I finished the story a few days ago, and have been going through doing line edits, fixing grammar and dialog punctuation. It has been posted to my gallery. There is an intimate scene between the two main characters, however it is not very detailed, more soft hints at intimacy, and it’s only a small part of the story as the two main characters relationship blossoms. If you do read it, please leave a comment with your thoughts and let me know if you liked or didn’t like it.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/52523532/

So as said, I’ve started writing again. The muse awakened in me, and the idea for this story blossomed from a small bit of text I wrote, and I’ve gone farther with these characters, Ra’aisha and Zahari, than I have with other characters I’ve written about. Some of it is easy, some of it is very hard as there’s a lot of emotion in this story.

It’s a work of ESO fan fiction, and I’m finding I need to brush up more on Khajiiti lore, and speech patterns for dialog. Most Khajiit in the world of ESO refer to themselves in third person, while some such as Queen Khamira refer to herself in first person. It seems to depend on how they and their parents were raised.

Really enjoying this, even going through the hell spots with these two boys. The story contains mature themes such as dealing with prejudice, same-sex relationships, conflict resolution and other things in keeping with the world of ESO.

It’s still a WIP, and I’m not sure if I should even have it posted here because it’s a WIP.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/52.....che=1685411214

I already have the title for a follow up book, that chronologically happens before this story - “Cold’s Embrace”.

As noted, I’ve started writing again. The stories, or flash fiction stories I most recently posted, one of them is a work in progress. The other one, I could flesh it out some more, but I’m focusing on Winters’ Thaw first.

It’s a work in progress. this is a work of fiction that is close to my own heart, and examines the challenges that same sex couples face, the misunderstandings that occur, and the reactions of some who are less than secure in their own fur, so to speak. I’ve also drawn on some real life experiences for some of the stories events. One such event relates to hypothermia, which I nearly died of once out hiking in the winter. I’m lucky I was with a group of skilled hikers, who knew how to build a fire.

Drawing on my own personal experiences with hypothermia. I had a very close brush with it while hiking, and was literally numb from the cold and if it hadn’t been for my hiking companions guiding me to a fire they built, or if I’d been alone, I would not be here. I remember trudging through the snow once hypothermia had it’s claws in me and stopping, facing a rise that i’d have to try and climb, and just standing there.

I think one of the people in my party gently guided me by the hand, but that part is blanked out. I remember it still being light out when I stopped, and the next thing I recalled it was after sunset when I was being directed to sit on a log near a fire, which they had started illegally, but it saved my life, literally. One of them was sitting next to me, hugging me to share body warmth. I was very close to passing out or falling asleep, and not far from death. Probably the closest brush with it I’ve had thus far in my 58 years.

We were many hours away from any towns, and back in that day we didn’t have cell phones like people have now, so it was just us vs the elements.

Hypothermia is nothing to play with, and the scary part of it is as you get deeper into it, you just kind of start to fade away, your thoughts and movements become sluggish and you want nothing more than to go to sleep, which worsens the situation. It’s scary stuff, but it has given me the knowledge first hand of the symptoms and stages.

Off and on I’ve written what these days is called flash fiction, short stories and poetry since I was in high school. I concentrated more on photography than I did writing.

Going to go back, dust off my creative writing skills, brush up by reading my old college texts, and start writing again.

I've worked at the same place since 2012. In that time I've made some acquaintances with my colleagues to at least be on friendly speaking terms more than just the co-worker chat. Folks know I'm Native American simply because we've talked on more friendly terms, and someone once asked. Being honest I said yes when asked. Otherwise I would not have shared such info. No, I don't claim to have a Cherokee grandmother ;) My father was Lenni Lenape, as was his grandmother. My grandfather was from a different New England area tribe farther back.

Yesterday in a team meeting, a supporter of the Kansas City Chiefs team thought it was a good idea to share the 'tomahawk chop' mockery display in front of me, and the team. Said person is one of the acquaintances mentioned earlier.

He's told me before he had a Cherokee grandmother and I remain skeptical - why is it with some people who want to claim Native ancestry they had to have a Cherokee grandmother? but I digress.

He saw me looking at him as he was doing the chop motion, and actually saying the words "tomahawk chop", then proceeded to say "Well as you know I'm Indian too and I like this" in his own defense. My boss said "Well it all depends upon intent".

I'm sure they would not say that if I mocked African American culture (which of course I would never do - I respect all cultures), so why is it everyone feels that they can get away with mocking Native American culture with impunity but all others are protected? Makes my blood boil.

I did run across this article, which pretty much sums it up - I'll share a copy with my boss and team.

Asserting Cultural Sovereignty -> http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=731

Anyway there's the story. I'm looking for advice on how to educate them that doing such things is hurtful and offensive, and just continues to promote racist stereotypes. I'll be talking to my manager (who was present BTW and did nothing to curb what was happening) on Monday, and I'd like to have some things to share with her, and perhaps the rest of the team.

Turn it into a teachable moment for them to hopefully curb such things going forward, especially if we get a new hire to the team who is also Native American. I don't want them to feel as uncomfortable in the team I work with as I have been made to feel.

I have found a fair number of short sequential Lenape language lessons on YouTube, which is good because there's also the pronunciation. I am working my way through, and also making a document/spreadsheet with the words and phrases in Lenape and English. I'm hoping since I don't have anyone (yet, but I hope to find someone) who I can work with, and can start to converse more and more in Lenape with. I'm hoping by listening, thinking about the words & phrases as I transcribe the many lessons into one document that this will help me to learn my language.

Language and culture preservation is very important. I did get in touch with a linguist at UC Berkeley, as a "by-product" of a tech support call, and hoping she can be of some assistance in my learning, or put me in touch with someone who knows & speaks Lenape fluently.

I cry at this scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrirdytJj5k

Someone made a comment in reaction to Dustin Hoffman's character asking about hating the White man, the person leaving the comment saying that he himself did though he is White.

I don't hate the White man, or people of any race. I despise the thinking, the racism and things that were done to my people of the Lenape nation, to all NDN and Indigenous people on this North American and other continents by the colonizers of their lands, but I do not hate the White man for it. I despise the men who let their hatred poison their hearts; their racism drive them to commit genocide against NDN people. To include in the Declaration of Independence of the US the description of NDN people as "Merciless Indian Savages". I'll bet they don't mention that in school when history classes discuss 1776 and the writing & signing of that document. They sure didn't back in my day. The history was told from the perspective of the colonizers.

When NDN people were mentioned in school texts it was always in the context of "in the past". Nothing about contemporary struggles. Just another way the colonizers educational system erased NDN people from the general public consciousness.

These men who committed unspeakable acts of violence and genocide against NDN people were not wholly representative of their people. It is sad they were in the majority for their time, but times are slowly changing. There is still anti-NDN racism and violence today - and I have personally experienced it on numbers of occasions. Look into how many Native women of the US and Canada are Missing or Murdered every year with little investigations, if any. Does it make me angry? Yes.

But hate only breeds more hate, and a black heart. Hate does nothing to heal, it only perpetuates the wounds. Yes I get angry reading the history of the Wounded Knee massacre and others, how can one not? However...

Live a good life with a good heart. If you can do this, really live with a good heart, then you will not give any reasons for anyone to hate what you do or say.

It’s a good read

https://newsmaven.io/indiancountryt.....EaUiAxkDN36gg/

My opinion only. Blood quantum, how much percent of this or that you are to qualify as this or that is divisive. Created by the US Gov't to eventually say that since no one is X percent at this time, then we all don't exist anymore.

NDN’s are the only people who have to prove their ancestry with a DNA test. No one questions someone when they say they are mixed Irish and Italian, mixed German and British and so forth.

It's not so much in some ways what percentage of genetics one possesses that makes one NDN. Not saying I approve of people without a scrap of NDN ancestry claiming they are NDN. Being NDN IMO is more than just your ancestry - it's how you live your life, whether or not you make the effort to learn your tribal language and customs, help your community, take part in ceremonies, and live your life with a good heart.

In my family, the information was verbally passed from elder to son; grandparent to parent to son.

Unfortunately in my case from what my father said (he felt it important that I know despite the objections of his wife, my mother of European descent), he was told by his parents (both were mix blood NDN & White - grandma was Lenape and grandpa was farther back linked to the Nashua (Nashaway) nation) that there were some in the family who did their best to erase the NDN from the family history by destroying whatever they could get their hands on, including birth, marriage and death records. Or having them altered or burned by one in position to do so sympathetic to removing the NDN - but I digress. Such are my family stories.

It's how one lives their lives, what they do for their NDN community in ways of helping out, learning the language and culture, and working on following the culture, traditions and life-ways that makes one NDN.

#NativePride #NotYourMascot

I got into a discussion on Reddit in the subreddit r/IndianCountry about NDN mascots, and though this has probably been known far and wide by others, I wasn’t aware of the town of Lamar CO and the name of their sports team until now.

I checked that out and at least from what I can find the town of Lamar and it’s school doesn’t appear to be anywhere near a reservation nor according to an article in The Denver Post (click the image at the bottom to read the article) does the town or school in any way identify with any particular tribe, yet uses a logo of an Indian in a headdress.

The demographic of the town is predominantly White with less than one tenth of a percent of Indian people, something like .6% or thereabout.

Unfortunately the demographic data does not specify if they mean Indian as in from India or Indian as in Native American (NDN). There is 2% Other listed. It would not surprise me to find that they lumped NDN people into the Other category so as not to acknowledge living NDN people - invisible in our Ancestral home.

There appears to be a lot of resistance (natch) from the White community of the town against changing their ways. Instead they are fighting to preserve their White racist tradition.

There are more important issues to be addressed, and certainly the failure of the system to investigate missing and murdered Native women in the US and Canada, the forced construction and acquisition of tribal land “right of way” for the DAPL and subsequent fight to halt the construction and expansion of said pipeline and others are crucial issues.

I think racist NDN mascots are a small cornerstone issue that allows more crucial issues to be built upon it, as it sets a negative tone regarding NDN people. in my opinion the attitude necessary to denigrate, mock and dishonor all NDN people with racist mascots & traditions provides a foothold for further seeing NDN people as less than the Whites; a people who have no value and thus should be mocked, ignored and forgotten.

I have no clue how anyone can figure that “honors” NDN people. Hopefully this will change in favor of not preserving a racist name that is hurtful to all NDN people. Let’s not forget that the founding document of the United States refers to NDN people as “Merciless Indian Savages”. I can’t understand why the Whites are so proud of designating an entire people, all the different tribes, in such a way.

On a positive note my old Massachusetts home town changed the name of their high school sports team from the Turners Falls Indians to Turners Falls Thunder. A move I was both surprised and pleased to learn about. I spoke with some of my alumni of that high school who were at least in words violently opposed to changing the name, logo etc from the Indians to anything else, citing (White) traditions and honoring and all of that. But it finally happened.

If anyone had known the history of the man for whom the town were named after that would have happened a long time ago.

Captain Turner led his soldiers to massacre an Indigenous fishing village on the bank of the Connecticut river on land that would later become part of the town, at the falls. At the time the massacre took place the adult men were away, and he and his soldiers massacred all the women, children and elders. This is known as the Peskeompskut massacre.

Now if only retirement of Native American mascots would be nationwide.

I've been using cameras since I was 8, I became more serious about pursuing photography as an art form in my late 20's.

However with recent changes in my body I am not confident this is something I will be able to continue. At Further Confusion 2019 I took a large number of photos, some of which required kneeling down or laying on the ground to get the right perspective shot.

In December I had gone to the CA state RR museum in Sacramento, and did a lot of the same. Standing back upright was painful; my right knee was the major problem and I had to be careful of how I stood up to avoid throwing my back out.

Looking back on it, and gauging my physical abilities along with what happened on my trip to Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno, I'm thinking it's time to start with a new art medium.

At BLFC on the morning of the 2nd day I threw my back out just getting dressed in the hotel room, and more than two weeks later it's just now starting to clear up where I'm not in constant pain. I've been walking with the assistance of a cane since BLFC.

Given all this, and what it takes to be a landscape/nature photographer I am not sure my body will allow for me to continue doing so. I'm not that interested in other types of photography, and many of the types of photography other than landscapes & nature still require a level of physical stamina I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain.

So I'm going to be teaching myself how to draw, Furries of course, because they interest me. This I think will become my artistic outlet in place of photography over time. I have back and knee problems that make the physical part of photography difficult for me.

For the most part I'm over being depressed about it, and just sat a while yesterday on Mt. Diablo thinking it over, and what kind of art I can do that my body will allow me to do. I'm not yet ready to sell my camera gear and I may not ever do so. I'm willing to give my body a chance to recover and get into better shape.

But for now I'll be shelving the camera gear and focusing on drawing. Doing my best to maintain a positive attitude. Making lemonade, so to speak.

Grandmother is crying;
Earth sheds her tears
Somewhere an eagle flies
In a bright blue sky

Grandmother is crying;
Earth sheds her tears
Voices cry out of the past
Echoing in my soul

Grandmother is crying;
Earth sheds her tears
I hear my ancestors voices
And I pray

————

For the rains that fall from the sky
And become the mighty rivers
Creator, we are thankful

For the trees and their life giving oxygen
And the splendor of their leaves and needles
Creator, we are thankful

For the wind, carrying coolness to us on hot days
Pollen for new plants and our prayers up to you
Creator, we are thankful

For the winged ones
Whose beauty and powerful grace inspires us
Creator, we are thankful

For the four-leggeds we share this world with
From the ones who bring us companionship, to the ones that bring us food
Creator, we are thankful

For the time you have given us
For the gift each new day is
Creator, we are thankful