30 days have passed since I have started this trip, and until a few days ago, everything felt like it was going too quickly. At first I thought it was my rat-race city mentality, then my performance-oriented work-mode; each I was hoping would fade away with miles and time. It took meeting fantastic elders and through their oral histories, the act of remembering how to listen, for me to truly realize how to slow down.
It might have been the 11miles we travelled from all gps and cell phone reception, the denseness of the quiescent forest, or the comfortability of lived-in homely nest, but I felt I was able to listen and absorb more information then normal. Usually, especially if my hand or feet are not busy, but my mind tends to drift from attention. Yet, the experience of oral history has the greatest chance of long term memory for me. This learning process lends to a different style and speed of digestion- the opportunity to ask questions, to relate, to move around, to touch the subject of conversation, and to feel whether that is to laugh, enjoy, cry, sigh, or nod in understanding. My friends taught me, "The elders are the ones to show the ways of the past, the young to show what is to come in the future, and the middle age to show what is." More often than sometimes I hear young people, including myself, feeling lost. At the same time a lot is being lost, and we aren't listening or remembering.
Okay, so to back it up a bit, the Green Riders were in Munising, Michigan at the local farmers market. I immediately walked up to my future friends' tent, said hello and thought I had recognized Bill as a new friend named Ralph I had met a few days prior in the town(that story to be written and told later!). I checked out ttheir market table and chatted about a few things such as native ceremony, tanning, and the Green Riders mission. Although, throughout the conversation I was looking off in the distance assessing the market and where my friends were, or behind me to make space for potential customers. I felt I was taking their time. Blocking sales. I didn't have any money. I walked away. Later on at camp, fellow rider Jonathan expressed the amount of time he spend talking with them and that he was invited to stay in their home. Immediate regret and jealousy passed through me, but grateful for Jonathan's ability to connect and selflessly share, we set out allied the next day to their home. Eventually getting lost on the way, Bill(Burntfinger) and Marj picked us up in their van, not without a prompt scolding for trusting gps instead of maps all the time! **First wisdom**
As I'm writing this I start to wish I had taken more pictures of their homestead, but of course presence and remembering was a part of the experience. Their version of off-the-grid homesteading(another recollection to come as well) consisted of chickens, various gardening systems including small hoop house, container, repurposed tires, and an in-ground garden with a strong wire fence to prevent the many animals from taking over; solar panels; and a generator they turned off at night. "Say hello to Grandmother moon then go to sleep, be up when the sun's up." Their home was a humble Mecca of resources, each skill matched with materials and a bookshelf of knowledge. "We do what we can with what we have."
While listening, walking around the property, and doing work for them, there were small moments that were self actualizing. One I loved most was when I sung a line or two, and Auntie Marj said something along the lines of, "well look at that, you have a voice." I do, don't I! And the remembrance of the things I had loved doing but have given up such as sewing, dancing, listening, wearing skirts often, and being beautiful for the sake of being a woman. Ah, the last one threw you off a little didn't it? An abstract stretch, but necessary and true. They also reminded me of the things I've wanted to learn such as leather tanning, carving, pattern making, medicine salve making, tincture making, cross stitch and beading.
"Don't forget to write, Burnttoe." Says Burntfinger as we gather to leave. And I couldn't agree more. I've been wanting to write, but now it's different. It won't be for the obligation of the day being over, or because I am traveling, or because a kindhearted elder shares my affinity for snail mail. Rather it's because the people I am meeting's oral histories are worth remembering. Additionally, what I remember and learn is my purpose in having a voice.
