So I was googling my email address the other day...

Check it out! In the September 2007 issue of Debt Xerography, Donny Smith wrote an awesome review of my 2006 zine:

A COMMEMORATIVE HISTORY OF THE MINNEHAHA FREE STATE AND FOUR OAKS SPIRITUAL ENCAMPMENT by Elizabeth Egan, Tlingit Nation (July 2006) no price (I got mine for $1 at Boxcar Books in Bloomington) An inspiration! An account of a series of protests to save four sacred oaks and a spring in Minnesota from being paved over. Their non-violent actions over several years were met with gratuitous violence in the end. The trees were cut and the state began paving over the spring. But the great thing about this zine is that it doesn’t present the story as one of victory or defeat, but rather as a segment of an ongoing, collaborative process, in which various groups learned to work together, Native American intertribal unity was strengthened, and-ultimately-the highway plans were modified to protect the spring. Nice handwriting and illustrations, too. “To most outsiders, the protest seemed to be a baffling phenomenon, but over the next seven years, I’ve seen it again, a movement, manifesting intensely and dramatically. We are living in a time of reclamation and recognition, and resistance is more effective and constructive.”

Cool review, eh?  Well, it's still available through Microcosm Publishing.

While you were waiting

I'm anxious to see what goes down with Leonard Peltier's parole case. The U$ Parole Commission is due to make a decision on the parole hearing within the coming days. In the meantime, check out my amateur photojournalism skills from a 2004 Peltier support rally:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/02/280049.shtml

UPDATE Aug. 21: The decision has been made, and I am not happy, but not completely surprised. 

Gunalcheesh (thank you in Tlingit)

Last Friday, I saw the Alaska Kuteeyaa Dancers at the Squaxin Tribe's Museum. They are a group of Alaska Natives, mostly Tlingits, who live in the Washington State/Salish Sea area. The dance group was a dream of a brother of one of the members to keep Tlingits and other Alaska Natives in this area connected to their Alaska Native culture. It was wonderful to see the dance group again, especially since I have been a little but directionally dishevled since returning from the Canoe Journey on August 4th. On Friday evening, I finally (physically) unpacked from the Canoe Journey, washing the Salish Sea out of my gear.

Before the meal was served at the Skokomish Elders Picnic on Saturday, a friend got up to the mic and spoke to the significance of the recent return of canoe families from this year's journey. He then asked pullers in attendance (from all nations) to come up and "sing our spirits back." He explained to the audience that so much of our souls are still out on that water that we needed to call ourselves back.

I really appreciated the call to do that, because it was both relevant and needed. For the past few weeks, I had been working to integrate what I had learned on the journey—I was not lost, per se—but I had definitely been swirling because I had been re-evaluating the universe so much. I have felt more transparent, as if my skin is less of a barrier between me and the rest of the world. Maybe that's part of the understanding I'm approaching: that there is no separation between me and the rest of the world, or even between me and the universe. I am part of all of it, "steeped in its burning layers," as Teilhard says (see previous post). In the past weeks, my heart had felt like a strong magnet was pulling it towards the Canal on my way to work every day, so getting up there at the Elders Picnic and calling our spirits back was a great thing. My parents got to witness that too, which is awesome.

The journey was an amazing & pivotal experience and it was such a privilege & honor to pull. Every time I try to count my blessings, I realize that they can’t be counted or even named, but that they are overlapping within me.

I hope the summer is in all ways beautiful for you and your family.

Live life on your own terms

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin