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Duck Island
On my path in life I was surrounded by two different cultures. My mother
was of the dominant culture.
I honored my mother's wishes and attended a Christian church regularly
through my late teens. I listened to the stories and sang the songs. For me
there was something missing in my heart. The hole remained and my quest to
fill it continued.
I found the answers with my father. His church was the outdoors. He loved
to hike, ride horse, and fish. My father had no serious talks or lesson
plans. His spirituality, as mine, was beyond words. We rose before dawn. In
my early years this was not always a pleasant thing -- lol. We would have a
breakfast of poached eggs and toast. The strong smell of wakalyapi (coffee)
filled the dimly lit kitchen. Few words were spoken.
From our home a small dirt trail was followed. The black sky was so large
to my small eyes. In the East the soft glow of a new day gave hope to all.
The trail passed through young woodlands and brushy areas. My father pointed
out the fauna as we traveled. The hike was several miles over rough terrain.
I loved every minute of it.
The young woodlands opened into a large forest of huge old hemlocks and
pines. The ground was soft -- covered with several inches of brown needles.
The pine needles were very long like porcupine quills. The smell was so
fresh! This pine wonderland ended on the top of a small hill. From here the
voice of the river could be heard. Her mood was reflected in her song ringing
across the valley. Some mornings she was soft and gentle -- others loud and
boisterous.
I learned just from her voice what she would look like. Shallow and slow
with many rocks protruding. A lazy healing song that I loved to hear. Deep
and swift with a brown appearance and much debris carried along as she
cleansed her shores.
The trail led down the slope twisting around cutbacks to reach the flood
plain. Here the land was rocky with grasses, milk weed, wild mustard, and ink
berries. A few small trees were sparsely placed across the hillside. This
area was only now recovering from deforestation, the building of a canal, and
the heavy pollution of coal dirt.
A small stream entered the river at the place we sought to visit. The
stream was deep and dark. It silently rushed to meet her sister the
Schuylkill River (Hidden River). We were home! For years I searched for who I
was and what spiritual path I was to follow. Yet, all the time my heart knew
and so did my father. I was not of the dominant culture - I belonged to this
land and its ancestors.
I could always see a peace on my father's face in this place -- my heart
also shared it. We would catch as many fish as we could eat and release the
rest. The trips were not about fishing though. We could stay all day and
catch nothing -- the results would be the same. A sense of belonging, a great
peace inside us, a healing, and the oneness I feel to this day. My mother
never understood this in my father or myself.
As years pass my spiritual time is spent on the mountain or at the river.
They are one. The mountain's feet guided the river on her way. Later in my
teens I discovered a place farther down stream. This became my special place.
To reach the river of my special place a dirt road was now taken. It
serpentined through woodlots and meadow. In summer the grasses were four feet
high. I now enter with an old Chey. This old car was not appreciated by the
more affluent of the area. To one of limited wealth (myself) it was
magnificent. Two tone blue, two door, with a 283 cubic inch engine equipped
with a four barrel. This was my steel pony and friend. She took me on
adventures and I tinkered on her to keep her in good health.
The road straightened out along a high embankment lined with tall maples
and mulberry trees. Straight across, the mountain rose steeply -- covered in
oak and poplar forest. Between the two shores flowed my old friend the
Schuylly.
I parked my pony in the shade of an old mulberry tree. Her limbs spanned
out forty feet. I walked a sharply declining trail to the shoreline. The
trail slips down an embankment of thirty feet. Here the soil was soft and
loose like sand and several inches deep. The sunlight glistened off its
granular surface. It was an accumulation over many years of coal dirt. The
soil appeared as the black beaches of Hawaii.
Years of washing the coal up river had turned her black. Now new
environmental laws are helping her to recover. The shore of the river drops
straight off from a height of three feet before meeting the river surface.
The river is wide and deep. She is on average twelve to twenty-four feet in
depth. The water is black and nothing can be seen under the surface.
I have an old braided rug as my sleeping bag. Monetarily I am poor -- but
my heart is rich. Night falls upon this place. Crickets sing their songs of
love. Owls call from across the river. A large yellow moon rises and reflects
on the dark skin of the tranquil river. A small fire is started. The wood
hisses and crackles the smell is so refreshing to me. The oneness again fills
me. I do not know why -- but I am home!
I lay on my carpet and look up at the stars twinkling and dancing. A
single cloud slowly drifts past. The sky is so black the stars seem to be
hanging in nothingness. In this place the river splits into two flows. A
large island separates the two. The island is many acres -- long and narrow.
The side I fish on tonight is a slow flow. She meanders by and whispers
to me -- calls to me. Here the bottom is coated in black coal powder as the
shore I lay upon. The water quality has improved over the years. Fishing is
good.
The other flow drops away into a gorge of steep outcroppings lined with
trees. The trees cling tight so as not to slip into the river. The river
bottom here has been scoured clean by fast currents. The bottom is rock and
gravel. The river is only four to five feet deep in this channel and runs
swiftly with white water splashing and dancing over the cascades for which it
was named. Small coves jut back into the island shore. Here small catfish
nests are spotted with many small fry moving as a black cloud under a surface
of clear water.
The island is densely covered by young trees. Along the shore they are
bent in the direction of the river's flow from the many floods. It is
difficult to
walk on this island due to dense cover. Misquotes and black flies swarm to
their new guests. Upon leaving the shore the ticks must be washed from your
body. Yet, this place calls to me. A quiet beauty and strength are here! No
signs of man are visible on the island or the mountain behind it.
I still visit this place of spiritual peace and natural beauty. I now
know why it has called me to her. The island was gifted to the state park
service by the family that owned it. In years passed it had been farmed and
stripped of all its trees and brush. As generations passed farming ceased.
The island reverted back to her old self. Hardwood forests sprang up once
more. The floods washed the scars of man away. Now she is as she was once
more.
As I learned my own history, I discovered this island was used by the
Unami Oyate(people) for many many years. In this time the river was called
the Roaring River. Shad choked the river as salmon once choked the streams of
the Northwest. The people fished here and farmed the three sisters along her
shores. A small village was located close on a small tributary. Sadly the
people who owned the land and other visitors to this place stripped her of
many artifacts.
They could not strip her of her spirit though. She has renewed herself
once more. The Old Ones listen to the sweet music of the cascades this place
was named for. She now renews my spirit. I now listen to the music of the
cascades and the soft voices of the Old Ones who invited me there so many
years ago. They whisper welcome home my son.
Here is duality. The flow running through the gorge is swift and
protected from civilization by the steep slope of the mountain. This allows
this channel to run clean and sparkling once more. The island now has a stand
of middle aged forest on her. The birds, fishes, and four leggeds return as
in the old times. The deeper slower front channel is recovering slower. This
place is visited by man still. Her soft meadows and woodlands are used for an
old dumpsite. The coal dirt still remains thick on the banks and in the
deeper pools of slower water.
Two cultures also survive here. The dominant culture thrives on the
shores of the slower flow. But on the island and back channel it is Unami
land once more. Few travel there. Most see nothing of worth there. To these
eyes it is priceless. Not only nature's treasures in the new forest and
returning animals -- but the land as it was. The Old Ones with me under the
stars.
The people are still here. The land has returned in this small place. My
father always wished to return home to his people. He did not know it at the
time -- he was home as I am now. Aho
Tunkasila, Woplia
written by ShyHawk(FM)
February 2002
My father has crossed two years
ago this month. I miss him and love him - I am happy for him. He walks with
me. In my thoughts we journey once more to the land of our fathers. Here our
spirits both belong. We were not meant to be confined in four walls. This is
our church and our home. Here he visits with the Old Ones. I see the wrinkles
gone from his face. A soft smile over takes him as he listens to the river's
music under a black night sky filed with so many stars and relations. Here my
father now walks. Aho
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