Frank is Emptiness

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.

 

 

February 18th, 2018

It is like walking into a theater halfway through a movie. There is some confusion as to what is going on. I was there at the very start of the Longest walk 5.3, but I still felt disoriented. You see, nothing ever really starts fresh. Each event is based on something that previously occurred, and each new thing has a history. My problem is that I don’t anything about that history. I don’t know the context.

I was there in the parking lot of the Silver Reef Casino for the water ceremony. I saw the ritual with the altar, with its buffalo skull, its bundles of sage, and the pipe (chanupa). But I didn’t understand it all, over even most of it. There are too many gaps in my knowledge, too many holes in my experience.

A Lakota Indian serves as the spiritual guide for the walk. I do not yet know his name. He’s a scary dude. That may not be a bad thing. He spoke to the assembled group, as the cold wind blew in from Canada. He stayed and chanted, as did his wife. He said some harsh things.

“If you are not 100% with this walk, with our prayer, GO HOME!”

I wasn’t expecting to hear that. He sad the same sort of thing over and over. He made it clear that this walk is not about ego and not about media exposure. It’s about “the people”, although I am not sure who exactly he meant by “the people”. Is it the Native American people, or “people” in a universal sense?

Later, a young man told me about a previous walk. During that walk there was dissension and strife. Part of the Lakota’s talk was in reference to this earlier journey. The spiritual guide wants to prevent a repeat of those troubles.

His words made me think. I had to question my own intentions and motivations. So, why am I here? The honest answer to that is “I don’t know”. I really don’t. I know in my gut that I am supposed to be here with these people. I can’t explain why. I have no rational understanding of all this. If the Lakota cornered me and asked me for my purpose, I would have nothing to say. Maybe he would understand that no answer is also an answer. He said that the spirits tell him what is the hearts of the walkers. Then he known more than I do.

An old man, Wonder Knee, also spoke. He said that all life is sacred, and that we are all one people. That was comforting. Wounded Knee also made it clear that drugs and booze were not allowed on the walk.

Earlier, I talked with an Indian woman named Beatrice. She told me about the importance of protecting women and children from violence. She said,

“Our men must be strong. You must protect us.”I said that I would try.

She became adamant. “No, YOU must protect women!”

I keep thinking about that. I have done a good job of that thus far. I don’t feel like I have.

We didn’t walk far yesterday. Maybe eight miles. We walked on a rad near the coast. Whitecaps rode the waves on the sea. The birches bent in the wind. Across the water, the Cascades stood tall. Mount Baker shown white in sun.

It was beautiful.

 

 

 

February 16th, 2018

Lush. Lush and intensely green. That was how the world looked to me yesterday as I walked through Gazzam Lake Park on the west side of Bainbridge Island. The park has a trail that snakes through the forest toward the sea. Towering Douglas firs and  majestic cedars surround the path, blocking the view of a typically overcast sky. Ferns grow among  leaves that have fallen from the naked branches of the birch trees. Lichen and fluorescent green moss cling to the trunks and branches of the trees. It is not spring yet, but the low bushes have small buds. Ivy creeps on the earth.  I saw a lone holly, with its shiny, serrated leaves. Everything was wet yesterday morning. The woods were cool and damp.

I hiked along the trail. It descended gently until it came close to the water’s edge. Then  the path dropped steeply. It followed a zigzag pattern down a steep bluff. The walkway was narrow and winding, without pavement or handrails.

I saw a fallen cedar. It had broken off near the bottom of the trunk. The splintered wood showed a bright rust red in sharp in contrast to the predominant green of the forest. It was if the tree had bled all over the ground as it fell and died.

I came to the shore of the strait that separates the island from the Olympic Peninsula. Waves lapped on round stones. I dipped my hand into the water and put my fingers in my mouth to taste the salt. Low grey clouds skidded across the sky. The wind blew from the south and sighed in the woods above me.

I sat down on a granite boulder. I did nothing. I was just there.

 

 

 

February 16th, 2018

I walked into the temple around 5:30 AM. The service was going to start at 6:00. I wasn’t expecting to even be in temple this morning. We were supposed to be on our way to Blaine for the start of the Longest Walk. The walk didn’t happen today.

The walk is postponed until Sunday morning. This was a bit of a surprise to everyone here. The Native American group let Senji know about the change last night, only hours before the show was scheduled to begin. My understanding is that one of the organizers had a death in his family (grandmother, I believe). Out of respect for the family, the entire walk was pushed back two days. Now the walk will start on Sunday, the 18th, at 11:00 AM in the town of Ferndale, WA. I guess we begin on journey in the parking lot of a tribal casino.

Senji told me last, “We are on Indian time now. This is typical for walks with Native Americans.”

I’m flexible. I got nothing but time. I think that I understand a little how the Indians value family above almost everything else. It is becoming clear to me that I am going to learn a lot on this walk, and my own attitudes are going to be challenged. We haven’t even started yet, and it is already blowing my mind.

Anyway, I digress. I was going to talk about chanting.

The temple itself is cold and dark when not in use. Senji only keeps two tiny lamps burning on the altar. The altar has multiple levels. At the top are golden images of the Buddha and the bodhisattvas. A little lower is a large, framed photograph of Nichidatsu Fujii, the founder of Senji’s order.  Offerings are left on the altar: fruit, chocolate, other sweets. On each side of the main altar are statues of the seated Buddha, along with small pictures of deceased monks and other loved ones.

Senji came into the temple just before six o’clock, carrying a tray of tea cups. He placed the cups on the altar, and in front of the photos of the monks who are now gone. Ikaeda followed Senji inside. Senji turned on more lights, and lit two candles in front of the altar. He lit two sticks of incense and placed them in bowls.

Ikaeda  sat on a cushion in front of the signing bowl. The metal bowl is as big as a large laundry basket. When Ikaeda struck the bowl, it rang with a deep, mellow sound. From there Ikaeda went to great drum to pound out a steady rhythm . The drum sits on a wooden stand, and it nearly the size of a fifty-five gallon barrel. He struck the drum with wooden sticks that produced a booming beat, louder and deeper than that of a bass drum.

Senji and I sat on our cushions and hit our taikos, paddle-shaped drums that look a bit like badminton rackets. They sound like snare drums.

The chanting itself is very simple. We sang the words “Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo” over and over, in time with drumming. The chants are kind of a “call and response”. Senji is blessed with a deep baritone voice. He would chant first, and then Ikaeda  and I would reply with our tenors. We went back and forth, and back and forth.

Lani came in a little later. She is a Japanese neighbor. She took over the drumming from Ikaeda. Ikaeda grabbed a taiko and drummed with that, as he continued to chant. Lani’s alto voice blended with the chants coming from Ikaeda and me. Then Lani’s stepson, Yoshi, arrived at the temple. He also drummed and chanted.

This went on for almost an hour. Just “Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo” in a seemingly endless round. It does finally end. As in the beginning, the singing bowl rings. The drumming and chanting slow gradually. Then it all stops.

There is silence.

The chant is in my head. It will probably be in my dreams tonight. It is part of me.

Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo

(I asked Senji once what the words meant. He smiled and said, “You are love. You are beautiful. You are Buddha.”)