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Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Cherokee Language

In this excerpt from the documentary "Voices of North Carolina*" Cherokee people in North Carolina talk about efforts to preserve their language and culture.



*A production of the LANGUAGE AND LIFE PROJECT at NC State University www.languageandlife.org

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Monday, November 29, 2021

Giving Thanks Prayer by Native Americans

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants has a chapter, Allegiance to Gratitude.  She writes that the various Native American tribes have one thing in common: we are rooted in cultures of gratitude.  She tells of the Onondaga school which begins and ends each week with the  Thanksgiving Address, a river of words as old as the people themselves, known more accurately in the Onondaga language as the Words That Come Before All Else. 

She writes on p. 111:

    Imagine raising children in a culture in which gratitude is the first priority. Freida Jacques works at the Onondaga Nation School. She is a clan mother, the school-community liaison, and a generous teacher. She explains to me that the Thanksgiving Address embodies the Onondaga relationship with the world. Each part of creation is thanked in turn for fulfilling its Creator-given duty to the others. “It reminds you every day that you have enough. Everything you need to sustain life is already here. When we do this, every day, it leads us to an outlook of contentment and respect for all of Creation.”

     You can’t listen to the Thanksgiving Address without feeling wealthy. And, while expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness. The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need. Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy. That’s good medicine for people and land alike.

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I was able to find a recording of a Native American thanks Prayer on YouTube which sounds like what Kimmerer describes in her book. In the video below, you will hear the Native American language followed by an English translation.

 


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Saturday, November 27, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Autumn Gold

the gold of autumn,
its transitory wonder,
abides in the trees


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Photo: Ginkgo Tree with Yellow Planter
Credit: Charles Kinnaird



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Thursday, November 25, 2021

National Day of Mourning

 In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we listen to some Wampanoag voices on why they have, since 1970, observed a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day. Many today do not realize that the Wampanoag people still reside on their native lands in Massachusetts.

 


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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Thanksgiving Day and our Storied History

"Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Table: Christian Perspectives on American Identity, Inclusion, and Immigration" A panel discussion at Gordon College

Mark Charles, in the first twenty minutes, gives a "myth-busting" Native American perspective. 


 



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Monday, November 22, 2021

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Nature's Boundaries

 some plants keep blooming
until the first frost appears –
boundaries enforced



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Photo: Cotton Blossom by Charles Kinnaird



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Thursday, November 18, 2021

A Native American Oral History of Little Big Horn

Continuing with Native American Heritage Month, some oral history from two Lakota people


Hear some stories of Chief Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Little Big Horn from Lakota voices whose families passed them down.



On YouTube, Reechel Donohue has shared a film she produced of Chief Sitting Bull's great-grandson recounting an oral history as passed down by his people of the battle of Little Big Horn. He also explains some of the Lacota culture and sheds light on the circumstances surrounding Custer's attack on the Lakota people.
 
The site does not allow playback on other sites (such as this blog) but the 12-minute video can be viewed on YouTube at https://youtu.be/u-3NIrXW92s

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Chief David Bald Eagle shares in this 18-minute video what his grandfathers told him about Crazy Horse and how his people would send scouts to see if the enemy (the U.S. Cavalry) was anywhere near. His grandfather told him that Crazy horse did not want to be a leader, that he was more spiritually inclined. When Crazy Horse came to their village, they could tell by the way he wore his feather whether the news was good or bad.  

Chief Bald Eagle was himself a WWII veteran (4th Cavalry, 82nd Airborne Division)He was also a musician, a cowboy, and an actor. He died at the age of 97 in 2016, the same year this film was produced.

 


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Wednesday, November 17, 2021

In Between The Lines: Native American Poetry

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, here is a short film from New Mexico PBS: COLORES | In Between The Lines: Native American Poetry.

"Featured are a remarkable group of Native American teen poets from Pueblos and the Navajo Reservation. For many Native teens, their tie to tradition and culture is blurring, these poets are standing at a crossroads in a rapidly evolving world. In Between the Lines catches that spark that ignites these young writers. We go in-between-the-lines and film them on their home ground in a cinema verite style. Through their poetry we learn of connections: family, the land around them and their native language. We also learn of obstacles: poverty, the drug and alcohol abuse and the dramatic incursion of a modern Western world. How do they keep the tradition and culture alive? Do they even want to hold on to their heritage? How do they see the Western world? Where do they fit in? In Between the Lines intimately looks at the questions these young Native Americans poets face."





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Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Native American Black Ash Baskets

I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. A wonderful book of Native American wisdom written by a botanist who is a citizen of the Patawatomi Nation. When I finished her chapter about learning to weave baskets from black ash trees, I was so fascinated, I had to see the process. I found this short video from another indigenous source.

The man in the film demonstrates how he asks permission before cutting the tree, offering a ceremonial gift of tobacco. He also explains to us that one does not take the first tree he finds. He leaves that one to assure future growth and goes on to find the next tree that will serve for making splints for basket weaving.


 


From the YouTube notes:

A functional art form is preserved through the dedication to learning and sharing traditional Native American skills needed to create ash baskets. Abenaki Jesse Larocque walks through the forest to a grove of ash trees and explains how to choose the right tree. Using traditional tools and a demanding technique of rhythm and strength, he pounds the wood splints and then demonstrates the art of creating a basket.

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Monday, November 15, 2021

Monday Music: Cherokee Morning Song

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, here is Cherokee Morning Song with accompanying English translation.

 


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Sunday, November 14, 2021

Native American Heritage Month with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland

November is Native American Heritage Month. A number of online events are noted at https://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov. One of the events was recorded and available on YouTube which I am sharing today:

"To kick off Native American Heritage Month, Joy Harjo, the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, joins Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary, in a conversation with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden."


 


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Saturday, November 13, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Honorable Harvest*

 

late autumn pokeweed
yields her fruit as birds harvest
what nature offers



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Photo by Charles Kinnaird


*There is a story behind this week's haiku. Earlier in the summer, I saw some pokeweed in my backyard. I left it to grow knowing that the birds would enjoy the berries. I have enjoyed watching them fly down to pick the berries.  I have also been reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Native American botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer. She offers what she has learned in academia as well as wisdom from her Native American elders. 

One thing she talks about is how her indigenous ancestors were taught to harvest only what is offered, and then to take only half. This assures future harvests as well as protection of the land. One of her chapters is titled "The Honorable Harvest" in which she elaborates on those indigenous principles. From what I observe of the mockingbird, the cardinal, the brown thrasher, and the mourning dove, they practice honorable harvest by taking only what is offered and leaving some for another day.



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Thursday, November 11, 2021

Two Poems for Veterans Day


(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images*)
                         
For Veteran's Day, two memorial poems. One by British poet John McCrae and the other by American poet Walt Whitman.

After World War I, November 11 became known as Remembrance Day in Europe, commemorating the end of the war “on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” 

Red poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I. Their bright red color came to symbolize the blood spilt in war, and the poppy became the emblem of Remembrance Day because of the poem In Flanders Fields.


In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
 

       
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During the American Civil War, Walt Whitman volunteered as a nurse in army hospitals. He also made visits to the wounded and read the newspaper, literature, and poetry to the young men which many found more comforting than visits from chaplains. The war inspired many poems from Whitman, and he was obviously deeply moved by the conflict within his country.

         Old War Dreams
By Walt Whitman

In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look,)
Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.

Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,
Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and
gather the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream.




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*Photo: Vietnam Veterans Dennis Byrnes, left, and Billy Sheets touch a plaque at the World War II memorial on Veterans Day as they pay their respects to the soldiers killed during the war Nov. 11, 2004, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)



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Monday, November 8, 2021

Monday Music: Bring Me Little Water Silvy

A friend introduced me to this version of the song last week. Great harmony, and a tune that will stay delightfully in your head the rest of the day!

Bring Me Little Water, Silvy by Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) Arranged for voices with body percussion by Moira Smiley

 
 


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Sunday, November 7, 2021

Jon Meacham on The Soul of America

Since Jon Meacham was recently disinvited from speaking at my alma mater, Samford University, I am re-posting a blog from 2018 in which Mr. Meacham talks with Willie Geist about his book, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

Jon Meacham is a former vestryman of Saint Thomas Episcopal Church, Executive Editor at Random House, and distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. Today, he is being installed as Canon Historian at the Washington Cathedral.

He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer and author of many other books including The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross. In short, Jon Meacham is a model of scholarship guided by faith and reason. 

In the Book TV video below, he provides us with a thoughtful, articulate, and intelligent discussion on our history as well as the times we are living in. It is not the current version we would have heard at Samford University, but any opportunity to hear Jon Meacham is definitely time well spent.






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Saturday, November 6, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Last Blooms

 

a surprise blossom
brightens the cool grey drizzle
of November days




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Photo: Camellia blossom
Credit: Charles Kinnaird

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Wednesday, November 3, 2021

What Happens When We Die

Midnight Mass, the supernatural horror mini-series on Netflix, lives up to the hype you may have heard (see the official trailer here). Among its strong points are good character development and meaningful dialogue that skillfully addresses some profound questions of life. The excellent writing along with superb acting provides us with a number of monologues such as the three I have picked out here. You will hear three quite different responses to the question, What happens when we die? 

Spoiler Alert: You will see something of how the series ends in the third video.

Apologies for the poor sound quality of the second video -- it's the only one I've been able to find.


"The last dump of DMT" 

 

"When you are loved and not alone...that is Heaven"

  

"The cosmos dreaming of itself"

 



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Monday, November 1, 2021

Monday Music: Ring them Bells (Bob Dylan)

 "Ring them Bells," from Bob Dylan's album, Oh Mercy.

 

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