Why isn’t turquoise a reminder of ultimate sacrifice?
Beads are not just bits of mythology growing among weeds of a few hundred million dead.
All that remains of once glorious wind rifling prairie plains, desert living Indians, eastern mohawked congressional tribes, a 1000 languages, and middle America pyramids.
Now totem poles tourist attractions, Massapequa, and Woe, there be no buffalo? Some even ask why American Indians keep to themselves.
Not forgot by us: myriad trailing tears, wagon wheels cutting into bright welcoming earth, leases of land, and your trains filled with stolen little ones.
Forgot not still: faith of the past, hope as a wealth.
Wear beads with pride, won’t you?

I FOUND THE HISTORY OF HISTORY MOST INTERESTING,
how thoughts had adapted to embrace empathy and sadness and lives destroyed even as it regarded them with a dizzying speed. Outreaching from biblical history I began to study the ancient near east. This neatly coincided with a new found spiritual path. After the end of the QA, I got horribly sick…ill for weeks with strep throat, horrible congestion and general malaise. I was lost and unhappy, rejecting friends left and right. I felt fatter than ever and I was. I decided to start praising the goddess I knew and loved, to really pay attention to my spiritual gifts in hopes of seeing total manifestation of a road to health. Recognizing over time how exhausting the fun I had reading palms or tarot proved marvelously beneficial. Here, I figured it out; not everyone feels that deep and whole lot of people know better than to want to. I began to mold a Jesus goddess model in my brain, taking all the best parts of any religion I came across. Sometimes I called it Faithism, sometimes Christian Shamanism, sometimes Wiccan – but Pagan no matter what. I went to a drugstore in Westwood on a sunny afternoon in October. I was happy, had gotten some money and wanted to buy some things for Halloween. Every year I try to make a big deal out of it, as I now can celebrate it. Usually this means a lot of driving to parties or avoiding main streets on the way to West Hollywood while I try and temptingly treat the world in a sexy, succulent outfits. So I was considering things at the checkout, while I waited in line and overheard a nearby cashier speak to a customer. The cashier was African american, the customer a bejeweled bespectacled older woman who looked like a small dog was missing her right at that moment. Proper Westwood circumstances, and the customer was going on about Halloween and everything she had to get. Offhand and polite, she asked the cashier what she'd be doing for the holiday. "I'll be at church", the cashier said. Explaining that she and her family didn't celebrate the holiday, but went to church and prayed for those who did. The woman was taken aback and I broke out smiling. I wasn't upset in the least, just fondly remembering how much that sucked while realizing how happy it is to celebrate for whatever the reason. I remarked to the cashier across the way, "By the way I grew up like that too". The cashier turned to me and looked hard at me. "Oh yeah, I can see the demons following you still". "You know it!", I cheerfully replied as I walked out wearing a Donnie Darko t-shirt and grinning. After attending a pro-gay episcopalian church I knew that there was god's love for all, no matter what. There was a weekly Bible session, where a french chef prepared a full meal; the cost, listening to a 10 min sermon and discussion after. I loved the rituals and reverence, but I was still unable to admit I believed Christianity 100%. I love faith, I am faith…I believe there is much missing from most faiths too. Christianity's willingness to have singular deities with male attributes is shameful. Pastors remark, "We could call God a her, but God is genderless so we just call God him"). I stopped going to church and began practicing pagan as much as possible. I work with To Ride A Silver Broomstick by Silver Ravenwolf (wrong name, get the right one), a respected witch and priestess in the Pow Wow tradition. Astrology plays a large part in my religion as well; I keep track of lunar cycles and other pertinent info for a multisquared girl. I came out as a pagan to my family when I was 23, 24. For my mother, she believes I me still a closeted Christian. But over time I learned the way she prays is so very close to mine. We both have the same intentions, good will and peace for all. She just believes there was a price to pay, I think we alone decide the costs of total love, forgiveness, peace and joy. My mother wonders how I became the optimist. I can't say that bong hits didn't mellow me out over the years, but medicinal moments aside I believe I learned to like Happy. I don't idly investigate anything. Growing up pentecostal instilled a belief in how we can feel. The holy spirit was real to my mother and I felt the whisper of it too. I thought to myself "That is something misdiagnosed by popular spirituality!" Recognizing that the Judeo-Christian ideals had helped imprisoned women for years while denying any respect to queers would cause most any out queer former christian woman to re-assess her level of rebellion. As I rebelled, I felt a tug of the love of Jesus and the hidden words ripped from the bible only to be discovered millennia later. As a historian, I bore witness to the many different permutations of Christian possibility and the failures of Constantine, Charlemagne, King James II, and John Paul 2 to harness a prophet into pieces of real peace.