Owl Medicine

Molly

There's an idea that when a person sees or hears an owl, it is prophetic of impending death.

One time, my cousin was driving to work in the early morning. An owl skimmed the windshield and roof of the pickup he was driving. His father, my uncle, had been quite ill, and so his death a few days later was not completely unexpected.

Another time, this time walking through the woods near a battle site between my cousin's and my ancestors and the encroaching white people, I saw an owl in a low-hanging branch. As I was bounding down the trail, I noticed the tiny bird and stopped dead in my tracks (so to speak...). Our eyes locked and I spoke to the owl; s/he waited a few moments, and then flew off. The next morning I was told my grandfather was near death.

On the other hand, I've listened to owls hooting many times as darkness descends in a forested area. Once or twice, I hooted to them and a conversation of sorts ensued. So, I don't imagine that anytime a person hears or sees an owl, it means someone is about to die.

But, I would still get upset and wonder under some circumstances.

My father (Karuk/Chetco/Euro) tells me that owls don't represent death, but that they do symbolize something like mysticism, intuition, wisdom, and a kind of spiritual awareness.

Owls are mentioned in the book, "Spirits of the Earth: A Guide to Native American Nature Symbols, Stories, and Ceremonies", by Bobby Lake-Thom ("a traditional Native healer and spiritual teacher of Karuk and Seneca descent"). He says, "All Owls are a bad sign, but different kinds bring somewhat different messages, and different degrees of power and knowledge....The Owls is considered a bad sign and a bad power by most Native American tribal groups. It is a messenger of evil, of sickness, or a fatal accident. It is also considered a sign of death."

Lately, though, another kind of owl medicine has caught on. My mother (Chinook/Euro) has sent me links to her beloved "Molly McGee", a barn owl of worldwide fame. Live cameras have been put into the owl box she and her mate - and two subsequent clutches of owlets - call home.

It really makes me feel good to know that so many people are tuning in to watch owls do whatever it is owls do. A forum has sprung up around the owl surveillance, and even people who are ill and homebound can cultivate a love for a little winged creature. When I asked Mom what she has gotten out of watching the owls over the past months, she said, "It has kept me from going nuts." (That's debatable. JK, Mom!)

This is the new Owl Medicine. We are not so lost as humans that we can't still be fascinated by our owl relatives. At the end of industrial civilization, how ironic that the only way we can view them is via high-tech computers and internet.

Idle promise

Mmm. I can almost smell it.

Idle promise: If California's Prop 19 to legalize pot passes on Tuesday, I am relocating forthwith to northern Cali. I've been wanting to be close to the redwoods...walk on Karuk land...make offerings to the spirits who linger at Yontocket...and live near the ocean, anyway. I will get high and stay that way for at least a year. Reggae by the River, shopping at the North Coast Co-op, grooving in Arcata, looking at trilliums under redwood trees. Maybe I'll take up painting..or spinning yarn...How could life get any sweeter?

No, I don't use pot - although it would be a cinch to get a medical marijuana card for my chronic pain(s). BUT - if pee-tested and found to be pot-positive, chances are 99% that I would lose my employment doing the work I love. Even if I smoked it legally while holding a card.

A woman can dream, and dream she does.

Heil Portland!

My little northwest haven for liberal thought has apparently shown itself to be tolerant of at least one nazi sympathizer, police captain Mark Kruger.

The wheels were set in to motion in 2002 by Alan Graf, the Hippie Lawyer to investigate the allegations that Kruger had put up in a park memorial plaques to nazis Shows what can happen if you keep talking loudly enough for long enough. (Of note is that Graf's Jewish grandparents were murdered in nazi concentration camps during WWII.) Thanks to Rev. Chuck Currie, Graf (who no longer resides in Portland), and Dan Handleman of Copwatch for keeping this in the public eye.

Read a more complete story on Oregonlive's website.

eat pray love barf

Julia Roberts, looking placid
in an Ashram in India

Rachel, my daughter, had seen the book when we were shopping at Goodwill one day about 6 months ago. She had picked it up and considered buying it, saying that it was popular amongst some of the young women she knows. She ended up putting it back on the shelf, saying she didn't have time to read anything except her books for her college courses.

The previews of eat love pray captured my attention. The main character was a woman who seemed on the verge of an epiphany, one Gloria Steinham put succinctly decades ago: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle". I made a mental note to watch for the release of the movie.

In the past month, my amazing and beautiful daughter had endured yet another heartache over a man she'd been involved with. I showed her the trailer for eat love pray, and we both giggled over the line, "I've either been in a relationship or breaking up since I was 15." So true of Rachel. I thought seeing the movie would give Rachel another perspective about life and relationships.

So, the release date of Friday the 13th of August arrived, and Rachel and I circled the Roseway Theater here in NE Portland, looking for a parking space a few minutes before the 2nd showing of elp. There were about 10 women lined up for admission. We got our parking space, bought the tickets, and settled in to a theater 1/2 filled with women.

Long story short: Self-absorbed, privileged woman who holds her partners to a higher level than she does herself paints herself as some kind of victim and goes globe-trotting to culturally appropriate other peoples' spirituality to assuage her pain.

First, she goes to Italy, where she grows to an immense size 4 from her liberal ingestion of comfort carbs. Next, she's off to an Ashram in India to meet the guru of her past lover. (Ironically, the guru is in New York, from where the main character hails. Coulda saved a trip.)
The essence of the movie, for me, is when the main character is in a cab in India, and she is exposed to the abject poverty of the people there. The audience is left uncertain of her feelings upon seeing these sights. It was a stark representation of the insulation money and americaness provided to this woman.

The scenery was luscious as she went from India to Bali. Here she works with a medicine man whom she had met a year earlier. She also meets up with Javier Bardem, the fantastically bad baddy of No Country for Old Men (which I liked exponentially better than eat love pray). At last, it seems, our heroine has bought sufficient enlightenment to enter into a healthy, loving, mutually satisfying relationship. But wait! A critical moment arrives when Bardem's character professes his love for the leading lady. He wants to take her on a boat trip to a nearby island for a few days. She gets weirdly panicky and there is a standoff between the two forces. I was tempted to jump up and yell, "CALL IT, FRIEND-O!"

Javier Bardem

In the end, after a whopping 140 minutes, the heroine's enlightenment earned her the love of a hunky guy. It's a Cinderella story. Pretty typical mainstream cultural hollywood bullshit.

Anyway, Rachel and I shared a few good laughs about the movie over a bottle of wine after we got home. I know she'll be fine without flying to Bali to get enlightened.

The Talented Celeste Astara!

Celeste Astara

Lookinghawk arranged for a musical guest to be on last night's Mitakuye Oyasin on KBOO. Celeste Astara showed up with her guitar and her mother. Celeste gave us a sample of her amazing, golden voice and talented songwriting. More than that, though, she offered herself as an example of one who believed in and followed a dream, one which is coming true for her. Celeste recommended focusing on the dream itself, and getting rid of attachments as to how that will happen. Her mother, Margaret, said that Celeste composed her first song at 18 months when she was toddling around the house happily singing, "Jesus loves you, God is love". That might not be so unusual, except that Margaret said, "I never used those words in my house!" I guess inspiration comes uninvited at times.

Check out Celeste Astara here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Celeste-Astara/134220806616625

Heartbreaking betrayal of trusting geese. Nice, Bend, OR

This makes me so sick I want to cry. (see article, news clip; click here)

The humans of Bend, Oregon, decided that the fecal matter from local Canadian geese was more than they could tolerate. So, 109 geese, habituated to living in the city, were captured and murdered by these thoughtless humans. CO2 gas was used to kill the birds. The "meat" was given to a food bank to distribute to humans.

Creatures of beauty, adapting as well as they can to the encroachment of civilization, were executed because they did not know how to dispose of their poop properly.

How sad.

And may the little geesey spirits find their way to a world that is kinder to them than this one.

Who speaks for earth?

Jeanette Armstrong, Okanagan
Speaker for the Land

We would not have destroyed one ocean entirely and the rest nearly had civilization not trampled under its sweatshop boot the teachings of the indigenous. The prevailing spirituality of most indigenous, if not all, was one which held other earth dwellers in the same regard as humans. Like Jesus' utterance to "do unto others", and in the case of indigenous humans, "others" included people like bears. And deer. And water. And air.

By contrast, the predominant religion (christianity) of the civilized humans who invaded indigenous lands in the americas was one of domination of the land. A perusal of the Hebrew scriptures will quickly yield glorification of the genocides of various peoples in order for God's "chosen" to take their land. Such accounts no doubt spurred the faithful conquerors to commit the atrocities towards the people who were already living on the land in the americas. Things like rape, mutilation, and throwing babies into fire. You know, the usual genocide techniques.

I suggest that we consider the spirituality of the indigenous of this continent. Suspend the teaching of the dominant culture that land, trees, water, cattle, and even ourselves are "resources". Then, when a tract of forested land is to be logged, or a new deep sea oil well is to be drilled, let someone speak in defense of the voiceless.

Here is the Okanagan model of this process, as explained by Jeanette Armstrong:

I looked at the Okanagan decision-making process in its traditional sense…when we approach the decision-making process, one component is reserved for the land…we have people who are called “land speakers”. We have a word for it in our language. I was fortunate in that I was trained and brought up as a land speaker in my community…We have different people, trained as part of the family system, to be speakers for the children, for the mothers, for the Elders, for the medicine people, for the land, for the water - for all these different components that make up our existence. My part has been to be trained by my Elders to think about the land and to speak about the land…Each time a decision I made, even the smallest decision, my responsibility is to stand up and ask, How will it impact the land? How is it going to impact our food? How is it going to impact our water? How is it going to impact my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, what’s the land gong to look like in their time? So in that process of en’owkinwiwx, there’s a built-in principle in terms of how we interact….Someone has to ask those questions. That’s their responsibility. When we include the perspective of land and we include the perspective of human relationship, one of the things that happens is that community change. People in the community change. The realization that people and community are there to sustain you creates the most secure feeling in the world.

Excerpts from An Okanagan Worldview of Society by Jeanette Armstrong from Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a sustainable Future edited by Melissa K Nelson © 2008 Bear & Company in collaboration with Bioneers