Tag Archives: Penobscot Nation

Eastbound and Back, Day 9, Part 2: The Tides and Their Reversals

2
Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, Hiking and Nature, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 7, 2024, Shediac- The swirling waters reminded me of pictures, both painted and photographic, that I’ve seen of Skaggerak and Kattegat, between the North and Baltic Seas. The currents near the confluence of the Bay of Fundy and Saint John River are nowhere near as intense as the Scandinavian maelstroms, but they do appear, for all the world, like reversing waterfalls. The phenomenon here is the result of the interaction between the Bay and the River, and as you might guess, is most intense at high tide.

I stopped here, on the west side of Saint John, to take in this phenomenon which, along with Moncton’s Magnetic Hill, is one of New Brunswick’s signature geographic anomalies. Here are a few shots of the festivities, from both the base of the hill and from the window of the concessionaire’s dining room, which had just closed for the day.

Reversing Falls, Saint John, NB, from Wolastoq Park

Reversing Falls, from base of hill.

Reversing Falls, from concessionaire’s restaurant

Wolastoq Park, on the hill above the Falls, commemorates key figures in New Brunswick history, by means of tall wooden carved likenesses. Here are three such statues. First is Benedict Arnold, the skilled,discounted hero of Ticonderoga who became synonymous with treason in the emerging United States. He ended up being cast out of Canada, as well, ending his days in London.

Next is the more well-regarded Sir John Robertson, a philanthropist of the mid-Nineteenth Century, who fought for the well-being of the common person.

Then, there was Francoise-Marie Jacquelin, who fought far more powerful men to defend her husband’s economic bastion: Fort La Tour. Though she lost the fight, in the end, Francoise stands as a clarion caller to women and girls who seek to make their rightful mark in the world.

Finally, there is a depiction of the legend of Koluscap, the First Man of the Maliseet, as well as of my Penobscot ancestors, putting a selfish Beaver in his place, after Beaver’s dam deprived the Maliseet people of the water they needed to survive. Beaver lost his giant size, the story goes and is forever consigned to be a small animal.

Saint John was, thankfully, not at rush hour, so I headed east to the town where my Nana’s paternal forebears first arrived on North American soil. Shediac was a place of refuge for my great-great-great grandfathers, who had come here from Quebec, in the mid-Eighteenth Century, following the attempt by the English to deport French-speaking residents of that colony, after the fall of Montreal and of Quebec-Ville. So, as with Rouen and Montreal, I feel at home here.

Tonalea

2
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.

Restoration

4
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 23, 2024- Sportage came back, this afternoon, good as new.           The black Corolla did its job, over the past four days, and has gone back to Rental Land.   My bathroom is far more spacious, relatively speaking, with excess items ready to go to the Thrift Store, or to the PASS collection point, tomorrow.                   My Nana’s family-parents and siblings-are shown with her as a 17-year-old, and Great-Nana, who was 1/4 Penobscot, in her 40s. It’s the first time I’ve seen the thirteen Gallant children with their parents. The restoration of our family tree is a long work in progress.         A friend is concerned about the course of life, once career is over and family has been raised. There needn’t be any worry. Once retirement has been announced, the community finds things for one to do, and if they don’t, then family will certainly have some ideas on the matter.

We are ever in a cycle of progress, stasis, decline and restoration. Refinement of attributes is a lifelong process and while we are readying ourselves for a spiritual journey, part of that is a big chunk of energy, spent living in Earth time. It doesn’t necessarily end with retirement-and definitely doesn’t end when the children become adults.

Progress, stasis, decline, restoration.

The Road to 65, Mile 296: Where I Stand, Part 2

2
Posted by on in animal and plant life, Hiking and Nature, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities

September 19, 2015, Prescott-  For the next several posts, I will be centering my comments on 16 principles, developed by Four Worlds International Institute, in Surrey, BC.  It is led by a man for whom I have a lot of respect:  Hereditary Chief Phil Lane, Jr., of the Blackfoot Nation.  All quotes herein are from the document, The Fourth Way:  An Indigenous Contribution to Building Sustainable and  Harmonious Prosperity in the Americas, Update, October 2008.

Nobody asked me to do this, but I share both genetic memories and spiritual values with the Aboriginal Peoples of the Americas, specifically with the Penobscot Nation, of central Maine.  There is no barrier between us, except those that people choose to put between each other.  So, let me begin.

Principle 1: “Human Beings Can Transform Their Worlds. The web of our relationships with others and the natural world, which has given rise to the problems we face as a human family, can be changed.” –  

The author, savant and change agent, Star Hawk, has written that, for Man to regard himself as divorced from nature, is an arrogant mindset.  In fact, we in our physical state are very much connected to the rest of Nature.  It’s pretty much a given, to me, that each and every thing we do in this life is a matter of choice.  Some choices are more difficult than others, but they still need to be made.  So, with regard to relationships with others, we can choose to respond to people, or to ignore them.  I have found that I can only ignore those who irritate or are disagreeable to me for just so long, before one or the other of us presses for a resolution. The converse is also true.

How much more is this true, with regard to nature.  One can, in the name of stockholder profits, order the spewing of poisons into the atmosphere, water and soil, for just so long, before the toxins find their way into the Web of Life- with cancer, dementia and neurological ills becoming pandemic.  One may, in the name of Science, release Genetically-Modified Organisms into the food chain, while demanding that the rest of the planet toe your line, or face crippling litigation.  Then, because living things are just not ready to digest your products and therefore, in the case of humans, RESIST purchasing them or, in the case of scavenging rodents, birds and insects, just IGNORE the stuff, you redouble your efforts, getting shills to write articles that ridicule those who won’t buy GMO’s, and prodding normally thoughtful, even-minded people to jump in the fray and try to analyze the case against your products, with a view towards “talking some sense into those who would starve humanity, for the sake of romanticism.”  Still, the illnesses, and the wreckage, pile up.

My plans, with regard to relationships, are these:

  1.  Accept all offers of friendship, unless and until such offers prove to be based on ulterior motives.
  2. Respect those, online and in real time, who indicate they wish me to not contact them, either for a time, or permanently.
  3. Be a trustworthy person, more than I have been towards some people in the past.
  4. Listen, listen, and listen some more.
  5. Own the mistakes I have made with people, and do better by them , and others.

My plans, with respect to Nature, are these:

1. Tend the seeds I have planted, in my back yard.

2.  Honour animal and plant life, wherever I encounter them.

3.  By all means, continue hiking and other acts of personal exploration, both in my home area and          further afield.

4.  Carry a trash bag in my pack, so that the unwarranted intrusion of the thoughtless may be mitigated.

5.  Recycle, as much as possible, while recognizing that not everyone regards this practice as truly beneficial to the Planet.

I have gone on longer than usual, but these matters are very basic to my human and natural states of being.