Stephanie Spiering shares her poetry at the Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center.
Article by Jeannie Briones and Kim Kalliber, photo by Jeannie Briones, Tulalip News Staff
Everyone faces their own challenges, the good the bad, the ups and downs, which happen in everyday life. For one young Native American woman, writing poetry is not only a therapeutic way of coping with stress, but also a way of expressing happiness.
Stephanie Spiering, a Southern Cheyenne Tribal member and student at the Northwest Indian College Tulalip site, shared her own poetry on February 7th, as part of the Poetry Series at the Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center.
Stephanie’s interest in poetry began in grade school and has remained a large part of her life. Her mother and fellow poet, Renee Roman Nose, read poetry to her as a child, introducing her to a world of diverse forms of poetry.
After experiencing a traumatic event in her youth, Stephanie’s mother and aunt encouraged her to write down her feelings as part of her healing process. “It became a way for me to cope with things,” said Stephanie.
By high school, Stephanie had taken a serious interest in penning her words on paper. Now, just twenty-four years-old, she is busy creating poetry, working towards an associates degree in Native Environmental Science and serving as a court clerk for the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe.
Whenever she is overwhelmed with feelings of sadness, happiness or stress, poetry is her way of dealing with them. For instance in a recently written poem about feelings of homesickness, Stephanie writes about the loneliness she feels by being apart from her family and friends living in her home state of Florida, and dealing with cultures that she enjoys but is unaccustomed to.
Stephanie was delighted and nervous about sharing her poetry at the Hibulb Cultural Center. As she began speaking, her descriptive words and theatrical tones brought her poems to life, taking the audience on a journey through one woman’s self-revelations.
“When I write a poem, I put all my feelings into that poem and I go from there,” said Stephanie. “It gets stuff off my chest.”
Her choice of poems for the evening touched on a variety of subjects such as dealing with relationships, being a student, Native cultures, and the environment, and she encourages others to take the plunge and try writing their own poetry.
For more information on Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center events, please call 360-716-2600 or visit www.hibulbculturalcenter.org.
Eagle Rock, located in the McCloud River canyon in Northern California, is sacred to the Winnemem Wintu and has been desecrated with graffiti and carvings. Photo by Marc Dadigan.
Marc Dadigan, Indian Country Today Media Network
This October, not far from Bishop, California five petroglyphs sacred to tribes in the area including the Paiute, Shoshone and Mono were stolen by vandals using chainsaws and ladders. Government officials compared the crime to cutting holes in the Wailing Wall.
On the other end of the state, about an hour from the Oregon border, the Winnemem Wintu’s sacred Eagle Rock, which is still a ceremonial place in use by the tribe, has long suffered desecrations by vandals carving initials into or spray-painting the rock.
Throughout the state, tribal leaders say sacred sites and burial sites are far too vulnerable to vandalism and destruction via development, and California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) agrees.
Gatto recently introduced a “placeholder” for Assembly Bill 52, which states his intent to enact legislation to improve the protection of sacred and cultural sites by requiring developers to consult with the appropriate tribes “prior to project initiation.”
“I think the state of California has not been great custodians of our history,” Gatto said. “After everything we’ve put our Native people through, it would be really wrong and a travesty if we allowed sacred sites to disappear.”
Gatto said he expects his office will spend the next two months consulting with tribes around the state, including federally unrecognized tribes, about what language would make the bill most effective.
He said the bill won’t have to be in final form until August, who added he thinks there is significant pressure to better protect sacred sites after the Bishop petroglyph incident.
Raymond Andrews, the Bishop Paiute Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, said he thinks it’s vital that tribes are brought to the table as a stakeholder at the very start of any development project.
“We told them we don’t just want to be asked to comment after they’ve drawn up all their plans and are already moving forward,” Andrews said. “We want to be right there when they’re planning these projects because they do affect us and our land, and we’re not going to change who we are.”
Gatto agreed that all too often tribes are only consulted well into the planning process when the development has gained significant momentum, which can make it a “fait accompli,” he said.
One possible solution, he said, might be to create a register of sacred sites, some of which would be private to protect the location of sensitive sites. Once a site was listed, it would have enhanced protections, and developers would be required to use the database to check for nearby sacred sites before they even begin planning a project, Gatto said.
“It would put everyone on notice well in advance that there are genuine sacred sites in the area,” Gatto said. “It would limit the criticism that people using laws to protect sacred sites are simply anti-development.”
One limitation of the bill is that it would only apply to state and local agencies, and, thus, would not apply to the many sacred sites located in land currently managed by federal agencies.
“The other stakeholders don’t know the tribes, they don’t know how to come in and be partners,” Andrews said. “They call us a stakeholder with the backpackers and horsemen, but our longevity and subsistence are tied to the land.”
People who are interested in providing input on the bill can contact Gatto’s legislative aide, Katerina Robinson at katerina.robinson@asm.ca.gov.
The crowd at a climate rally in downtown Denver February 17 numbered up to 500 at its height. The rally was in solidarity with a climate event that drew thousands in Washington, D.C. and in at least 15 states and it included a protest against the Keystone XL Pipeline. Photo: Carol Berry.
Carol Berry, Indian Country Today Media Network
The controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, if approved, will be “built through sacred sites, traditional camp grounds and areas full of Native history,” warned a young Native woman whose organization, Idle No More, was one of 30 Colorado groups rallying in Denver February 17 as thousands of activists gathered in the nation’s capital and elsewhere.
Taryn Soncee Waters, 21, Cheyenne/Oglala Lakota/Cherokee, described the danger to Native patrimony to those gathered at a downtown Denver park in balmy weather. Cheyenne Birdshead, 17, Southern Cheyenne/Arapaho, another Idle organizer and speaker, described being arrested “simply for taking part in one of our Native dances.”
Local Idle concerns about damage to Mother Earth and Native culture from the Keystone XL Pipeline meshed with worries about “climate chaos” and other ecological issues raised by various groups at the rally, but the Idle voice was uniquely defiant, learned from generations of those who refused to yield.
People attending the rally in Denver February 17 were asked to wear dark clothing in order to depict an oil spill of the kind described as likely to happen with any pipeline, including the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. (Carol Berry)
To bring the XL Pipeline issues home graphically, black-clad participants in the #Forward on Climate Solidarity March and Rally depicted an “oil spill”—an occurrence inevitable with pipelines, they said—by lying in a large group, a self-styled blob, on a paved area near Denver’s Civic Center Park.
There were speeches, musical numbers, and the opportunity to sign petitions, one of them urging President Barack Obama not to approve the 1,700-mile Keystone XL Pipeline that would move heavy crude oil from vast Alberta tar sands southeastward, eventually reaching U.S. Gulf-area refineries and ports.
At least one speaker voiced the concern that while Obama did not approve the pipeline’s first application, additional environmental compliance and political factors could lead to his approving the second planned route, which may avoid the ecologically sensitive Sand Hills in Nebraska but not the underlying Ogallala Aquifer, a major source of U.S. water.
Marchers at a 30-organization climate crisis rally in Denver headed toward downtown’s Civic Center Park, with Idle No More leaders Cheyenne Birdshead (left) and Taryn Soncee Waters heading up the line. (Carol Berry)
Rally organizers quoted NASA scientist James Hansen as saying that “burning oil in the Canadian tar sands [source of the Keystone XL Pipeline’s crude oil] could eventually raise the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to 600 ppm [parts per million], which he said would be ‘game over’ for a safe climate.”
The 350.org, one of the event’s co-sponsors, is named for what many scientists deem the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—350 ppm, organizers said in a press release.
In addition to 350Colorado, rally co-sponsors included Idle, the American Indian Movement of Colorado, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Environment Colorado, Protect Our Colorado, What the Frack?! Arapahoe, Earth Guardians, PLAN-Boulder County, Be the Change, Clean Energy Action, Eco-Justice Ministries, Colorado Move to Amend, Climate Ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, AspenSnowmass, Protect Our Winters, and 14 Colorado GoFossilFree.org Campus Divestment Campaigns.
Although tar sands and climate change protests in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere have produced numbers of celebrity and other arrests, Idle events in the Denver area so far have been arrest-free—except for one in January at a mall in Broomfield, a community north of Denver, where Birdshead was taken into police custody after Round Dancing and where others were also cited for trespassing.
“I myself was arrested simply for taking part in one of our Native dances,” she recalled as she addressed the current rally. “It used to be illegal for our people to do our songs, dances and ceremonies. But we still have them because our ancestors did them even though they faced imprisonment.”
This week the arrestees were to have been charged in court for trespass, but the charges were dropped. Birdshead said they had been willing to go to trial, if necessary, because “doing the right thing isn’t always easy but we do it for the future generations, just like our ancestors did it for us.”
There was no obvious police presence at the Denver rally, although uniformed state parks officials were checking to make sure the Sierra Club-obtained park permit was being used according to regulations—and it was, they said.
Birdshead’s grandmother, 70-plus Virginia Allrunner, Cheyenne, is an inspiring and reliable presence at the Idle events, even though in many ways they’re largely youth-focused: A 12-year-old, Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez, leader of the Earth Guardians youth group, emceed the current rally and Native emphasis generally has targeted the legacy that will be left for children and grandchildren.
“We will not retreat. We will not stop. We will go forward to protect Mother Earth. We are Idle No More,” the young women chanted together as they concluded their presentation before the hundreds at the Denver rally.
Secretary of State John Kerry jokes with reporters during a news conference with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird on February 8, 2013. Photo: Associated Press.
Indian Country today Media Network
Newly confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry, a strong advocate of addressing climate change, is being watched for his stance on the Keystone XL pipeline, even as President Barack Obama highlights environmental preservation as a priority.
Kerry met with his counterpart, Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird, on February 8, to chat about their mutual energy interests, among other things. Kerry promised a decision “soon” but did not give a real timetable.
“I can guarantee you that it will be fair and transparent, accountable, and we hope that we will be able to be in a position to make an announcement in the near term,” he said at a news conference following the meeting, according to the Associated Press.
“Obviously, the Keystone XL pipeline is a huge priority for our government and the Canadian economy, and I appreciated the dialogue we had about what we could do to tackle environmental challenges together,” Baird said, for his part.
They were Kerry’s first comments about Keystone XL since he was sworn in as secretary of state. The project, a $7 billion, 1,700-mile extension of an existing pipeline that runs from the Alberta oil sands in Canada, is already undergoing an environmental review begun by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Kerry garnered attention in August of last year, when the then senator compared climate change to the dangers posed by Iranian arms proliferation and drew a link between environmental stability and national security, among other issues.
“I believe that the situation we face, Mr. President, is as dangerous as any of the sort of real crises that we talk about,” said Kerry, speaking on the floor of the Senate.
“This issue actually is of as significant a level of importance, because it affects life itself on the planet,” he said. “Because it affects ecosystems on which the oceans and the land depend for the relationship of the warmth of our earth and the amount of moisture that there is and all of the interactions that occur as a consequence of our climate.”
At his confirmation hearing he grouped it with other major international issues.
“American foreign policy is also defined by food security and energy security, humanitarian assistance, the fight against disease and the push for development, as much as it is by any single counter terrorism initiative,” he said. “It is defined by leadership on life threatening issues like climate change, or fighting to lift up millions of lives by promoting freedom and democracy from Africa to the Americas or speaking out for the prisoners of gulags in North Korea or millions of refugees and displaced persons and victims of human trafficking. It is defined by keeping faith with all that our troops have sacrificed to secure for Afghanistan. America lives up to her values when we give voice to the voiceless.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other environmental groups lauded his confirmation and urged him to continue being an advocate for climate change concerns. As part of that, they
“If approved, the Keystone XL pipeline would boost carbon pollution tomorrow by triggering a boom of growth in the tar sands industry in Canada, and greatly increasing greenhouse gas emissions,” the NRDC said in a statement on February 6.
A coalition of 60 environmental groups along with the NRDC also asked Kerry “to help secure a global agreement to deal with the climate crisis; to reject any new or expanded infrastructure for tar sands oil, starting with the Keystone XL pipeline; and to secure funding for international climate action, particularly in developing countries and the most vulnerable communities.”
Tens of thousands of people rallied in Washington on Sunday February 17 to demand action on climate change and for an end to the Keystone XL pipeline project.
Redhouse now uses drumming and singing to help addicts in recovery programs. (Lee Allen)
Lee Allen, Indian Country Today Media Network
Navajo Native Tony Redhouse doesn’t look his age, and for several decades he didn’t act it either. Now in his mid-50s, he was what is referred to as a “bad boy” in his formative years. In fact, because he was high all the time, he says he received his early education not in school, but on the street. “I was first incarcerated at the age of 14, put in a California mental hospital in a straightjacket, from an LSD overdose,” he says. “They called me Gas because of my habit of inhaling gasoline as a cheap high.”
Redhouse, who says there isn’t a drug he didn’t do, later got kicked out of his family’s home and ended up in foster care, where things just got worse because, he says, members of his adoptive family were also addicted to drugs.
What followed over the next 20 years and stretched from the Bay Area to England was a series of marriages (five), more trips to detox than he can remember (100-plus), medical problems (hepatitis C), a stint in prison (two years), and five alcohol-drug-related DUIs. “I had a habit of running into telephone poles and totaling vehicles,” he recalls. “I was in the dark for a long time. I wandered the streets unaware of where I was and not really caring. I ate out of Dumpsters. I committed crimes to get money for more drugs. I was suicidal and self-destructive.” Recognizing the inevitable end to the path he was on, family members intervened and had him committed to a mental hospital when he was 50.
And there he found both himself and a new path. “Although it had taken me half a century to reach that point, I came to my senses and decided to change my life.”
Once Redhouse decided to become a good guy, new vistas opened up for him as an inspirational speaker, a recording artist and a sound healer. He says those are all ways he can help others in need—addicts, domestic violence victims, grief and trauma survivors, and hospice members about to transition. “Because I had already walked the negative footsteps and knew their pitfalls, I began alternative teaching, sharing spirituality as a means of recovery influenced by Native American culture.”
(Photo: Lee Allen)
He now lectures to capacity crowds across the Southwest and also teams up with such lecture-hall luminaries as Deepak Chopra and Dr. Oz. He speaks passionately of his years working with Native Ways women in recovery program at a Tucson, Arizona facility. According to that facility’s web page: “Therapy is designed to meet the unique needs of Native women and draws on their cultural strengths to promote healing and recovery” and quotes a Great Spirit Prayer—“Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.… I seek strength not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy—myself.”
“The audience is 25 to 30 female addicts, some just out of prison or detox—a lot of them still strung out on meth and coke—and here I am, [at] the first phase of their recovery. I’m a visual artist in musical form—bells, bar chimes, wooden blocks, shakers, flutes, drums, a palette of sound equipment. The lights are turned off, candles are lit, and I start playing the flute and drum while humming a chant. These women don’t have an inkling about where we are headed, but every time the music begins, they put their heads down on the table and go into their own internal, calming space. The nurturing sound of the heartbeat drum brings security and takes them back to before their addiction, before being molested or beaten, returning back to the days before anything bad had happened.”
Redhouse says the simplicity of sound healing takes the mind to a place where it can begin to be clear enough to make healthy decisions. “If you think about indigenous cultures, there are three ancient forms of expression used in ceremony to express our emotions and dreams—voice, drum and flute. They speak louder than words and allow us to connect with the spiritual realm. When I use these sounds, they evoke thoughts, images, feelings that take people back to their beginning, back to the simple state, the sound of a heartbeat, a breath, the hum of a lullaby—back to a peaceful place, a sacred place, for us to start healing inside. We remove all the built-up complications and come back to the point where you can see clearly what your life is and what you want it to be.”
The healer’s philosophy, as he explained in a documentary co-produced by Chopra called Death Makes Life Possible, came from his hospice work. “I teach that if you are ready to die, then you are ready to live. Spending time with people who are transitioning, you see them settle old scores and make peace with people and situations so they can stop struggling and depart. We’d be wise to adopt that concept of clearing up unfinished business, closing the chapters in our lives that no longer serve us. If we can make peace to depart this world, we can also make conditions that will allow us to live passionately and completely.”
Continuing to help others helps him to continue helping himself. “I feel like I’m right in the center of my destiny, why I’m on this Earth, my life’s purpose, why I’ve gone through everything I’ve gone through so far that has shaped me, the ups and downs, the darkness. I’m doing things right now. I’m a tool in the hands of spirits, that’s all. I’ve become another instrument, blessed to have an opportunity to change other lives for the better.”
Derek Henry Kieran Jones went to be with his creator and loved ones on February 18, 2013.
He leaves his parents, La Tosha and Derek Jones, his sisters, Julianna and Kiara Jones, and Brooklyn Francis; grandparents, Nanie (Jason)Balagot, Kenny McLean, Cindy Jones; great grandparents, Mike Dunn Sr, Sharon Balagot, Jerry Schamans, Jeanne McLean, Candy Hill-Wells (Lew), Edith Enick, Donald Jones, Patricia Sam; and numerous aunties, uncles, and cousins.
Services will be held Friday, February 22, 2013 at Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home with burial to follow at Mission Beach Cemetery.
Arrangements entrusted to Schaefer-Shipman, Marysville.
Sara Haner, Communications Manager, United Way of Snohomish County
(Everett, WA) – Looking for free tax preparation online? The Walmart Foundation has joined with United Way Worldwide, Goodwill Industries International and National Disability Institute to launch MyFreeTaxes online, offering free federal and state tax preparation and filing services to eligible Snohomish County households. The MyFreeTaxes partnership also supports free tax preparation in-person at several sites throughout Snohomish County.
Eligible taxpayers in Snohomish County can access MyFreeTaxes filing services by:
●Calling 2-1-1 or visiting http://www.uwsc.org/freetaxpreparationcampaign.php to locate a free tax site near them that provides volunteer assisted preparation and filing. (Open to households earning less than $51,000 annually.)
The MyFreeTaxes tax filing software is provided by H&R Block®, and along with in-person free tax preparation programs, is expected to help return an estimated $1.95 billion this year in total tax refunds, credits and tax preparation fee savings to eligible taxpayers. Since 2009, MyFreeTaxes has helped more than 4.5 million families file free tax returns, resulting in nearly $6 billion in federal income tax refunds, nearly $1.5 billion in Earned Income Tax Credits and more than $913 million in tax preparer fee savings. MyFreeTaxes has also helped more than 610,000 taxpayers with disabilities file their returns.
“United Way of Snohomish County is excited to be part of the national MyFreeTaxes Partnership for the fourth year. Working together, we help eligible Snohomish County residents access free tax preparation and filing services, keeping more of their hard-earned money in their pockets,” said Ian Nelson, Tax Campaign Coordinator for United Way of Snohomish County.
For additional information and eligibility requirements, visit www.myfreetaxes.com/everett or call 1-855-MyTx-Help.
About MyFreeTaxes
The MyFreeTaxes Partnership provides free federal and state tax preparation and filing assistance for qualified individuals. It’s easy, safe, secure and 100 percent free. Powered by Walmart – in cooperation with Goodwill Industries International, National Disability Institute and United Way Worldwide – the MyFreeTaxes Partnership’s online and in-person tax preparation and filing services have helped 4.5 million families claim nearly $6 billion in tax credits and refunds since 2009. Tax filing software provided by H&R Block. For more information, visit MyFreeTaxes.com or call 1-855-My-Tx-Help.
To find out more about United Way of Snohomish County, including how you can find help, how to volunteer and how United Way serves our community, please visit our website at uwsc.org.
MARYSVILLE — In a modern spin on the old “wanted” posters of the Old West, local police departments are using a new tool to help identify suspects. www.CanYouID.me is a website that enables police to identify unnamed suspects.
In cowboy talk, Marysville Police have already roped their first suspect, thanks to a couple of alert web surfers.
The website hosts photographs taken via video surveillance cameras in stores and other locations. With purported crimes ranging from credit card theft to robbery, subjects are shown on the website’s main page in hopes that someone can help put a name to the face. That’s where the public comes in.
“The CanYouID.me web site now provides a practical tool for Law Enforcement to partner up the public to help hold criminals accountable for the crimes that impact our community,” Marysville Police Officer Dan Vinson said.
CanYouID.me allows anyone who recognizes a suspect in a photograph to contact the investigating agency through email, with just a simple click. Anonymous tips are also welcome. Since its development by a Lake Forest Park Detective in July 2010, the website has helped identify 20 subjects identified with 43 participating agencies and 148 detective signup with the site.
In the Marysville case, police responded to a report of a shoplifter leaving the Marysville K-mart store with $11,338 in jewelry stolen from a locked display case. Unable to identify the suspect, detectives turned to CanYouID.me for help. Two citizens identified the suspect through the photographs, and the man has since been charged, says Detective Craig Bartl, who inherited the case from Vinson, who was on detective duty at the time.
