Unpacking this would take far more than a blog entry. But let me make a simple attempt.

Those of you who have followed my writings over the years have often broken into two camps: those who like the more spiritual writings, and those who are involved in some aspect of Native American affairs. For me the two have never been separate, because it is Native American spirituality in all its manifestations that forms the basis for most of my own personal theology and the core of my spiritual writings: honoring of elders and the past, concern for the seventh generation, seeing the spiritual in every moment whether elevated or ordinary, and a belief that there is spiritual presence in every star, stone, and human encounter.

I do not and have not ever claimed that I have access to Native sensibilities and I am deeply sensitive to issues of spiritual appropriation and distortion. But, having said that, neither have I shied away from the hard truths and unwarranted romanticization of Native America. To me, the many Native cultures are both victim and vanguard, and I am here to neither vilify nor celebrate them beyond the facts of their existence and history. What I do know is that the Native peoples have the only indigenous spirituality that was born of this land and that reflects the truth that this land reveals, and that they have been very poorly served both in their spiritual depth and historical encounter with European society.

For the moment, let me stay with the issue of Native spirituality. As I have often said, we shape our understanding of deity in some measure as a reflection of the monumental forces around us. We are the children of this land and the monumental forces it offers. It is only logical that an authentic American spirituality would reflect these forces and be best embodied in the spiritual impulses and manifestations of the people who have been born of this earth and have made their lives upon it. But I do not wish to go too deeply into this. It is a subject for another time, and one that I tried to address metaphorically in one of my favorite but most unnoticed literary children, A Haunting Reverence. That failure made me shy away from metaphor as a literary vehicle for spiritual expression and return instead to homily and narrative.

Neither Wolf nor Dog was probably the most overt blending of homily and narrative, and also the most successful. But it pretty much turned a blind eye to the darker truths that the Native peoples of America have had to endure. I have never been completely comfortable avoiding those darker truths (only Chief Joseph addressed them directly, and that book ended up gaining a separate audience and almost seeming like a separate genre altogether). I truly believe in the journalistic saw of “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.” The closer Native-oriented work comes to a new age vision, the closer it comes to the complete inversion of “comforting the comfortable.” This is not a road I wish to go down, not so long as the darkness at the core of our nation’s relationship with its Native inhabitants lies hidden or unexamined. Yet I know I lose my audience, and, thus, my effectiveness, if I write diatribes, screeds, or cries of wounded indignation. There is a place for that, but I don’t feel it is my place. At heart, I believe that we gain from seeing and embracing the bright gifts of Native culture, just as we need to acknowledge the darkness that lies in our national experience.

Enter The Wolf at Twilight. There is a horrible national disgrace that is only now coming out about our nation’s treatment of the education and re-education of its Native inhabitants. The Native people have lived with this knowledge and its scars for years, but it has not been brought into the light except within the realms of Native studies. I have been given the gift of being able to make the Native story interesting to many non-Native people who otherwise would pay no attention to Indian reality. I truly can be the bridge and ally that my Native friends have urged me to be. Neither Wolf nor Dog brought you a man (maybe even two men) who you grew to care about deeply. You followed Dan, asked about Dan, cared about Dan, and listened to Dan. Through my efforts he got your ear and, in many cases opened your eyes and hearts. It was and remains a humbling thing to see.

In The Wolf at Twilight I use your concern and interest in Dan to walk you into some of those darker corners of Indian experience. I do not hide the brilliance of his light, but neither do I hide the darkness that haunts his heart. Through Dan, I take you to some understandings you may not wish to have, but which I believe are crucial to the healing that needs to take place. Yes, Dan’s wisdom is there. Yes, the humor is there. And, yes, the lightness of touch is there. But you must be prepared to walk a bit on a dark trail, as well.

Making this work was not easy. I didn’t want to lose the spiritual seekers among my readers or those who would rather look at the light than the darkness. But I wanted to honor the darker truths and experience of my Native friends and bring that truth, too, into the light. And I wanted to honor one of Dan’s most adamant convictions: that people “learn by story, because story lodges deep in the heart.”

If you want to see what it is that has kept me from communicating for these past years and months, go to the website www.hiddenfromhistory.org and watch the video, “Unrepentant,” that can be viewed on google viewer on the bottom right of the page. Or simply click around on the page. This is what I needed to reveal in The Wolf at Twilight, focusing more on the U.S side of the border. But I had to do it with a gentle touch. As I said, making this happen was not easy. But I think I succeeded. When the book comes out you will be able to judge for yourself if I was able to blend the light and the darkness. For now, consider the darkness of www.hiddenfromhistory.org. What it reveals was happening everywhere on this continent. It will give you something to ponder.

Technorati : Wolf at Twilight, boarding schools

I am thrilled when my ordinary life offers up an extraordinary moment that brings some solace or insight or enjoyment to others, and such has been the good fortune of that moment in the late 1980’s when I was driving the “dog shift” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What is noteworthy about that moment, beyond it’s poignancy, is that I did not create it; I merely experienced it and let it unfold.

Life gives us all such moments — I call them “Blue Moments” (See Letters to My Son for an explanation) — where a brilliant light shines through the ordinary moments in our ordinary days. They come unsolicited and unannounced, and provide us the gift of significance and, if we are lucky, the opportunity to serve.

What it is important is to remember that these ARE gifts, and that we cannot receive them if we are not open to them. We need to listen closely, watch closely, and take care not to rush past or through them when they arrive. They are the fabric of our lives, and they will weave themselves with complexity and beauty if we give them time to do so.

I bring this up because I’d like to make you two offers — one big and one small. The small one first: If any of you would like to read the original piece, unmodified and in the context in which it was written, I would like to offer you the opportunity to buy a signed copy of Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of St. Francis. It is one of my lesser known books, but one of my favorites. In it, I tried to write an extended meditation on each of the lines of Francis’ famous prayer and to illuminate them with stories from my life and the lives of others. The cab ride story is one of those.

The second offer — the big one — is made to all of you, but especially you readers in the U.K. I will be in the U.K. next spring. The exact dates are not yet set, but they will likely occur in April and early May. If you would like to have me come to speak to any group of yours, please contact me and we can try to make the arrangements. The same holds true for any group anywhere in America. I enjoy going out to speak because it allows me to meet my readers. It also allows me to share some of the stories and insights that my journey through life’s “blue moments” has offered.

So, thank you again for your continued interest in my work. I will keep trying to earn your trust by doing my best in everything I write. It is the least I can do to honor the faith you have shown in me.

This is because To Walk the Red Road was done as a reservation project and was published only locally, and in very small numbers. But its effect was huge. The photos it contained and the way it gave voice to the tribal elders caught Dan’s attention and resulted in him inspiring me to write Neither Wolf nor Dog.

I’ve always felt that to really understand Neither Wolf nor Dog it is important to see the photos and hear the authentic, heartfelt voices of To Walk the Red Road. But up until now that opportunity has never been available.

Now, for a short moment, that opportunity is here, and I’m excited to be able to offer it to you for this holiday season. The Red Lake School Board has authorized me to do a limited reprint of To Walk the Red Road, and these are now available. My sisters at wolfnordog.com have packaged an autographed copy of To Walk the Red Road with an autographed copy of Neither Wolf nor Dog and are offering them at a special holiday price of $34.95. They have told me that they will do free gift wrapping and work out special gift boxes if you so desire. You need only to go to their website, wolfnordog.com, to place an order or to find out more.

I know that a lot of you have asked about To Walk the Red Road over they years, since it figures so prominently in the story of Neither Wolf nor Dog. It has always been a frustration to me that I could not help you find copies. Now I can, at least for as long as the few hundred we have printed last. I think the book by itself is a wonderful accomplishment, because it gives you a glimpse, through photos and memories, into one of the few closed reservations in the country and a place that has been in the news for all the wrong reasons for the last several years. If you want to see what it was like to grow up on a reservation, and to hear the stories as the elders told them to the children, To Walk the Red Road offers you the rare opportunity to do so.

I hope this posting gets to those of you who have asked over the years, as well as to those of you who would find this pairing of books to be something valuable to own or give. I don’t keep track of the numbers of remaining books, so I can’t guarantee how long this pairing will be available. But, for now, we have them.

Click here to go to wolfnordog.com to order your own copies.

John has been going to the Rez for well over a decade. He and I first met through a program he runs there in the summer. It is called “Exposures,” and it attracted me with its authenticity and integrity. In Exposures, he takes young people from Vermont, the Bronx, the Navajo reservation, and other disparate cultural settings and brings them together with young people from Pine Ridge. They all work together on photography projects that document the people, places, and life on Pine Ridge.

So many projects, well intentioned and necessary as they are, focus on providing assistance and service. John tries to build upon strength. If he gives, which he does regularly, it is quietly and personally. In that way he echoes what I so appreciate about NANAI, the program from the Netherlands about which I just wrote. There is so much need on the Rez and so much sadness and poverty, that it is hard not to focus exclusively on need and deficiency. When you find people who acknowledge the need and deficiency, but try to build upon strength, you have found rare people, indeed.

I am excited to work with John on this book of his photographs, because we both see something far deeper and far more important than the sadness and poverty. We see the power of the people, the culture, and the land.

I invite all of you to view a few of John’s photographs at http://www.jwillis.net.