another work away and i wanted to make some kind of mark before i left. This was it. Threads to the past days were many. It's November. My birth month, an uneasiness to this, always. The drawing as they do, came fast with no forethought…draw 2 eyes and whatever comes next just does. I was surprised and pleased, set those two scraps of cloth on it, more pleased….Happy, even. "The world in my head", i think.
found this old drawing. Closing my eyes, watching the thoughts. Back to the creek of my childhood where i was sure my "real people" lived. That whole world and life i created there where i was an indian, or my horse, or some times both in a single form.
All my life the connection with the First People, sometimes actively, sometimes just an underlying thread. All the drawings, reading, and then in my late 20's, early 30's, actual Study but within that New Age energy that never felt OK. When the word
appropriation
rose up. Backing away. And that question, the Basic Question….What =s a good life? and my leaving to find the answer. Travel the continent. Through reservations, RoseBud, where i first experienced how the directions of East and West, Sun Rise and Sun Set are the same, no separation. And the guy at the gas station telling me it was the time of Looks Within.
Arriving in Hopi Land, direct to 3rd Mesa in search of Helen Sekaquaptewa who i'd seen in a PBS program just before leaving, she sang a song in the background of the documentary, it drifted through the whole of it. I needed to know the meaning, i said to myself.
3rd Mesa, me and my dog Lucy in the dark before dawn, walking through the dark houses until we were at the edge, THE rim of the world, watching Sun's first light creeping over that edge. I prayed for knowledge. Turning, walking back, suddenly dogs rushed out snarling and growling, attacking Lucy who fought them back, we hurried then and doors opened…women threw pots of boiling water at us.
Waiting at the trading post back on 2nd Mesa, sitting on the curb. When it opened asking how to find her. "no one knew" who i was talking about. I knew they did. She was the matriarch of an old and powerful family. Nothing to do but wait. Every couple hours going again to ask until finally, a young woman gestured….over there….Where?….there, that house. Almost next door.
I stood at the gate and waited. A youngish man came out. Told him i was looking for Helen Sekaquaptewa that i had heard her sing a song on TV in Michigan and i needed to hear her sing it, and most, tell me the words because i needed to know their meaning. He went in for a long time, came out, OK. I followed and there at her kitchen table she was, eating cherrios, chasing them one at time around the bowl with her spoon. Her son told her what i had said and then i asked too if i could make a little movie, i had a camcorder. He looked startled…they are NOT allowed, NOT wanted and were a severe rudeness. She spoke through him asking why i wanted the song and i said it was for me and my daughter, her babies in Michigan, that things were not easy with us and i needed a song. She nodded and put down her spoon and sang. just like in the documentary, a thin soft winding circling song that repeated the refrain many times. I cried and asked if she could tell me the meaning. She said it was a lullaby about two black beetles walking down the road. One always trying to ride the back of the other. The look on my face made her laugh, a soft soft loving laugh and she gestured and said through her son….it's no more than that. Nothing is more than that. Take the song and sing it to them. She was born in 1898 and died in 1990, a year after this.
There are more stories of me here in the SouthWest trying to find my way in Native Ways and places, making mistakes and learning that if i wanted to learn what i wanted to learn, i'd need to find a way to Live with them. I'd need to EARN it. But i was always on the edge of returning so i didn't and there was also that constant sense of Appropriation.
so i just took that part of me inside and remember thinking one day….i Can't become an indian, so i'll just try to live like one. And here we have this "sovereign nation of one" in Polvadera. i look at this drawing this morning and see it as being connected to native imagery. Appropriation? but then, this my year of going into the decade of the 70's. I'm old. Maybe because of having waited and lived, maybe i can put what is Inside, outside. What If? How would it feel? What would come of it?
windthread 
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