"My Life Is Not My Own"

Since I returned from Washington DC in July, I have been going non stop. It seems every time I get a break, I get a call or there is some other function that I have an opportunity to attend. I know I can say, “No”, and I have done so, but most of these things I want to do.

I remember a couple of years ago when I was cooking at the Sundance. I loved to do it, but it consumed me in many ways. Yet I look back and still try to recreate in my everyday life those quiet mornings, right at sunrise, when the dew was moist and the haze of the morning was just lifting. The sandhill cranes would fly around and speak to me. It always seemed like I was the only one alive.

Usually, the leader of the ceremony would wander over to the cook tent with his coffee mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I’d see him coming and I’d wipe the wetness off a chair for him and look around for the pot holder so I could pour him a cup of the rich strong coffee from the big pot, the one on the fire.

This one day, he sat down and took a drag on the smoke, nodded a “Thank you” when I poured his coffee and started to speak.

“My life is not my own.” He said.

He went on and spoke about the hardships of having a life of your own when the people asked you and expected you to be there for them. People as in family members, community members and friends. Chris is a Medicine Man. A Spiritual Elder and leader of the Dakota people. He lives on the Prairie Island reservation near Red Wing, Minnesota.

He sometimes wants to go fishing, or just have a day to himself. Some time to just relax, take a nap or watch mindless TV. He would like to not have to take the next trip to South Dakota or Japan or where ever to perform what ever ritual, healing or ceremony. He doesn’t have that option and he accepts his path, totally.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish it would have been otherwise and this one summer morning he mentioned it to me over a cup of joe and a butt. I listened. For some reason, the words stuck in my brain and recall him often. I have been so busy since last October that I recall him a lot and wonder if the same is true for me and my life, that it is not my own.

It never really was my own. I thought it was. I thought I had control. I thought that of all the free spirits, I was freer than most. I traveled a lot and have had many experiences that some folks just think or dream about. Yet we really never control anything, least of all, our path in life.

Last year, I agreed to house sit for a friend who went to Nicaragua for three months. That started October 27th. I moved out of my own home and moved in to a strangers place. I had my bag that disguised as a suitcase and a dopp kit. Does anyone know what a dopp kit is? Anyway, I have one and I have been living out of it since October 27 of 2007.

At the end of the three months, January 27th, the home owner was due to return and she did. But instead of moving back home and unpacking my dopp kit, I moved into my 1991 Ford E-150 conversion van and headed in a generally Westerly direction. I traveled to Arizona and visited family, then to Northern California and visited friends that are more like family than the family is. After that, I went to San Francisco and joined the Longest Walk.

I was on The Walk for almost two full months. I got sick and tried to recuperate but just had beaten myself into the ground as I worked to accomplish the goal. I know no other way of living life. No other way than to immerse myself fully into what I am doing and in this case, it was being a Go-To guy with the Longest Walk.

I realized that I am disabled. I haven’t had a job for wages in quite some time. What made me think I could go on the Longest Walk and work like I did and just because I wasn’t earning any money, that I would be capable of doing it? Work is work, paid or not, and I just about killed myself trying to do what I couldn’t really do. It was a friend I talked to on the phone who reminded me that I am not the person I used to be. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I just didn’t think about it for one minute.

I returned home after two months and stayed around the house. I was tired and slept a lot. I was very sick and needed to get stronger and return to being healthy and that took about a month. I went back to The Walk for a week when they were in Oklahoma. At that time, I let the leader, Dennis Banks, talk me into returning and I did so when The Walk was in Baton Rouge, LA.

I drove down to Louisiana and stayed with them for another month. When we reached Northern Alabama, I headed North for home once again. I lied to them and told them I’d be back in two weeks when I knew I wasn’t planning on going back to The Walk until they were in Washington DC on July 11th.

While at home, I participated in The Crow Creek Motorcycle Ride. I was a prime force with planning and implementation of that event as well as a motorcycle rider. After the Crow Creek ride, my friend and I continued on our bikes for another 1200 or so miles of joy riding, enjoying fine weather and scenery on uncrowded North and South Dakota roads.

I left to rejoin The Walk early in July. I planned a stop with the family near Chicago to visit my Mother. I had four of the Grandkids with me when I traveled and with the visit to Chicago, returning to The Longest Walk for the last few days in Washington and the other vacation activities we did while on the road with the kids, well, I didn’t get home again for two weeks.

When I did get home, it was right back on the road for the 300 mile trip to the Sundance. I didn’t make the full 11 days this year and didn’t cook, but I was there for four days and helped the cook on the last day when a feast needed to be prepared. I returned home on July 19th.

On the 20th, I get a call from one of the Longest Walkers. She was in Minneapolis and needed a place to stay. She, along with her friend, a guy she seemed to be in love with at the time, stayed at my place. Using the floor in the spare bedroom. Along with them, there were other visitors from The Walk. The Japanese interpreter and her boyfriend. They stayed at my place for a few days, but when she got sick with a kidney infection, my friend Steve let them have a regular furnished bedroom at his place.

While she recovered, I saw them daily. After a while, she left to return to Japan and her friend went back to Lexington, KY to start work. The others left and joined the small town moving carnival show somewhere in rural Minnesota.

I was glad. It looked like I finally would have some peace and quiet and nothing on the schedule. I was wrong. I got another call from yet another friend i made on The Walk. She would be in town and her and her boyfriend didn’t stay at my house, but we went out to dinner and visited for a time.

Between all these things, I had to travel to Ashland, WI for ceremonies and to visit friends I have neglected for the past few months as I was on the road. At last, peace and quiet, until my sister and Mother came to visit. My sister asked if I could keep my Mom here with me while she and her husband took a short vacation. I agreed and my Mother came for a two week visit. I bought a proper bed and installed it in the spare room instead of putting her on the floor or sofa. Just the respect shown to an Elder. I think the other guests that stayed at my place were okay on the floor and the sofa.

Then, I get another call from yet another friend from The Walk. They are in town and I will met them for breakfast. One of them returned home and the other, finding himself with a need for a place to stay, asked if I could help him out. Of course I let him stay at my house. He’d do the same for me.

Then, the Veterans For Peace National Convention was in town and I had agreed to be a volunteer and help with the hosting chores on behalf of our Local 27 Chapter. During that time, I met a fellow blogger from the API blog who is a Veteran and traveled here for the VFP convention with her husband and other friends. Immediately on the heels of that was the four day RNC extravaganza and the massive war protest activities that took place right in my own back yard.

My friend stayed through the RNC and got arrested. I couldn’t help him out as I was in Ashland helping another friend with his wedding over the weekend. It was a traditional Native ceremony and I was honored to have been asked to be a helper.

Now, I just completed a four day drive to Northern California and will be visiting friends here. They had a death in the family, their daughter, and I have been wanting to come here and tell them I love them since it happened.

To say I’ve been busy is a gross understatement. But I wanted to explain where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. I went to read some blogs last week and I posted a comment on one of them. They were surprised to see me. They thought I left the blogosphere for good!
‘
I tell you, I can’t wait for those short daylight days of winter and the cold and just crawling around the house in my Homer Simpson pajama bottoms. I’ll do some writing then and actually say something meaningful. I can tell you about the visits and the meals and the ceremonies and the functions.

Until then, “My life is not my own”.

I guess that old man knew what he was telling me. I never get over the idea of how he knew I needed to learn that lesson.

In the meantime, be well and stay safe in all you do. Practice peace.

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.

A Greeting to All, From 2007

However you celebrate, or if you don't celebrate at all, we wish you peace in your hearts for you and all you hold dear. We send constant positive energy out to the world and will stand in honor of all of you who wish for peace today at the Ashland Peace Vigil. I ask the Creator to let us understand each other and accept all mankind as their Brothers and Sisters.

Thank you for your support. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, May peace prevail on the Sacred Earth Mother for all.

Trip to Clarks Hill, 2007

The bridge at Mackinac



Back at home this morning. I didn’t keep track of how many miles and miles per gallon. This was a different kind of trip. A trip I was going to take no matter what the logistical outcome. It wasn’t a matter of could I afford it, but rather how I would afford it.

We left Ashland last Wednesday morning. We drove across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and crossed the Mackinaw bridge. We took Interstate 75 South down to US Highway 23. We followed 23 all the way down through Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and into North Carolina. We used another road, Interstate 26 through North Carolina down into South Carolina and ended up using two-lane State and County roads to weave our way into Augusta, Georgia.

We stayed in Augusta, but our destination was a scant 12 miles North of there, just across the Savannah River, to a small town called Clarks Hill in South Carolina. The Savannah River is damned at Clarks Hill and makes a lake that used to be called Clarks Hill Lake. It is now called Strom Thurmond Lake after the long time Senator from South Carolina. Local residents, and I, will know it as Clarks Hill Lake and the Clarks Hill Dam.

We got there on Friday in the late afternoon. I called the contact number I had, a woman named Shirley who had found my name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall website. I had written there in the guest book for my friend, Frazier Dixon. Frazier was killed in Vietnam on December 3, 1969. I was there when he died, with him, touched him.

Shirley was looking for information about a fallen member of the community of Clarks Hill. Shirley lives near Atlanta now, but her Mother still lives in Clarks Hill. She went to school there and knew Frazier Dixon. When she contacted me, neither she nor I knew what was going to happen, but the contact was made. Now, I had come down to attend a Veterans Program that was being put on by an Elder and retired school teacher, Mrs. Scott.

Mrs. Scott has had this program for Veterans since 2002. She holds it at the Bethany Baptist Church in Clarks Hill. In the past years, attendance hasn’t been very high. Mrs. Scott felt that this would be her last year putting on the program since no one seemed to appreciate it. It is simple. A few songs, a few readings, a scripture and a feed after the Veterans announced themselves with a few words about what branch of service they were in and when they served.

When I heard that Shirley wanted to gather any information she could find about Frazier Dixon, to include him, in spirit, at the Veterans Program, I got interested in going down there and attending myself. What I hadn’t expected was the outpouring of humanity and emotion from the Bethany Baptist Church community in Clarks Hill.

When Shirley reported that I was coming there and that I knew Frazier in Vietnam and that I was his friend and that I was with him when he died, many faithful members of the church called others, family members of Frazier’s, school mates of Frazier’s. Other Veterans of the community, some that had never come to the Veterans Program before this, came out in force.

When I got there, I went to the cemetery which is on the hill, right behind the church. I walked around and spotted the cement slab covering and bronze flat headstone. Frazier’s name was there, big as life. I felt Like I had come full circle. It wasn’t all a dream at all. Sometimes I wondered about my own memory of Vietnam. Detached and so far away from it and with each year, I get farther away.


Grave site of a friend. Clarks Hill, South Carolina

I always wanted to tell somebody about it. About me knowing him. A number of years ago, when I wrote in that Wall website guest book, I did get contacted by a man named Claude. Claude wrote me and told me he knew the family of Frazier Dixon and that was all. Then, a phone call, from a man named James who told me he knew some of the family too. James on the phone and Claude in a letter. I wrote back to Claude and told him how I knew Frazier.

It was such an honor to meet Claude and James. They both remembered the contact. We figured it was in 2002. Claude had gotten copies of that letter and it was included in the scrapbook and album that Mrs. Scott had from the Veterans Programs of the years before. I got to read a letter I wrote in 2002.


Newest friend of the Spado family, Shirley, with James to her left and Claude farther left behind James, in the black jacket. Bethany Baptist dining hall. Veterans Program dinner.

It was an honor to meet all the people. Every single one of them. When it was my turn to speak, I told them that I had the spirit of Frazier Dixon with me for many years and that I was bringing him home. I wasn’t going to forget him. I was going to share him with them. Would you believe I got an “Amen” for that? What a feeling, for a Native American traditional spiritualist and recovering Catholic to get an Amen in a Baptist church in South Carolina?

I noticed that flowers seem to be on every grave at every cemetery in the South. As we drove, we saw oceans of flowers as we passed by cemetery plots. I bought a lawn base and an arrangement of seasonal silk flowers and put them next to the headstone of my friend at Bethany.

People started to arrive, and Shirley came. She is the only one I knew and I was waiting for her. She would introduce me to people. I knew her Mother would be there and a sister of hers. She also told me of a man who was Frazier’s best friend during high school. His name is Anthony.

I met Anthony first. And Anthony’s sister who was helping with the dinner. Then I met Shirley’s Mother and sister. Then I met several people all in a row. James, the guy I talked to on the phone and Claude, the man who wrote me years earlier. I met Deborah, one of Frazier’s first cousins. I met an Aunt and three other cousins. Other school mates and other members of the community that remembered Frazier. I met Mrs. Scott. Everyone seemed very excited that I was there.

I was excited to be there. As I sat in the church and the male choir group was singing, I had a feeling come over me that I can’t explain in any words known to mankind. What was I doing there? Why had I traveled through my lifetime, and now was receiving this gift of being with people that made me feel so welcome and warm? Like they knew me and had known me for a long time?


The Veterans who attended the Program at Bethany Baptist Church. Clarks Hill, SC November 17, 2007

After the program and through the dinner, I talked with so many people from Clarks Hill. A friend who described Frazier as being like a big brother to him and a cousin who remembered the military car in the driveway a long time ago. Those Veterans who knew him and knew he had died in combat action. They all wanted to know if it was true. After all these years, they knew he was dead, but they still hadn’t known, or believed, what the Army had told them. They didn’t believe the Army when they came and told them because the casket was sealed so tightly.

The casket was sealed shut. No pry bar or anything could have opened it. The Army delivered it this way, sealed, with a cement cover, cemented in place. I knew why it was sealed. It puzzled them for many years as no explanation can be remembered as given.

A month or two ago, I wrote some very personal memoirs about my time in Vietnam. I posted it as a four part series. I left it up for a while and then deleted it from the Round Circle Blog. In that four part post, I explained my involvement with Frazier Dixon. I explained why that casket was sealed. I never knew why I was ready to share that, but I was. Then, all this happens and I had to share it again. I didn’t want to go through the whole story in detail while visiting these old friends and family. I printed out the four part story and gave it to Shirley, she herself a Veteran by the way, and nodded my head as to why the casket was sealed and that he did die and that I was with him.

Some of the faces were disappointed, as if I was going to tell them that he was okay. Others, most of them, exhaled because they finally found out what happened and how he died, and they heard it from his friend, and not the Army. They used the word “Closure”. One man held my hand for five minutes as I stood there and held his back.

Deborah, his cousin, took us to the house, or where the house was, where Frazier grew up. We stood out in the road talking, six of us, where Grandma and Grandpa lived, by the ball field, on a road called Dew Drop Inn. I heard all about how Anthony and Frazier were liked by all the girls. I heard about how they’d walk to town and to Bethany for services.

We stood there talking, like the teens might have gathered, talking and laughing, many years ago.

I’d been to war as a young man. I held my friend when he died. 38 years, almost to the day, later, here I was. In his home town with the people who he went to school with, with his cousins, with his friends. I am so blessed by some power more significant than I can ever imagine. To be led here, at this time, in this life. To heal and be a healer, to let others be healers. To share smiles, brotherhood and love. Mending parts of my broken heart

Closure. Knowing that it’s okay now. Knowing we can let go of his spirit. Knowing he won’t be back because a friend came and told us so. I was the savior that day for so many, but they saved me as well. It was closure for me. To see his childhood, his relatives and friends. They know one of their own is gone and they reached out to touch me, a small part of him. I reached out to them.

Shirley has been great through all of this. She made us feel so welcome. Right from the start when we met her at the motel in Augusta. We went out to eat and had a special dinner. We talked on the phone. She even called as we traveled home to check our progress, telling us that everyone was praying for our safe travel. Telling me we were family now. We are part of Frazier’s community. Plans were being made for when I return. whether it be for next years Veterans Program, or for another trip I might want to make to come and visit. She gave me a fine gift, a plaque with the words of a song along with the CD of Bette Midler singing it, and gave Mrs. Spadoman a fine crystal bowl.

But more, she, and the others, gave me love. And closure. And I made new friends. And I have more family now. Mrs Scott, getting on in years and wondering why the attendance at the Veterans Program wasn’t very good, had said that this would be the last time she puts on the program. She changed her mind when that church and dining hall was full of people. She has decreed that she will have one next year. In itself, when a ninety one year old elder makes plans for an event next year, that means something.

We left Augusta, GA on Sunday morning and drove through Georgia and into Tennessee. Through Nashville and into Kentucky. Past Paducah and into Illinois. Right up the gut, and a night of sleep in Mt. vernon, we kept up the Northerly trek and landed in Ashland on Monday evening.

We ate BBQ and southern fried chicken. Boiled peanuts and fried pies. Fresh pink lady apples. I brought home country ham steaks, jam, jelly, hot chow chow, hot BBQ sauce and sorghum, which I plan on using soon on some buckwheat pancakes. That church dinner was good, too. I’ll never eat Macaroni n’ cheese without baking it to form a thick crust on top, ever again. And I’ll put some ham hocks in my green beans. And grits. I like grits.

We have Shirley on the speed dial. I have a card with addresses and phone numbers for Claude. Deborah will be sending me a picture of Frazier from High School days. I’ll send Mrs. Scott a thank you note, and thank yous to others, too. Especially Shirley, my newest sister.

All in all, a whirlwind chapter in this spinning life. A tough act to follow. I’ll remember this experience and hold it right up there with watching the children being born and getting married. And I will get back there, to Clarks Hill, again some day. Maybe this summer for a few days of camping along the Savannah River and a Saturday night fish fry with my friends.

Rap? Or Hip Hop?

I'm in a musical kind of mood today, and as
you'll see, it has everything to do with that picture. Ever do that?
Have one of those days when you hear something and it reminds you of a
song. I even burst into song as if life was "Oklahoma". Some of the
folks at the Black Cat really get a kick out of it. Why just this
morning I heard someone talking and they said the word "pig". I started
to belt out the Bill Monroe classic Pig in a Pen.

Goes like this:

I got a pig at home in a pen
Corn to feed him on
All I need's a pretty little girl
To feed I'm when I'm gone

Going up on a mountain
To sow a little cane
Raise a barrel of sorghum
Sweet little Liza Jane

Black clouds arising
Sure sign of rain
Put that old gray bonnet
On little Liza Jane

Yonder comes that gal of mine
How do you think I know
Know her by that gingham gown
Hanging down so low

Bake them biscuits baby
Bake em good and brown
When you get them biscuits baked
We're Alabama bound

Anyhoo:-), like my pal Batty Mo says, I got to thinkin' of some lyrics I wrote right about 'lecshun time. I looked at em' and added a few more lines.

You do the same. Add some lines if you want to in the comments. Let er' fly. Get mad, good and pissed off. The world, and I, are countin' on ya'll. You can do it. Sing what you write out loud. Sing the whole thing out loud. Make some noise.

Now put the beat to it and read it like you're on TV with Snoop Dog or someone like dat.

My name is Joe and I’m here to say that the politics is crazy in a messy way.

They don’t want peace, they can’t say love, the olive branch is missing like the mourning dove.

We gotta fight on, like we’re in the hunt. Our country’s losing ground on a lot of fronts.

Call up the man, tell em’what for, make sure you point em’ to the exit door.


Go to the polls, cast your lot. Change the direction of this angry pot
-full of haters, cheaters and the rest, put em’ in a sack and make em’ pass the test.

Try to get out of that sack in the lake. The fate of our country is what we have at stake.


We got a new batch, but nuthin’s on the table

They better do it right or we’ll tie em’ to a cable

We’ll throw em’ off a bridge

We’ll throw em’ out the door

We’ll tie em’ to the tracks for locomotive forty four


We gave em’ time, but They still have the killin’

We gave them votes, But they still ain’t willin’

Now write em’ a letter, Give em’ a shout

Stand in their hallway, Til they throw you out


Do it for peace, Call out or pray

Do something god dammit, Or you’ll die this way!

The Sundance

No cameras at a sacred ceremony, so, no pictures to share. In fact, the elder spiritual leader insisted on no video games or any electronic devices, especially cell phones and car radios. There were days of preparing when these rules weren't mentioned or adhered to, but when ceremony days begin, we were asked to follow instruction or leave. This was no problem for me because I don't use these things when I'm at such a place.

As many of you may know, the Sundance is a summertime dance done in a circular arbor by those that have fulfilled their individual requirements to dance. They go without food and water for four days and dance in sessions during the day. Sometimes, the weather dictates some comfort, but not this year. It was hot and humid most every day and very challenging for all in attendance as well as the dancers. They are sacrificing food and water and doing this in the hot sun to pray to the Creator for the health and happiness of the people, all people. They pray to ask for answers to all the prayers the people have. Those prayers are tied in colorful bundles up in a tree that was put in the center of the arbor a day before the dance started.

People who are not dancing in the ceremony itself are assembled around the arbor at the sides. There is a drum goup beating the drum and singing constantly while the dancers are in the circle. At other places around the encampment, people are listening and watching at a distance. They are sipping coffee and visiting with friends. The cook is cooking some food for the next meal or cleaning up the dishes from the meal before. As many as 40-50 people are eating each meal. Many children of the familes of the dancers.

I was the cook. I brought in equipment and set up a cook shanty village complete with tables and chairs under a canopy. I brought the food and the pots pans and utensils to prepare it. I brought firewood to cook on at the large open stove. I brought many 5 gallon water bottles that we filled aily across the road at the neighbors house so we could have water. We needed a lot of water with temperatures up into the 90's every day. We served a ot of lemonade and kool aid and water. I did not bring the black flies, the horse flies or the mosquitoes. There were a lot of them creatures.

I brought Mrs Spadoman and a friend to help me unload and set up the camp. Mrs S stayed and helped me, then left for a couple of days, only to return with the two oldest Grandkids. Then, she jumped in and helped me again. Others pitched in and helped a little here and there. One good friend helped me when Barb was away and did a great job. I could not have pulled it off without the help from these people, especially Barb.

Between meals, I went to the side of the circle and showed my support for the dancers, the people who were praying for us, for an answer to our prayers. I sat in at the big drum and sang with the others in hopes of giving the courageous dancers some energy by our full voiced singing and hard drumming.

On the last day, it came to an end. The rounds were complete. Everyone came to the cook shack for a feast. We had some great food and iced down juice and beverages for the Sundancers to break their fast. A large bowl of chilled fresh fruit and some delacacies that they asked for like walleye and oranged pork chops, wild rice and goulash made from very lean buffalo meat.

Camps were struck and people left for the long drive home, and for most, work on Monday. When I arrived at the camp, I was the first person there last Friday morning, July 20th. The people came and we had this core of human beings there, and just as they arrived, ten days later they left, and I was there alone again until 6:30 PM Sunday night before we had the last thing packed and closed the door on the van and drove away, leaving only the tree standing in the center of the arbor, festooned with the colored prayer tie offerings that once held their prayers.

I pretty much told you of the logistics of this event. The things that happen to any one particular individual during their time either involved with doing the Sundance, or just attending one and being a supporter of a dancer, or someone who helps with the fire, the food or the ceremony, are each individuals secrets to think about and take lessons from.

I saw a couple of kids that I had met last year, but they weren't ready to form relationships last year. This year, they both became great fiends and I view them as my Grandchildren. They are fond of me and I see it and believe it. I served some meals that people liked. Not a morsel of food in the trash, just empty plates and plastic utensils, a sure sign that they liked the sustinance placed before them at that particular meal. Then there was the naughty lady that left her kids hanging around as she left the grounds with others to go to town for this, or go to town for that. The kids were a little trouble from time to time, and with no mother there to reel them in, we took turns yelling at them.

I had a spiritual experience as well. Some questions were raised and I have yet to decipher the real answers. That's how these things work for me. I must dwell on the situation before I know what conclusion I need to draw. It is a learning process. So far, I can still learn much, mostly about myself. As the days and weeks go on, I'll continue to hear the drum beats in my head and the words to these Dakota Sundance honor and thank you songs. I'll hum along and sing and think of the Sundance and my 12 days there. I'll think about all that had happened and hope and pray that I come out the better for it.

One thing I did decide about is that I will no longer be the cook. I have passed the torch to someone new for next year. I'll be there, but I'll in a lawn chair next to the arbor watching the brave courageous people dance for peace and for the prayers of the people.

I am purposely pretty generic in my attempt to tell you about Sacred Ceremony. If you are truly intersested and want more information or have specific questions, please ask via e-mail. Thanks for coming to my blog. It's good to be back home.

The Medicine Wheel

I may have posted this story over a year ago in my old Heart Melody Blog. I felt it worth repeating, at least to myself. I needed to hear what I said before and wanted the motivation to continue strongly on this path. Reading about what I did and how I felt when I did it reminds me to stay on the path. As I have seen and felt good in my life before, I'll see and feel it again.

I'll be leaving for the Sundance in a couple of days and will again be away from these pages. Return will be some time in early August. Please come back and check out the links listed at the end. Some good stuff to see. Thank you.

High in the Northern end of the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming sits an archeological find that is said to be a Medicine Wheel. Scholars know there have been thousands of these throughout North and South America with Canada having the most. Not many, however, are intact or complete. Just remnants have been unearthed over the years.

In Wyoming sits one of the best examples of this Wheel. It is at an altitude of almost 10,000 feet above sea level at the top of a mountain. It is said that the layout may be somewhat orientated to the Sun and Moon and Stars and is astrological.

All this information is a guess. There is no written history. It is a circle of rocks layed out in a wheel around 80 feet in diameter. The center is a pit about 6’ X 6’ made of rocks piled around in a horseshoe shape called a cairn. There are six more of these cairns scattered around the edges. There are 28 spokes that radiate from the center to the edges. The rocks sit on the earth and are in great shape considering they are exposed to the elements at this high altitude.

The area is now a protected site. people can go up there and look at the place, but nothing is to be touched. Native people from over 80 tribes have ceremonies up there from time to time. The Indians feel this place is Sacred.

I first heard of it when I saw it on a map. It is called the Medicine Wheel National Monument. The Forest Service has a small visitor center there and a small parking lot. To visit, you must walk a one and a half mile trail uphill from the small gravel parking area. So, the place doesn’t get the usual high numbers of tourists like Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. It is off the beaten track and only the hardiest of travelers goes there to see it. Besides, in this part of the Big Horn Mountains at this altitude, the road is open only from Memorial Day to sometime in September or October when the snows come and the powers that be close the road for the Winter.

The Indians that hold ceremony there go for many reasons. They feel that their ancestors used this site as a place to pray. Medicine men and women and spiritual leaders go there as well as individuals just wanting to pray. The Forest Service asks people to allow others to have their space if they see someone doing something other than walking around reading the signs. Maybe that person or small group is involved in a ceremony and we are asked not to bother them.

So, I saw it on a map and realized I have never taken that particular road on my trips out West. A few years ago, as I was learning more and more about Native American Spirituality, I met two women who took a trip to this place. Both of these women are said to be healers. One is an Anishanabe, (Ojibway) medicine woman. I was introduced to them as I showed an interest in receiving the benefits of a healing ceremony.

I was told the story of their visit to the Medicine Wheel the year before. I was told that the Indian woman was offered entrance into the Sacred circle of the Medicine Wheel when they visited. I was told that there was a vision to visit in the first place as well as a vision that took place during the visit. I guess I just listened and filed the information for future reference. My involvement with these women went on and I did get a healing ceremony from them, but the ceremony of which I partook had nothing to do with the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming.

My spiritual advisor tells me today that the ceremony was a good one and started me on a path of healing. More about this healing ceremony at a later time.

Five years ago, I was traveling East from California by automobile and took the route less travelled. The road went past the Medicine Wheel and I decided to take the opportunity to stop and see it for myself. I was well into trying to understand and accept many of the Indian ways by this time in my life and as I hiked up the side of the mountain for the first time, I drew upon my beliefs and teachings I had learned to that point.

For the past number of years I have taken up this path of Native American Spirituality in my life. I am not better than anyone else. I am not an Indian nor am I trying to become one. I just have never found the religious teachings of Catholic Christianity to be acceptable. Or for that matter, any organized religion. Too much difference of opinion. One religious leader telling the other that their way was the only true way. I wanted to believe, but I had hesitation because of this involvement of man.

The Indian way of thinking about the Great Spirit or God is different for me. I cut out the middle man and create a dialogue directly with The Creator of all things. No-one tells me what is right or wrong. My heart tells me as I speak directly to God from my heart. No man intervenes and explains my conversations. The thoughts come to me and I know if they are right or wrong instinctively. When I am not sure, I seek guidance through prayer. The answers come and I know in my heart of hearts that I will live in peace and do no harm or force my way on another person.

It is with this confidence that I hike up to the top of this mountain. As I walk, I pray for knowledge of the place where I am visiting. I ask the Spirits to help me as I am a dumb human and need a sign to help me understand what it is I am suppose to see. I am talking to God, as I understand him, as I walk.

I ask for a lesson, some direction or learning that I can take away from here that will help me be a better person and live with peace in my heart. I ask for more healing from the wounds of life. Hey, I’m also praying that I make it to the top because it’s hard for a guy who has had numerous open heart surgeries to hike over a mile uphill at 10,000 feet above sea level.


I am taking it slow. One step at a time. I learn this lesson quickly. Each step leads you to the desired promised land. Patience prevails. If I keep taking one step at a time, after a while, I’ll get there. If I don’t start the journey, it will never happen. This thought came to me some time later. Not all these lessons, or any of them for that matter, come to you with the revelation of a sunrise. One day I just thought about it. I realized that if I hadn’t tried it and kept at it, I never would have made it. This is also true of everything in life. Sure, maybe I’ll die before I reach certain goals, but I can’t just sit and wait to die. I must proceed.

As I reach the top of the mountain and see the stones on the ground and make out this circle of rocks the Spirits grab a hold of my shoulders and I shudder like a chill went through me. I immediately burst into tears and a great feeling of relief comes over me. I cannot explain this feeling except to say that I felt cleansed and pure for that moment in time as I cry in front of God at the top of a mountain many miles from my home.

I keep my gaze to my left on that circle as I step up closer. I follow the man made path to the Northwest edge of the circle and walk around it in a clockwise direction. I keep praying. Crying jags hit me every once in a while as I walk. I stare at parts of the circle, the cairns, the rocks. Then I start to see the offerings and gifts brought there and laid down by visitors before me. Prayer ties tied to fenceposts and thrown into the cairns. Some carried to the center of the circle by Native people who are allowed into the area to pray in the manner that they wish as their ancetors had done.

Sage, Sweetgrass, Cedar, Tobacco. In pouches of cloth and in small leather bags. Beadwork. Feathers, symbols of faith and belief and honor and worship laid there by those who want to symbolize to themselves their journey through life as being one of Spirit. Each offering meant to strengthen mans personal Spirit life and forge a connection to the Great Mystery of life itself.

I look at these things as I walk around the circle. I have a vision as I walk. I see the ancient beings with fire around them dancing here. I feel their Spirits and hear the drumming and singing and chanting. I cry again and again. I see another vision. I see myself dancing at the Sun Dance. I see myself pierced and dragging the skulls of four buffalo.

As I walk I envision myself at the Sun Dance. In a book I read and in accounts told to me by others. I knew I had to have a vision that I would someday dance if I ever was to participate in the Sun Dance ceremony. This was that vision. This was that strong serious thought and visualization that will be ingrained in my mind forever.

For a brief moment, the Medicine Wheel was my Sun Dance arbor, I was peirced in my back and tied to the buffalo skulls and I dragged them as I prayed for the people.

I lingered around on top of the mountain for a while. I walked around and looked out over the beautiful valley of pines and rock to the East and to the West which looks out over a huge basin called the five springs basin. You can see Yellowstone from here, over 125 miles away. Below in the near reaches of the basin is the confluence of the Shoshone and Big Horn Rivers and one of the largest stands of old-growth cottonwood trees left in America.

As I started down the mountain, I felt good about going there. I really had the sensation that I was suppose to see it, supposed to be there that day. I made a promise to go back some day.

As I left the area and headed East towards home, I started to think and another strong thought entered my head. I wanted to go back to the Medicine Wheel sometime and camp out nearby and make the trek up to the top of the mountain every day for four days. This would be an honor to the four Sacred directions. The thoughts kept coming and I saw it as a pilgrimage to the Medicine Wheel, going up each day. And each day I would honor one of the directions by tying a prayer tie on the fence in that direction.

I thought of how I’d tie the prayer ties and what colors I’d use and what I’d put inside of each tie. The only thing I didn’t pre-determine was what I was going to be saying as I hiked up and down the mountain and around the Medicine Wheel. This was in August. I returned in October.

The Forest Service says that the Medicine Wheel and the road through the Big Horn Mountains, Hwy 14A, is open until weather does not permit. This usually happens sometime in October.

I took a chance and arrived there in October around the 10th. I knew it would be cold and I was prepared for that with everything I needed for a warm campsite including firewood, a warm sleeping bag and plenty of warm long sleeved shirts. There was a smattering of snow near the mountain this time of year at this altitude.
There was a nice BLM campground to the west, 13 miles down the hill from the entrance drive at the Medicine Wheel site, called Five Springs Falls Campground.

When I got there, I was the only person there. I did not see another human for the entire time I was there. The deer nation greeted me every morning and evening. I saw fabulous sunrises and sunsets each morning and evening. I set up my camp and made a place at the picnic table to get my prayer ties ready for my first of four days at the Medicine Wheel.

I used the Lakota colors of Black, Red, Yellow and White. to honor the four directions. I used Blue for the Grandfather sky above and Green for Mother earth below. I would be using 6 colors and make six ties each day. From home, I prepared a big bag of Tobacco, Cedar, Sweetgrass and Sage to fill the bundles. As I tied them, I put a prayer for some cause in each one.

I lit sage and puirified myself and my materials as I tied them. I tried to keep my thoughts on what I was asking for. This took concentration and was a struggle. Let me say here that as I narrate what I did on these trips I am in no way trying to brag about the fact that I pray. In all humility, I am just wanting to tell a story and explain what I was trying to do, what I felt meant a lot to me on that particular trip on that particular day.

When I felt all was ready, I got into the car and drove to the small gravel parking lot near the medicine Wheel and parked. I got out, grabbed my stuff and started my walk. The wind was blowing hard and it was raw and cold. I made day one and day two.

Each of these days as I walked up the mountain, I remembered my first journey up there and spoke to the Spirits again. I again said that I was dumb and needed direction. I asked again for lessons and thoughts to come to me. Ideas about how to improve my life. I wanted to be a better person. I felt that the Spirits could help guide me and inspire me to live a better life and this would benefit all others as well, especially members of my own family who are around me most of the time.

I walked around the Wheel and as I walked I prayed and looked around at the beauty. I listened to the songs of the birds and heard The Creators voice the as the wind blew through the trees and over the rocks. I was cold but didn’t pay it any mind. I tied my ties onto the fence and started with the East.

I felt the East was the way the doorway faced at the Sweat Lodge and also where the sun came up each day. I was thinking about the new chance at life the Creator gives us each day with that sun in the East. The rebirth every day. I started with the east. I would work clockwise and tie my prayer ties to the South the next day, then the West and finally the North.


I was finished and even though I did linger a little while, I was cold and the wind was relentless, so I headed down with thoughts of a fire at my campsite so I could get warm. I had barely made it 100 yards on the trail back down when it hit me. I had a thought, a strong thought, a revelation, an idea that was so obvious and made such sense, but never really thought about it in such simple precise terms before that moment.

The idea came to me that one of the things I need to be doing to live a better life was to stop talking negatively about other people. A basic rule that says if you don’t have anything good to say about another, don’t say anything.

This thought conjured up all sorts of personal confessions as I walked. I knew what the teaching meant immediately. In those instances when someone irritates you or they do something that you feel just isn’t right, instead of dragging another persons misdeeds through the mud, just keep quiet about it. Leave them be. Don’t talk about another person and what you don’t like about them or that you don’t like what they do.

This valuable lesson kept up and more information came to me. I looked back at a few instances for understanding, but more importantly, I looked ahead and learned how to treat a situation in the future when it comes up again. It was a great lesson, and so simple.

We live our lives everyday and as for me, I never gave much thought to self improvement. In fact, I guess I always enjoyed when people liked me or at least I thought that they liked me. I figured if they were listening to me, be it good or bad about another person, and I had their attention, it was good. This is not so.

I took this first lesson and wrote about my thoughts in my journal. More and more ideas came forward. I felt so much growth and power the rest of that day. I was amazed. I got the feeling that I asked the Spirits for a lesson and they gave it to me. Maybe it had nothing to do with the Spirits. Some would argue that fact I’m sure, but to me, I was receptive and looking for answers to life’s problems. This is how the answers came to me.

The next day, I followed the same routine and I received another strong visual teaching the same way. Along the same lines as don’t talk about people came the phrase don’t judge people.

The same hours of concentration about this subject happened the second day and more was learned. I felt good again. Time passed quickly as I sat alone in my campsite by the fire. I was thinking about right now instead of the past or problems that I thought I would have in the future. For me personally, this was a major change in the thinking process. I looked at it as more healing. An extension of the healing started in my life by the two women.

Earlier, I mentioned a healing ceremony I went through some time ago. I want to tell you about that simple ceremony and draw some correlation to the happenings at the Medicine Wheel.

When I met these two women, it was to find out about a trip to the Medicine Wheel site near Sedona Arizona where they were going to travel and conduct a healing ceremony. My interest was to help out with driving and some of the funding and be able to tag along and witness while being hopeful that I might be invited into the circle.

The trip to Sedona never came to be. It seems that when we tried to get information about the area to plan our logistics, we came upon a lot of information that showed people reserving the Sacred Medicine Wheel to run ‘for profit’ ceremonies. Advertising their programs and putting the price tag right up front. The trip to Arizona was aborted.

Instead, they decided to hold a healing ceremony right near home. High on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River near Diamond Bluff, Wisconsin. This happens to be the large expanse of yard attached to a rented farm of one of the women.

The ceremony was simple. I was told to tie seven prayer ties, all with red cloth, and one of them is to have a different color tying string so as to identify it from the six others. Tobacco, Sage and Cedar were to be tied into these offerings.

At the sight, a small fire pit was surrounded by Cedar with an entrance to the East. The ceremony involved tying one of these prayer ties to a tree in every direction. I was to also offer one tie above to the Grandfather and one to Mother Earth below us into the fire. I was told to hold on to the one with the different colored tie for a while.

Not much else was said or done, but after a while, I was to ask for the Creator to remove something I wanted to get rid of and put this request into that last special prayer tie. Then I was to put it into the fire. End of ceremony.

I waited for about five minutes and wondered if I was then healed. I actually had no understanding of the process and absolutely no patience. What I have learned eight years later is that the simple ceremony started me on a path to healing. As I look back, my life has changed so much, and for the better. This ceremony was the first small step that eventually led me up the side of the mountain in Wyoming and into numerous other opportunities to learn, grow and heal.

So now I realized that I indeed have been on a healing path that seemed to have started with that ceremony. And as I sit at my campfire and I am able to concentrate on my thoughts and have a greater understanding of Spirit and my place in the universe, I am at peace in my heart. I have experienced a healing.

The next day I woke up to a bright Eastern sky and what I thought would be an inevitable sunrise, but the morning quickly turned cloudy. I went back to my cot in the tent and dozed off for a short while and I awoke to an inch of snow on my tent. I got out of the tent and looked around in amazement at the beautiful sight of the soft fresh snow in this windless mountain environment. The snow was wet and it didn’t feel so cold or even cold enough to have had snowed.

The sky was gray and it was soon after that a fog came over the area where I was camped. The fog thickened like corn starch poured into boiling water and soon I couldn’t see for more than 50 yards. The deer that I usually saw feeding were gone and so was the field where they roamed. The mountaintops dissapeared, all the color of my tent and my car were muted into a grayish haze. It was like I was living life in a black and white photograph.

I got ready and got into my car for my trek to the mountain. The road was covered with snow and as I started driving up to the Medicine Wheel, I met the plow and there were large plumes of snow coming off the edges of that plow. I went back and broke camp and figured that I better abandone this mission for now because I was fearful that I’d get stranded in the snow. It was October 15th.

I had made two days of the four I had made a committment to do. I struggled a little about this, but then realized that I didn’t put a time limit on the exercize. I could and would return and fulfil my committment to go to the Medicine Wheel for four days.

It took me a little less than a year to go back and try again. I set up this camp closer to the entrance for the steep gravel driveway that led to the Wheel. It was late August and the nights were cold, but the creator blessed me with wonderful warm sunny almost windless days for the entire four days I was there.

I went up to the Medicine Wheel once each day for four consecutive days, each day with a new bundle of prayers, asking the Creator to answer them. Asking the Spirits to help guide and protect me. Wanting more lessons, more teachings, more faith.

I was blessed then with answers to many questions and more strong thoughts about things that have been troubling me in my life. The healing still continues. More thoughts, more teachings pop into my head. I also realize that this is a lifelong process and that this way of life must continue on forever. This isn’t anything I’ll ever be finished with. It is only a great start to an amazing journey. I will return to the Medicine Wheel. Feel free to join me if you’d like. I’ll be heading back that way later this summer.

I did find a great website that shows many pictures of the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming. Check it out HERE. You also might want to see other places. The site has many areas of interest and can be found HERE.

Lastly, a site I found with a wonderful story about the Medicine Wheel before the Forest Service made it into a developed site. You can see that HERE.

Thank you for allowing me to share a small part of my life with you. Feel free to e-mail if you have any questions. I'll answer when I return in August.

Peace to All.