“My wartime experiences developing a code that utilized the Navajo language taught how important our Navajo culture is to our country. For me that is the central lesson: that diverse cultures can make a country richer and stronger.”
– Chester Nez, 2011
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in a manner so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.
– Navajo Proverb
“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”
Angelou at Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration:
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
Image courtesy Janet’s Cakes.
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“My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back,
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
where I dream in my little hood with many bells,
jangling when I’d turn my head.
My mother would be a falconress,
and she sends me as far as her will goes.
She lets me ride to the end of her curb,
where I fall back in anguish.
I dread that she will cast me away,
for I fall, I mis-take, I fail in her mission.
She would bring down the little birds.
And I would bring down the little birds.
When will she let me bring down the little birds,
pierced from their flight with their necks broken,
their heads like flowers limp from the stem?
I tread my mother’s wrist and would draw blood.
Behind the little hood my eyes are hooded.
I have gone back into my hooded silence,
talking to myself and dropping off to sleep.
For she has muffled my dreams in the hood she has made me,
sewn round with bells, jangling when I move.
She rides with her little falcon upon her wrist.
She uses a barb that brings me to cower.
She sends me abroad to try my wings,
and I come back to her.
I would bring down,
the little birds to her.
I may not tear into, I must bring back perfectly.
I tear at her wrist with my beak to draw blood,
and her eye holds me, anguish, terrifying.
She draws a limit to my flight.
Never beyond my sight, she says.
She trains me to fetch and to limit myself in fetching.
She rewards me with meat for my dinner.
But I must never eat what she sends me to bring her.
Yet it would have been beautiful, if she would have carried me,
always, in a little hood with the bells ringing,
at her wrist, and her riding,
to the great falcon hunt, and me,
flying up to the curb of my heart from her heart,
to bring down the skylark from the blue to her feet,
straining, and then released for the flight.
My mother would be a falconress,
and I her falcon raised at her will,
from her wrist sent flying, as if I were her own,
pride, as if her pride,
knew no limits, as if her mind,
sought in me flight beyond the horizon.
Ah, but high, high in the air I flew.
And far, far beyond the curb of her will,
were the blue hills where the falcons nest.
And then I saw west to the dying sun,
it seemed my human soul went down in flames.
I tore at her wrist, at the hold she had for me,
until the blood ran hot and I heard her cry out,
far, far beyond the curb of her will.
To horizons of stars beyond the ringing hills of the world where the falcons nest,
I saw, and I tore at her wrist with my savage beak.
I flew, as if sight flew from the anguish in her eye beyond her sight,
sent from my striking loose, from the cruel strike at her wrist,
striking out from the blood to be free of her.
My mother would be a falconress,
and even now, years after this,
when the wounds I left her had surely healed,
and the woman is dead,
her fierce eyes closed, and if her heart,
were broken, it is stilled.
I would be a falcon and go free.
I tread her wrist and wear the hood,
talking to myself, and would draw blood.”
– Robert Duncan, “My Mother Would Be a Falconress.”
“Oh, only for so short a while you have loaned us
to each other, because we take form in your act
of drawing us.
And we take life in your painting us,
And we breathe in your singing us.
But only for so short a while have you loaned us
to each other.”
– Aztec prayer
From “The Spirituality of Change” by Joyce Rupp.
Image: The Aztec Eagle, from the “Codex Mendoza,” courtesy Colonial México.
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“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”
Image courtesy Lucyria.
Today is Blueberry Pie Day. Blueberries grow in many places around the globe. Native Americans called them “star berries” because of the 5-point blossom that grows at the end of each blueberry. According to legends among Lake Huron’s indigenous populations, a “Great Spirit” (who else?) sent the berries to feed children amidst a famine. Rich in antioxidants that benefit the central nervous system and can improve memory, blueberries are among the healthiest of fruits. They can also be frozen for long periods of time without any negative effects. There are few things worse than fruit with freezer burn.
So, it’s alright to indulge in some blueberry pie today. Remember, not only were children once saved by them, but blueberries can help you live a long, healthy life!
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
– Carl Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.”
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“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”
“Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there.”
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“The uncertain old man whose real existence was the simplest of his enigmas.” – Gabriel García Márquez.
