The “Dan” trilogy is everybody’s favorite, and it takes you on a wonderful journey. But Voices in the Stones: Life Lessons from the Native Way is the book you need to know (or share) if you want the inside story of what I have learned and what I think we as a culture need to learn from the Native way of life and understanding.
It has the story of my encounter with an old man in a cafe in Spirit Lake, North Dakota, where we talk about the spiritual power and teachings of animals. There is the story of my afternoon with a Nez Perce man, related to Chief Joseph, who speaks of how everyone must be made to feel needed if a culture is to be healthy and whole. There is a recounting of my time experiencing the forces of the unseen on the Bear’s Paw battlefield in Montana.
There are stories about the power of giving, the spiritual power of words, and the honoring of the forgotten dead while I am present at the reinterment of the centuries old bones of a teenage girl on a lonely Minnesota prairie.
In all these stories I do something I rarely do: I speak directly to you, the reader, about the significance these moments had for me and the life lessons we need to learn from them.
This is the book I read from when I am asked to speak about what I have learned from the Native peoples. It talks about us, it talks about them, it talks about where our hearts and lives should meet. One reader said it should be considered the reader’s guide to the trilogy of Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo.
I look upon Voices in the Stones and Native Echoes as siblings. The one is the narrative explanation of our relationship to the Native peoples, the other is a metaphoric exploration of that relationship. Buy them separately, buy them together. They are both physically beautiful books. I love them both.
Carole has only a few of each left before she closes down wolfnordog.com for good. I think you would value them.
Yep. “Voices in the Stones” is on it’s way.
I found the site 2 days too late if I can get a book. I would be honored. juley@usa.net
Write to my sister, Carole, at wolfnordog.com. She is the one handling this.
Have just finished the trilogy Neither Wolf or Dog etc. For me it was a “coming home” even though I was born in Denmark, etc.
I have read many books re the Native peoples and each one brings me “home” in a clean and deep way — and I have met, talked with many of the original peoples — what they have to say plus how they say it — all feels like a ” home” to me. And your books tell me the same.
I am grateful for your telling and thank you very much. I am an old woman, an elder, now, but feel younger even time I meet someone like you — I can listen for hours!
Kent,
Sorry to hear that Carol is shutting down the Wolf Nor Dog “franchise.” I have ordered books from her and enjoyed our exchange. I have also had a great affinity for our Ojibwa and Lakota peoples since I was a little kid and had the “Custer’s Last Stand.” Budweiser Bar poster hanging in my bedroom wall. I always wondered what the heck those soldiers were doing out there fighting the “Indians” whom I somehow knew were defending their own turf. I have since spent time on the Rosebud outside Norris helping to rebuild broken things, like old Episcopal chapels, and on the Prime Ridge building hoop greenhouses (with Re-Member) near Porcupine, passing by Wounded Knee every day, the site of your “flight”in “Wolf Nor Dog.”
Spin forward to this date 2021, and I had already planned to write you today about the funeral story in “Voices” of the young man as a counterpoint to the story of your dad. My own father died on March 1, 2005 and somehow I was drawn back to “Voices” during my morning meditation time. So I just had to thank you
for your thoughts regarding grieving and dialed back to this blog from December 16. Then I find that the books will be out of publication. As I write this, they probably already are. But I will check with Carole, if she is still toiling (with Anne). Hate to see this “ministry” go away! Looking forward to your next thoughts on this site…
Thank you for the gift of your trilogy and to all who shared their energies to make it happen. It brought joy, tears and remembrances I am grateful for the cleansing
Thank you for your books. Frank Hadley Murphy Sami
Frank Hadley Murphy, Sami, Cochiti Lake, NM.
Thank you for your books