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Cosmos and Cosmology

March 23, 2015 //
0

Badger_River

^ Blackfoot sacred lands

The order of priority in the ancient native way had been:

1) The great community or cosmos (interpreted as territory)
2) The environment (within the cosmos)
3) The nation (within the environment)
4) The clan/band (within the nation)
5) The family (within the band)
6) The self (within the family)

This essay will point to the considerable difficulties inherent in maintaining the elements necessary to any authentic Native American spiritual awareness in relation to one’s surroundings and oneself.

To begin, there requires an intimate understanding of a living cosmos. To know a living cosmos requires a unique relationship to environment, commonly misconceived as a relationship solely to the land. It’s actually much bigger than this. To have some beginning idea of this cosmos, one must surrender any thought of ‘I’ and ‘me’ because ‘you’ cannot exist in this cosmos as an individual entity. Without the cosmos, you don’t exist. Within the cosmos, you cannot exist as an individual. This is because all of the cosmos is integrated. In the ancient Native American way, your cosmos is reflected (interpreted) as a territory where all is a single organism made up of inter-dependent parts, including every individual, and not only persons but every individual of every species, and what’s more, every stone and tree, down to each individual blade of grass.

The Blackfeet had their cosmos. The Blackfeet neighbors, whether Cree, Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Salish, or Shoshone, had their cosmos, each its’ own functioning universe with unique cosmology, within this concept. This had been the template on which Native American spiritual understanding had functioned; at the macro-level. To have a relationship to, and within, this cosmos, required a functional understanding of attending cosmology, that can be interpreted as laws immutably tied to the physical environment sustained within this cosmos. MOST IMPORTANTLY, this cosmos is its’ own self-conceptualizing, aware, seeing entity, a feeling or sentient being; in and of itself. “YOU” are ultimately unimportant to this cosmos -except- you were to know your place within this cosmos and that is the point of the cosmology.

Per example of this, I will point to the work of Karl Schlesier where he noted the Chiricahua Apache precursor people had “asked the spirit of the land to accept them” when migrating into those lands they were subsequently ‘discovered’ to inhabit; by encroaching European culture.

The original indigenous tradition required an aware, seeing, sentient being or ‘cosmos’ accept those who would inhabit it; and to accomplish this integration had little to with exploiting environment and everything to do with finding a niche contributing to the cosmos health. Finding this ‘place’ for an entire people determines whether you have a successful spiritual life and we are still a long ways from discussing the spiritual life of any individual person, or the bottom of the hierarchy.

Already, the implications are quite profound; not only would those of European cultural heritage be far removed from authentic Native American spiritual experience, but so would many who actually believe they are Native American .. because cosmology had been embedded in the native languages and those languages’ stories. It would be the case in every instance where a tribal people had lost their language, they had also lost their cosmology and authentic relationship to their cosmos.

Moreover, every tribal council applying the Western culture’s economic principles of exploiting resources is removed from their own cosmos and cosmology. It’s not just ‘White people’ these days. How it came to this is not the subject of these essays; the point is to go to the facts on the ground in the present. In the next essay we will go to the environment and the fact from an ancient indigenous perspective, a cosmos doesn’t care whether your skin is Red or White. The road to health in any living cosmos would be equally challenging for both.

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Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

 *

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

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Categories culture, shamanism, Uncategorized

New Age Homicide for $MONEY$

March 23, 2015 //
1

chief2

Insofar as the ‘new age’ people co-opting Native American ceremony, here is another of my ‘myspace’ pieces, also from 2009, following on the 2009 preceding piece on Russel Means. Taken together, these are prelude to a following piece I am in process of working up; exploring the inter-cultural misapprehension of North American indigenous based and European concept. My commentary on the AP WIRE reporting in italics

AP WIRE: Oct 10th, 2009 | PHOENIX — Authorities seeking answers to what caused two deaths and more than a dozen illnesses at an Arizona resort’s sauna-like sweat lodge were investigating whether any of the victims had medical conditions or had been fasting

Humnn, what is wrong with this picture

In all, 21 of the 64 people crowded inside the sweat lodge Thursday evening received medical care at hospitals and a fire station. Four remained hospitalized Friday evening — one in critical condition and the others in fair condition…..

My elder teachers talked about this. Think about it. “64 people crowded inside”

Authorities haven’t determined the cause of the deaths and illnesses; tests for carbon monoxide and other contaminants were negative

This is a tragedy of IGNORANCE and GREED

Among those sickened during a two-hour session were a middle-aged man and a woman who were unconscious, according to a 911 call, and a third person who was found not breathing

1st question: How could this happen except whoever is running the sweat did not have proper training? I was taught when sweating the inexperienced or people from another culture, to constantly check on the welfare of my people in the sweat, you do not take in more people than you can keep track of, you make and keep communication established with everyone by name, you ask again and again if they have enough air, you ask if they are too hot, you make certain they have opportunity to drink, you make it clear they should tell you if they are dizzy or otherwise struggling, you take real breaks and you do not group sweat ANYONE with medical condition or if they have been fasting. The Sweat Lodge, other than certain events of long tradition practiced by the trained initiates in organized societies, is typically small, intimate and strictly controlled precisely because it is DANGEROUS. It is absolutely DANGEROUS if you don’t know what you are doing

“It’s not something you’d normally see at one of the resorts there, and it’s unfortunate regardless of the cause,” Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said

“unfortunate”

Investigators were working to determine whether criminal actions might have been a factor in the incident, D’Evelyn said

Effectively, this is criminal negligent homicide. Or worse. These people did not have a cultural context that is in a sense a lifetime of preparation for enduring an extreme physical stress and to some, an extreme psychological stress. I can tell you what my primary native sweat teacher would have said about this event: ‘those people were murdered”

The Angel Valley Retreat Center sits on 70 acres nestled in a scrub forest just outside Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement

“Sedona” and “New Age spiritual movement”

Self-help expert and author James Arthur Ray rented the facility as part of his “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that began Oct. 3 and that promised to “absolutely change your life.”

‘self-help expert’

Ray spokesman Howard Bragman confirmed that his client was holding an event at the retreat, as he has done in the past. Authorities said Ray was inside the sweat lodge Thursday evening and was interviewed at the scene

What could he honestly say? He murdered them with his greed and ignorance?

“We express our deepest condolences to those who lost friends and family, but we pray for a speedy recovery for those who took ill,” Bragman said. “At this point there are more questions than answers, so it would not be appropriate to comment further.”

“condolences” and “more questions than answers”

Sweat lodges, like that held on the final day of the Angel Valley retreat, are commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events. The structure used Thursday was crudely built and covered with tarps and blankets

And those Indians, if solidly grounded in their tradtions, would know you do not sell the sweat lodge experience for $MONEY$. There is a long tradition of highly ritualized gift giving which is in no sense commercial at all, but is predicated upon a relationship to spirit and prices are not named because you cannot price the poor or unfortunate out of a relationship of learning or experiencing what is holy. There are certain traditional gifts, small in value, for the spirit. And then there is the self motivation of the heart of the patient or student towards the healer or teacher. No price can be named by the medicine man. Most Native American sweats involve no money at all, other than the gas required to gather the wood and haul it to the sweat site. All of the good medicine men I knew had real life day jobs, were older and retired, voluntarily sponsored by a patron [not for profit] or otherwise were somehow self sufficient in their own right and did not depend on their spiritual work for a living, because that would destroy your reputation. NONE OF THEM WAS WEALTHY. The ones I knew who succumbed to greed, yes, those sort of people do exist in Native America, were ostracized in their own communities and had effectively destroyed their relationship to their own people. In effect, if you work to serve the people, you do NOT sell spirit for $MONEY$

Stones are heated up outside a lodge, brought inside and placed in a pail-sized hole. The door is closed, and water is poured on the stones, producing heat aimed at releasing toxins in the body

Remember “64 people crowded inside” for $MONEY$

The ritual in sweat lodges is helpful in restoring balance and changing people’s attitudes and self-image, said Joseph Bruchac, author of “The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends.”

Dead and injured as a result of “64 people crowded inside” This has nothing to do with “restoring balance and changing people’s attitudes and self-image” when it involves commercial event for $MONEY$. Think about it. What the people have done here is like trying to buy your way with spirit

People have died in sweat lodges in the past. They were either sick tribal elders who voluntarily stayed until they died or people who had heart conditions and were in poor health

This is true, the elderly, very tired or feeling complete in their journey, could make that choice. But always, life was taught as the first and paramount choice. And as for people dying at a sweat because of poor health, this is RARE in Native America and would ALWAYS indicate a mistake having been made

“The sweat lodge needs to be respected,” Bruchac said. “When you imitate someone’s tradition and you don’t know what you are doing, there’s a danger of doing something very wrong.”

Bruchac is correct. “Danger of doing something very wrong” and “64 people crowded inside” for $MONEY$, are two and two put together when it comes to “doing something very wrong”

Ray’s retreat schedule had few details about what participants could expect, other than thrice-daily meals and group gatherings that started at 7 a.m. and ended 16 hours later

Sixteen hour days. This deadly event was held at the end of six days of 16 hour days where people have been fasting, hiking, group encountering, essentially stressed out body and mind on top of not having a lifetime of cultural context to prepare them for the sweat experience. Then they are packed like sardines into a structure in such a large number there is no way the leader can keep track of their individual welfare. This was BEGGING for trouble

The details came in a lengthy release of liability that acknowledges participants may suffer “physical, emotional, financial or other injuries” while hiking or swimming, or during a multi-day personal and spiritual quest in the wilderness without food or water or the sweat lodge

Sorry folks, but these people picked a damn poor medicine man when they ponied up for a “spiritual quest in the wilderness without food or water” and “64 people crowded inside” requiring a LEGAL WAIVER. All for $MONEY$

Some participants told detectives they paid up to $9,000 for the event. Ray’s company, James Ray International, is based in Carlsbad, Calif

“they paid up to $9,000 for the event” to a medicine man named “James Ray International”

Ray’s posting on his Twitter account hours before the deaths said: “Still in Spiritual Warrior … for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?”

Creating reality. Grief emerges from arrogance. Where is the humility taught as the underpinning of Native American spiritual belief? According to what I know from 30 years intimate contact with the spiritual teachings of three separate Native peoples, Blackfoot, Ojibwe and Cree, this guy was begging for bad luck and things to go wrong. He’ll know humility now. Or hide behind lawyers, more likely. Nothing cultural in a Native American sense with that. So, in the end, is this guy practicing Native American spiritual tradition? I don’t think so

The posting and two others were deleted Friday afternoon

People lives deleted

A woman who answered the phone at the Angel Valley resort Friday said its founders, Michael and Amayra Hamilton, would have no comment. A call to the Hamiltons’ home went unanswered

“they paid up to $9,000 for the event” and “no comment”

The Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat Center, built on former ranch property in the high-desert and red-rock country of northern Arizona, bills itself as a natural environment for self discovery and healing through a holistic approach aimed at balancing the mind, emotions, body and spirit

$MONEY$. Just to let you all know, especially those wishing to follow a Native path, the Oral History (prophets) of Stone Child’s Plains Ojibwe people had a specific name for $MONEY$ in a spiritual context. That name? “The Leading Trouble Maker.” The surviving group of these people [Stone Child descendents] are now located at Sunchild Reserve in Alberta, Canada, perhaps the true teachings survive there. I was taught the Oral History by the last of the [Chippewa language] Montana branch of Stone Child’s Ojibwe people, who now for all practical purposes are assimilated into the Cree culture at Rocky Boy or culturally extinct. My friend and tribal elder Duncan Standing Rock will vouch for this. Maybe these elders either hoped or knew I would tell you about “The Leading Trouble Maker” also known as $MONEY$. There is a lot to be known about $MONEY$, and how it corrupts spirit from the Native American point of view. There is a simple oxymoron here. $Money$ is the human element of greed that is causing the planet to die. How can charging $MONEY$ square with the Native American spiritual belief and the primary sweat lodge teaching that all life, nature as a whole, is sacred?

The property includes American Indian structures such as teepees, guest houses and outdoor labyrinths made of stones

“$9,000” paid to die. Think about it

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Duncan_recommendation

^ screenshot of following statement:

“To whom it may concern,

“I feel good about granting my recommendations in behalf of Mr. Ronald West of whom I had known for many years. I know Mr. West had served in the U.S. Military Service with an honorable discharge. I know Mr. West has very high respect for certain aboriginal inter-tribal cultural and ceremonies. I know Mr. Ronald West is a honorable and loyal to his beliefs and to those whom Mr. Ronald West works with.

With Respect,

Mr. Duncan Standing Rock Sr.”

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 Life in Indian Country Essay collection

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Categories corruption, crime, culture, psychology, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

The Legacy of Russell Means

March 23, 2015 //
0

Chief

This essay of mine is originally from 2009 where it was posted on ‘myspace’ (before Rupert Murdoch’s people destroyed that platform.) A mutual acquaintance brought the essay to Russell’s attention with a request for some response, which was never forthcoming. Why I am re-posting the essay now is, I ran across an essay at Cultural Survival which extensively utilizes Russell Mean’s as an authority on the subject of fraud in Native American spiritual matters. I do not take issue with the gist of the essay posted at the Cultural Survival website (except for it’s very incomplete coverage of a complex subject, which I will take forward in upcoming assessment) but I do take issue with Russell Means as an expert authority and role model.

I know a little something about what it means to be Indian in the old ways, and it is that standard, the original Native American standard, I will speak to here.

At our age, we either have become elders, and that entails a certain kind of wisdom achieved in the native way, through a lifetime of personal evolution or, we have become ‘nothing people.’

Russell would not know me from Adam, were we to meet, is my guess. So now I will remind him of what is not forgotten.

Russell and I go back over 30 years, to the International Treaty Councils held at Fort Belknap in Montana. I was invited by the Atsina members based on my association with the old Blackfoot Confederacy, The Kainah, Sisika, Amskapi Pikuni, Skinee Pikuni, Sarcee, Atsina and particularly because of my relationship to the Pikuni peoples.

On one occasion I accepted, and generously donated considerable financial support to this American Indian Movement event. Delegations from numerous tribes attended, from the USA and Canada. My nephew, Devalon Small Legs, from an important family of Canadian AIM leaders of that time, attended from the Skinee Pikuni, I was the only Amskapi Pikuni present.

AIM had incorporated both political and spiritual movements, our Blackfoot confederated members tended to the spiritual side. The difference is, the spiritual people understand that to be Native American is primarily a way of life, a lived philosophy. I am White. But I grew up bi-culturally Native American, with relationships in the Native community from my youth. My Pikuni spiritual people had always honored this. Also my Plains Ojibwe and Cree peoples.

Russell’s AIM people did not even bother to inquire when they met me, they saw a Whiteman, judged me on that fact solely and Russell accordingly has been a fool for over thirty years. Indian people should never have to be instructed to be civil in their Native community.

On top of about $700 out of pocket to help feed the International Treaty Council event and provide some travel money, a lot of money both for myself and that community in that era, I had brought in some non-native people with open minds. I wished to create empathy, open channels of dialog and raise awareness in the outside world concerning the cruel apartheid system our subjugated tribes suffer.

Russell’s AIM delegation killed that. The only people from the Means camp to visit our camp, came to make pointed racial insults. It was so bad, my Blackfoot confederacy people and Atsina hosts had to call a special meeting simply to insist we be treated in a civil way. It never happened (civility from Russell’s people) but the worst of the insults ceased. So much for dialog.

At a subsequent meeting attended by Russell and myself in Great Falls, Montana, Russell had to be pointedly told I could participate in the Pipe Ceremony by my nephew Devalon, the AIM spiritual leader for that event. That was the last and only time I had personally met Russell, but I have kept an eye on him since.

I am related to the Gophers, a plains Ojibwe family. I am not close to all of them, I will say it is for reasons more traditional people would understand. However I did know Robert Gopher, a key International Treaty Council supporter, quite well. To be fair, I will say Robert was a well intended but bullheaded and not the brightest man. When our relative, a Gopher kid, was to be sentenced for manslaughter, a result of drinking and driving, Robert asked Russell Means for help. That was a big mistake. The kid was guilty as hell, with multiple prior offences, and instead of opening a civil dialog in the community concerning why these things too often happen in the repression of enforced poverty, Russell shot his mouth off to the press to the effect the prosecution of the kid amounted to “racism.” That was pretty rich, based on my experience with Russell. His “racist prosecution” statement was all over the Montana newspapers, it pissed off the judge and the book was thrown at the Gopher kid, he got the maximum possible sentence the prosecutor was asking for, 100 years.

When I met the author of ‘In the Spirit of Crazy Horse’, Peter Mattheissen, we had a short conversation about Russell. I told Peter that Russell is a “really big asshole” and Peter agreed with me “Yes, Russell is a very big asshole, but he is an important asshole to his people.”

I respectfully disagree with Peter. There is only one important asshole in Indian country, and that asshole is Old Man Coyote.

Russell went on to bail out of Sundance and dumped his Montana Sundancers in the middle of vows, that made the newspapers with tribal spiritual leaders pointedly upset, he rode off into the sunrise, when Russell got a call to be a movie star in Iroquois country. It would be fitting he played a bad guy.

And it came out the non-violent AIM educator, Annie May Aquash, was murdered by the Means faction of AIM, the order to kill Annie was given out of a meeting held in a Means brother’s kitchen. Like Peter Mathiassen and many others, I had believed it was corrupt law enforcement had murdered Annie, but that was Russell’s AIM faction line of bullshit. It hurt, that one. Some of our Indian people are no better than the goons who persecute us.

And then, Russell’s wife called 911 in New Mexico because he was beating her.

Finally, Russell tried to run for tribal council, the most corrupt and repressive banana republic regime you can imagine, tribal councils being completely in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and habitual offenders against Native American human rights and a mainstay of the American apartheid system for Indians.

I am not aware Russell has ever corrected himself in these matters.

In the Indian way, when you have made mistakes, they must be confessed. Russell had stated “For the world to live, Europe must die.” Russell should better look at killing the “Europe” in himself. Because the ego of the Whiteman, also known as refusing to learn and correct oneself, is fatal to what it means to be Indian- that is to be generous, gentle, kind and loving people who live in a beautiful way.

People should, in the circumstance of Russell presenting himself as a role model for our young people, question whether Russell actually is an authentic Indian who has overcome great adversity or, sadly, whether the facts point to Russell as a failed and angry trash product of the Boarding School legacy.

This is something Russell has never sorted out, he has never walked the walk. Insofar as the facts speak for themselves, in the old Indian way, Russell is a ‘nothing person.’

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Life in Indian Country Essay collection

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Categories culture, philosophy, politics, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 18

March 14, 2015 //
0

Crystal_Ball

The effects of this trip had reverberated in the core of my being for well over a month, following my return. Landed in New York, I traveled upstate and spent a week hanging out with a friend. It was a quiet scene, talking philosophy and spending time checking out the old Erie Canal. The mundane was beautiful.

Back at Helena, I was asked what I thought of the trip. By this time I knew the sisters had the then popular astrologer, Zipporah Dobbins, choose the trips date; it would be an ‘auspicious’ time. Based on this intelligence, I answered “Those girls should be jailed.”

I went to Starr School on the Blackfeet reservation, to pack up and head south for a few months, coming from the tropics into a Montana winter was not an appealing thought. I dropped by to visit Pat, my medicine man friend and he laughed at me … Native America has perhaps the darkest humor on Earth and the prevailing joke in the community was “Ron shot Mrs Gandhi.” It was a pun on the shamanic aspect of life not understood in western culture, but similar perhaps to a joke on someone who’d followed an astrologer into a disaster. Kind of like saying ‘your medicine man sucks’ relating to consulting over preparation for a journey.

Reprising a trip from over a decade earlier, when I’d driven a Volkswagen ‘bug’ to Arizona, to escape Montana’s cold, following my return from tropical Vietnam, here I was again, driving a Volkswagen bug to Arizona, to escape the Montana cold, following my return from tropical India.

It was at Agua Prieta, just on the Mexican side of the border with Arizona, I’d asked at the local grocery a simplest possible question; of a proprietor who’d probably never been beyond the borders of his native Sonora. My imperfect Spanish couldn’t find the impersonal ‘are there’ and instead I blurted out the personal ‘do you have’ .. eggs? His reply was:

“Sì! Dos grandes!!”

-end-

notes to follow-

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

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Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 17

March 13, 2015 //
2

It was mid afternoon on 4 November I was free in Cairo. I was able to amend my original return ticket from India and would be able to catch a plane from Cairo to New York with a plane change at London, on the 6th. I caught a taxi to Giza and checked into a ! Swiss Chalet ! or cheesy imitation thereof, a sort of motel configuration, not too expensive. I laid down and was dead-out until I heard the muezzin calling people to prayer at daybreak, or about 12 hours. It was that kind of sleep where you offload immeasurable amounts of stress. But surrealism apparently doesn’t simply vanish but follows some trips like a con-trail. Or maybe I was just tripping, but here is what I experienced: This ‘chalet’ had a dining room and I was by now thoroughly sick of curried vegetables, the mainstay on my diet for the past six weeks. I wanted red meat. English boiled beef, fine no argument with that. Feta cheese was a treat. But here is what made the journey cartoon just keep going on; the ‘chalet’ dining room had an American ‘Old West’ theme … with waiters dressed in paper-felt cowboy hats with plastic sheriff star pinned to vest and toy revolvers holstered on their hips! This was the very outfit American parents bought for their 10 year old boys and here we were in Giza, Egypt!! I understood I wasn’t hallucinating but still .. face in my palm.

Cowboy

May I take your order?

This was the evening of 5 November. Earlier in the day, I’d been visiting the home of the taxi driver who’d fetched me from the airport and brought me to Giza, his home village. We’d had lunch with his family and he was wanting to know when I’d like to see the pyramids .. Haji Hassan El-Koly was stunned to hear a westerner state, and his daughter nearly fell on the floor laughing at his amazement .. when I’d gestured to the window and said “I see them, they’re there.” It was almost inconceivable to him I was more interested in discovering who the Egyptians of the present were, than going to some presentation or touring any archaeology site. We spent part of the afternoon discussing contemporary Egypt and regional geopolitics, as well he became curious and was asking questions about myself. El-Koly stated he would never forget me on account of my name: “Where the Sun goes down.” He probably never did forget me; I had paid him an honest fare for my trip to & around Giza and return to the Cairo airport .. but then tipped him one inferior quality counterfeit USA $100 bill, courtesy of a Guardian Angel.

Cairo_to_London

Arrival in London (L) from Egypt (R)

At Heathrow in London, I had to clear customs to walk across a street into another concourse, to catch my plane to New York. Two British counter-narcotics officers were waiting for me as I entered the second concourse, they wanted a look inside my carry on day-pack. I had a collection of perfume oils I was returning with, to give to a woman friend. Eight brown glass vials about 3 inches tall and one inch wide, probably seen in some x-ray scanner my pack had been through. Asking me questions about the movie ‘The French Connection” as they pulled out the flat box containing the vials, I merely replied ‘Not everyone’s life fits a movie script.” They sorted soon enough it was oil of musk & other scents and one of them asked “What are you West, some kind of a rat?” And then let me go. I ate a ‘drop into dead sleep over the Atlantic’ pill I HAD smuggled, just for that purpose, and woke up at JFK in New York.

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My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

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Categories Author, crime, Folk Stories, narcotics trafficking, philosophy, politics, psychology, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 12

March 11, 2015 //
0

Our days at Chitwan behind us, the bus we hired to bring the group back to Katmandu broke down. The Tibetan stayed with the main group and the bus together with the Angel Sister, while the Bandit Sister, with some of the more adventurous souls, took off up the road to ‘hitch-hike’ back to Katmandu. I rather quickly strode out beyond these people and when about two hundred meters ahead of them, looking back, I saw a commuter bus blow past this crew dressed in western clothes with thumbs out, as though they did not exist. ‘Thumbs up’ likely meant to the driver of this bus ‘it’s all good.’

I’ve worn something resembling a turban exactly twice in my life; the first time in 1972 when hired as an extra; for a movie that bombed at the box office, a remake of ‘Lost Horizons.’ Oddly coincidental, this movie was supposedly set in the Himalayas (however filmed in the USA.) I’d like to believe this dubious literary venture will someday fare better.

While in Nepal, I’d purchased a long piece of brightly colored cotton cloth, a print, and wore it wrapped around my head in a manner similar to some of the locals, enhancing the native dress I’d adopted. Extending my hand, palm down, at the approaching bus, with a sort of wing-flap gesture I knew from Vietnam, the vehicle stopped for me. Climbing onto this typically jammed with people commuter bus at the rear entrance, as there was no possible space to enter at the front of the bus, I sorted the fare by deliberately producing more than it could possibly cost, an Indian twenty rupee note. Nepal was, in those days, a triple currency nation; Nepal rupees, India rupees and American dollars. The India twenty rupee note was passed, hand to hand, from the rear of the bus to the front of the bus, where it was deposited and a Nepal ten rupee note and some coins were passed, hand to hand, back to the rear of the bus and given to me. The simple people are good to, and honest with, each other. I didn’t initially know the fare but the result proved I wasn’t cheated.

Bus

^ Similar but my commuter bus was bigger

By using the India currency, it put the curious off the mark. To each language put to me by fellow passengers, I merely smiled and shook my head in the negative. Nobody asked me a question in English and clearly no one suspected I was a westerner. Normal in Nepal or India, this all took place standing at the open rear door of a bus that would see the driver jailed and company shut down, if it were to happen in the States .. there were that many people on board.

I was the first back to our hotel in Katmandu, by several hours. The Bandit Sister and the few with her wandered in next, followed by those who’d stayed with the bus, that evening. Meanwhile, Jasper® was in an ebullient mood, regaling us with stories, no doubt solo immersion in the Katmandu hashish/opium dens had lifted his spirits considerably in our absence. Or perhaps he was actually, genuinely, happy to see us. One story he told has remained etched in my memory, something one such as myself would never be prone to forget. But first: One must understand these sisters have known South Asia intimately since the 1960s. Covering India (the Guardian Angel Sister primarily), Pakistan (both sisters) and Afghanistan (the Bandit Sister primarily), among other nations, if one could reinvent Kipling’s ‘Kim’ as two 20th Century sisters who’d discovered the South Asian street life and could competently negotiate the associated intrigues of the latter era, it would be these girls. With that said, I’ve no real idea what the sisters were doing in Islamabad in December, 1971. Especially considering they were in the company of not only Jasper® & Socket™ but Kathy McNamara! As Jasper® warmed to his story of the hotel room they were together in subject to air-raid blackout during the short India-Pakistan war of 1971, he brought up the fact of former (and much reviled) United States Secretary of Defense and then World Bank President Robert McNamara’s daughter present in the involuntarily darkened room. Then, with an expression of amazement apparently undiluted over the 13 years that’d passed since; Jasper® announced and I’ll never forget this .. “And Socket™ screwed her!!”

Socket™ did not deny anything, rather looked, for the only time ever, somewhat uncomfortable. Normally, he was gathered and complacent image of cool, closely resembling another drummer anyone should recognize, that is if one were to imagine his face thinner & darker:

Socket

Who knows what method might have been employed to seduce Kathy McNamara ..  no matter circumstance .. when a daughter of one of the world’s most powerful and evil men is seduced by a village musician from Bihar, that my friends, is the stuff of legend.

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My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

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Categories culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 10

March 9, 2015 //
2

We left Jasper® & Socket™ waiting for Katmandu to catch up to them, or something upside down like that. Our itinerary now took us out of the city, across a mountain range, and into a steep Himalayan valley hosting the Trisuli river and our raft journey to Chitwan National Park.

On one of our riverside stops, Old Babette had an epiphany of immortal youth, had lost or run out of her lithium actually, and after being fished out of a riverside eddy and narrow brush with death that did not even register in her mind, with wet dress clinging to her thin body, began dancing; imagining herself a siren from the Coen Brothers’ ‘Ulysses.’

She was taken into protective custody by the Montana dyke whose ability to impart reality was better than any anti-psychotic medication. A few short words suffice to explain: This dyke ‘lady’ from Basin, Montana, was veteran of a war that is legend. The derelict Montana mining town of Basin was the preferred habitat of an artist community with a fairly large percentage of lesbians. The town’s bikers didn’t behave in respect to the lesbians and after awhile, when push came to shove, the lesbians pushed the bikers out of town. The Montana dyke was along as an insurance policy-enforcer in the original Montana libertarian style; be as crazy as you please, but don’t cross a line. Old Babette decided to behave.

We camped overnight at the confluence of the Trisuli & Kaligandeki rivers on a sandy spit across from the Devghat temple. We had no idea what the temple was across the river. The ‘Bandit Sister’ and myself swam over to investigate and upon entering the temple grounds, we saw crocodile effigies! “Oh shit!!” was the reaction on realizing we had come so far into the lowlands that we’d entered this creature’s territory and would now have to swim back. I swam on my back returning to the camp, maybe not so much because it is quiet but because I wouldn’t see a croc coming, if that was to happen. Perhaps the water wasn’t seasonally warm enough, for them to be up the river to where we were.

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

 

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My Madcap Adventure Episode 7

March 7, 2015 //
0

Varanasi II

Jasper® had been eying myself as though I were a freak enigma, I’d noticed. Not more than one sixteenth (my two strongest lines are Dane & Ruysn) of any ancestral heritage, a Vietnam veteran from the Rocky Mountains who domiciled with Blackfeet Indians. I was pitched by the sisters as the ‘wild man’ along on this dubious pilgrimage. Now, it so happened the ‘Bandit Sister’ liked my company and we shared ‘war stories’, not about war per se, but about those numerous compromising circumstance and odd events that make life interesting. And I noticed Jasper® liked to position himself, unobtrusively, so as to overhear our conversation. Clearly, this was about trying to get some sense of just what this strange Ron West humanoidish thing was, without committing himself to direct interaction. Meanwhile, I had determined Jasper® was certainly intelligent but wary of being a fish out of water. He was competent to do a few things in this life; that is superficially escape his aristocratic English origins while alternating between lives as an somewhat infamous counter-culture figure and a nearly authentic sadhu. But, as previously noted by a certain baba, Jasper® could never really altogether live the latter, on account of his inability to surrender the former. And he was most certainly insecure on account of this and protected himself from keenly penetrating intellect that were outside his comfort zone and I was outside that zone. But now this would change.

The sisters had rented a large wooden boat for the day, the kind with a long oar that could be used as a pole, complete with a boatman. We initially used this craft to take us across the Ganges River, away from and upstream from the ‘ghats’, to a beach that was fairly isolated. And it was here several of us did a ritual bathing in the river according to Hindu tradition. For myself, it was an anthropological interest as much as anything, I was along for the ride and curious. Now, this ‘remission of sins’ or ‘cleansing’ is to do with the goddess Ganga and a whole lot of mythic history I won’t go into here. I’ll say nothing to upset this goddess, as I was so loaded with sins, these innumerable acts insisted on leaving my person by route of my ear in the form of a fungus; so effective was this cleansing bath. This fact would detour my fate, at a future time.

That evening, back in the care of our boatman, we lit our Diwali candles in a little boat shaped leaf, and sent them floating on the river. Each of us was supposed to say something significant for ourselves as we, one by one, lit the candle and released these votive offerings to float away. Here was my chance at Jasper® and it broke him down, he was afterwards actually able to open up a little bit and share some stories.

Diwali_Lamps

When I’d lit my little fire ship and sent it on its’ short lived journey, I uttered a calm speech that was one part eloquence, one part philosophy and one part self-deprecating humor, all intermixed, as I noted the little boat’s fire sputtered on as my life had sputtered on, against all odds. Jasper® was transfixed, giving me a combined penetrating stare-look of amazement. I’d got to him. Now, I’ll be the  first to admit I have no idea what would be the mental construct of a high IQ having been raised a British aristocrat turned rebellious, and after, living a schizophrenic life bouncing between the drug imbibing western counter-culture and ascetic life as sadhu in India, but I wanted some of his stories. And Jasper® delivered. Looking back, some of what he became comfortable confiding in my presence, is nothing short of amazing. But as my style is deconstructing western culture, a dedicated hobby, I’ll restrict my retelling of Jasper®’s anecdotes to one incidence, incredibly socially incriminating, as well as politically salacious. More on that, later. But now it was Jasper®’s turn to impress myself and he delivered, to be found in the next chapter.

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My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

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My Madcap Adventure Episode 4

March 4, 2015 //
4

Our bus journey into the foothills began with a pissed off look from a bicyclist we nearly ran over in the flat-lands, not far outside of Delhi. Covered in dirt from the tumble he took to escape being squished like a cockroach by our large tires, he must’ve had that philosophical thought common to the people of that country; wondering what was the omen in the experience, relevant to day that lie ahead. The traffic was incredible; the familiar ‘Lambretta’ of my Vietnam memories, a sort of tricycle pick-up truck with a two-stroke engine belching blue fumes, lots of those intermixed with more conventional (to westerners) sedans and vans, the larger cargo trucks, and buses with so many people in them, commuters were hanging out the open door and sitting on the top. And in the mix of this, too many bicycles to count, as well the many people walking alongside the road, adding to immense bedlam of humanity in motion. And finally we were out of the insane traffic and into the amazing Himalaya foothills, on our journey to Almora, a so-called ‘Hill Station.’

The first thing I noticed was, the pines. The Chir Pine of Northern India…

Chir_Pine

…bears a remarkable resemblance to the Ponderosa Pine of Montana:

Ponderosa

My feeling was a sort of déjà vu. With the same bark and bunch needles, it was an uncanny feeling; knowing I was on the other side of the planet in a forest that looked and felt like home. The trees were the same. Once a fair distance into the hills, our driver pulled out at a roadside parking place, where our cook pulled out his equipment and began preparing an afternoon meal. I wandered off, walking along a path into the trees, simply to feel the ambiance. The forest  was a balm from the intensity of the human experience that is New Delhi.

The cook had long since packed up his gear before everyone had been persuaded the journey should resume … and now, the driver was becoming more and more frenetic as he pushed our bus to the limits it could handle on those many hairpin turns negotiating the unforgiving cliffs as we penetrated deeper into the hills. I knew the score and was sitting up front close to the driver .. the Tibetan had tipped me off to the reason underlying our driver’s near panic. Bandits were operating after dark in the area and we had dallied too long with our late, roadside, lunch. Now night was threatening to overtake us, prior to arrival at our destination. So, if the forest was an uncanny resemblance to Montana in the present, the forest’s characters apparently bore an uncanny resemblance to Montana of the past: when ‘The Wild Bunch’ was still operating. I admit a certain visceral pleasure in Bummer John’s look of redoubled, helpless stress, when he’d asked, and I informed him, of the reasons for our driver’s unnatural hurry.

When we had arrived at Almora, Jasper® & Socket™ had vanished, for the duration of our stay. I had no idea why, then, but being an old intelligence hand, and having made a short study of the possibilities, I can make an informed supposition. A posse must have been after them.

Not long prior to our rendezvous with these characters in 1984, Neil Oram relates an encounter Jasper® had at a nearby baba’s ashram:

At Sri Babaji’s Ashram near Herakhan in the Himalayan foothills, Jasper® and Babaji conversed in demotic Hindi and a part of their conversation went like this:

Babaji: What’s that around your neck?

Jasper®: It’s my Nath beads.

Babaji: You’re not a Nath!

Jasper®: Yes I am.

Babaji: No…you’re a dope dealer from Almora.

Jasper®: No, I’m Ram Giri…a Nath sadhu.

Babaji: No…you’re a dope dealer from Almora.

Jasper®: O.K., forget it. Next life I’ll live all the rules of a Nath sadhu.

Babaji: No, next life…you’ll be a dope dealer with a chai shop.

Jasper®: Alright Baba, the life after that one I’ll be a real Nath yogi.

Babaji: No! In that life also… you’ll be a dope dealer running a chai shop in Almora.

In other words, a classic case of someone’s reputation preceding them.

The highlight of Almora was, the delightful hospitality of a Mr Sharma. An elderly, retired civil servant, he was interesting, well informed, inquisitive and we spent hours in engaging conversation. This reflected the sisters’ character; for every devil we encountered, there was an angel manifest.

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

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My Madcap Adventure Episode 3

March 3, 2015 //
1

Bidi

I had to sort my tobacco habit, the Camel straights (non-filter) I’d brought from the States, wouldn’t last long. I tried the Charminar non-filter variety, a sort of Indian Pall Mall, but they weren’t really too much to my liking. Ok, but not great. Then, the Tibetan, a smoker like myself, turned me on to Ganesh beedis. Whatever the leaf was the tobacco was rolled in, didn’t matter, because they did not smell like a burning field. And they were STRONG. A cheap and effective substitute for my Camel habit. And beedis could be bought anywhere.

Meanwhile, the manic multi-millionaire widow acquainted with Imelda Marcos, and the English opium freak whose mother was on a first name basis with Indira Gandhi, eyed each other like incompatible species of snake. This had interesting implications as, before our journey was to be concluded, she would run out of lithium and he would exhaust his opium.

Old Babette, Old Babette being the alias I’ll assign to the rich widow, must’ve been a hot number into her forties, but time had taken its toll. Now in her sixties, she was no longer a beautiful babe. But, apparently no one had told her this and she clearly had a magic mirror that earned its keep by lying to her. More on that later.

Meanwhile, the Englishman Jasper® when he wasn’t smoking dope in the presence of, and underwritten by, Bummer John, initially kept himself closed off in a clique made up of himself, the sisters and the Bihari musician Socket™ who was actually called that, and I’m not certain Socket can be considered a real name. If Jasper® could have lifted his leg, canine style, wherever the sisters were, I think he’d have done it.

Sensible Sue, the sobriquet I’ll assign to Old Babette’s daughter, Old Babette & the Montana dyke, made up another clique. Bummer John, when Jasper® wasn’t smoking his dope with/for him, spent a lot of time alone, looking alternatively; dazed, stressed, confused or simply bummed out, except for those times the sisters would break out of the one clique to hang out in Old Babette’s clique; in that case Jasper® & Socket™ would hook up with Bummer John, to smoke his dope. Meantime, the Tibetan and myself were developing a close bond. This was the initial social configuration, as we set off for the hill stations of northern India, with a brand new, rented bus, camping gear, hired driver & cook.

The Sisters

Over the span of thirty five years I’ve known the sisters, and I’d only known them for five years when this trip was undertaken, I’ve sorted a few things out. These girls are most definitely NOT what would be considered ‘straight’, no matter they have a long history of being on the up & up, in the business world. In the paradox that is life, they’ve also been on wrong side of the law too many times to count, and yet they cannot be considered criminal. What these girls actually are, is called OUTLAWS. Or perhaps better said, radical-left-libertarians so smooth, if captured in a ‘no-man’s-land’ in a war zone, they could talk their way out of the custody of die-hard fascists.

If the one sister is an angel, the other is the devil; good cop, bad cop, combined, if they’d hustled you, you loved them for the experience. And, after these many years, I confess, this is exactly what happened on this trip. Looking back, it worked like this: The sisters had sold the trip they wanted to take themselves. Their indigent friends Jasper® & Socket™ got a free ride. The Tibetan, fluent in English & Hindi, very ably earned his keep as a translator and guide, a very good choice. This fine, ethical, and knowledgeable personality totally offset Jasper® & Socket™ the entertainment clowns in the tradition of court jesters; turned into dope addicted yogi and his boon companion – a village musician long subverted to western counter-culture. Taken altogether, the entire madcap scene was inclined to balance; if Old Babette was legitimately insane (she was), you only had to consider Jasper® to put her in perspective & vice-versa. As they say in India, an ‘auspicious’ beginning.

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

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Categories culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, Uncategorized
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