Dear Friends,
We’ve all been through a lot in the past 19 months. We’ve experienced great loss and total disruption of our lives. As we enter the season of harvest and gratitude I’m hoping you have time and some reasons to reflect on the blessings in this life in spite of it all. The attitude of gratitude is a mindfulness practice, it reminds us to be present and enjoy what we have rather than focus on what’s been lost.
It is also a survival strategy, especially in tough times. I am reminded of this every time I travel to northern Arizona and visit the Dineh (Navajo) Nation. For hundreds of years, the clash of cultures in America has brought untold pain and destruction to the first nations of Turtle Island. Loss of land, livestock, elders, language, ceremony, and so many of the small things that add up to a lifestyle and culture. Yet, in these places, I constantly find people who are grateful for all the Creator has given them.
This is part of the reason Clan Dyken and our extended family have been supporting an annual food and supply run to Big Mountain and the surrounding communities for 31 years. The Grandmothers and families have resisted colonization, broken treaties, violence, corporate-sponsored environmental degradation, theft of resources, spying, disinformation campaigns, and more in a brutal low-grade war for coal extraction. Those who remain have outlasted all of this to stay on the land the Creator gave them between the four sacred mountains.
They endure but it is not easy. Much of what life was based on – the land, plants, and animals- has been taken or destroyed, like the over 45 billion gallons of water stolen from the pristine aquifer without a permit to be used in a slurry line to transport coal from the Black Mesa mine to a generating station in Southern Nevada.
As anyone who has made the trip with us over these past 30 plus years will tell you there is a sense of wonder and so much to be learned just by being in the presence of people with that kind of fortitude. I’m hoping you will see the value in being part of a network of support for these elders and families who are holding on to something dear for all the generations to come.
For the second year in a row, we’ve been unable to do the Revive The Beauty Way Tour to support the food and supply run due to all the uncertainty around Covid-19. It’s all online again this year.
For every contribution of $50 or more, you will have a choice to receive as our way of saying thanks either a copy of the book When The Creator Moves Me, or the Clan Dyken double CD, Live At Coopers Corral. Written by Shelley Muniz, the book tells the story of the Clan Dyken connection to the resistors, some history of the people on the land, and the band. Live At Cooper’s is a recording of a Beauty Way show featuring songs inspired by our time on the land. For a contribution of $75 or more, we’ll send you both.
Stay tuned for messages from the land, a recorded Clan Dyken set, video, and more. Contribute here – https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=plz0XsrvUjpiegV_3bwGthxlyiDbxfoaWwuHPJgChyT_ElSzqUOKCgBwHpScsKdAulhsO-k99Ey1JVw2