East of the Sun | West of the Moon

" If you white men had never come here, this country would still be like it was. It would be all pure here. You call it wild, but it wasn’t really wild, it was free. Animals aren’t wild, they’re just free. And that’s the way we were. You called us wild, you called us savages. But we were just free. If we were savages, Columbus would never have gotten off the island alive. Our religion is all about thanking the Creator. That’s what we do when we pray. We don’t ask Him for things. We thank Him [Her]. We thank Him for the world and every animal and plant in it. We thank Him for everything that exists. We don’t take it for granted that a tree is just there. We thank the Creator for that tree. If we don’t thank Him, maybe the Creator will take that tree away... We are made from Mother Earth and we go back to Mother Earth. We can’t “own” Mother Earth. We’re just visiting here. We are the Creator’s guests. " Leon Shenandoah , — former “Tadodaho” of the Grand Council of the Six Natio

Years of navigating through land mines mean dread and caution hover close, even as we eat and socialize. One moment on solid ground, then in a heartbeat it's all gloom and doom.  All eyes swivel toward me. Noise level goes from chaotic cacophony to zero. My ears pop as I gulp for air. Locked in a bubble of building pressure.  dark weird wallpaper I view the living as dead and gone - analyzing their distinctive anatomy and facial features. Clinical and removed as these are filed away for future reference. Suspended in a strange soft cloud of too weird.