers captured in war reveal that every soldier in captivity gives up information. No one is going to be tormented and tortured and not give up information. A more important point is to wait for a fuller story to be revealed. All this phony outrage by the political right is just disgusting and vile posturing for political effect. In the end all this toxic noise will make it much more difficult to know exactly what happened in the case of this young man.

The only soldiers to publicly trash and accuse Bowe of wrong doing were sought out, prepared by and presented by Republican GOP Big Money. Any soldier who would allow himself to be used like a whore by a partisan political machine must be viewed with suspicion...extreme suspicion. Good soldiers do not trash each other at the request of GOP Pay Masters.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's father has been attacked by the millionaire, over-stuffed paid political operatives of the FOX division of the radical right. For the beard. For learning and speaking Pashta and saying "Allah" while standing beside the United States President and Commander In Chief of the United States Military. I would have paid any price to see that kind of support and love from my father. Attacking the father reveals clearly the low character, the final collapse of honor, of the so-called Fox "news" agency.

No matter the final story. No matter what. The United States was obligated to bring this soldier home. The Chicken Hawks are so despondent to see the end of the war. That's the kind of people they are. No matter what I will not change my support for Bowe Bangdahl. The truth will not hurt us. But all these lies and all this manufactured outrage is hear breaking. I moved away from the USA after 9-11. I live in Italy now. From over here, America looks like it is loosing its mind, its soul. And not because of a US President, but at the hands, the choking, enraged hands of the political right. Outrage without reason. Accusations without facts.

That's it.

Update: 5 June 01 am :

The media is really digging in. This may be one of the lowest shames in recent memory. The media is doubling down on the hysterical and rage-fueled non-facts being peddled by the professional right. Even while decrying the lack of actual facts, the media almost universally gives a new attention to every outrageous claim made to date....just to state what is painfully obvious.

I am sorry to hear that the little town where his family lives is canceling its homecoming celebration. Their official position is that they are in no position to deal with the incoming swarm of outraged patriots, and they are probably right. The town has probably already filled up with devil hunters and truth seekers. many with paid contracts.

Hilary Clinton is reported to be visibly attempting to distance herself from any show of support. I am not yet sure it is absolutely true. If it is true that she has done this, she has lost my vote, a vote I have held onto for decades.

This is the new low, and its only been a few days. From here it looks like America has lost its mind....I remain myself in full support of the deal, the soldier, and the President. Full stop.

The First Shaman (Was Not An American Indian)

R Gordon Wasson wrote one of the most important books ever written.

Religion, as we know it in the modern age, originated as a result of a hallucinogenic drug found in a mushroom.

The first “shaman” were people who could eat this mushroom without dying. The mushroom was often fatal. Those who survived experienced increased strength, endurance and prolific, detailed visions.

(This point, in particular, illustrates why there never was, never is, and never will be a North American Indian “shaman”).

These conclusions, among many others, were presented in the spectacular published work entitled “Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality” by R. Gordon Wasson.

Here is an Amazon Link : (click)

I found this book, as I say in the headline, very important. Perhaps its importance has really grown over time. That concept “shaman” for example. It has become nearly an everyday word in most English-speaking cultures. Wasson shows us that when this word was first expressed to describe something, it was a very specific behavior.

North American Indians don’t have no stinking shamans. The word has unfortunately become inevitable, and increasingly meaningless.

If you really want an exceedingly clear eye on who the first shamans really were, as well as a brilliant and detailed view of our most ancient ancestors and how they moved and lived in their time, the work of Mr. Wasson is required reading at some point.

I just want to be on the public record with this point.

Turtle Heart

Wabeeno Ahnishinabeg

Pantelleria Island

Making Heaven My Home : Goodbye Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou 

April 24 1928 everyday right up to   

May 28 2014.

a farewell poem 

by Turtle Heart, Ojibwe artist

“I am on my way to make my home in Heaven

I am on my way to make my home in Heaven”

She was always home, She was never alone

Wherever her dreams have carried her

She looked the world in its worldly eye

She remembered to thank God

Even when she waited alone

For the wind to carry her where her soul was born

Going home into the open arms of the earth

Going home through a gateway of hearts and bones

And sorrow and hope and courage

And just clarity and kindness

A sacred woman

Sacred woman who watched over us

As we stumble along in this dangerous world

Mother, won’t you remember me?

Mother, I am closer to that light

From the open eyed place where you found me

Mother my song is wrapped around me

And my heart growing inside of me

And my sorrow

My sorrow right now

Ready to become gratitude

Just that simple

Just that much love and respect

For where she was, who she was

And what she found out

When she looked at me

saw me looking at you

She told me Creation loves

everyone, she said our hearts are the same

our human hearts

the hearts of our children

the heart of our world

yes, speaking without thunder

and walking without shadows

she told me it was just like this

we are making heaven our home....

(©2014): Turtle Heart. Pantelleria Italy.

Sacred Women of Nigeria || Broken Mother's Day Twenty Fourteen

Correction Ceremony 2004

Photo Monday 12 May 2014: LINK

A question I have not heard addressed: if (when) the young women kidnapped in Nigeria are “rescued” and returned to their families, what will become of them? Many muslim influenced cultures consider a woman involved in any sort of scandal to be at fault and they are punished by cultural reactions to their “condition”, as having brought shame on the family. What is to become of them?

It is far easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults. That is a quote said by someone who knows the truth (I forget who). Words that have always stayed with me. I do a form of American Indian ceremonial work that is designed and intended to produce large amounts of positive energy. These ceremonies are very diverse, yet all of them we do today are in a class we call “Correction Ceremonies”. Most American Indian ceremonies are designed to open a gateway of perception and understanding between human beings and nature. When that connection is lost, things go wrong. Our health suffers. If there is a disaster, a tragedy, the organ system and the foundations of the emotional health are often shaken, disturbed and damaged. Correction Ceremonies are one tool the old Indians used to address and confront the devastation of tragic circumstances. There was once a great network of ceremonies like this throughout the tribes. It worked not through central authorities but through the Clan System. Tribal spiritual values were once rooted entirely in their associations with the animal and plant clans. Clans such as the Flute Clan, Spider Clan, Fish Clan, River Otter Clan, evolved to encompass Correction Ceremonies. Recovering from disaster is such an important issue, the old tribes dedicated a school of sacred studies and responsibilities across nearly every North American tribe. Correction Ceremonies.

Under this light I wonder what will become of these young women in Nigeria. It is almost impossible to imagine they are all together somewhere. They were likely dispersed quickly and many of them could have already ben sold out of the country. I am not a breaking news reporter, so please consult updated news sources on this issue. I am at this point just one of the outraged.

I have seen a video of the so-called leader of this group of kidnappers. I see a bullet to his head every time I see him. Stop. But I have no rifle to carry there and no power beyond my own awareness and outrage. Like so many of us, we sit in a great bubble of digital information about our world and our shared thoughts and expressed ideas are sometimes all we have.It seems in this case our collective digital outrage produced some heat and pressure and forced a more strident response, weeks later, by the world community. So we see our words and postings and tweeting are not empty. They are not bullets, but they are not empty. They are the new smoke signals perhaps.

Has a line been crossed at last? One could wonder at what point will enough people say enough?…what is the threshold? 

I have posted this opinion on Mothers Day. A corporate holiday originally designed to stimulate a new market for candy and cards. Yet, in spite of this empty beginning, the very idea of a Mothers Day resonates all over the world. What of these many Nigerian Mothers?

For all of these families, their relatives, and their communities, a great tragedy has changed their lives forever. No matter what happens next, the difficulties, trauma and disruption of so many innocent lies will change that region forever. Perhaps President Good Luck and his Wife Patience will be exposed as the absolute clowns that they are and the people of influence over there, if there are any, will find the resolve to change this dark wave of terrorism. This leader lives inside an empty bubble. Macabre is the word that springs to mind.

For all the possible endings, I know that corporate culture, which has replaced what was once a tribal culture in Nigeria, has no correction ceremonies for these sacred women, for their families, for their communities. The darkness and evil of this crime cannot be undone by anyone on any side. Not to mention all the young men murdered in their schools by this same group some months ago. Or the general oppression and denial of the rights and honor of women throughout the Muslim world. And the contempt shown to women pretty much everywhere in the world. Over one billion women have been beaten and raped around the world. One Billion. Women.

If you are reading this there is a better than fifty per cent chance you are a victim of violence against women in some form, or a perpetrator, a vile ugly bag of mostly garbage, or at a minimum, a relative or friend of one or the other. That’s how bad it is.

Hundreds of American Indian women and girls are abducted, killed, sold into slavery every year. In North America. Hundreds. There is rarely an investigation when American Indian women disappear. Outside of their families, no one seems to care.

Honestly, ask yourself how long can unspeakable crimes like this continue? I live here in my life trying right now how to understand just what can I do right here and right now to be on the right side of this issue?

I am far away from my tribal home. If I was in my tribal community I would call for a large special ceremony and go into the sacred practices for many days. Here in my little house which carries and protects a sacred pipe, a sacred fire, and the sacred prayers of so many of my elders and teachers…so much sacred power sitting still.

Sacred Woman

Blessed Mother

Grandmother

Goddess

Angelic Dreamer

Bleeding Belly, Beating Heart

Emerging Womb of Seven Generations

Sky Woman I am Falling

Broken. Beaten. Busted Down.

Tomorrow I get up and try again…

Turtle Heart

(unarmed)