Mar 14, 2010 Posted by john

I don’t jaywalk, because I’m an Indian

Every once in a while, I’m lucky enough to be reminded about the beautiful variety in life. The differences of opinion that set you off-center, shake you out of routine, and cause you to pause to look around and see. I had one of those moments yesterday, while reading a blog post of a friend. So, since this is somewhat based on that, you should take a moment, head over to MorganPDX.com and read... read more

Dec 23, 2009 Posted by john

Giving as… Listening

Because it’s Christmas, and because this time of gift-giving is so difficult in so many ways, I wanted to take a moment to detail more about what gift-giving is to me. The focus of it being that gifts have meaning. And, more importantly, the act of giving itself has meaning. Deep meaning. When I give a gift, the responsibility of that gift lies with me, the giver. It is my responsibility to know this... read more

Dec 23, 2009 Posted by john

The Responsibility Of Giving

You all know them. The people who give gifts of toilet brushes, or gifts of a steak dinner to a vegetarian. As I sit in the house of my wife’s parents during this Christmas holiday, it comes that I have a few spare moments to contemplate bad gifts, culture, and the phenomenon of gift-giving.1 There is kind of cultural nuance that intrigues me about gift-giving. It is a nuance that I feel every... read more

Dec 5, 2009 Posted by john

This one’s really going to get me into trouble

Okay, people. I know you have the power to change the world now, but sometimes you want to change the world into something that’s just really dumb. The current explosion of social media outlets sure has its problems. Well, more correctly, it has issues that we have not yet had time to process in such a way that those issues are truly incorporated into our culture.1 Witness, for instance, the Facebook... read more

Aug 16, 2009 Posted by john

Art as Embellishment

Due to a scheduling error that I made, I accidentally published this before “The Old Gods.” That post is supposed to be read before this one. Having visited Germany, having read of such beauty in Pre-Christian Germanic culture, I felt that I wanted to honor those ancestors as well. So much of what Native people here cherish is tied up in stories of Salmon, Raven and Wolf. It’s interesting... read more