Happy New Year, From 2008

A visitor from the Deer Nation to the Cabinette.

It is just another day to me, really. There is no significant reason to celebrate it in my mind. I am so glad that I am much more in tune to Nature and the Universe than I am to the calendar and clock. Yesterday evening, while driving to an event, I watched the sun setting in the Southwest. Up here, way up North in Wisconsin, the sun rises and sets South of the Equator and that means a sunrise and set way down in the Southern sky, hence the longer periods of darkness.

I'll watch, and soon Ole Sol will make its way back and be North and stay out shining and lighting our way until close to 10 p.m. All the daylight savings time discussion means nothing either for that matter. The clock will say 10 p.m., but it will have been light for over 18 hours. Now, we barely get eight hours of sunlight.

I can see the reasons and harbor no malice towards New Year. I just go on living. Many enterprises go into reflection. I'm seeing this on some blogs , on the news, in the paper. "The Year In Review" is the story byline. Review what already happened. Look back and have a reminder of sadness in the world? That's the news.


Gracie and her Papa, having a good time.

A new family member that was born into our family, Gracie Jayne, happened in calendar year 2007. I want to see her walking in 2008. I want to be alive to see it, witness it. I don't need to remember she was born last year even though it was a very happy and miraculous event. I see her, a human being. I know she is here.


Gracie Jayne, soon to be one year, visiting with Onawah at the kitchen window.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a gloom and doom piece here. This is just my take on it. All the dot org's are doing their level best to get me to shell out some moola before the end of the calendar year. I'm fucking broke. The fucking holidays and the fucking pickup truck repairs took all my fucking money. What makes True Majority, Move On and Amnesty International think I need a fucking tax deduction? Don't they know their base is poor people. Why would the rich want any change in the policies of king bush? They are getting richer off of it as the peons suffer and pay higher everything. Gas, food, utilities, the basics, but give them money to combat these things. What a dichotomy.

I had the pleasure and honor of attending a Sweat Lodge last night. It was in honor of the soon to be January Moon. The Moon of Popping Trees. It's so cold the trees seem to "PoP". They do make noises. Ever hear the ice on a lake freeze? It is a sound like no other. No, it is like the cry of a whale, sort of. It is natural. The lake is talking to you like the whale is speaking as well.

The leader told us that the Elders used the Winter and the long nights to tell stories. he said in the Ojibwe culture, their history is oral. The stories were passed down and told, sometimes over and over, and then repeated as the ones who heard the first version grew into eldership. Last night, I was recognized as an Elder and a Warrior and I told my story to the younger people there. I told them about being a Warrior and my journey to South Carolina to return the Spirit of my Brother in Arms to his people. I told them how I truly believed that I was guided on this path to have this happen. I told of the signs, the eagles, the way things dropped into place, the healing that happened, the closure. I was proud to tell this story and was proud to tell it to people who sat and listened, or at least were polite about it all and didn't interrupt me.

This ceremony was held in the woods behind a place called Mishomis House. Mishomis means Grand Father in the Anishanabe language, the voice of the Ojibwe, or Chippewa people. It is a program house for people with alcohol and drug addictions. New years was a usual time to drink maybe a little more than they usually drank. We try to hold a Lodge ceremony around New Years Eve as a motivator and inspiration for those that suffer from these addictions. We hold the ceremony, then go on living. I had my New Years "party" at that Lodge, so to speak.


The Great Lake Superior. A view through the woods at the cabinette.


I’ll fool around here at home today and tomorrow with my new Cassette Tape Archiver. A really neat device that will allow me to make all my old cassettes into CD’s and MP3 files for the iPod. Cool, heh? All that great music has been sitting in a milk crate. Now it will be resurrected and listened to instead of just recalled in conversations.

“I have this great cassette of the Who doing “Tommy” at Radio City Music Hall from 1972” I would say.

“Oh man, that would be awesome to hear that” my friend would respond.

“You got a tape deck?” I’d ask.

“No, mine broke years ago and I never bought another one. Everything went to CD’s” He’d say.

“Damn, too bad” says I.

Maybe I’ll watch Pirates of the Caribbean III again. I like that fantasy stuff if it has pirates in it. Maybe I’ll watch the whole trilogy. Or Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I love that movie too.

What ever you do, do it well. If this is a step for a new beginning for you, this New Year, then do that well too. It's a leap year, so, you'll have an extra day on your calendar in case you make a mistake. A Mulligan on life, cool concept. But there are always thirteen moons in a year.

We’ll be moving back into the Cabinette in a few weeks. I can’t wait. We’re getting ready for that. It will be a change from living in this cozy house in town. But it’s not a resolution or anything like that. It’s just our home, and I’ll be glad to return to it, cold and snow or not. I did get to lay up a lot of fire wood, so I’m ready. I can see myself now, a warm fire. My tape deck belting out the old stuff as I edit and catalogue my “new” CD collection and add it to the rest. I’ll need to buy another case and one of those stacks of CD/RW’s for all the recording. A good vision of how to spend Winter at the Cabinette.

In the meantime. Have a good New Year. This year, every year, every day of every year, for you and all you hold dear.

And Peace to All in the Universe.


Mr. and Mrs. Spadoman.