The Yin-Yang of Life

I recall a Latino educator telling me that I would be professionally marginalized because of my journalism and media literacy work focused on challenging racism, in all its forms, that targeted Indigenous peoples. Our conversation occurred at a 1999 conference in Phoenix, Arizona, called “Weaving a New Beginning,” organized by the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. He was correct.

Becoming marginalized, however, already had established itself as my reality, during a considerable span of my life dedicated full time to cross-cultural healing. Little did I know, when embarking on freelance journalism in 1982, that my investigations would unveil cultural racism systemically in every institution, as well as the news media and popular culture throughout mainstream North America.

I certainly lost my intellectual, and cultural, innocence along that road of seeking the truth of what really happened in Canadian and American history – acts of oppression based upon Euro-western worldviews – that continue to cause ruptures in contemporary cross-cultural relations today.

Fighting injustice, and particularly a history of oppression, requires tenacity and a deep conviction to stand up for what is ethical. As a journalist/educator, through the 1990s I was invited to facilitate media literacy workshops around North America, at conferences for teachers, conflict resolution professionals, and fellow journalists, on news media and pop culture stereotypes.

But, despite my deep involvement in Indigenous culture, I was not Indigenous. I therefore was treated as an outsider by many Native people, yet on several levels felt like an outsider as well within my own Euro-western culture, as a Canadian of Celtic ancestry.

Being a foot soldier on the battleground of social justice eventually wore me out. Of necessity, I shifted gears to focus on healing rather than suffering. This emphasis makes all the difference in relation to how we sustain ourselves, by paying attention both to our inner and outer life. We do so through understanding how to maintain health holistically, taking time to reflect on what really matters, and developing our consciousness so that our personality becomes more closely aligned with our soul.

Healing rather than suffering is the wiser path, whether we speak about a journey of personal transformation or global transformation, or the multiple levels in between that embrace reconciliation among the diverse cultures within the human family.

I suggest that cultural healing is at the heart of all ethnic studies programs that exist academically in the United States, and elsewhere. Ethnic studies are totally justifiable and essential on that sole basis. Other good reasons could be added, such as freedom of expression, which one would assume is a given in any democracy, yes? Actually, no.

The very existence of the label “ethnic studies” speaks to the problem. Namely, Euro-western colonial nations, since the 19th century creation of social sciences such as anthropology, henceforth classified the rest of humanity as “ethnic,” to distinguish `them’ from Euro-western culture, which imposed its hegemonic dominance.

Worse, the Tucson book banning in Arizona schools and, moreover, termination of the Tucson Unified School District nationally-acclaimed Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, illustrates that the only worldview still considered acceptable to be taught in schools must be based on a Euro-western trajectory that originates in Graeco-Roman culture.

But, what aspects are glorified, and from what periods? All human cultures continually evolve, in which some periods are more democratic and egalitarian while others clearly are not. Western history overall is not a pretty picture. Consider whose version gets told, and whose voices have been marginalized and/or silenced throughout history.

Yet here we go again. How dare the political and educational authorities in Arizona, or any other American state, have the audacity to continue oppression in the 21st century by trying to repress cultural awareness among the original peoples of North and South America. Their ancestors inhabited these lands thousands of years prior to the arrivals of Europeans! Descendants of mixed ancestry also are carriers of stories that illuminate the cultural complexity and richness, albeit fraught with conflict, of cross-cultural histories.

I have news for those Americans who appear to be socialized into a life of paranoia. It is not global terrorism, nor even any terrorists living among you, that will destroy your democracy. Instead, through xenophobia and ignorance, you are doing a jolly good job of undermining your own democracy. Tea Party supporters most of all make a mockery of democracy, and are the folks to be feared if their candidates gain more power.

How individuals such as John Huppenthal, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Tom Horne, Attorney-General, got elected at all is chilling, not to mention House Bill 2281 getting passed in order to use it to oppress Americans who are ethnic. In watching interviews with Huppenthal and Horne, respectively, by Democracy Now and CNN, how these two men both distort the purpose of MAS and also the perspectives of famous and award-winning authors is very disturbing, as well as Horne invoking the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. (In my next blog, I will `deconstruct’ these distortions and more, by demonstrating media literacy as a tool to name and challenge cultural racism.)

Where the hope of an authentically democratic America resides is, first of all, in promoting freedom of expression through the availability of books written in the voices of all cultures and, furthermore, strengthening the presence of ethnic studies for all Americans and new immigrants to enjoy and develop cross-cultural understanding.

On that note, I applaud the solidarity already demonstrated by many American organizations, schools and individuals who are proactively and vocally challenging the cultural racism so virulent in Arizona, and wherever else it exists. For example, browse the long list of organizational supporters published on the website of the National Coalition Against Censorship at http:www.ncac.org/Censorship-Arizona-Style, and read their joint statement opposing the book ban. Also, educational groups across America are holding teach-ins, while a growing number of citizens join in solidarity by using social media for its highest purpose – to challenge all forms of injustice.

Huppenthal’s and Horne’s fear-mongering, and dictating that books cannot be studied that focus on race, oppression and ethnicity, because it victimizes ethnic peoples and makes them resentful towards `white Americans,’ is an insult to any intelligent person. The truth is the opposite, that the study of oppressive histories, however painful, opens two doors, first of all, for the oppressed to take back ownership and cultural pride in revitalizing values, practices, and awareness of their peoples’ under-recognized contributions to the world – to be acknowledged as equal human beings.

The second door opens insights to the root causes of fear and prejudice by the oppressors, as one step toward cross-cultural healing. The only way to resolve any anger and resentment also calls upon all Americans to be exposed to the dark side of their history, followed by the will to engage in reconciliation through cross-cultural dialogues. Such dialogues must be safe and respectful spaces where participants bring an intentionality to listen with good hearts and open minds, rather than be accusatory and/or defensive.

Here are a few links selected from many, to help you find accurate information rather than misinformation. Go to http://saveethnicstudies.org, to see a chronology of events leading up to the termination of MAS, profiles on the educators and information about MAS. Also go to http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com to look up several articles in recent months written by Bill Bigelow, co-editor of Rethinking Columbus, one of the banned books.

Finally, go to the blog of Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, a professor at University of Arizona and one of the banned authors, to read his love message to the world, and related blogs, at http://drcintli.blogspot.com/2012/02/from-ground-zero-in-lak-ech-and-love.html. He communicates the spiritually-grounded worldviews of the Latino and Indigenous peoples – namely, it is love and forgiveness directed at the oppressors rather than the latter’s fear and hate that will facilitate walking the road, as equals, toward reconciliation.

By the way, feeling like an outsider (culturally speaking), as I mentioned earlier, has not bothered me for a long time. The reason is, Indigenous people offered opportunities for me to experience Spirit, and instilled the belief that we all are spiritual beings who come from, and return to, the same cosmic Source, however diverse spiritual paths name it. I find my kindred souls among those fellow human beings who hold the same belief in their hearts.

Tears streamed down her face in the silence that followed. The woman, middle-aged, had just told us that the experience of speaking in this circle of people was the first time in her life she felt the full presence of others genuinely hearing her emotional pain.

An extraordinary statement, wouldn’t you say? How common is this phenomenon? After many years volunteering at a phone-in Distress Centre in a large city, followed by studies and training in psychology, the regrettable answer is – very common. That is why a large number of people seek out the services of psychological and/or spiritual counsellors. Historically, people in despair sought out individuals in spiritual ministry.

Yet, until the later decades of the twentieth century – in an increasingly secularized Euro-western culture – social stigmas were thrust upon individuals who sought out psychiatric help. For those who did, many mental health afflictions were not accurately identified, so that they either were not appropriately treated or were totally overlooked. Worse, people to this day who deserve informed, and compassionate, support still might never receive it, and sometimes take their own lives.

The emotional pain to which I refer in the opening anecdote, however, speaks to a more widespread human dilemma. I am referring to the sense of disconnection within us when our soul is not welcomed in the world. This dilemma may or may not extend to, and include, the more clearly definable severe chemical imbalances that require medical, as well as psycho-therapeutic, interventions.

What I became aware of thirty years ago, working at a Distress Centre, is the prevalence of profound and, at times, life-threatening, human loneliness based upon bad experiences in interrelationships, absence of community and a sense of powerlessness. In fact, I now witness the same losses and human isolation in the rural region where I currently reside.

As far back as the 1950s though, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl referred to the existential vacuum – namely, a lack of meaningfulness in life – that he witnessed in North America. Frankl’s seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning became well-known in academic and psychological circles. In it he spoke from his own experiential knowledge of what inner resources within his own psyche he connected with, to keep his sanity and survive captivity in a Nazi death camp. His book’s content continues to be relevant.

But, the people who choose vocations to help others sometimes neglect their own emotional and spiritual care, and do so unconsciously. This dilemma was addressed more than 25 years ago in Women Who Love Too Much by psychotherapist Robin Norwood, which broke new ground in even naming it. This book – and its sequel inspired by the huge response to her first book – number among many excellent books that I researched, to explore my own patterns as a helping professional, in order to name and transform them.

Acknowledging our inner life is vital for both women and men. Doing so is most imperative among those in helping professions and related callings, who devote so much energy to the welfare of other people. The reason is, during my research through the 1990s, I discovered a disturbing trend. Helping professionals were dropping out of their respective vocations in growing numbers, because of serious, repeated burnout and subsequent physical health problems.

My opening anecdote refers to a circle of helping professionals, who gathered in Toronto in the mid-1990s, to participate in a series of weekend workshops led by American spiritual psychologist Tom Yeomans. Among his transformative activities, Dr. Yeomans trains helping professionals in the concepts and practices of a spiritual psychology called psychosynthesis. It’s approach is focused on facilitating connection with our soul.

What `giving presence’ or `being present’ means, therefore, is much more than merely showing up. It means `witnessing’ and `bearing witness,’ beyond intellectually hearing and presuming to analyze words and body language being spoken. Instead, the essential `active listening’ calls us to open our heart and soul to pay attention to another human soul reaching out for connection.

Indeed, Tom Yeomans points out that the soul not feeling welcomed in the world is one of the most devastating sources of human pain evident today, and it often begins in early childhood. Psychotherapists John Firman and Ann Gila describe this phenomenon in their book The Primal Wound, A Transpersonal View of Trauma, Addiction and Growth (1997). They suggest that the void that occurs from a split in our consciousness is what seeds our collective societal materialism and preoccupations, fed by the mass media, focused on sex, violence, power, control and addictions.

Giving presence, conversely, is a humble and simple act. Some years ago, a friend’s daughter invited me to be present during the home birth of her first child, assisted by a midwife. I sat quietly in the background, and visualized energies of serenity and love, with silent prayers that all will be well. Some days later, Lise thanked me for the strength and reassurance that she had felt me sending her and the baby, energetically. The gift that I received was feeling trusted to participate in welcoming a new soul into this world.

To sum up, giving presence works both ways. We receive what we give. We cannot give unless the potential recipient calls upon us to be present. In other words, we cannot force our affection upon someone unwilling to receive it. The door of another person’s heart needs to be open to receive love. What we then might be asked to give is not whatever expertise we might have to offer but instead, more soulfully, our loving attention.

What we receive can never be anticipated, and may not be realized through words. Rather, it can be based upon us simply having the grace to appreciate the opportunity to express our loving kindness and enhance someone else’s well-being, whether a loved one, a colleague, an acquaintance or a total stranger.

What could Whitney Houston and Quan Am Thi Kinh possibly have in common? These are two famous women from totally different cultures, different life experiences and different centuries. I suggest that the connections between them are based on what their life stories can teach us as fellow human beings – namely, compassion.

Whitney Houston was a pop diva and musical icon renowned internationally through the global vehicle of popular culture, and recently deceased. Quan Am Thi Kinh lived many centuries ago, and her legend as a female monk is renowned through the centuries among Buddhists and Vietnamese people.

The first factor that connects them is that both women, albeit in different circumstances, experienced unbearable suffering even while they dedicated their own lives to alleviate the suffering of other human beings, through their creative gifts and practice of compassion.

A second factor is that both women were motivated by spiritually grounded love. Their inner glow attracted and inspired others. For Whitney Houston, her childhood was influenced by a strict family home and joyful participation, through gospel singing, in the Church. For Quan Am Thi Kinh – a later name bequeathed upon a young Vietnamese woman, Kinh Tam – her family similarly was strict, and disallowed advanced schooling or any life beyond getting married and bearing children. From a very young age, regardless, Kinh Tam yearned for the monastic life, and privately studied the sutra texts of the Buddha.

Women, however, were not allowed to be Buddhist nuns in Giao Chau (the ancient name for Vietnam). Kinh Tam was forced by her parents to marry at 19, then wrongly accused by her in-laws of trying to kill their son, disgraced, and returned to her parents’ home. Her prescribed role was to help her younger brother study. She otherwise devoted herself to learning meditative practices, and soon ran away, disguised as a young man. In this disguise, she trained to become a novice in the Dharma Cloud Temple, and sought future ordination as a monk.

Again, what in heaven’s name can a historic Buddhist female monk – who chooses a life of sacrifice, spiritual retreat, and carries out humanitarian deeds as per religious custom – have in common with a contemporary American pop singer?

For contributions to the world from Whitney Houston primarily have been generated not by religious anonymity but, instead, measured in accordance with worldly achievements such as music record sales, awards, Hollywood movie successes and more awards. Indeed, always and relentlessly, Houston was expected to maintain `peak performance’ under the public gaze. Her philanthropy, meanwhile, got marginalized in the media and treated as just another expectation, given her celebrity status and wealth.

The adoring, yet notoriously fickle, public loved her when she performed as a super woman or, more accurately, when reduced to a super `commodity’ to feed the expectations and demands they foisted upon her. The public, conversely, condemned her human fragility of succumbing to addictions.

In watching a recent American TV news magazine show, that highlighted earlier TV interviews, no awareness is evident in the lines of questioning to get at the source of the addictions. In other words, no recognition is directed to the human toll paid in order to maintain the super star fantasy image that pushed Houston over the edge into substance dependencies.

Public condemnation – totally bereft of compassion – therefore, is the third factor that connects Whitney Houston and Kinh Tam, despite totally different lifestyles and how the popular media characterized Houston’s humanitarian acts, seemingly in contrast to Kinh Tam’s religiously-based tenets of life purpose.

Instead, the fourth factor connecting the two women is that their humanitarian motivations came from the same source – the human soul and desire to use their respective gifts to create a more socially just world.

Let us return to Kinh Tam’s suffering. Her new life as a novice, disguised as a man, did not spare her from further injustice. A village woman became pregnant and accused Kinh Tam of being the father. Kinh Tam was publicly and severely whipped, because she refused to confess to this false accusation. Nor did she want to reveal her true identity as a woman, which would have terminated the monastic life that she lived for.

Next, when this village woman gave birth, she abandoned her baby on the steps outside the monastery. The novice Kinh Tam chose to take responsibility for the baby’s care, despite re-igniting village rumours that she really was the father after all. Her love and compassion to save the life of this child took precedence.

Six short years later, Kinh Tam contracted pneumonia. Despite the injustices inflicted upon her, she had transcended any ill feelings towards the perpetrators. On her death bed, she composed letters of loving kindness to them, and asked her parents to adopt the child as their grandson. In a letter to the abbot, she invited him to commit to the building of the first Vietnamese Buddhist temple where women could be ordained and practice as nuns. He pledged to do so, and such a temple was built.

Something tragic happened, however, in the life of Whitney Houston, to distinguish her life path from that taken by Kinh Tam. The latter, in following her soul’s desire found a community of kindred souls who were on the same spiritual path. The former, believing God had given her an angelic voice to bring joy, beauty and love to the wider world outside the Church, stepped outside the embrace of a spiritual community of support.

The toxic blend of commerce and voracious appetites of public demand fed off Houston, psychically and viscerally, sucking the life energy out of her. In an early 1990s interview with Diane Sawyer, Whitney Houston identified her future dream ten years hence – to retire in order to focus on family and children, including grandchildren. In saying so, her face lit up, fleetingly. The sadness in her eyes, otherwise, spoke volumes, when she added that the joy she once had experienced in singing was gone. By then, throughout that decade, Houston’s immense productivity tragically tore her asunder.

Before closing this blog, I want to tell readers that I initially had intended to focus on the story of Quan Am Thi Kinh, after reading a contemporary version titled The Novice (2011) by Vietnamese Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh – and recommend it.

But, distressed by the media focus of Whitney Houston’s passing, reduced to a story about the fall from grace by yet another pop celebrity whose life bit the dust from substance abuse, I felt compelled to address her more fully as a human being and, as well, raise a question.

When is the popular media, and the larger society, ever going to examine what our collective societal addictions to celebrity culture, and also consumer culture, inflict upon fellow human beings? We need to reflect on what we value, who we value, and why?

The Dalai Lama writes: “Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other.” He points out how concern for someone we care about often is not actually `compassion,’ but instead `attachment.’ In other words, our so-called concern, more honestly, comes from our expectations and what we project through our own desires onto that other person.

He continues, “As long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems. This is genuine compassion.”

Let us remember Whitney Houston through her generosity of song and humanitarian work, especially on behalf of children. We remain blessed with her music that lives on. May we wish for her, compassionately, a soul finally at peace in the world of Spirit.

Everett pushed his wheelchair up to the desk in his home studio, the chair almost swallowing up his delicate physique. A feeling of tenderness welled up inside me. As he attentively organized notepad and pencil to begin writing, I wanted to rush up to him and give him a hug.

Everett would have liked that. In fact, he occasionally had requested a hug, but I was so fearful of breaking his fragile ribs. I, instead, would gently take hold of his shoulders and give him a peck on the cheek. His response was a resigned acceptance.

In the late stages of muscular dystrophy, Everett Soop’s physical fragility was no joke. Through four years of difficult fundraising, as a filmmaker, my uppermost concern had been to complete Everett’s film story so that he could see it before his life ended. I was determined to keep my promise.

On this particular Saturday, 14 years ago, it was Valentine’s Day. The occasion was the second of two film shoots to record his life story in my documentary film Soop on Wheels. My film crew, two terrific, sensitive guys – cinematographer Winston Upshall and sound recordist Gary Bruckner – had turned the tiny room upside down, in order for us to get the camera properly positioned to shoot Everett.

As the director I remained in the background, leaning against the door frame, to watch the scene being shot. Everett was determined to light an incense stick before writing. So he did, eventually, then wafting the smoke with his eagle feather. Given his published work not just as a political cartoonist yet also as a satirical columnist, I wanted to show him writing, and had asked him to go through the actions, and jot down anything.

But, this was Everett, whose subterranean rivers of feeling I already had discovered – when given the opportunity – would rise to the surface and break your heart. Quietly writing while the camera rolled, several minutes later Everett leaned back and called me over. He presented me with the sheet. I read it, and tears rolled down my cheeks. In those few minutes, Everett had written a beautiful ode to his departed maternal grandmother, Enimaki, and the sorrow of cultural losses among his Blackfoot people. (Actress Tantoo Cardinal, in her voice-over narration, recites the poem in the film.)

Everett is the most remarkable person whom I ever met, to this day. As a truth teller, regardless, he paid the price of being ahead of his time – the story of all messengers – by experiencing a lifetime of discrimination, isolation and loneliness. Despite all of it, he never gave up trying to create a better world for both Aboriginal, and also disabled, people. As well, he cared for the young people and wanted their lives to be more hopeful.

He loved the women in his family, and they loved him. He loved the animals, the birds, the wide open sky and fields of the Alberta plains. He loved his house plants. Indeed, he cherished life itself. In his cartoons and writings he strongly attacked the forces, outside and within, destroying the integrity and spiritual values of Aboriginal culture.

Our friendship had been evolving for several years before I decided to do the film. In fact, we had written on our hearts a compact of trust that carried us both forward, at a time when identity politics got very ugly, and “white” people like me were supposed to back off from supposedly telling someone else’s story. Yet I simply was the conduit. Meanwhile, people around Everett were totally indifferent to his story getting told at all.

He and I transcended these regrettable barriers – of anger, resentment, prejudice, fear, jealousy, and being stuck in unspeakable grief – all reactions to life’s injustices that diminish our human understanding of each other. We simply were two human beings on a journey trying to make meaning of life’s injustices.

Love has many expressions. Everett and I understood love at a soul level. I had discovered a beautiful Celtic term that I felt characterized our friendship – anam cara – meaning `soul friend.’ Everett felt the same.

He even referred to my love for him as `agape.’ Psychoanalyst Rollo May, in his classic book Love and Will (1969), describes agape as: “the love which is devoted to the welfare of the other, the prototype of which is the love of God for man” [p. 38, 39]. Later in his book, May cautions: “Agape always carries with it the risk of playing God. But this is a risk we need to take and can take” [p. 319].

God was very important to Everett, for he believed in a loving God/Creator/Spirit, and that, ultimately, the world of Spirit would offer solace that had been difficult to attain on Earth. I think that I did try, inadvertently, to play God for while, until Everett taught me – unknowingly as my spiritual mentor – where to draw the line between well-intentioned `rescuer’ trying to change another person’s circumstances and the much more effective role of `compassionate witness’ who pays attention, supportively, to how another individual is negotiating their own reality.

In June 1998, before delivering the film to broadcasters, I brought the rough cut to Everett for approval. He wept. For what I saw in Everett he had not seen – his deep capacity for love. Before the film, he believed that his life had been a failure. My gift of love to Everett was not only making it possible for him to relate his truth to the wider world. Moreover, serendipitously, doing so provided a pathway for him to recognize his own inner beauty.

Everett’s life illustrates the timeless and universal hero’s journey, in a film story that has resonated with audiences at nine film festivals, television viewers, and still sells internationally today. To see a six-minute trailer, that includes the incense-burning scene, go to my Canadian distributor McNabb Connolly. For sales outside Canada, please go to Filmakers Library.

Spellbound, I froze and clutched my writing pad and pen to my bosom, as the fawn came closer. I did not want to startle her. The doe, ears up like flags as soon as she spotted me across the marsh pond, had fled into the wood.

The fawn, so new to the world, was barely able to stagger upright on her fragile legs. Regardless, she slowly, and serendipitously, tottered around the pond in my direction, sniffing and chewing delicacies en route, sensually attentive in each step and innocently embracing all that life presented.

Awestruck simply in the gift of witnessing this exquisite creature exploring her newly discovered world, I had believed her instincts would deter her from approaching a human. However, her angelic trust apparently was all-encompassing, so that the onus was on me to do no harm, nor otherwise take advantage of her vulnerability. Never was I so humbled as in this magic encounter.

‘Magical’ is a word that has several meanings, among them, mystic, enchanting and mysterious. But dictionary definitions are so limited in describing the special moments in life that transport us from the mundane to the sacred or holy – namely, an awakened reverence for life.

Such unexpected encounters are opportunities that can signify deep meaning, if we pay attention. Alternatively, we can choose to disregard such an event, frivolously tossing it aside. A shallow, fleeting glance, for example, might scan the fawn’s surface physicality of Bambi-like cuteness, before moving on, oblivious to any appreciation of such a rare encounter in the wild and without reflection about what we can learn.

The fawn, eventually, arrived at my side, fully exercising the quality of inquisitiveness for which deer are renowned. Her nose rubbed against my jeans as as she sniffed the strange, tall, two-legged creature. I had almost stopped breathing from sheer panic that if my human scent later would be detected, the fawn’s mother would reject her. For that reason, golly, did I ever have to restrain myself from the temptation to reach out and gently stroke her beautiful, soft, dappled body.

The dainty creature then continued on her way, in no hurry, while she minutely examined the wealth of her surroundings, particularly in their olfactory and edible delights. I remained still until she disappeared, the wonder and joy of her brief companionship washing over me.

Jungian analyst/author Linda Schierse Leonard mentions that Jung characterized the spiritual plight of Western civilization as the result of its alienation from the rest of the world. I agree, and add, that it is through close encounters in Nature, entered upon with the humility and intentionality to learn rather than with the self-serving arrogance to exploit, where each and every human being can restore any misplaced sense of reverence.

Spiritually-grounded messengers have reminded us of this fact through the ages. Leonard writes, in Creation’s Heartbeat, Following the Reindeer Spirit:

“Prophets, poets and other visionaries have always known that it is in the wilderness that we find spirit. Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed went alone to the desert, the forest, or the mountains to pray and ask for vision and enlightenment. They travelled inward to the interior wilderness as well, finding renewed strength and inspiration” [Leonard, 1996, p. 37].

Indeed, the world of Nature has bountiful gifts and teachings, which expand and deepen our minds and hearts to appreciate the multitude of ways in which human life is interrelated with all nonhuman life. The gifts are the magical moments of encounter, and the teachings awaken our higher qualities and elevate our state of mind to a holistic level of appreciating life itself, interconnecting mind, body, heart and soul. In that regard, I considered the fawn a messenger as well.

For such magical encounters offer numinous experiences, where Nature and Spirit intersect. My encounter many years ago on the trails of Ganondagan – a historic site dedicated by the State of New York to honour Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) history, culture and living traditions – offered one such transformative moment in my life.

Go to http://www.ganondagan.org, and other site pages, to read about the Haudenosaunee. Scroll down the hiking page, to click `Thanksgiving Address,’ or go to www.nativevillage.org/Inspiration-/iroquois_thanksgiving_address.htm. Here is an eloquent prayer that exemplifies the Indigenous appreciation for Creation, this particular prayer still recited today at the opening of all formal Haudenosaunee gatherings.