On a recent trip, I read an article in a flight magazine that grabbed my attention.  The article was titled Body Conscious.  It was about becoming aware of and more in tune with your body by using the latest electronic self-tracking apps and gadgets.  

It’s fascinating discovering how out of touch I’ve become while living my “slow story” pace.  It also let me know that tribal people wherever they’re found always seem to have and use some device that has simple and similar applications.  

These body sensor, self tracking apps and gadgets are controlled by the latest smart phones.  Many are very simple wrist bands that are made using various flexible, synthetic materials that come in assorted colors.  Of course they’re all designed to put you in touch with your body and help you “ track who you are” by the measurements that are computed and recorded.  Bands around the wrist is what made me think of my Sheep Camp Grampa. 

One time, when I was washing my face and hands in the enamel wash basin on the little wood table by the doorway, I noticed how he was paying attention to me as I washed.  When I dried my  arms, face and hands, he nodded his head in my direction, pursed his lips ever so slightly pointing to my left wrist, as he spoke, “You know what’s that called?”  I replaced the towel on its wall peg and turning to my left asked, “You mean this?”

“Hmm.” He grunted, with a nod.  In Keres, I said, “Ai-yah-dru-me-soosh-tuu.” He didn’t respond right away.  I figured he was surprised I knew the name for the wide leather band wrapped around my left wrist. Next he said, “Know what it’s for?” 

“It’s so when you shoot the bow and you let go of the string, the string won’t slap and hurt you.” I quickly answered. Then he said, “Is that all?”  What else was there?  What else could there be?  I stood there feeling the dark, smooth leather, gently twisting it around my wrist, waiting for him to go on.  “You wear it on your left side, coo-mu-suh, isn’t that correct?” he asked. 

I quickly said, “Yeah, I shoot right handed!”  He then lifted his arm and pulled up his shirt sleeve to show me the old warn leather strap on his left wrist.  He’d worn that piece of leather, now dark and polished smooth, ever since he was a boy.  That leather band was an artifact!  Then he added, “It’s on your left side, see?  Your heart is on this side.  You wear your bow guard to remind you to guard your heart.  And to remember the man, that heart makes you.”

 “This is the way it is, Grandson. Nun-nah, be a man!”  

Ironic, isn’t?  How this piece of leather must be an App?  And out there somewhere, Nun’nah and I must both have our smart phones tracking who we are. 

Photo credits: Nike.com; cardiio.com 

Hollis Brown, he lives on the other side of town, with his five children and his house all broken down. - Bob Dylan

Praise God, what would we do without His prophets, poets and mystics, preaching and singing, reaching into our dark closet clutters?  MLK and Presidents' Day have passed. Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone, but we still have the Academy Awards to look forward to.  It doesn't get any better, does it?

At Hamaatsa, on our southern boundary, we have what is called a quarter-mile marker.  It’s an engraved stone survey marker registered in Washington D.C.  The marker was placed there in 1856.  It was part of the first U.S. survey after the so-called, Mexican War. The survey was part of completing the “sea to shining sea manifest destiny” of this country. 

For me, that small upright chipped rock is a constant reminder of how this planet Earth has reached this time when we humans will again have to clean out the mess piled in the dark. When I listen to Dylan's songs, The Ballad of Hollis Brown and the Times They Are A-Changin', I see my own villages, my Pueblos and I understand a little bit more where I am as a native born son of this land at a place called, Hamaatsa.  The U.S. is so young and Indians of this continent seem so much older now, even as our populations appear to be growing in number. Yet fewer “real Indians” by the “official count.” The name, Hamaatsa (a place arriving now) and that historic stone marker remind me to pay attention to the task I have as I appear to walk away from the Rez.  

Indian Reservations are really holding grounds.  They are part of the plan for taking all the land.  Ask the next endangered creature you happen to meet if you want some authentic insight?  Wolf.  Yeah Wolf, would be a keen insight.  Here in New Mexico, we have one of the biggest battles taking place around wolf issues.  The fight is more about who is wild as in “Wildman with a wildlife”, than providing lands we can share with creatures that have been here much longer.  Come to think of it, a Wolf History would make for a good study about Indians in the Americas.  Better save this for another essay because it’ll be a deep, painful look at mirror images that are tough for anyone.  And you'll have to become more than a lover of animals!

The Hamaatsa vision is truly beautiful.  This is because it’s about work.  Yeah!  Hands in the dirt, kneeling, crawling, digging kind of work.  And it’s for People.  The winged, scaled, sleek, feathered, finned, furred, hoofed, clawed, webbed, crawling, eight, six, four, two-leggeds, Hobah-Hanuh, all the people.  Hollis Brown and his five children; Auntie May and her curds of whey kind of people;  reconnecting to what a neighbor is and understanding why it’s good.  This is orality and Hamaatsa is simply a sacred story deposit ground where listening can be learned.  

Everyone has to make or be blessed to find their own Hamaatsa.  My guess is all can learn what it feels like to reconnect to an Earth mother, who can care and teach them what has been misplaced or stolen, and then choose correctly what they will do with something so filled with wonder and power as their own choice.  
    
    The line it is drawn
    The curse it is cast
    The slow one now
    Will later be fast
    As the present now
    Will later be past
    The order is rapidly fadin’
    And the first one now will later be last
    For the times they are a-changin’
    - Bob Dylan

People refer to me as a storyteller. I always remind them I’m a listener not a teller.  As I listen to the prophets, poets and mystics, I’m encouraged that what I hear as I’m learning to listen is a simple song the Earth sang for the children in its first dawn.  It’s simple because I’m not complicated. I must be a child to understand.

Why is the Earth singing?  She sings to the One Who Made Her.  What is she singing?  Her Love.
     I listen to Her song.            
     I am filled with peace.
     This is the time and the place to be.
     And I remember.
     The waters are separated by a great expanse. 
     The land is coming forth. 
     New again.
“Here my Love, is my Song", she sings, as God listens, because this is what the Creator knows how to do.  He enjoys the songs we sing.

Photo Credit: Deborah Littlebird courtesy of Hamaatsa