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Thursday, April 8, 2010
More on Hoh River Trust:
The Trust’s work is focused in three areas; restoration, stewardship, and outreach. We are working to restore the industrial timberland to a more naturally evolving condition that will enhance
habitat for the dependent species. We oversee the condition of the
property and ensure that its uses are compatible with our conservation objectives. And we engage the community in a meaningful way to ensure that this land retains its recreational and cultural vitality, and that ultimately the community has a true sense of ownership and stewardship over these lands.
Explore our website to learn more about the Hoh River and our work to help preserve this ecological treasure.
Hoh River Trust featured in recent Seattle Times article.
Recently the Seattle Times ran a feature article on the work being done by the Hoh River Trust. It described the work being done by the Trust as "one of the largest single conservation efforts in Washington".
We would like to thank the Seattle Times for taking the time to recognize the work of the Hoh River Trust.
Conservation victory: 7,000 acres along Hoh River permanently protected By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter
To view the article click here.
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As you stand along the Hoh River as we did last week and the bright sun filtered through the lush green canopy it is easy to stand in awe of the beauty of the river and the surrounding landscape.
However, we are constantly reminded that our forest stewardship extends far beyond preserving the visual beauty of this ecosystem. Home to Northern Spotted Owl, Marbled Murrelet, Pacific Chinook Salmon and
wild steelhead the Hoh River and Valley represents one of the last great
places to insure these species don't become extinct.
'Preserving a Last Great American River' means a lot more when you think of it in these terms.
4/7/10
Gifts of Grand Mother Maple
In late March I gathered with Mick Dodge, Pushkara Sally Ashford & her son, David, for a singing celebration just before her maiden off-island voyage of the new SingPeace Gypsy Wagon.
There is an immense grandmother maple tree in Pushkara's front yard that
I was immediately drawn to dance with. Mick filmed and pointed out a
huge dead branch hanging on its last limb over our heads. Mick was
musing happily for the day when "Maple would gift this beautiful staff
in her own time."
Well, with last Friday's crazy wind storm, the time came and Mick salvaged the limb and began fashioning staffs, including one for me. When I went to visit him today, I was feeling cold, stiff and in need of motion and building heat. He started a fire in his tent wood stove exclaiming how much he loved "freeing and receiving the gifts of sunshine, wind and rain from the burning wood."
As I listened to his orally transmitted teachings, I began a daily dance to
explore and train with the gifts of grandmother maple's staff and the
fire's heat. I had never so consciously attended to receiving the
elemental gifts of heat & light from the stored energy of the sun as
they were released though wood burning. My body and soul were warmed by
the physical heat as well as the living poetic story of it all. I felt
my connected place in a larger context and community of all life. Mick
showed a manuscript from his friend's book-in-progress about how
changing our bodies can change the world. He told me that he never
trusts the written word or "talk" of an author till he can see the life
and "walk" that s/he lives. I was honored that he continued to say my
blog writing worked well for him because he sees that it arises from the
way I LIVE and share directly from this embodied experience and not
from disembodied LOGOS--intellect, logic and rational ideas from the
thinking mind alone.
In the film below, you can listen to some of the teaching he delivered in the
way he prefers-- directly, spontaneously and orally. He is also
sometimes called "the barefoot bard" because he naturally exudes and
transmits poetic expression of his inner life and wisdom derived from
decades of practice and experience of inner and outer wilderness
landscapes. I am grateful for our growing collaboration, understanding
and support of one another's gifts and intentions to walk our talk
because this path can be a challenging and sometimes isolated one.
I look forward to seeing the carved maple wood staff emerging as an empowered
object over time and practice with it. Much as indigenous people have
done for ages with their sacred tools, this training object will contain
and reflect the lessons and gifts I receive while working with it and
eventually it will be passed on to the next generation full of this
wisdom. There is a clear grace and rightness to this natural progression
of passing on gifts.This practice has been lost in much of our modern
social life and education if we forget to honor elders and ancestors for
their profound contributions-we are literally living extensions and
transmissions of them. I hope I can continue to remember and receive
inspiration from grandmother maple, Sense Say Mick, Kazoo Ohno, and all
my relations that have truly walked their talk before me.
The theme sentence of the upcoming event sponsored by MomoButoh Dance
Company and LiveEdge Woodworks
upcoming event is "Ask not what the trees can do for you, but...." You are not what you think say or do...you are the sum total of your actions, ideas and words that come TRUE. What are YOU doing for the trees? If you are going to be anywhere near S. Whidbey Island on Friday May 7 do not miss the amazing benefit for Whidbey Camano Land Trust's Trillium Land Purchase at Woodland Hall. Contact Momo TODAY --entry by reservation only through MomoButoh info at maureenfreehill dot net!
music: rachels
I have had the great good fortune to see
Pete Seeger play up close numerous times,
Sometimes with Arlo Guthrie side by side.
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone" is a
Haunting song I remember from my earliest
Days of music awareness on this planet.
I had heard vague whisperings of its origin,
And today I become aware of more, much more
Thank I knew before.
All because of a response I received
Related to the post on the mining disaster.
Some people learn, and it's usually a slow
Process or a lightning bolt to the head.
I love this version of Pete Seeger performing the song...
Does not fail to bring a chill and tears every time.
Hope you enjoy it...
Thanks to....:
Thespadecaller — February 18, 2008 — On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted
373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt,
as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to
investigate alleged subversives and communists. Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.
In one of Pete's darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy,
a flash of inspiration ignited this song. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov's novel
"And Quie Flows the Don". Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in
Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed
the song in French, as "Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?" Shortly after she sang it in German.
The song's impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering.
It's universal message, "let there be peace in the world" did not get lost in its translation.
To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect
on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it.
To that I add my voice and hope.
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the March full moon sweat lodge for women which took place this weekend, I noted a significant change within myself. This experience prompts me to share the following:
The misty moon was radiant and full before our small band of women walked out to the sweat lodge. An altar stood beside the door of the lodge, long streamers of black, red, yellow and white cloth draped on boughs. We stood around the fire blazing nearby where the stones for our sweat were warming. We then offered our prayer ties, laying them together like a garland around the base of the altar.
Earlier, each of us had made and infused our prayers into 28 tiny tobacco pouches - 7 each in the colors on the altar: black (west), red (north), yellow (east), white (south) tied on a string. My heart and soul were poured into these prayers, though at the time, I hardly knew what I was praying for. The tears and the deep feeling that came with them informed me that something out of the ordinary was taking place, something outside the reach of words and thought.
I felt lifted and cleansed as sage was lit and passed around our bodies in preparation for entering the lodge. Two of the women stayed near the fire to assist with bringing the stones into the lodge. The others of us found our places, crawling in clockwise direction around the circle inside the lodge that had been crafted just that day. I smelled and touched the fresh cedar boughs, the damp earth beneath me, and felt the womb-like comfort of the sweat lodge.
Our guide entered the lodge and began chanting. He spoke prayers aloud in his native language, calling on the ancestors to honor us with their presence. He explained that his prayers were to the Grandfathers. He had asked them to invite and escort the Grandmothers to this sweat lodge ceremony. "Some are already here. Many more are coming," he told us. In an earlier meeting, he said, "The Grandmothers have the last word." Today he is turning his attention and working with a Grandmother Spirit that nudges him to support, honor and celebrate women stepping more fully into our power as creative healers and carriers of sacred ways."
In alignment with the intention of 13 Moons and as a grandmother who has been called along with other "elderwise" women to the SingPeace! Earth Pilgrimage, I was invited to attend the first of the eighteen sweat lodges.
We waited as the blazing fire began to reveal the stones piled in its center. With shovels, the two women waiting outside took turns bringing the stones which glowed like hot embers, placing them, one by one, in the center hole circled by rocks inside the lodge. When all of the stones had been retrieved from the fire, they entered the sweat lodge and the door came down. We were in darkness. A sprinkling of rain could be heard on the tarp overhead. Great Spirit was pleased.
After several more chants and spoken entreaties to the ancestors, we were asked to call in the family of Great Grandmothers and Grandmothers of our maternal ancestral lineage. We invited them to sit and converse with us. I was surprised by how little I knew of these women who were the cause of my being alive in the first place. It seemed as I sat in the lodge that I still relate as a child to my Grandmothers, Dada and Grandma Hull and step-Grandmother Vivian. I could recall only one Great Grandmother who was known in her time as "The Little General." I wanted to learn more of each of their lives.
As water was ladled onto the hot stones, the temperature inside the lodge rose higher. Waters were also pouring forth from every orifice of my body. A sweat is like being inside a giant neti pot, the cleansing is inevitable. From time to time the flap over the entrance to the lodge was raised, to relieve some of the heat and smoke.
I was lying with my head close to the ground, where the heat is less intense, when we were asked us to sing a song, "any song." I sat up. We went around the circle. When it came my turn, half a dozen songs flooded my mind, but the one that won out was a Sanskrit hymn to Saraswati, Vedic goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. "Grandmother" of another ilk, I'd done puja, honoring to her for years in India, considering her my "patron deity." In the sweat lodge, I sang for the women in the circle as the creative force that the Goddess Saraswati embodies. With each one's song offering, I felt a tender closeness with the ancestors and among the women gathered in the lodge.
At the end of the sweat, we were invited to return to the house. I was aware of the lodge door opening, but had to be nudged to leave. I had not seen nor heard the women exiting to my left. Grandmother Moon had slipped behind the clouds. It was after midnight. The air was still.
Most of us were wearing light dresses that covered our shoulders and knees. One of the women, a sun dancer and grandmother, guided me beforehand in the ways of the sweat lodge. She'd loaned me one of her dresses. By now, it was soaked. We changed out of our wet clothing and made ready for a meal.
When all were gathered in the house, around a candle, we lit and passed around a very long, beautifully carved pipe.
After the pipe ceremony, we ate the ample food we'd brought to share. All of us had worked up quite an appetite by then. We said our thanks and goodbyes; I drove home and crawled into my bed just before 3 a.m.
On Tuesday, I woke in a lighthearted mood. Reflecting on the day before, I realized that a major shift had taken place within me. I wept with the newfound sense of communion and support from my maternal ancestral lineage. What's more, it was clear to me that a major obstacle to writing had dissipated like smoke in the heat of the sweat lodge. I'd spent hours on Monday easily writing and posting a blog to the SingPeace! Earth Pilgrimage website. The creative river, Saraswati, was flowing, unimpeded by former mysterious and seemingly impenetrable blocks. What's more, I've walked about in a state of stillness and Grace, a kind of open-eyed and eye-opening meditation, since then.
A flooding of feminine, goddess energy, is forthcoming, now, to balance out the masculine energy of domination and dominion that has held sway on earth and perpetuated war as a solution to conflict for millennia. One delightful and unexpected consequence of designing and building a gypsy wagon for SingPeace! Earth Pilgrimage for Peace and Global Harmony has been the men it attracts. Men of mastery and skill, who recognize that the time for this rebalancing is now, have come forward with offers of help and support to the women in making their voices heard and heeded. Our Grandmothers sweat lodge guide is one of these. Mick Dodge, the Barefoot Sensei, who shares his practice on this website is another. We find brothers among singer-songweavers, Laurence Cole and Rob Tobias. While all of humankind are in this boat together, these enlightened men are proving the mast for the women's sails. Together, we are crossing the great water, making our way home.
2/7/10
Exuberant Animals
Here is another post borrowed from Maureen Freehill's MomoButoh blog. To see, read and enjoy more of her daily Butoh practice, visit her blog:
http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/2010/02/exuberant-animals.html
Barefoot Bard, Barefoot Sensei Mick Dodge, Walking Mountain Yoga, Training with the Elements, Exuberant Animal
Training, No Child Left Inside! check out these links for awesome body training for health & fitness in direct connection with earth and
community.
Training, No Child Left Inside! check out these links for awesome body training for health & fitness in direct connection with earth and
community.
Health and Exuberance Prescription to Take Daily:
Vigorous Physical Activity --- Real Food & Pure Water --- Outdoor Exposure in Nature --- Quality Sleep & Rest --- Positive Social Experience
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Play and Good Humor --- Meaningful Engagement with the World -from the short form pamphlet for Exuberant Animal Movement
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Play and Good Humor --- Meaningful Engagement with the World -from the short form pamphlet for Exuberant Animal Movement
I met this amazing exuberant animal of a man yesterday hanging upside down by a strap from a picnic shelter on the beach. A friend of his had watched my daily dance with the newspaper on the beach and said it reminded her of the "Barefoot Bard" named Mick who I had to meet. Well, it was true. I was stunned by the liveliness and kinship I immediately shared with this passionate fellow. He quickly introduced and articulated an entire program of fitness training that centers around connection with the elements of nature as playmates and guides. It is always done barefoot and outdoors with simple objects like sticks and stones that can be found and made most anywhere. He also designs and makes these objects and special non-shoe barefoot coverings and leads trainings in this work. I felt I had stumbled upon a very familiar and somewhat more yang/active/masculine form of my daily dance practice. This system goes by a number of names. The pamphlets he handed me were from a Seattle based loose organization of trainers called "Exuberant Animal." It made more sense and inspired me more than any fitness program I have ever heard of. Other titles of his work include Walking Mountain Yoga where he takes trainees out into the clear cuts of the Hoh Rainforest and they interact with the stumps, logs, sticks and trees as teachers. They also do tree planting and forest restoration projects as training too. Neat!
I love the entire premise and practice of this work. It is a way to achieve physical vitality, lots of fun AND meaningful engagement with the natural world. They call it "proven countermeasures to the challenge of the modern world." It is unique also because along with training the traditional Body, Mind, Spirit, they include equally important training with the Land, Ancestors and Tribe. Wonderful! One of my favorite parts of the propaganda he gave me is the logo that graphically represents the purpose of this work as an infinity
symbol path. It traverses from the wilderness of the mountain through the village of community in the center and into the city of technology/culture/commerce and back again. It included ALL aspects our
current earth system in one gracefully simple balanced and dynamic image.
symbol path. It traverses from the wilderness of the mountain through the village of community in the center and into the city of technology/culture/commerce and back again. It included ALL aspects our
current earth system in one gracefully simple balanced and dynamic image.
So, my daily dance today was to take the paper "menu" he had given me with the basic "Short Form" of the Exuberant Animal daily movement practice for "vitality and physical happiness." Before I looked at it, I handed it over to my friend to read aloud the instructions as he filmed my spontaneous responses to the cues. It was a super fun game and the way I interpreted some of the instructions turned out to be quite different from the diagrams on the page. This is another thing I love about this system--like butoh, it is totally flexible, playful and responsive to who, when, where and what is available at the moment. Really, the best way to tell about this whole movement is to show the videos. Below are three from Mick and Walking Mountain and my own playful interpretation with thanks to AL for filming and directions. Enjoy!
Today's Question: How do you train and get fit? Do include your local tribe, ancestors and land as part of your fitness routine? How?
http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/2010/02/exuberant-animals.html
