Tag Archives: Dineh

The Road to Diamond, Day 279: Heart Letter 1

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

September 3, 2025, Keams Canyon- The hill we used to climb,and lay on blankets under the stars, is still alluring. It seems diminished somehow, though, with the campground having been taken up for house lots and a fenced in playground . The park is a nice idea for the Keams community, though.

I could have bushwhacked a bit and gone up the hill, just to reminisce about those first fleeting days of our acquaintance, which became an enduring, if sometimes harrowing, love story. It wasn’t far from this spot that your trailer sat, and where I camped out in the snow, the first time I visited you. It was all to keep up a sense of propriety, for your Hopi and Mormon neighbours. It was worth the hassle, though, and I felt akin to the small Dineh children who were traditionally thrown out in the snow, to toughen them up.

Tonight, though, there is no snow or cold, just a light rain. I am not sleeping outside, but in the comfort of some new friends’ apartment. We had a lovely dinner of cod fillets, cauliflower over rice and steamed avocado/cucumber salad. I gave them a set of books about the Hopi and one about Dineh. They are resuming the work we did in the ’80s and ’90s, and will take it to the next level.

Hopi will always be special, even if my time here is fleeting, and only occasional. The people have shared their wisdom with the world, and deserve all our support and understanding. You knew that, back then, when you sought to calm my peripatetic self and got me to devote weekends to attending ceremonial dances, instead of going off into mountains and canyons.

That, ironically, is why I am here tonight, absorbing the gentle spiritual energy that lies within these mesa lands, just prior to my embarking on journeys of homage and transition. Soon, our first grandchild will be joining the world. I will not be surprised if she looks up and smiles at a space where no earthly being can be seen. I will know that she is looking at you.

The Road to Diamond, Day 268: Empathy

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

August 23, 2025- I spent several minutes today, reading messages from someone who has an alternate view of the world. There are some points that were made with which I can agree, but the conclusions offered are rather far from what I have drawn. I will defend the right to come to those conclusions, but I also reserve my right to see the world through my own lens.
Some conservatives have recently called for a review of how empathy is processed. They say, correctly in my view, that empathy should not be a blanket endorsement of wrongful or injurious behaviour. I see this caveat as necessary, if our mission in the world is to elevate human behaviour and the level of choices made by those around us. Indeed, ‘Abdu’l-Baha cautions to “not show kindness to a liar, a thief or a selfish person”, lest those ill qualities be encouraged and strengthened. I have had to cut off contact with three people as well as advising a friend to do the same, for that reason.

There are plenty of opportunities to show empathy to those who are truly victimized, or are vulnerable and in need of support. I have been, and will continue to be, engaged in the betterment of life for all around me. Like our nation’s Vice President, I see my empathy as going first to my family (who are not, at present, in high need, but will be at the end of this year and into next), then to my community, and to the wider world. My sense of that progression is not, though, compartmentalized, as the needs of Home Base I right now are not so high as to take my attention away from, say, Dineh people who need help transporting water, or a friend in another state who is facing a serious medical procedure-or the World Central Kitchen’s efforts to feed people in traumatized regions across the globe-including right here in the United States.

There is room enough, in our consciousness and in our time frames, to care for both those closest to us and those a world away.

The Road to Diamond, Day 233: The Raven Feather

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Travel

July 19, 2025- The feather lay on the asphalt, as I left Sportage and went towards Rafter 11, this evening. Remembering the significance, to First Nations people, of a feather lying on the ground, I glanced back and saw that the wind was carrying it towards the edge of the lot. Figuring it would not be run over and therefore safe, I went across the road to indulge in some hummus with pita and vegetable sticks and to enjoy a cover artist’s collection of country and folk rock tunes. Once I took my seat, glancing down, I saw the same feather that had been across in the parking lot. The breeze had picked up during the time it had taken me to cross the street and get situated, so this did not surprise me.

Dineh, Hopi, Apache (Inde) and other First Nations peoples regard a feather on the ground as a gift from the sky, establishing a connection between the receiver and the bird from which the feather came, by extension another link to the Creator. We live in a time when there is an increasingly tenuous connection between Man and the Nature of which he is a part. I have been in various natural settings, from sandy desert to deciduous urban parks; from Ponderosa and Douglas fir forests to high grasslands and desolate peat bogs; from the middle of the ocean to a Vietnamese rain forest. In each, there is a sign of nature.

Usually, that is something like a heart-shaped rock, of which I have encountered many. So have thousands of other people who are observant. Many of us have also seen animals that appear real, only to not be visible in a photograph, when they were present in the view finder, even as the shutter was pressed. I have been gifted with bird feathers by First Nations friends, over the years, and have carefully placed them in a web, attached to a dowsing stick that was given me by a Dineh friend, twenty years ago. The stick itself has two falcon feathers and a wild turkey feather attached. I also have an eagle feather that was given me by another Dineh friend, and which is attached to a wicker heart that Penny devised, in the early 2000s. I placed the raven feather opposite and slightly underneath the eagle feather.

Whilst sitting and enjoying hummus and strumming, I placed the raven feather in a planter next to my table. I found myself considering the matter of Labor Day weekend, six weeks away. I recently received an invitation to attend a Baha’i school in Colorado Springs. Having attended it three times in the past, it was on my mind this evening. With spiritual energy that I can only sense as coming from the feather, I pondered what is happening here at Home Base I, that weekend. I was reminded that my friends at Farmers Market will be busy preparing for the Farm-to-Table Dinner, a week later and that there may be only three of us who can work the market breakdown on August 30. I was also reminded, earlier this afternoon, that a Peace Day will likely take place on August 31. Then, too, after the Farm to Table Dinner, it’ll be off to Europe, and possibly east Africa ( safety permitting), during September and October.

At the risk of overthinking, I am staying put here, over Labor Day. I love the eastern Colorado friends and will pray fervently for their school’s success. I love the friends here, too.

The Road to Diamond, Day 215: Everything, and Nothing

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

July 1, 2025– Happy Canada Day, everyone!

Today has also seen a burst of activity, on the two major fronts of my summer. Two wildfires have been top of mind for me, these past few days. A major blaze has been consuming the pinon forest between Window Rock and Ganado, on the Navajo Nation. The Dineh have been able to manage shelters, staffing-wise, and will have Red Cross logistical help, by tomorrow noon. They have plenty of government and private enterprise help, in fighting the blaze. Some friends are among those displaced, and I hold out hope that their homes will survive.

Another blaze, closer to Home Base, also led to us gathering a standby crew, but it has since been largely contained and the crew dismantled. There are all manner of small blazes, underscoring the poignancy of the Twelfth Anniversary of the Yarnell Hill Fire, which led to the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters. Over the weekend, in northern Idaho, a transient was asked to move his vehicle by wildland firefighters. He responded by shooting at them, killing two commanders and wounding an engineer. He later killed himself.

That last incident highlights a fringe element, those who believe that their priorities and their privileges supersede everyone else. We used to call them sociopaths. Now, many of them see themselves as ascendant-even to the point that there is an active movement called Accelerationists, who want to replace elected government with all-powerful Boards of Directors, headed by Chief Executive Officers, who can run roughshod over everyone else, in the name of “efficiency”. This is a huge step away from the workings of the customary publicly-owned corporation, which has a charter, a mission statement and a code of conduct. It, to me, is a system built for sociopaths. (Indeed, Elon Musk recently made a statement that empathy is a weakness of Western countries.) There is little difference between such people and the Idaho shooter.

That brings me to the second overarching concern of the summer: Baha’i gatherings. On Sunday, about forty youth and adults gathered for a lively session of songs and devotions. There was no egotism and no one-upmanship. Yesterday, some of the same youth spent the day visiting adults in their homes, sharing prayers and inspirational stories. Over the next two weeks, various gatherings will be held in the Phoenix area and at Bellemont Baha’i School, for further activities along those lines. These inspirational and collaborative activities are in direct contrast to the self-absorbed depredations described in the last paragraph.

I draw reassurance, also, from conversations with friends here, conservatives and liberals alike, who may not agree on much, policy-wise, but who will stand together against any forces that try to deprive us of the freedom and traditions that we have cherished for 250 years.

He would take away everything is likely to be left with nothing.

The Road to Diamond, Day 109: Cultural Markers

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Historical, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 17, 2025- I wore a teal-coloured shirt today. It was the closest I had to green, which many in the U.S. wear on St. Patrick’s Day, which is today. There is a plethora of chlorophyll about-green punch, green beer, even green eggs. No one wants green beef or chicken, of course, so red and white still colour our meats.

We honour a variety of cultural markers in the United States, a testimony to our status as a nation built by immigrants-some here since ancient times and others descended from those who have arrived since the establishment of a settlement in Pensacola, in what is now Florida, in 1559. We have evolved as a nation that has welcomed people from every other nation on Earth-as have several others in their turn: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Peru and so on.

In today’s world, one can go to virtually any nation and find people from just about any other country. There is no real homogeneity, in terms of “ethnic purity”. We are in a place of sharing, yet there is a curious notion, among some, that cultural markers belong only to those who claim ownership of that culture. There is a view that “cultural appropriation” takes place, whenever those outside a cultural group show too much interest or enjoyment of its markers.

No one wants to lose their identity, and this is hardly the point of cultural sharing. It is wise to note when anyone, either in or out of the cultural group, tries to turn its practices into a mere money-making venture or combine it with some sort of unicultural mish-mash. It is best to resist such ersatz practices. Culture is best seen as an expression of the heart, and further as a voice to the identity of a people.

I do have Irish ancestry, on both sides of my family. My father’s paternal grandmother was pure Irish. My mother’s paternal forebears migrated from Ireland to Germany, during the Hanseatic Era, then came to the United States in the early Nineteenth Century. I also have French, English, German and Penobscot Nation ancestry. Some cultural practices could flow authentically from me; others, not so easily.

I have spent much time among Dineh and Hopi people, as well as Koreans and Filipinos. I have enjoyed a great deal of these four cultures, especially food and the arts. I have subsumed little of the outward cultural markers of these peoples; that is not my place. I do, however, honour the deeper energy behind their cultures and have put the most honourable features of their heritage to use in my own service to mankind. For example, the tendency of Dineh or Hopi to listen, deeply, to someone, without jumping into an argument or engaging in one-upmanship, has stood me well, on a great many occasions. The fastidiousness of Koreans and the gentle patience of Filipinos have also imparted lessons to me, in my daily life.

Man has always been on the move, and encountering those with different ways of conducting daily life is the lot of us all. Cultural markers need not be a barrier between groups.

Erin go bragh!

Tonalea

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

March 27, 2024- “You don’t need to leave a tip. We didn’t really DO anything.” The cashier thus made her appeal to the dignity of one and all, as I paid for a couple bags of freshly ground coffee. I thought how refreshingly decent this woman is, and how sentiments like hers give the lie to the notion that Gen Z is collectively self-centered and always has its generational hand out. (The Greatest Generation, once upon a time, expressed similar sentiments about us then-youthful Boomers, but I digress.)

One of the bags was going to the old friend I was en route to visit, and to his family. C lost his wife of 40 + years, a few months back, and so I was heading up to Tonalea, to offer condolences and emotional support. The community’s name in the Dineh (Navajo) language, means, essentially, Red Lake. There is, in years of heavy winter and spring precipitation, an actual lake, off U.S. Hwy/160, on the community’s north side. This year, I saw no lake.

It was a smooth ride from Prescott to Flagstaff, where I bought the coffee from Macy’s European Coffee House and Bakery, owned by another old friend. Traffic in and around Northern Arizona University reminds me a bit of Manila-everyone is doing their own thing, and gridlock is not altogether a rarity. My upbringing helps me transcend that, as a motorist here and as a pedestrian in my second favourite big city (after San Diego). Looking out for others makes for a longer journey, but for better self-esteem, at day’s end.

Driving from Flagstaff to Tonalea was even smoother. Dineh and Hopi people are quite orderly and civil, in their driving habits, and the area is sparsely polulated, to boot. As the two Elephant’s Feet (grey sandstone rock formations) looked on, from across the highway, I turned on the graded dirt road that winds around, towards Black Mesa, and reached C’s homestead, five miles inward. There he stood, as I arrived, at about the same time as planned.

C reminisced about his wedded life and what had led to his wife’s passing. Her suffering, it seemed, was mercifully short. We then talked of the connection between those of us in the flesh and our departed loved ones. Years ago, as Penny and I lay together, she told me she had seen my Penobscot ancestors standing over me, as I slept. I was not surprised by that. The ties that departed souls have to this world are very, very strong. Everything that has happened to me, both the serendipitous events that have transpired and my protection from malevolent forces, over the past thirteen years, or even before, has been due to those who have gone before me, and who make up a bulwark of energy that lets me do the bidding of the Divine.

After a two-hour visit, and my reassuring him that all will be well, even with the swirling changes that seem to bother him so, it was time for C to get back to tending to his family, working on his fences, and keeping livestock from eating his trees. It was also time for me to head back to Prescott, with a “halfway stop” at My Pita Wrap, a small Mediterranean restaurant on Flagstaff’s main drag. Going back up to Dinehtah, with its otherworldly rocks, grounded people and mystical energy, is always a reset for my own personal energy.

Revitalized

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 20, 2024- The watchful Apache man saw that all the modern conveniences that had been installed in his new restaurant kitchen were still missing a key component: A means of heat. He had a stack of firewood on hand, and was able to get a fire going, safely, in his fireplace. The cook stove, of course, was a secondary means of heat. In time, the solar heater would be on track, but for the time being, the fireplace saved the day.

This was one of the vignettes that flowed through “Gather: The Fight to Revitalize Our Native Foodways”, a film that was shown this evening, at our Elks Performing Arts Center. The film illustrated First Nations people working to re-establish viable food systems, in areas across North America. A Dineh farmer is working to increase use of the Little Colorado River, in its traditional role as a water source. A young Lakota Sioux woman is spreading understanding of the nutritional value of the meat of grass-fed bison, such as her father raises. A Yurok man is teaching young men in his northern California community about traditional spear fishing, and keeping salmon populations sustainable. A San Carlos Apache grandmother is teaching a young girl about catching kangaroo rats, and respecting the home of a rattlesnake-not just because it is venomous, but because it, too, is a living being and helps keep the rodent population in balance. She is also teaching the child about harvesting edible desert plants. The White Mountain Apache chef is likewise using local products, in his preparation of dishes at Cafe Gozho’o’ (the second o is silent). Gozho’o’ means happiness, harmony or balance, in the Nde’e’ language of the Apache people.

The key to all this is revitalization, for which this is a year. A friend here in town received final clearance to move her possessions to a house which she had inherited, over a year ago. There had been delays in the move, for various reasons, which have now been resolved. I helped with moving some of the items, this afternoon. Her life, and livelihood, are being regenerated.

My own life has not been stagnant, yet its pace, too, is picking up, in terms of financial, interpersonal and goal-setting elements. This will be a truly interesting year, one in which decisive action becomes the norm.

Inextinguishable

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 15, 2023- ”I told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya“- Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

The young boy, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, came up to me at the end of the school day, and with quiet confidence that I don’t recall him having, a year ago, asked if I remembered him. I did, and by name as well as countenance, though he said his name, for good measure. This has happened repeatedly, especially the past few years, as teenagers who studied under me as children, come up, remind me of who they are and recount their memories of elementary school, or middle school. Their stories are fresh in my mind, as well.

Going back further, I have met some of the people I knew as children, in Hopi and Dineh, now in their thirties and forties, over the past five or ten years. One, who recently passed on, after a long illness, was man of great integrity, in addition to being a talented artist, producing colourful and detailed prints, even whilst bedridden. Each of them, even after enduring unbelievable heartbreak and personal setbacks, one after another, have kept the flames of hope and of love for family alive, in their inextinguishable hearts. These are the true heroes in my life.

This notion may be extended now, across the Pacific Ocean, to the friends I met in October. Each of them has also experienced more heartache and loss in a month, at some point in their lives, than I have endured in a decade. Yet, they still go forward, and largely in acts of service to others. Their spirits, too, are inextinguishable.

I am ever grateful to the Divine, and to my spirit guides, for all those who have come my way, and for those yet to appear.

Two More Visions

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Posted by on in collaborating, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 11, 2023- I was walking by a small workshop. Inside, a First Australian was visiting some Dineh, and they invited me in, to visit with him and see his work. He showed me his Dream Time drawings and explained about the concept of Dream Time. After a while, he told everyone he needed to rest. I thanked him and bid the family farewell.

Walking further, I came to a canyon rim. There, some young ladies were standing at the rim’s edge. They remarked that the creek below was very shallow and small. I then sensed the creek speaking to me: “Watch how I show my true power, in less than a minute.” Sure enough, the creek became a raging torrent, and I cautioned the women to move back, as the rim was flimsy sandstone. As they followed my advice, the rim’s edge crumpled into the canyon below and was swept away by the river.

At that point, I awoke and felt a very intense, loving energy. After getting myself together, I found a long message on my phone and laptop, from a dear friend. My tie to the universe is still pretty intense.

At a Baha’i spiritual Feast, this evening, I closed my eyes, during a meditative musical selection, and saw a longhouse, of the type associated with the Iban people, of Sarawak. The message I got said this house was somewhere in the Philippines. There are commonalities, both between different groups of Malays and among tribal groups who live in Malay countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor L’Este, Brunei Darussalam and the Philippines). I would not be surprised to see such a house, on one of the Philippine islands.

Those are the kinds of visions, and the flow of energy across an ocean and three hundred miles of land, that show up in my consciousness anymore.

Joy In A Sea of Sand

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Posted by on in Community, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Travel

August 31, 2022, Kayenta- I looked at the normally dry Red Lake, about fifty miles southwest of here, and was amazed to see it full! Traffic and lack of a safe place to pull off kept me from photographing the scene, but seasonal lakes are a definite joy to behold.

I am here, on the way to southern Colorado, and the Colorado East Baha’i Summer School, to which I was invited a month or so ago. There are always numerous visual delights on this route, US Highway 160, which starts near Tuba City and continues eastward, to near Poplar Bluff, Missouri. I have been on the route, as far east as Pittsburg, Kansas.

The Badlands, grasslands and Hoodoo country, from Cameron, AZ to the Ute town of Towaoc, Colorado seem energized and rejuvenated by this year’s specially productive monsoon rains. Even those areas normally devoid of vegetation are showing a certain lively energy. The sandy wonderland that is Monument Valley finds its southwestern terminus here, in this small but vibrant Dineh community. So, I have stopped here for the evening, as being among Dineh people has augured well for me, at the start of any journey-whether within the Southwest or transcontinental.

Monument Valley is a sea of sand, but what marvels that sand has helped create, with help from wind and water! I will begin tomorrow with a few photos and meditations of joy.