A Good Day

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

Yesterday was a day to remember a loss; today is a day to celebrate a life.

(As nearly as we can tell), Griffin turned 10 today. After nearly losing him to a truck's front bumper a little over a year ago, we're profoundly that grateful that he's here and healthy today.

Griffin has been with me since he was five months old. He is sui generis - my companion, my guide, my manitou.

Happy birthday, baby boy. We love you.

In Memoriam: Bear Girl, September 30, 2007.

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

At 1:12PM this afternoon, it will be exactly three years since you left us.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss you terribly.

We love you, baby girl. Chi miigwech for sharing your life with us.

Chi Miigwech

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

Chi miigwech to all of you for your support over the last few days. You know who you are.

We love you.

Contact State & White House TODAY on UNDRIP!

Tomorrow, July 15, is the deadline for public comment on the U.S. State Department's review of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [UNDRIP]. Only two nations - Canada and the U.S. - have openly opposed the Declaration, and Canada is now getting ready to add its endorsement. This leaves, as usual, the U.S. as the lone holdout. It's long past time for the U.S. to come to grips with its past, and to begin doing the right thing for the future. Below are two e-mail templates: one to the State Department; the other to President Obama. Feel free to use them, in whole or in part, to lend your voice to ours as we call on the federal government to do the right thing in this initial step to help protect the rights of indigenous peoples the world over. Note: When using the White House's Web contact from, be sure to check the box at the bottom asking for a response.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT

July 14, 2010

Hon. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary, U.S. Department of State
C/O S/SR Global Intergovernmental Affairs
2201 C Street, N.W., Suite 1317
Washington, D.C. 20520

Via e-mail


Dear Secretary Clinton:

I write to ask you to expedite the State Department's review of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), and to recommend to President Obama that the U.S. become a signatory to the Declaration.

Canada has now expressed its intent to "'endorse" the Declaration, leaving the U.S. as the only country to oppose it. This does not reflect well on the U.S., either with regard to our international standing as a good citizen, or with regard to our country's desperate need to come to terms with the sins of its own past, which continue today to inflict a disparate negative impact upon our own indigenous peoples.

As a wisaakodewikwe, a woman of mixed-blood ancestry, I know all too well the dire straits in which too many of our Native peoples find themselves today, including the continuing loss of land, resources, culture, language, spiritual traditions, and even identity. UNDRIP is necessary to ensure the very survival of our peoples, both in the U.S. and around the globe. It is long past time for the United States to do the right thing: Become a signatory to UNDRIP, work to enforce it, and remove the taint that comes with being the only nation in the world actively to deny indigenous peoples this first step to ensuring their fundamental rights.

Please: Complete the review and recommend signing UNDRIP now.

Very truly yours,


Ajijaakwe ("Echo Maker Woman")

THE WHITE HOUSE

July 14, 2010

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
202.456.1414

CC: Kimberly Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs

Via e-mail


Dear President Obama:

I write to ask you to expedite your Administration's review of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), and, on behalf of the United States, to become a signatory to the Declaration.

Canada has now expressed its intent to "endorse" the Declaration, leaving the U.S. as the only country to oppose it. This does not reflect well on the U.S., either with regard to our international standing as a good citizen, or with regard to our country's desperate need to come to terms with the sins of its own past, which continue today to inflict a disparate negative impact upon our own indigenous peoples.

As a wisaakodewikwe, a woman of mixed-blood ancestry, I know all too well the dire straits in which too many of our Native peoples find themselves today, including the continuing loss of land, resources, culture, language, spiritual traditions, and even identity. UNDRIP is necessary to ensure the very survival of our peoples, both in the U.S. and around the globe. It is long past time for the United States to do the right thing: Become a signatory to UNDRIP, work to enforce it, and remove the taint that comes with being the only nation in the world actively to deny indigenous peoples this first step to ensuring their fundamental rights.

Please: Sign - and enforce - UNDRIP now.

Very truly yours,


Ajijaakwe ("Echo Maker Woman")

Help Raise Money for Haitian Earthquake Relief

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

Today is the 6-month anniversary of the devastating Haiti earthquake. Very little has changed since January 12th: A quarter of a million people are dead; hundreds of thousands more are suffering from terrible injuries; and more yet are homeless and living under plastic tarps in makeshift camps where disease is rampant. It's now hurricane season, and conditions are going to get much worse very rapidly.

Over at DK, we're holding a fundraiser for some of the organizations that are working to make a difference on the ground in Haiti. We have $700 in matching funds, but we're hoping to far exceed that: Our last such fundraiser, three months ago, raised $3200.

Wings has designed and crafted a pendant exclusively for the fundraiser, and we're auctioning it off in the DK diary. So if you're a DK member, come and bid - current bid is for $200, from one of my dear friends, but let's take this much higher, and help provide food, shelter, and medical care for some folks who are battling to survive conditions that, Spirit willing, none of us will ever know.

Chi miigwech and ta'a.

Happy Birthday . . .

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

to the love of my life. I thank Spirit every day for each year, each day, each hour, each moment that we have together.

Gi-zaagi'in.

Hello . . .

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

to my stalker obsessive visitor. You know who you are.

I know who you are, too.

It's years past time for you to get on with your life. Nothing's going to change. This is permanent.

Summer Spirits

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

It's nearly summer, which means that it's dragonfly season at home. Dragonflies are both air and water spirits: Messengers of the gods, like hummingbirds, but also symbols of fertility and life - perfect metaphors for a season of abundance.

Over the years, Wings has created some stunning dragonflies - with bodies of fire agate, Sacred White Buffalo turquoise, Sleeping Beauty turquoise - but I sometimes think his most recent may be his best ever. The antennae curve perfectly; the eyes, of stamped sunrise symbols, give the head a realistically fuzzy effect; the braid-effect tail is gracefully mobile. But the wings! Whatever moved Spirit to give him the vision of Fish forming dragonfly's wings . . . I know I'm biased, but synthesizing the two is inspired.

Oh, and that stone? Easter Blue turquoise, and it's every bit as touchable a piece of the sky in person as it appears in the photo.

$425 in "Necklaces, Pendants, and Pins" under the "Galleries" tab on the Web site.

There Is Nothing to Say

Image copyright 2010, Ajijaakwe; all rights reserved.

I took this photo several years ago, at a New Mexico wildlife refuge. As I was scrolling through those photos earlier today, I kept coming back to this one, maybe because it reflects how I feel now: burned, broken, and tossed into a heap.

By life, I mean. By circumstances. By things beyond my control that nevertheless dictate how I live my days at this moment, and how I will continue to live them for the foreseeable future.

It is one thing to be responsible for family. It is quite another to have all your choices taken away from you before you have any way of knowing that there is a situation requiring a choice to be made.

Oblique, I know. But people close to know what I mean. And it's one of the reasons why I post so rarely these days. Because there is nothing to say.

So I apologize for my absence. It'll likely be worse over the next two or three weeks. But at some point this summer - I hope - I will have a bit of my life back.

And maybe, once again, I'll have something to say.

Along Came a Spider . . . .

Image copyright Wings, 2010. All rights reserved.

No April Fool's posts here. Life has been too much of a cosmic joke lately for me to tempt the fates.

However, in a nod to the spirit of the day, I will dedicate this post to a traditional trickster: Spider. To the Lakota, Iktomi. To us, less a trickster: a powerful female spirit, it was Spider Woman who gave us the dreamcatcher to help heal our people. Grandmother Spider in many traditions; in some, gatekeeper to the underworld.

This is one of Wings's newer pieces: hand-cut and -shaped, with hand-stamped circles giving texture to her eight legs. Her body is a beautifully-marbled piece of apple coral; her head, a cabochon of crazy lace agate in a nearly amethyst purple with a delicate dove-gray matrix.

$875 in the Bracelets Gallery of his Web site.

Going home . . .

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

a week from tonight. Only for a week, and then I have to come back here to help Mom again - but it'll be so good to have that one week. This place . . . our four-leggeds . . . most of all, the love of my life. Soon.

Home

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

This is home. I've been gone 2.5 weeks . . . and I don't know when I'll be back. My heart hurts; my soul aches.

I need to go home.

Recognition

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

This year, Wings agreed to enter "From the Sky Spirits," the miniature flask shown above, in the Millicent Rogers Museum's 8th Annual Miniatures Show and Sale. Last week, he was notified that the flask was awarded Best in Show in the "Art in Three Dimensions" category.

You can read more about it here: Click on the "Galleries" tab, then on "Collectibles" to see other photos and a detailed description. Click on the "News" tab to read the award announcement. The flask is for sale through the Millicent Rogers Museum.

Winter's Not Over

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.

We're supposed to get more snow today and tomorrow, and it will be far from the last of our winter weather. I love it - but for some parts of the country, the winter weather is a killer. Some reservations in South Dakota have been hit especially hard by wave after wave of snow, ice, and sub-freezing temperatures - a problem exacerbated by the governor's refusal, until last Thursday, to issue a disaster declaration, which would trigger the federal aid process.

Over at Daily Kos, a groups of us found ourselves coming together to raise awareness - and money - for folks on those rezes. We've since established a blogging team, dedicated to writing about issues that affect our Native communities. My first round of posts on the South Dakota situation, with contact information for local, state, and federal officials, agencies, and media, are here, here, here, and here. I also posted three diaries specifically on the need for a disaster declaration, including background on the mechanics of the process and contact information for applying public pressure to ensure that one was issued. The first is here; a second, supplemental diary, is here; and the third, which seems to have been particularly successful at prompting action by fellow Kossacks, is here. And a week later - after two long and deadly months - the governor issued the declaration.

We'll continue to monitor the South Dakota situation, but we'll also be writing on a variety of issues. Over the last week, I've posted diaries on the diabetes epidemic in our Native communities, and on the newly-initiated uranium mining adjacent to both the Grand Canyon and Havasupai and Hualapai sacred lands. I'll be posting a follow-up to the latter diary in a few days, and I'll cross-link it here.

And in the days and weeks to come, I'll be posting here on other Native issues, including information on Wings's silverwork and photography, as well as other Native art.

Gift of a Blue Moon

Image copyright Wings, 2010; all rights reserved.