not native fruit

mayan culture, powwows and me

I took a wonderful class at Gathering Tribes on Thursday, September 17th with Jean Molesky-Poz on 'Contemporary Mayan Spirituality' - also the title of her book.  Jean teaches Mayan spirituality at Santa Clara University here in the Bay Area.

I ought to have known that by studying the Lenape language and culture, I would eventually have to familiarize myself with the Mayans, but I really thought it was going to take me a lot longer to work my way around to it.  I will share more later.

By the way, the Lenape Nation had their annual pow-wow last weekend, September 19-20, at Wind Gap, PA.  Sure wish I could have been there for that.  Amazingly, my right knee is still bothering me since my train trip.  It will probably take a while for that to recover completely.  It's a shame, because my joints have been so good for a few years now, after decades of being not so good.  It's hard to take this, so to speak, step backward.  But that's not the reason I didn't go to Penna.  Just felt too far to travel for me at this time, and now I'm kind of glad I didn't, given how my knee is.

I also wanted to mention that I attended the All-Nations Pow-Wow at the International Tribal House in Oakland the weekend before last.  There was great drumming, singing and dancing, good vendors and food, and I would say it looked to me like a good time was had by all.  The energy of the group felt very familiar to me, but it was only the good stuff, as the atmosphere was un-tinctured by drugs or alcohol - rather it was just it's own peaceful, grounded feeling, that I often knew as a child in my early part-native-american environment.  I enjoyed it very much, and in many ways it made up for not being able to attend the lenape powwow. 

One of the things I've been coming into greater awareness of, is that I live in another native environment here, ohlone and other western tribes are amply represented here, and I want to be here spiritually as well as materially.  I'm feeling a greater resonance to this area than ever.  I think finding healing for my repressed lenape identification has helped me tremendously.

the train

at the end of august i took the amtrak train overnight from Berkeley to Portland.  i was to visit a friend from circa age 25, whose family i watched being born, raising up, and now married and on their own.  younger son and wife have recently moved to portland, mom (my pal) was visiting, soon to be joined by dad who was delayed by "work" that onerous bane of personal time. 

well, long story short, i had a great time - we saw mount hood, the columbia river gorge, multnomah falls, astoria and the seacoast.  also powell's city of books and the portland rose garden.  spent personal time together, sang all 85 of the Beatles' Number One Hits in the car.  met the pets.  no, seriously, it was a party!

but one of the star attractions of my trip, which shall not go overlooked, was The Train.

I enjoyed the train immensely, despite not getting as much sleep as I might have hoped. But it was a marvelous beast, and i was in its belly for seventeen glorious hours.  It creaked, it shuffled, it sped up, it slowed down, it changed tracks wrackingly, it hummed in the night, it submerged itself into pitch-black caves and re-emerged into the light.  it passed mountains and lakes, lumber mills and towns, farms, woods, overlooks, and the ocean.  it was archetypal.  everyone should take the train once in a while, just to remember their own process of birth.

on the surface the cars were modern - air-conditioning, sleek, arrow-designed - but on another level they were ancient - clanking, worm-like, crawling and shifting like sections of a centipede.  We passengers passed each other in the narrow halls, shifting side to side, bumping into one another ingraciously - inglourisously, one might even say - and we sat down together, strangers meeting and engaging in long conversations in the dining car, the parlor car, the sun car.  Then returning to our seats, engaging with the view, with our books and laptops, or with ourselves.

i have a history with the train, perhaps that accounts for why i love it so much, and long to experience it again and again.  either that, or my love for the train represents my personal inchoate rejection of the present, of instant air-travel that eschews the sight of land and waters passing by, of state lines, the names of tiny towns, whistle-stops, Chemult. 

Ever since those slow, painfully slow, early trips up into the Pennsylvania mountains on the old coal line sidings, in tiny cars papered with fringed maroon velvet, wainscoting and upright upholstered wooden seats, in the company of my mother and grandmother, proper in modestly plumed hats, scarves, gloves and pocket-books, traveling away from the grime and smoke of the city out into the light and green of 'the countryside,' i've been an amateur of the train.

how long will the love-affair last?  perhaps as long as i can hear the musical song of the 'coast starlight' and the 'capitols corridor' blow longingly through the fog rolling in from the bay over our hillside home.