Eagles & Fish

[the mingo]

All peoples on earth choose totems for themselves. Symbols for what they are or wish to be & the image they want to project to the world. Yesterday I watched an eagle carry a brook trout to it's nest and drop it there. Then it flew off for a moment on another errand and left the trout flopping around in the nest. When the eagle came back it landed on the flopping fish, locked an iron talon around the trout's head and straightways tore into that living flesh with a no nonsense beak. It then placed those strips of flesh into the open mouths of its young who eagerly swallowed it and opened up for more. The eagle is the totem my nation chose for itself.
Can anyone say "Trout Fishing in America?"

Amen.

[SadLuckDame]

Yes, that was beautiful mingo.

[the mingo]

Hey Doll ! What you doin home this fine weekday? Are you playin hooky ? Nice surprise. As you can tell I'm just injuring eternity here by killin time with my mind jus runnin on & on and all. my brain some days like a mink busy darting here & there goin long the riverbank nosing under every rock and overturning them and flippin over driftwood and such jus to see what's goin on. As usual I always spect to come face to face with the inevitable. I'm rarely disappointed on that score. The inevitable gave rise to every game mankind knows in the whole universe. I don't hold with that homo sapiens nonsense, seems extremely self centered to me. No no I think the case is more towards homo ludens - man the player.

[SadLuckDame]

I'm just reading about alligators.
I mean why feed them pork chops if ya want them to eat frogs and such, but I'm really enjoying my time. It's the climb, it's the climb.

Gotta bite to eat, right.
Are you hookying?

[the mingo]

no no don't go into work 'til four in the afternoon most days. Get out at midnight.
just as one day ends & the next begins i get released into the mutually programming harmonies of the wild. gotta make lunch myself for work. Then maybe slather on real whipped cream over apple crumble. To hell with toppling over as nothing but skin & bones when the moment comes - i want to bounce off the earth as a wow finish to my fall two seconds after my spirit leaves these realms.

[judih]

and the two tear into their lunch without a look right or left
food is food
live trout
or cream from a cow
while i hunt cabbage in my refrigerator
hoping for a topping of sprouts
you eat what you can
to turn on the light

[the mingo]

hiya judih & thx.

[Atehequa]

I've watched Eagles clip fish from Ospreys before. Extreme anglers they are.

Mingo ?(Mingwe)

You are of the Haudenosaunee ?

[the mingo]

The Haudenosaunee are my grandmother's people.
Grandmother - Oneida - born to the Wolf Clan - I was raised white, white father. Blood is mixed. Most of what I know of this comes from my maternal uncle who was my sole educator in these matters and opened my eyes to things I would otherwise never have known because no one in my family but he would answer any of my questions I had about my grandmother when I was growing up and he had to be circumspect, I have since realized, in his answers knowing as he did the climate of the rest of the family. But where he could he gave me truth or led me to where I might discover & know it for myself. My curiosity about my grandmother seemed to interest him greatly. He taught me how to track dreams. My grandmother and I never had the chance to speak face to face for she walked on from this world the year I was born. Whenever I asked my mother she was apt to give me her memories of her mother by way of answer. I never fit smoothly into my father's world and the same is true for my grandmother's world. Sometimes I can walk in both & other times I am locked out of either. Whites see me as a trash breed & skins see me as white. Because of this I have harbored in my time animosities against both peoples & the hypocrisies common to both that are equally denied by both but I am 60 years old now and have for some time realized I've always ever only wanted to walk my own trail and I certainly have been granted that in my life, in spades. What of you, Atehequa, who are you & who are you from ?

[Atehequa]

Greetings The Mingo, good to meet you

I kinda understand where you are coming from. Mixed blood as well. My mother was Shawnee and my father was descendant from the Irish who settled in the Appalachians and had a bit of Catawba in him.

Living off the rez with other Shawano remnants in the old homeland my mother and her people were considered colored by the whites many years ago during the Jim Crow times.

I was born and raised in Virginia as my father transfered here when he was in the military. I was fortunate enough to meet up with other Indian and mixed kids who ended up in Virginia the same way as me. One of my oldest and dearest friends is half Lumbee. I also know some of the Chickahominy, Mattaponi and Pamunkey.

I am old, and near 60 winters.

[the mingo]

Good to meet you too, Atehequa. Good beginnings are best and most likely to pay the deepest dividends over the distance. I have really enjoyed your portrait work you have posted as I've already commented. What prompted you to do the Mongolian shaman as subject ? It caught my eye.

Born and raised in central New York for myself. I know more Onondaga & Mohawks than I do Oneidas. I get along well with the Mohawk. They speak their mind up front and straight to your face and Mohawk women will look you in the eye when talking to you. Not so for the Onondaga except on an individual basis. They are more reserved. There is a lot of mingling between the Onondaga & Mohawk. The Onondaga rez is thirty miles south of me. The Mohawks are much further to the northeast but there are many residing on the Onondaga rez.

Gonna take the kayaks out this afternoon. Was out yesterday with them up on the Salmon River. First time I ever sat in a kayak I knew that wherever home was the kayak came from there & I spend much time in them. It's a beautiful July day and I will catch you later.

[Atehequa]

An interest in other animistic beliefs aside from my own. I've an interest in the Mongols a people who have resisted all who attempt to lead or force them away from their spiritual path.

[the mingo]

Thx, Atehequa, for answering that. Talk later. The kayaks & the river this afternoon took it outta me.

[Atehequa]

Braver soul than I, someone who has never been in a kayak. I do the canoe. Been stuck at home all weekend with a hurt ankle and it's bloody humid down here.

You speak of Trout, always a good sight on the end of my line and sometimes in the skillet served up with a nice helping of Morels and perhaps a little ramps. I usually fish the Jackson, Cow Pasture, or North Rivers, sometimes go after Lake Trout in Lake Moomaw.

I imagine the Brookies are much larger up where you are.

[the mingo]

I did some map walking on those places you spoke of. That looks like good country. Old country. Older than man. The Adirondack mountains here in the great state of Yew Nork are like that. I get up in them as often as I can. Hundreds of mountain lakes and rivers and streams up there whose beauty is beyond words. And for a kayak it is nothing short of paradise all the way 'round. In my home county of Oswego fishing is big business. Brings millions of dollars into the county every year. Bait and tackle shops on every other corner. Boat dealerships. You name it. The fishing is good here, brookies, rainbows, large and smallmouth bass, salmon, muskies, northern pike, panfish up the wazoo.

Don't have to be brave for a kayak, Atehequa. Just need a heart ready for revelations and eyes that want to see - & I'm not talking mystically though it does border on that, perhaps even enters it sometimes. In the Aleut & Eskimo languages kayak means "hunter's boat". In my experience with these craft this has proven out solid. A kayak will show you things you didn't even know you were looking for every time you take her out on the water. Every time you get into a kayak you and the boat become a new being that neither of you are when separated. The kayak arose out of the heart & mind & spirit of man in answer to a need. A need to survive, a need to eat, a need to continue, a need to exist in a future and a need for hope. From hope comes laughter. And I have laughed from the cockpit of that little boat, Atehequa. I have laughed at & with the eagle & the heron & the kingfisher & beaver & woodchuck & mink & deer & the wind passing the leaves and lifting them along the banks of the rivers. I have watched the wonder & delight & surprise in a woman's eyes as a trout rises in front of her bow and takes out the dragonfly hovering there and then she turns to me and says with the delight and surprise and wonder still on her face and asks me, "Did you see that ! ?"
Yeah, Atehequa, did you see that!?"

I have sat among all the spirits of the land and waters & floated with my paddle out of the water, kicked back in the cockpit, and ate fig newtons under a sky that had no problem with my presence there. Your tagline mentions "true poets".
A kayak is a true poet's boat.

I have never been in a canoe.

I hope your ankle mends soon.