Wanted to share this message I received from Gabe Horn, one of the contributors to the new anthology

I have been reading Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time..., and it has been one of the greater reading experiences I have ever had. I have only gotten to read excerpts of some and a few shorter ones to Amy (she is blind) so far, but I shared with her on our walk yesterday how I felt about what I spent hours overnight reading. Here is how I see this book when I read it. All these native writers and artists are connected by the threads you have used to connect them to you, MariJo. It is like you are a kind of Spider Grandmother and you have connected each of us with each other with this incredible book, that is this extraordinary web. You gave us the chance to express appreciation to Vine, and all those teachers we have had on our journeys. They came from different places, like us. They came from different tribes, and blood, like us. But they were all indigenous, like us. This book shows this so powerfully. So defiantly. It is like this book is our tribe, our nation, born of struggles we can each identify with and all of us expressing this profound love and respect we have for the Great Mystery of Creation, and the Earth, the Moon, and all the universe. It is born of our connection to those who have made their Great Changes (death), and we share pages with their words! What an honor! And for one of the great poets, maybe her last poem? How humbled I am. At first, those old childhood poisons that Trace writes about clawed at my mind. I heard my inner voice say about me, You shouldn't be in such a book. Who do you think you are? You don’t deserve to be is such a book? But I walked outside and the Java plum is losing her big yellow leaves. So many, I thought. And then I looked up and the tree looked so much greener and healthier, and I know that I must let go of those things in life that serve no purpose in my growth, and now I feel proud of my, and my beautiful wife Amy’s, inclusions along with each of our brothers and sisters, young and older, and I am also so deeply humbled, and grateful. We live! We are still here! The indigenous perceptions of the world and the universe lives! This book is that living proof. We say it with our experiences. We say it with our hearts. We say it with our intellects. We may have felt isolated, and still might from time to time, but Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time brings us together all at once, and says, We are not alone. These are our people! This is who we are. This is what we do. These are my people! So, if you do feel that notion of being alone conjuring in your mind, pick up this book and hold it over your heart, and you will know, you are not alone. We are here with you.

And, if you want to truly live, America. To know what it truly means, to love one’s country. Of what Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time, is saying.... Take heed!

Thank you, MariJo, and Trace too, with all my heart for this gift of life.

gabe