Frank is Emptiness

February 26th, 2018

“It’s about the land. It’s always been about the land.” – Wounded Knee

It’s weird. When the Native Americans talk about their ancestral lands, it reminds me of how my Jewish friends at thru synagogue speak about Eretz Israel. Both peoples describe their land in an emotional, almost visceral way. Both peoples see the land as being theirs for uncounted generations. Both groups believe that they have an inalienable right to the land of their ancestors, a right that transcends any modern laws or conditions.

I am not saying that this attitude is right or wrong. It just is. Because this deeply ingrained belief exists, it affects many of the thoughts, words, and actions of the Native Americans. This profound connection to the land is an essential part of who they are.

The Native Americans struggle constantly to protect their land and to preserve their rights to it. They do not see the encroachment of outsiders as being  just words in a history book. They experience threats to their heritage as things that are happening now.

“Water is life. Water is sacred. Water is medicine.” – Wounded Knee

Along with the devotion to the land, there is an intense concern with water. The Native Americans rightly regard water as being essential to all life. The pollution of water, any water, is a serious moral issue. This helps to explain the massive protests by the indigenous people at Standing Rock. It was a fight to protect the water.

Concern for the water includes concern for the creatures that live in the water. In this part of the world that means being concerned about the salmon. The Indians care about the spawning grounds and how the salmon will get to those places. The water quality is necessarily important to the salmon, and to the Indians who catch them. There is often talk about the damaged, and leaking, nuclear reactor in Yukushima, Japan. People on the reservations are worried about the effects of the radiation on the salmon that migrate from the seas near Japan back to the Pacific Northwest.

All the people I have met are earth-centered. They care about the land and the water.

 

 

February 25th, 2018

“Do you dream of places you’ve never been to? You will.” – Tony

“Do you remember your dreams? You will.” – Tony

Yesterday I had my first experience in a sweat lodge. Most everyone else on the walk had been in one before. Some of them tried to explain to me what it was like. They told me that the inside of the sweat lodge was dark and claustrophobic. They told me that it was insanely hot. They told me that the sweat lodge was a place for doing deep, spiritual work. All those  descriptions were true, and all were inadequate.

Sancho drove some of us to the Nisqually sweat lodge yesterday evening. Sancho works for the Nisqually housing authority. During the ride, he told us that he had finally landed a full time position there, after years of working there seasonally. Sancho drove us to the sweat lodge because the lodge was well over a mile from where we were staying. We had passed the location earlier in the day, during one of our group walks.

The sweat lodge itself is a low, dome-shaped tent. It has a single entrance/exit in the front. That opening can be closed with the overhanging flap. There is a large fire pit in the center of the tent, surrounded by carpeting on the ground. There are no lights in the sweat lodge. Whatever light there is comes from the contents of the fire pit.

There is a lean to near the sweat lodge. It is only enclosed on three sides, and it contains a table and a variety of overstuffed chairs. In front of the sweat lodge is a large fire pit. There is also a nearby water faucet with a short hose and a makeshift shower.

We arrived at the sweat lodge just after dark. It was starting to get cold outside. The sky was clear and the moon was already riding high. Several men were tending a roaring fire. Hidden under the logs and the flames were numerous large stones.

We went into the lean to in order to undress. Some people go into the sweat lodge wearing only shorts or swim trunks. Some people go inside stark naked. Some guys wear a kind of loincloth. I just had on my underwear.

A person has to stoop low to enter the sweat lodge. After getting through the opening, the person then circles around the fire pit in a clockwise fashion until he or she finds a place to sit. The first person inside the lodge moves all the way around to the right edge of the tent opening. The following person sits to next to him, and so forth, until the lodge is full. One individual is designated to splash water on the hot rocks. That one sits near the center of the circle of participants.

Two five-gallon buckets of water were bright into the lodge and handed over to the man was going to pour it on to the rocks. Then two of the men tending the outside fire pit brought on hot rocks with pitchforks. The stones glowed bright orange in the darkness of the lodge. The color flickered deep inside of the rocks. Sparks twinkled in the holes and crevices of the rock’s surfaces. The light from the stones was not sufficient to illuminate the interior of the tent. We all sat in the shadows, and we were invisible to each other. Then the flap was closed and everything turned black.

We could hear each other breathe. Ikaeda sat next to me on my eight. I could hear him whispering “Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo” in the darkness. The leader of the group, the water-pourer, led us in prayer. Then the round began. It was kind of like a twelve step meeting, or rather, a twelve step meeting is a lot like a sweat lodge. The people in the circle each took terns speaking, and nobody interrupted them. If somebody said something moving, then the others might erupt in a spontaneous exclamation: “Aho!”. Once a person finished speaking, then the leader poured water on to the rocks. The hissing steam was the signal that the next person should talk.

Listening to a series of disembodied voices is eerie and a bit unnerving. I paid close attention to what each person said. My mind did not wander. Some people offered prayers of thanksgiving to the Creator. Some raised up petitions to the Creator and to their ancestors. Some sang and drummed. If a person had an important thing to day, they would sometimes ask the leader for four pours of water on to the stones, instead of the usual single pour.

The sweat lodge did not really get hot until the leader began splashing the stones. Then the steam filled the lodge like a superheated cloud. My body became slick with sweat. My breathing became ragged and labored. My heart pounded within my chest. The heat was less closer to the floor. At on point I laid down completely just so I could breathe.

My turn to speak came. Earlier in the day, I hid spoken with our son, Hans. He had been at the brink of despair when I talked to him. His depression and PTSD were coming on strong. I was still upset and hurt by our conversation.

I told the group, “I am angry with the Creator.”

There was a collective gasp. That might have been a bad move. I didn’t care. I was sick and tired of watching my kids suffer, and I said so.

Later, after the round was over, one of the men spoke to me about my words. Between rounds the flap was opened, and a blessed rush of cold air entered the tent. The man was sympathetic and he tried to give me a different perspective. He was completely respectful. That is a hallmark of the sweat lodge: mutual respect.

The second round proceeded much like the first. The heat was overwhelming in its intensity. Near the end of the round, Ben yelled, “Door!”, and somebody opened the flap. When the round ended, I stumbled outside into the winter air. I imagine that I must have glowed in the night like the stones in the lodge.

I was damn near naked, standing in the open, steaming. I didn’t feel cold at all. My heart raced. I told the leader, Eddie, that if I my heart slowed down, I would return for round three. If I was still at 200 beats per minute, then I was going to skip the next session. I felt lightheaded and woozy.

I did get better. I went back inside and took my place. The Indians decided to make the third round into the last round (usually they have a total of four rounds). They used up all the rest of the hot stones, all twenty of them. The session was quick. It was absolutely brutal inside the lodge. Very few people spoke. We made the round, and called it a sweat.

I took a cold shower at the water spigot. I was like a limp tag after the sweat lodge. Mickey drove me home in his Dodge Charger. He told me that the first two sessions had been much longer than usual, and much hotter. The third session was about normal in length, but using twenty stones at once was kind of excessive.

All in all, it was a good sweat.

February 23rd, 2018

We haven’t been on the road for even a week, and we are already settled into our fourth temporary home. We have a space in the Emergency Response Management building on the Nisqually reservation, near Olympia, WA. We drove for three hours from Sauk-Suiattle. The plan was for us to stop few miles away from the reservation, and then walk the rest of the way. That didn’t happen. A contingent from the Nisqually tribe met us at a gas station and escorted us to our lodgings on the rez. That was just as well. I am not sure we would have found the place on our own.

The people of the tribe greeted us when we arrived. They set us up with cots for the night. They fed us well. There was a delicious fish soup with garlic bread. After I had eaten two bowls of the soup, somebody brought in a huge order of Chinese food. We ate that too.

The tribal members gave each visitor a goodie bag. Everybody got a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a water bottle. Every item is emblazoned with the name of the tribe’s casino. Advertising is important, but it was more important to the people that they could honored us with gifts.

Hospitality is paramount. At each reservation so far, the Indians have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome. This has been done with food, lodging, and gifts. They have also welcomed us with songs, speeches, ritual, and prayer. I find it a bit overwhelming. I am a stranger to all of these people. I am not a member of their tribe or of their culture. They follow the biblical injunction to welcome the alien in their midst.

I wonder why they do all of this for us. I imagine that partly it is simply part of their heritage. Many traditional cultures place great emphasis on hospitality. Modern society has somehow lost that.

I think their enthusiasm is also a result of our mission as walkers. Our journey across America to send a message to the U.S. government regarding the suffering of the indigenous peoples resonates with the folks living on the reservations. We speak to their  concerns: the drugs, the booze, the violence. They find hope in what we are do. Somehow we inspire them, and they respond to that by caring for us.

The people here believe that the walkers are making a sacrifice by making this long trek. There might be some truth to that. We are nomadic. We are traveling light. Even so, our vehicles resembled a gypsy caravan going down I-5. We are away from our families and friends, and we miss them. None of us is currently earning a paycheck, so there are economic costs involved in this enterprise.  Our families also endure some pain while we are gone. They have to make up for us, and for some families that is a real struggle. We are on an adventure, and adventures come at a price.

I am meeting many new people. I like that. Most of them I will never see again, and that makes me sad. The nature of our journey makes it impossible to develop relationships with more than a few people. There just isn’t enough time to really get to know anybody. Conversations tend to be brief, although I have had some discussions that moved my spirit  In just these few days, I have already forgotten some people, and no doubt they have forgotten me. That is still okay. We have affected each other’s lives in small ways. That is all we can do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 23rd, 2018

“Every step you take should be a prayer”- Wounded Knee

“We are on a spiritual journey.” I have heard that over and over during the last five days. It’s true. We are surrounded by an invisible world filled with beings who move us and guide us. They might be ancestors. They might be angels. They might be God.

It seems like we pray all the tome. We pray before we eat. We pray before walk and after we walk. We pray at the start of the day and at the end. The type of prayer is meant to be inclusive. More than once I have heard someone say, “Pray the way you know how.” We have Christians among us. We have Buddhists. We have people who follow the traditional Native American beliefs. It doesn’t matter. We all pray together. We pray as one.

We participate in ritual. We sing. We drum. We chant. We sprinkle tobacco into the clear waters of a mountain river. We burn sage. We share a pipe. We share a meal. We walk.

Prayer is not just words. Prayer is a way of being. It is being connected with everything  else in the universe. It is beyond words.

February 22nd, 2018

I was up early this morning. I was already sitting in the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe Community Center when Dave walked into the room. Dave works for the tribe. He came in at 6:00 AM to light the wood stove. I sat with him as he tried to get it fired up. It was a long and frustrating process. We had time to talk.

I asked Dave about drug abuse at the reservation. He had stories. He asked Clarence, who was sitting nearby with his cup of coffee, about suicides. Clarence said the tribe had five suicides in recent years.

Dave talked a little about his own family. He lost a younger brother to opoids. I lost a younger brother to alcohol. Dave has a young relative who got in trouble with drugs. I have a loved one who will probably go to prison for driving drunk. Dave has a son-in-law who fought in Iraq. My son, Hans, fought there too. Our families have both been affected by violence and drugs.

Bobby spoke today to the tribal community. Bobby said that he knows of no family that hasn’t lost somebody to drugs or alcohol. No family is untouched by violence, especially domestic violence. It’s an epidemic. It’s everywhere. It’s all of us.

Why?

Why are drugs so attractive? Does reality suck that much?

I talked a little bit longer in the morning with Dave. Then I walked back to the long house. It was still dark in the valley. I found Ikaeda. He was getting ready to go outside to drum and chant with Bob and Peter. I went out with them.

We stood in the snow near the long house. We faced to the north. The sun was touching the very tips of the snow-covered mountains. The sunlight turned the peaks into glittering white jewels. I stared at these mountains as we chanted. I couldn’t look away.

We finished drumming. The sound faded, and there was only silence left. I still gazed at the Cascades. Low clouds hovered over the evergreen trees on the mountainsides. The sun was shining on a few more of the distant peaks. They literally glowed.

That moment was better than drugs.

February 22nd, 2018

Susie is Navajo. She is the mother of four young children. She plans on doing the entire walk across the United States. When I first spoke to her, she told me,

“I am the girl who got shot in the eye at Standing Rock in November of 2016.”

That is how she identified herself. It was the very first thing she said.

Later she told me about her home in Arizona. She told me about her family. She told me a story about her great-great-grandmother.

“My great-great-grandmother was with the tribe as the soldiers forced us to move. She was pregnant with my great-grandfather. At that time, the soldiers would let the mothers give birth and then they would shoot both the newborn child and the mother. Somehow, my great-great-grandmother gave birth and then fled across the river with the baby. That’s why I am here.”

Bobby Wallace is the leader of our group. He’s from a reservation in southern California, near San Diego. He gives us pep talks. He likes to say that we come from all nations. I believe that he is referring mostly to the fact that there are members of several different Indian nations among the walkers. (The word “nation” is meant in a literal sense. The Lummi tribe actually has a national anthem.). There are also several people from Japan with us. I am that stray white guy from Wisconsin who keeps hanging around. IMost of our party are Native Americans. This is their gig. This is their mission.

It’s an eclectic group. There is a wide range of backgrounds and personalities. We are still in the earliest phases of getting to know each other. Being an introvert, I find it hard to mingle. That is why I got up at 3:00 AM to start writing this post.

Kid is from Kentucky. “Kid” is his real name. He is a singer/songwriter and a long distance runner. He is suffering from gout in his ankle, so this walk is a struggle for him. He brought his guitar along with him. He sings to us. He wrote  song about his nephew, who died of a heroin overdose.

One thing we all have in common is that each one of us has been scarred by drugs, alcohol, or violence. For every one of us, this walk has a deep, personal aspect. We are all wounded in some way, and we all want healing.

Tony is from La Jolla reservation in the mountains near San Diego. He’s a young man who loves food and a good joke. He dives a huge pick up truck that drags a trailer full of our gear. Jeremiah is another well-built young man. He is a Shoshone from northern Nevada. He sings and drums with a passion. He can be very funny.

As I have mentioned before, Yamada is from Japan. He plays guitar, and he also drums and chants. Makyo is a young woman who is with him. She is a beautiful singer. Ikaeda is a Buddhist monk from Senji’s order. He is thirty-nine years old, bit he looks much younger. He drums and chants as we walk.

Chief Harry Kindness is Mohawk-Oneida. He lived in Wisconsin for many years. Now he lives in Vegas. He is also an elder of the group. He has been doing these walks for decades. He told us, “There is good crazy, and there is bad crazy!” He believes we are “good crazy”.

Pete is a big man. He has a massive head and a toothy grin. He is from the Pit River reservation in California, near Mount Shasta. He told me that all of us are on the walk to put our lives together. We gather little pieces of our lives along the way.

Bob is from an Indian council in Oakland, California. He has long, grey hair. He drums and chants. He keeps track of Yoshi, the eleven-year-old boy who is walking with us. Bob’s friend, Peter, is here too. Peter is a New Yorker who wound up with the Catholic Workers in Tacoma.

Wounded Knee is from Pit River. He’s seventy-six and he’s quite lively. He went on the very first Longest Walk in 1978. He walked with Dennis Banks. Wounded Knee really qualifies as a wise elder. He is funny as hell, and his very compassionate. He gave me knit cap to keep my bald head warm.

Wounded rides in a truck with his friend, Bruce. They argue and complain every time they have to load the gear back into the truck.. I steer clear of those guys when they are loading. I want no part of that action.

Ferdinand is from San Francisco. He’s here for the whole walk. He meditates in an Indian (Asian) fashion. Nothing seems to bother him. He exudes calm.

The membership of the walk is constantly shifting and changing. People come and go. At some point I will have to go. I don’t know when yet. In the meantime, I will watch and learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 21st, 2018

Yamada is from Japan. He has a close relationship with the Native American peoples. He has often walked with them. Yamada plans to make this entire walk. He started fasting at the very beginning of the walk, and he only broke the fast this evening, after we finished the walk to Sauk-Suiattle country.

The folks on the reservation greeted us eagerly as we approached the long house. They drummed and chanted as we formed a circle on front of the wooden structure. They invited us into the building. An old man with a rattle told us to walk four full circles around the interior of the long house. He shook his rattle as we went around and around.

The chairman of the tribe, Joseph, greeted all of us. Then Yamada started a ritual to celebrate the end of his fast. In the middle of our circle, he laid out the chanupas (peace pipes) and the other medicine. Jeremiah, the Shoshone youth, sang and drummed. Yamada took up his pipe and slowly filled it with tobacco. Yamada turned to face each of the cardinal directions as he filled the end of his pipe. Finally, he lit it.

Yamada passed the pipe around to the members of the circle, both walkers and the people of the tribe. He started with Chairman Joseph, and then moved clockwise around the sacred circle. He had to relight the pipe repeatedly as he walked around. I was unsure about sharing the pipe. I hadn’t smoked anything for over forty years. I was afraid that I would gag or cough. Yamada offered me the pipe. I took two shallow drags on it, and blew the smoke out. It tasted sweet, and good.

As Yamada made his circuit, the old man also went around the circle. He held a smoldering bundle of sage and a large bird wing. He was “doctoring” us. I found out later from him that walkers pick up bits of evil on their journey. He was cleansing our bodies and spirits of the accumulated bad energy. I noticed that he spent a lot of time working on me. The man see the smoke from the sage and the bird’s wing to brush the darkness away from me. He took the wing and touched parts of my body, and then he shook the invisible contents of the wing on to the floor.

I talked later with the old man. His name is Ernie. He has a weathered face and a long, black braid of hair. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans. He was more than willing to speak to me. I asked him about the ritual.

“I was cleansing you. Walkers pick up evil as they travel. It wasn’t me that took the evil away. It was God. I don’t do anything. He does it all”, and Ernie pointed to the ceiling.

“Do you pray?”, he asked me. “You can do it. All you need is your tongue and eyes and ears. God gave you all those things. That and your common sense. Ask Him for whatever you want. Years ago, in this house, when we needed food, we would pray for a deer, and a deer would come inside and offer its life for us. Ask God. You have ears, eyes, and a tongue. You have your common sense. What do you want?”

“I want my kids to stop suffering.”

I told him that, but he didn’t hear. He went on,

“We were a people that gathered. We never needed money. We had fish and other food. We lived in our long houses. Then the Man came. He took our land and our culture. Our language. He took it all. Now it just starting to come back. We have to teach our children the right way. We have to make it right again.”

Wounded Knee talked to me yesterday. He asked me,

“Do you know how to pray?”

I told him that I do, but maybe I don’t really. I don’t know. With each passing day, I feel like I know less. It’s confusing.

A word about the Sauk-Suiattle. They have lived here, under the gaze of the Whitehorse Mountains for longer than anyone knows. In 1924 their numbers had dwindled to only eighteen people. They have rebounded somewhat. They are still a tiny group. They survived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 21st, 2018

The Native Americans love to sing. At least, this has been my experience thus far. They offer their songs as gifts, and their listeners accept them as such. The Indians give more than music. Their entire culture seems to be centered on giving and receiving. It goes on constantly.

At every reservation we give the people something. This is done as a ritual. The gift is often something simple; bundles of sage, for instance. We were given presents in return. The Lummi gave us a carved wooden staff. The staff has a head carved to look like a killer whale. Each walker got a scarf or some kind of stone or bracelet, something to remember our visit with the tribe.

The Swinomish gave us other things besides salmon. They chipped in to get us debit cards for gas. They gave each walker a blanket, and three books about the history of the Swinomish.

At each reservation the tribal members seem extremely grateful that we were walking across the country to fight drug abuse and domestic violence. They are very emotional about it. They are thrilled to give us food and lodging. What we are doing is clearly something that touches the Native people deeply.

Tonight we are at the Sauk-Suiattle reservation. It’s deep in the Cascades. It’s snowing here. The people here have also been truly generous to us. They are letting us sleep in their long house. They have fed us well.  They have shown us every consideration. I feel honored and somehow unworthy of this selfless love.

 

February 20th, 2018

Ferdinand told me yesterday that I always talk about the past.

“In all of our conversations you are always drawn into the past. You get pulled back to those events and feelings. That prevents you from enjoying the present. You don’t need to forget the past, but you can release the feelings that hold you there.”

The Indians are always in the past. The past makes them who they are now. They recall the genocide of their people like the Jews remember the Holocaust. I get the impression that the Native American history molds the Native American present. They view everything through that lens. They hang on to their feelings like I hang on to mine.

There is an intense devotion to the ancestors. I don’t quite get that. I agree that our ancestors walk along with us, but I don’t have a deep admiration for mine. They were good people, mostly, but they were just people. They were strong and loyal, but they were also tragically flawed. The Native American emphasis on their ancestry is alien to me. I am interested in my place and purpose in the long chain of generations,  but not like they are. They take it to s whole new level.

I find it difficult to fit in. There are so many things that I don’t understand.

We arrived at the Swinomish reservation yesterday. These people are a really tight community. Very inspiring. They are in the Skagit  Valley. They fish salmon, and they have other enterprises. They are relatively loosely wealthy, and they care for each other. They really do.

The Swinomish community has an outstanding drug rehabilitation program. It could become a model for other reservations, and for the rest of the country. Everything that an addict needs to recover is located in one building. The program has helped over fifty heroin abusers to recover.

The Swinomish tribal community gave us an amazing farewell. They gave us three boxes of smoked salmon. Salmon goes for $20 a. pound. They might as have given us gold. The farewell ceremony included prayers, heartfelt speeches, and songs. Very moving.

Today we walk somewhere else, to another rez.  I don’t know where.

 

 

 

 

February 19th, 2018

We spent the night at the youth center on the Lummi Nation reservation. Jeremiah, a young Shoshone man, led us in pray before we had breakfast.  it was cold and clear this morning. Well, it was cold for this part of the country. It was definitely long underwear weather.

Usually, an enterprise like the Longest Walk 5.3 uses a connect-the-dots process to make the journey. That means that end point of today’s stroll should be the starting point for tomorrow’s jaunt. Not this time. It appears that it is important for the walkers to visit as many Indian reservations as possible. This means we will have to move in a zigzag pattern, and it won’t be accomplished on foot. It means that we will have to drive sometimes. There is no way around that.

We only went about six miles today. We started at Boulevard Park in Bellingham. For awhile walked through an urban area, then we walked a road through a forest. Eventually, we walked past upscale homes near the sea. We ended at a parking area surrounded by firs, pines, and cedars. The State Patrol decided to visit us there. Somebody called to complain about the walk. That sort of thing is not unusual.

Owashdai, the Lakota spiritual leader talked to all of after today’s walk. He asked us to reflect on our walk and our prayer? What did we give to others today? What are our expectations from the walk? Owashdal encouraged us to let go of our expectations. They will only cause us disappointment. We should focus on the needs of the people. It sounded like good advice to me.

I talked with Ferdinand today. He was an Army medic during the first Iraq War. Ferdinand has lived around the world, and now he resides in San Francisco. I told Ferdinand about Hans’ war experiences. I also told him about the girl we love.

Ferdinand told me to use this walk to do interior work. He said,

“You  have to rid yourself of guilt that you feel. Work through your feelings and come out the other side. You can’t let your inner light shine on others until you do that. That is why you are here. This walk is for you to heal inside. He may be right.”

How do I reconcile what Owashdai said with Ferdinand’s guidance? The two paths seem to be on opposition to each other.

Or  maybe not. I don’t know. I’ll keep walking.