Beauty Way 2022
New Year’s Show
New Album On the Way
CD YouTube Channel
Happy New Year and all the best as we move into 2023. We’re still happy to be jamming and have a lot to be grateful for and look forward to. Thanks for being part of the journey.
Beauty Way 2022
2022 was a better year than the last two before it but we still didn’t get into the groove of live shows like we’d grown so used to before the pandemic. We did get out for a few live shows, including a good time in Nevada County where we did our only Beauty Way shows of the year at the North San Juan Cultural Center and The Wild Eyed Pub in Grass Valley in November.
A few days after the show Bear, Lanora, and I jammed into my Prius with a few instruments and a little overnight gear and headed to Flagstaff where we rented a Toyota 4-Runner, hooked up with our old friend Mikkel Grevdig who drove from his home in Okanogan near the Canadian border in Washington and made our way to the home of Mary Katherine Smith, in the shadow of Big Mountain deep into the Dine’ Nation. We spent a few nights on the floor of her guest hogan, sharing it for one night with Wonder Woman, AKA Darlene Markey from North San Juan, and her wonderful helper Anita.
Dar, along with our great friends and long-time supporters Brian and Michelle from Williams, OR had already delivered most of the food and supplies so we had more time to visit and play music for Mary Katherine and her Companion Ned, and a small gathering of activists the first night we were there. The highlight of the evening was MK getting up to tell the story of the first visit to the rez by the tie-dyed hippies of the Hog Farm back in the early 1970s. With Bear and I playing a vamp behind her she launched into a spontaneous spoken word piece with colorful descriptions of how she became a Dead Head after that visit, including a section on how a bunch of the elders came and spoke from the stage at a show. It was incredible.
After a cozy night in the hogan under clear, cold, starry skies with the Milky Way so thick and lustrous it looked like a stream we woke in the morning, packed Dar’s trailer full of food and dog food, and went off to make deliveries. In all, a total of 65 units made up of boxes of dry goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, dog food, clothing, and other supplies were delivered. We hired local crews to cut and deliver firewood to over 50 households.
The next morning Mary Katherine’s sister and neighbor, Marie Gladue, and her partner Arvin came to visit us in the hogan. Marie is working on her master’s degree. She is studying Indigenous sustainable community development and how to integrate the old traditional ways of planning and decision-making into contemporary life. She told us about how the shape of the hogan represented the concentric circles of family, community, clan, tribe, and the greater world. She talked about a four directions model of decision-making and how doing things this way mattered in every phase of life especially raising children and keeping a family together. There are reasons for the way things are done – it’s an ancient wisdom that was developed over a millennium of working with and being part of the natural world. Listening to her explain it reminded me of something I’ve been talking about for a long time. People here have answers to questions we haven’t figured out how to ask yet. It was a short master class in mindfulness, which traditional people were practicing long before the outside civilized world ever came up with that name for it. She made me want to be a better person and think more deeply about the way I go about my daily life.
We left later that morning with another load headed to Sand Springs via Coal Mine Canyon. On the way out we stopped to pay our respects at the homestead of John Benally. John passed away this year under some mysterious circumstances and we dedicated this year’s run to him and our long-time companion and supporter, Michael Gerell. I was sad to see his place shuttered up and the land devoid of animals or people. John was a lifelong resister to forced relocation and colonialism. People from the outside world might find it hard to believe how well-educated, articulate, and insightful people who live without electricity, running water, mass media, the internet, and other modern tools and conveniences can be unless they have the opportunity to spend time with them out here. John was someone who could really surprise folks that way. He was an outstanding public speaker who pulled audiences in when he would come on tour with us and speak at shows. Rest in Beauty, my friend.
We made it to Coal Mine Canyon and learned that Anna Begay, who we have been visiting for nearly 30 years has been moved to a nursing home. She lived alone at the very end of a mesa protruding into a beautiful labyrinth of canyons for many years after her husband passed away. She had horses, sheep, goats, dogs, cats, and the natural world all around her. Even as her eyesight dimmed and her body started fading away Anna fought to stay in her home, on the land where she felt she belonged. It’s hard to think of her in an institutional setting.
We made it to Sand Springs for the last of our deliveries and a chance to spend the night with the Yazzie family in another guest hogan. We played music for the extended family. The set was heavy with kid songs and a good time was had by all. The next day Woody Yazzie took us on a long hike into the backcountry around the family compound. He told us some of the history of what was once the thriving community of Sand Springs. Now only a few scattered families remain.
The next day we left Sand Springs and caught up with Louise Benally, her partner Ethan, one of her daughters, and a few grandkids in Winslow. Like her brother John, Lousie has been an activist all her life. I can only imagine how hard it is to have a foot in two worlds. She has traveled the country and the world in so many different capacities but always brings the story of her people and the need for equity and justice for indigenous people worldwide but her heart is still on the land where she grew up. It was great to see her, Ethan, and the kids and swap some stories.
The next morning, we returned the 4-Runner, parted ways with Mikkel, and headed back to California. Another whirlwind week on the Beauty Way run was over. As always I feel we’ve received more than we can give and I’m grateful for the support from all of you that makes this exchange possible.
New Years’ Eve in Trinity County
If you’re traveling to the north country fair on New Year’s Eve you could join us in Junction City, west of Weaverville for a great party. We’ll be rocking the Grange Hall and looking forward to the midnight fireworks. It’s always a fun time in Trinity. Folks up there really know how to throw a party.
New Album On the Way
We’ve finished recording a collection of all new songs. The album is going through the mastering process and we are looking at a release in early 2023. We are also planning to tour again starting in spring. Stay tuned.
Clan Dyken YouTube Channel
You are all invited to check out the new Clan Dyken YouTube Channel. Follow the link to see the Good Morning Grandmother video.
We are planning to use this electronic venue as we go forward. It’s very helpful if you take the time to like and subscribe. When we get 1000 subscribers we’ll be able to stream live from the YouTube platform, so please take a minute and subscribe.
2022 Beauty Way Food and Supply Run
Dear Friends,
It’s been 31 years since my first trip to the Big Mountain region of the Navajo (Dineh) Reservation. For five frigid days in February of 1991, I slept on the dirt floor of John Benally’s tiny, rough-made home and drove Bear’s Toyota pick-up all around the area with John and Coyote, the man who convinced me to come, delivering food, blankets, and other goods through the snow, ice and mud to Grandmothers and families who were facing forced relocation in order to make room for the continued operation and expansion of the coal mines in the area. Meeting the people, seeing the land, getting my first glimpses of life deep in the rez, and the struggle to hold on against the power of corporate greed, backed by the US Government made such an impact on me I wanted to share what was going on with everyone I knew.
From that humble beginning, brother Bear and I were moved to return every year since. Beginning in 1993 and up until the Great COVID Interruption we put together the annual Revive the Beauty Way Tour to support a much-expanded food, firewood, and supply run in solidarity with the mostly elder women who made up the fierce resistance to Peabody Coal and the BIA backed Hopi Rangers. Tribal members of the Dineh Nation, including John Benally and his siblings, would often travel with us to meet people and give first-hand accounts of life under siege. Over the years a family of supporters, activists, and devoted communities came together in grassroots, organic ways to hold the concerts, journey to the Dineh Nation, and make delivery runs in an ever-widening area during November to be part of a Thanks Giving. Travelers from all over the country and around the world have been part of this effort from the beginning. Friendships and tight bonds formed between those who have made this project an ongoing part of their lives, and with the people living on the land, holding on to all that is sacred against the forces that would smash every last bit of it to squeeze the final dollar out of the ground.
There are so many stories to tell from this amazing run. Tales from the road, the concerts, and the communities who show up and show out. The generosity of farmers, blanket dances and corn dances, and loads of goods filling the busses, trucks, and cars for distribution. Epic yarns about driving around the rez, often lost, perhaps in bad weather or running low on fuel, the meals, the gatherings around the fires or woodstoves late at night in a hogan, ceremonies, including the Sundance, the beauty of Coal Mine Canyon, the mystery of ancient petroglyphs, farming in Sand Springs, the laugh of a grandmother trying on a new coat, morning circles, lost sheep (and sheepherders), being chased and pulled over by Rangers and BIA agents, and all the while feeling the love. There are sad stories too – activists who were injured and killed making the journey, stolen ground water going to the mines that left a water table so depleted crops failed and livestock had to be sold off for lack of water, capped off wells, bull-dozed hogans, the destruction of the Sundance grounds, elders forcibly removed from their homes, poverty, substance abuse, and multi-generational trauma in a long war of attrition. The stories tell of so many lives intersected in so many ways in service to this cause.
Much has changed since the first journey. Nearly all of the elders -including John Benally this year- we met in the early years have passed on, taking their unique wisdom with them. The Navajo Generating Plant that once burned coal from the mines has been shut down. There has been a global reduction in demand for coal. This has led to the mines closing, no small victory for those who’ve remained on the land. Climate disruption has changed the weather and way of life even in the most remote parts of the land. Fewer families live in the areas where people were harassed, threatened, coerced, or forcibly removed.
On our side, the pandemic shut down the tour for the past two years. We still made the journey, though much abbreviated by raising funds online. This year, even though COVID restrictions are a thing of the past the energy and support for a tour didn’t materialize. It feels like it may be the end of an era. However, the people who remain continue to have great need for support and the belief the outside world remembers them and the work they are doing for all of us.
This has never been an act of charity or benevolence from the haves to the have-nots. Our connection and desire to serve has always been from a place of understanding that we are in this together. What those who have remained -not just in the Dineh Nation but in all the places where indigenous people are holding ancient wisdom-, have to share is for the benefit of all life on Mother Earth. Even for those who don’t accept it.
With an eye toward the future and care for 7 generations forward, we ask again for your support for the 2022 Beauty Way Food, and Supply Run. This year the journey is dedicated to the memory of John Benally and Michael Gerrel, a long-time companion, supporter, brother-in-arms, and Beauty Way traveler who also made his final journey this year after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. I hope you will consider helping us honor these brothers and all who have gone before or remain on the land by making this year’s run another memorable story.
