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San Geronimo Day, Part III

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

After lunch, we walked from Amitola’s home through the back of the pueblo and apologized for being intrusive; a man responded: “that’s all right. It’s your day.” Eight sacred Tricksters or clowns painted with black and white horizontal stripes emerged over the top of the five-story pueblo. They came across the top on all fours, like menacing, prowling animals. Feathers sprung from their headdresses and from their loin clothes. A magical sight. With graceful stealth they move through the crowd, teasing, whooping, touching. In the middle of the plaza, scores of vendors from the 19 pueblos quickly cover their wares so that the Tricksters wouldn’t take their jewels and blankets. On top of the cover, however, the visiting vendors placed a gift for the Tricksters—food, water, a small bracelet—any such gifts bringing blessings upon the givers.

Morgan and I took turns mingling with the crowd and witnessing the pranks. A quite rotund, comical Trickster approached a woman and took her hand, motioning that he wanted to take her to the mountain. She resisted, but eventually agreed to kiss him as a consolation prize. Out of the crowd came another man, significantly larger than the Trickster, looking disapprovingly at him. He, perhaps a husband, took the woman’s hand and pulled her away. The Trickster ran after them trying to get her back, but failed (he was no competition for the husband, who pushed him away). To resist the will of the Trickster is a bad omen. He sullenly returned to the crowded, stomping and raging, picked up his bottle of orange soda, shook it and sprayed it on the laughing crowd.

For nearly two hours, the Tricksters stirred up trouble: throwing “bad boys” in the river, pulling women into a circular dance, an impromptu soccer game. One of the Tricksters found a heavyset woman lying asleep on the ground, and lay down to mimic her, then put his leg across her body. She was embarrassed, but played along and patted his leg. The marauding Tricksters climbed the grandstand covered with woven fall branches and tore it apart (including the cross), handing limbs of gold to nearby Indian women.

By 3:30, several Tricksters gathered at the base of the 80-foot greased pole that is erected every fall for this celebration. At the top, there were 2 thin poles inserted through the larger one and bags of gifts containing products made by the pueblo people hung on each; the first man to attempt the climb (there is a heavy rope looped part way up) got to the top, then began to slide down and lost his footing, getting rope burns, then fell the last 10 feet or so. The next man made it to the top and used the rope to lower the gifts. Success means health and prosperity until next year’s events. The crowd cheered, then scrambled for the contents of the bundles.

Next: The BBC produces “Lawrence in Taos.”

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San Geronimo Day-Part II

Saturday, October 8th, 2011

Being invited to the home of an Indian family on the Pueblo for San Geronimo Day is quite an honor. It began last April when I met Amitola (meaning butterfly, but not her real name) at a ranch and agricultural conference here in Taos. Her intelligent question drew my immediate attention, so I approached her and explained my project. After two long conversations at her favorite coffee shop and a couple of letters in between, she invited me to join her and her family on this special day.

I called her the day before to ask if my husband could come along and she said in her dry humorous style, “I don’t allow men in my house, but perhaps he could stand in the back.” Clearly the intervening months had not tarnished our playful relationship. After the morning races, we sought out her traditional Indian adobe home down a dusty road behind the Pueblo plaza to leave off a ham, cookies and lemonade, then returned later for lunch. As we arrived, her daughter invited us to sit in the backyard—it was a beautiful, warm day and visit; Amitola and another friend joined us. We were told of the history of this 1945 family home built by her grandfather when he returned from WWII. Set among the red willows, replete with carved wooden columns and artwork, we felt as though we had move back in time.

The lunch was a feast. Turkey and dressing, salads, chili stews, homemade breads, posole, cakes and lemonade. Great coffee, homemade biscotti. Luscious. Family and friends—including many children—gathered in shifts around a table in the kitchen sat for ten. As one group finished, the table was replenished, then another group arrived, reminding us of the race. The seven-year old grandson, who had shown his readiness to be part of the community by racing that morning, said the prayer.

Next, San Geronimo Day, Part III

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San Geronimo Day-September 30-Part I

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

When we left the house at 6:30 am last Friday to share in the renowned San Geronimo Day (St. Jerome Day) at the Taos Pueblo, the air was chilled and the soft light of morning barely enough to guide one’s steps. But we knew that by the time the end of this long day arrived, we would be very warm indeed. We drove the half hour to the Pueblo and settled ourselves with friends at the base of the five-story pueblo near the grandstand and starting line for the race. Well, “race” doesn’t quite describe this ancient Indian ritual for the men, ages 7-70, ran in tandem, one at a time. No competition. It is said that this essential ritual keeps the seasons, as well as the sun, rotating around the earth. The sacred earth, Mother Earth, source of all life. “And what if you didn’t perform these rituals,” Carl Jung asked of Chief Mountain Lake in 1925. “The earth would become dark and everyone would die,” Mountain Lake replied simply.

As we stood waiting for the ritual, the sun sprayed across the multi-layered pueblo lined with women in colorful shawls. One of Taos’ brilliant animated paintings. The guests, mostly Anglos, lined up on the south side of the running area. On upright beams eight feet above ground, sat the grandstand wrapped in tree limbs with golden autumn leaves. A golden cross towered over the enclosure. Inside sat two priests, the leader of the Penitentes, and three Indians. Statues from the nearby St. Jerome Church had been paraded out after the 6:00 am mass and planted on the platform. The Virgin Mary–dressed in her seasonal gold colored satin– was joined by St. Jerome, the Indian saint Kateri, and Jesus.

About 50 Runners gathered at the base of the grandstand and readied themselves to run. Their bodies were adorned with white and clay-colored paint, brightly decorated loincloths (red velvet, blue satin, decorated with flowers, design, black, purple) feathers across their chests and in their hair. As each barefooted man stepped up to run, the men standing behind them rubbed his back with feathers to help him fly. The runners whopped and yelped—women trilled. They left the starting place as another runner returned and crossed the finish line of green and gold branches. One little boy tripped and fell as he left, but got up and continued. Runners left in a fast sprint, returning slowly, some walking. We understood the path to be about l/4 mile. Feathers lined the outer rim of the race and visitors were told not to touch them.

Relationships among the runners were helpful and caring—rubbing dust on the legs of returning runners, kissing a hand, patting a shoulder, rubbing with feathers, brushing hands with open palms. After nearly an hour and a half, everyone ran as a group toward the east, then back again, standing for prayer. As they paraded out, small candies were showered on them by the crowd. Those in the grandstand scrambled down the ladder and paraded the statues back to the church.

Next: Lunch with Indian friends on the Pueblo

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Journeying back to Taos….

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

With the release of the second novel in the Cairo Trilogy, Etruscan Evenings, Morgan and I enthusiastically return to Taos at the end of this week to pursue research on the third novel, Taos: Song of the Loom. We are eager to reunite with friends and enjoy the beauty and culture of New Mexico. While there, I will be discussing Etruscan Evenings at the La Fonda Hotel in the Lawrence room on October 2 from 4-6, arranged with exceptional skill by Mary McPhail Gray and co-sponsored by The Friends of D.H. Lawrence and the bookstore, Moby Dickens.

It is a breathtakingly rich period in Taos. On September 28, film producer Mark Gordon will be present his film-in-progress about Mabel Dodge Luhan at the Harwood Museum with Ali McGraw reading from Mabel’s Edge of the Desert. On September 30, San Geronimo Day at the Pueblo draws Indians from all 19 pueblos and hundreds of visitors for the rituals and crafts of the southwest. Liz Cunningham, curator of the website “Mabel Dodge Luhan and the Remarkable Women of Taos” gives us stories of the artistic community and alerts us that 2012 will be the “Year of the Woman.” BBC and author Geoff Dyer (Out of Sheer Rage: the Search for DH Lawrence) will be researching a new film on Lawrence. The twenties are very much alive in Taos…reminds one of Woody Allen’s new film, “Midnight in Paris”! How delicious.

Upcoming Book Talks-Etruscan Evenings

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Four-Eyed Frog, Gualala-September 14, 5:00

La Fonda Hotel, Taos, New Mexico, October 2, 4:00-6:00

Home of Mary Gardner, San Jose, CA, November 18, 5:00-7:00 (e-mail me for directions)

Il Pero, Arezzo, Italy, April 28, 2012, time to be announced

More to come…Linda

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Etruscan Evenings released!

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Etruscan Evenings lies in the sensuous curvature of ancient

and present day Italy. The sequel to Cairo Diary: an Egyptian

fable, follows the life of anthropologist Dr. Justine Jenner

after she is expelled from Egypt in the wake of discovering

and making public the controversial diary of the Virgin Mary.

Exiled into Tuscany, Jenner finds herself embroiled in three

interwoven stories of discovery: the long-lost letters from D.H.

Lawrence to her great-grandmother, Isabella; an Etruscan

tomb revealing the origin and migration of an ancient people

predating Rome; and the genealogy of the Virgin Mary and

Jesus. While shaken by the frank revelations in Lawrence’s

letters and the intimate relationship between the primeval

Etruscans and Jesus’ mother, Jenner must confront her own

sexuality and yearning for personal freedom. The second in a

trilogy, Etruscan Evenings is riveted with literary, religious and

archeological history and international politics, each narrative

magnifying and altering the meaning of the others. Get Etruscan Evenings

by ordering at your local bookstore, Authorhouse.com, Amazon or Barnes & Noble on-line.

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Young Women of Egypt

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

My readers remind me that it has been two weeks since I’ve posted on this blog. As soon as we returned from Egypt and Lebanon we were involved in the glorious graduations of our grandchildren Dylan Smock and Catherine Lambert. We are so proud of them and their plans for the future: UC Santa Cruz and CSU Chico, respectively.

This interval has also given us time to reflect upon our recent journey.

One of the most enlightening experiences in Egypt was our opportunity to spend time with many old friends, especially several young daughters (and one 12 year old granddaughter and 9 year old grandson who knowledgeably discussed the comparative strengths of presidential candidates and constitutional changes).

For each of the five daughters—from three Moslem and one Christian family—we noticed a remarkable change in their personal sense of empowerment, confidence and engagement in politics. Pride. Four of the daughters (one was a new mother) had been full participants in Tahrir Square during the revolution. They had witnessed it all: the mutual excitement and support, the endurance and resilience, the abuse and violence. Now they hold strong positions about the future of Egypt, including the Mubaraks and their crimes, the military, the youth council and constitution, the presidential candidates.

And, there was something else. A thrilling venturing out—risk taking. One young woman had left a high level human resources position with Coca Cola to open her own personnel agency; another left a secure translation job to open her own independent consulting business. Another, a journalist, left her position and joined creative youth to produce a film about the revolution. Yet another young woman accepted a new position to design policies for the disabled (a neglected area in the Middle East). The youngest of the women, equally engaged in the new politics of Egypt, will spend her next college year at UC Davis in California where we will be her “parents away from home.” Such independent mobility on the part of women is symbolic of a society cracking open with opportunities and young women stepping forward without the necessity of having men at their sides. I find the emergence of women the most promising aspect of the Arab Spring.

Tomorrow—July 17—women in Saudi Arabia will demonstrate for the right to drive. More on this movement over the weekend.

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The Sheikh and Me

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

(NOTE DEAR READER, THIS ENTRY AND THE FOLLOWING TWO WERE ALL POSTED TODAY.)

On the first day of the TAMAM conference, a young man from Dubai handed me three books from his mentor and friend—an elderly Sheikh, a holy man, of renown, now living in a tent and shepherding his goats in the desert. He asked that I read the books and tell him what I thought of them the next day. The Sheikh wanted my opinion.

On the next day—having been up late the night before—I had not done my homework. The young man talked with me and said the Sheikh had called and asked for my report.

Now duty-bound, that night I read as much as I could of the books, noting several positive responses. The Sheikh is truly an accomplished scholar and entrepreneur—well educated and the founder of two women’s universities and a number of businesses. The books were well and respectfully written. When he refers to a person, he uses “he/she.” One book concerned the Ten Commandments and his premise that we are all Moslems, although some of Christians and Jews have not yet “returned” to the fold; another spoke of the stages of a man’s life and a type of memoir; and the third discussed the first stage of life. At dinner on the last evening I shared my positive reactions, then began to tell him what I didn’t agree with. He stopped me. The Sheikh told him that if there were anything I disagreed with, he would want to talk with me personally. He asked that Dr. Monera, the assistant director of the Arab Thought Foundation, make the arrangements.

This morning, Monera called to say that the Sheikh had called her at home and that she was to hear my disagreements and relay them to him. So I talked some of them through with her and she called him back.

Later in the day, I met the young man in the lobby of our hotel and he had talked with the Sheikh once more after he had heard my criticisms. Through an interpreter, the young man extended the Sheikh’s invitation for my husband and I to visit him in Dubai.

Why me? she asks. Linda

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TAMAM continues…

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

We found it intriguing that the challenges and concerns voiced by the attendees at the excellent TAMAM conference were not unlike those heard in many other places around the world. Among those issues were:

• How do we motivate people who don’t want to change?

• In a country where power in distributed among a few, how do we create equitable relationships in school communities and teams and between coaches and those coached?

• How do we keep from deferring excessively to those in authority?

• Many women now in the profession went into teaching when they had few choices. Now things have changed (even in Saudi) and women can choose among many professions. Many women who were forced into teaching see it as a job, a burden, not a profession—how do we awaken them?

• How do we change a culture in which the principal is supposed to know everything?

• How do we develop new relationships with the ministries and directories so that they will support rather than contradict our initiatives? (note the discussion in the last post).

• Can everyone lead? And, if so, what does that mean for us?

For you educators out there…sound familiar?

One of the many lengthy conversations I had with a woman was about these very issues—particularly how we can change cultures in order to cause people to accept and initiate change. She related what she tells her daughter about empowerment. Her eyes were warm and smiling as we spoke; that is all I could see of her face as it was buried within her full burka.

Linda

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The TAMAM Conference in Beirut

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

“Our teachers are working on our capacities to make of us

thinking human beings.”

-A Third Grade girl in a school video, at an all girl’s school,

Saudi Arabia

From Morocco to Oman and 10 countries in between, the word is school-based reform. This widely acclaimed conference drew educators from throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Most remarkably, the interim Minister of Education from Libya, a professor from Benghazi who is very knowledgeable in teaching and learning and is determined to reopen Libya’s schools as soon as possible (they’ve been closed during the unrest).

Sponsored by the Arab Thought Foundation, the American University of Beirut and the TAMAM (in Arabic: al-tatweer al-mustanid ila al-madrasa)project, the program included school and country presentations. TAMAM is committed to a new paradigm in the Arab world: developing a theory for long-term educational change grounded in school practices while building capacity for improvement. The major approach is inquiry or action research (bottom up change with top down support) focused on building communities of practice, professional development that changes habits of mind, transformation of school culture and working with university teams. I was honored to give the keynote address on leadership capacity, debrief two World Cafes, and teach a workshop on team coaching.

TAMAM captured the imagination of the participants who are using many of the key ideas already. I was most intrigued by Egypt’s report of its new approach to school-based reform with school improvement plans and local boards (“so that our policies won’t change every time we have a change of ministers”). They were the first to admit that these good intentions have yet to reveal good results.

The last discussion question was particularly thoughtful: How can the schools, universities, and ministries go forward together into the future. The groups almost unanimously called for co-equal, mutual partnerships.

“Reform,” our friend Ambassador Hassouna told us before we came, “is the word used everywhere.”