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.

Recent Comments