Here are my credentials. I have none. I am the one who has done these things and it is I that has said what has been said right here.

eMail Turtle Heart

I worked one on one, and I was that one. In the military I was in medicine and also for a time afterwards. The American medical system is very powerful and even works sometimes. Working in it was stressful and, like the military, you become exposed to the leadership and control of industrialized work, mass societal automationism. I tried a number of specialties and schools but could never make peace with the class system in charge of the medicine. I find the automationism of corporate society repugnant and uncomfortable. Finally I went to work for myself.

Like many in my generation I began to embrace ideas of other religions and cultures. My mother had dragged me into Sunday services of the Southern Baptist faith since I was a little kid. As I grew older I seemed to arrive at a moment that the teachings of all the great races of people were meeting. at least in books, films and universities. This time was the first time in world history that so much information about the world became readily available to so many people. It was a time of near revolution. The only revolution that has survived those times is the information revolution. That one is till expanding exponentially. I am a functioning part of that information revolution. It put into me finally a really strong desire to know the ideas and teachings of my American Indian ancestors.

I need silence and privacy in order to assimilate what is happening to me and around me. I get up at 7 or 8 in the morning but am unfit and unwilling to deal with the world until after mid day. I need coffee and silence and peace at the beginning of the day.

If I was quiet and good I got into trouble with people who feared my strong energy or who were intimidated by my silence. When I was “bad” people often overreacted and suspected the worse, not understanding that I was an educated man. No matter how rebellious I would become, I always exercised restraint. I was idealistic, not a barbarian. I felt close at times to the forces of chaos, but I also have always felt in control of my own life at any rate. I am not angry at any one, and I am not against any one. Growing up I had playmates of every race.

The Young Man |

My primary and initial education was largely in the areas of science. I was an exceptional science student. When I encountered the sacred pipe as a young man, I used the same habits and enthusiasm for science in order to understand the sacred pipe. I learned that the sacred pipe, the ceremonies, stand up very well to science, real science. I set out to do the very best I could to educate myself as thoroughly as possible. I soon learned that a promise to be a good student and study the sacred pipe became an obligation to look closely at everything in the world. I looked at the tribes who had, and the tribes who never had. I looked in science, in medicine, in churches, all over the world. I talked with workers, technicians, politicians, educators, cops, soldiers, scientists, doctors, lawyers and everyone in between. As I listened to the arguments and thoughts of all these teachings, I always looked for where the sacred pipe might be inside, or in harmony with, that teaching. I looked for validation using reason and analysis and thought. It was, and remains, a very powerful part of the work to listen and look at all things. While the so-called separations of science, government and religion seem to have value as a political ideology, in real life these “separate” things exist all at once in your life, stuffed inside your bones.

I leave my work to speak for itself. I have no interest in BIA money or land. I have never asked the tribes, or the US Government for anything and I never will. 

I have tracked the sacred path through many worlds and cultures on this Mother Earth. It is a dangerous route filled with encounters that can destroy you and certainly hurt you. It is called the “journey through the underworld” by the old Indians. If you ever take this path, this sacred road you will bleed.

My real work, at its Core, is not with tribes, or even with “Indians”, it is with the original instructions and is based upon my relationship with a group of tribal elders from the four directions and of several “races”. It is most importantly work of the natural law of the mother earth, the Original Source of all tribal teachings.

I do not claim or pretend to speak for all or any American Indian people. I am speaking for myself, I am speaking with the permission of my teachers, and our mutual experiences from within. I am speaking from within, rather than about, the sacred of the American Indian earth.

The fruit of the sacred is for all. You must make your own journey to find and harvest this sacred fruit. You cannot pretend you have the fruit when you do not. The fruit is there in the sacred garden for everyone, anyone, to find and be nourished thereof, but only if to those who know the way.

My Credentials |

I ain’t enrolled in nothing. with the US Government. They have nothing I want. The only numbers I have are social security number and my “Codice Fiscali”. I have had one telephone number for a 33 years now, my PIN for one of my bank-cards is pretty ancient. Other than that no numbers. My computer has a serial number. It is such a part of me I might have it tattooed on my behind. I refuse to be enrolled in the Federal Tribal System. I am not the only American Indian who feels this way. Enrollment is consent to be managed. Wabeeno’s cannot be managed. We can only be listened to or ignored.

Over my lifetime I have been gifted a number of sacred objects by a number of tribal elders. I have their full authority to use these objects and create the ceremonies of which they are the heart. The elders who gifted these ceremonies to me are the sole authority in their use. It was their right and their privilege to do this. My art and my ceremonies are my life and my credentials. Otherwise I am not registered, certified, licensed or in possession of any certified official toilet paper from the modern world.

Working Life | Survival.

Much of my early life was spent in the study of survival. For my own protection I became involved in many studies and training's about self defense and about self knowledge. Bushido. Taoist Poetry. Old Peyote Songs. I was always in danger as a child, or so I believed. My father was a violent man. My society was a violent one. My schools were violent. You could be, and I was, attacked going down the street minding my own business. People were always ready to fight when I was a teenager. I went to some rough schools. I think the early studies I made to protect myself saved my life. All the years during junior and high schools I was fighting or talking my way out of fighting. I was always the new kid at the school or in the neighbourhood. As a child we moved many times, I always showed up in the middle or at the end. Never there at the beginning. I had no choice but to fight or run away. I have never been one to run away.

I have never been a person who felt comfortable being pushed around, physically, spiritually or emotionally. I try to be even and fair with people. If I don’t like people I stay away from those people. I like the people who are close to me to be interesting, peaceful, educated, adventurous and beautiful.

These old Indians and the pipes they placed in my hands became the elders I was determined to serve. These dual experiences in a violent society and in a mystery life of the inspired ideas presented by old Indians and Japanese swordsmen were duelling forces in my young life. Even today as I follow the direction of my Ojibwe Elders, I exercise using Chi Kung and Kendo.

I have had the arrows of every kind of angry person come look for me. I do not believe in allowing myself to be the subject of oppression. I have worked and walked in freedom my whole life. I wish the same for everyone. Those angry arrows never arrive because I believe I am protected by the Intent of the old Indians. I believe if you know how to live the angry arrow cannot reach you, that there is no place for the rage of the modern world to enter my life, body or spirit.

I learned that it was easier for me to protect my freedom and seek my teachers and define my life myself, on my own. This is the way of the Ojibway Wabeeno, the sacred outsider, the protector and keeper of the correction ceremonies.

I know now, this is always who I was; that Wabeeno. The elders who saw me knew that long before I did. This is a fact which amazes me to this day. In many ways my fighting, stubborn nature, my willingness to go it alone if I have to; and my passion for education and knowledge have made me what I have always been. A singular education for a singular task. I made my education. I found my teachers.

 I worked for clarity in understanding the math, science, psychology and reasoning behind the original ceremonies, the old ceremonies of the old Indians. These original tribal rituals are social engineering on a fantastic scale created with absolute precision and honesty. In a world of liars, spin masters, diplomats, hate groups, and obscure agendas hiding in politics, religion and business, these original ceremonies stand out for their clarity, honesty, simplicity.

These days I try to use my fighting spirit to understand what these things may mean to science, to society, to hospitals, to governments and places of education, to modern people in their isolated lives of plenty.

Most “race behavior” comes from very bad and very old ancient habits. It meant nothing in the ancient days, and it means even less now. It is inevitable and necessary that the four races of human beings give life to each other’s children. It is not something that can be stopped. Racist arguments are a form of rage and fear. There has never been a rational or true racist argument. This is in particular true about so-called “blood quantum” arguments.

A black man, Mr York, a slave belonging to Mr Clark, travelled all through northern American Indian country with Lewis and Clark, coast to coast. The first black man to do it. In every place where the expedition made camp for some days, local American Indian women waited in line for the chance to have sex with him, hoping to give birth to a unique baby, the “black white man”. There was competition to be the one family with a “black” Indian baby.  That was a long time ago. There is no way to know how many children came from this man. Many of those babies at that time would have been looked at to be medicine people, special people. American Indian women did this at that time for mystery life reasons. They understood without having to write a paper about it. This behaviour was natural to those people at that time. They were not worried about fear and hatred being directed at them for having a mixed blood child. This is one example to keep in mind.

The greatest redemption of all, for me, has been the knowledge, the gift of being able to understand why and how we are all children of this original mother earth. This power that good people have to do good things is what a real warrior is. It is for this work that the sacred was given to all people. My life has been shaped by events both rough and smooth. It has been influenced by people who are amazing and by people who are pathetic. My life was changed forever by the old Indians.

Hidden for 500 plus years, inside an old water cistern, restoration workers found an old marble bust of Julius Caesar. Overlaying the cistern was a lavish sacrifice, the bones of numerous large animals. For some reason, at that time, it was best to hide the face of Caesar, perhaps when the Spanish came to hold the Island and expel the Romans. They built a castle in the medieval period. Many who have studied this bust, broken off what may have been a full figure statue, say it is one of the best likenesses ever seen of the Julius Caesar. This could indicate that it was modeled from life, that the old dictator sat for this art. Here on tiny Pantelleria.

When I was a young boy I felt the spirit and life of Julius Caesar. I was quite young but made a large investment in reading everything about him and by him, he wrote quite a few books,  that I could find. My favorite portrait of Caesar is contained in the historical fiction of the writer Talbut Mundy. This interest in this man, which I have had all my life, came to me the way the aroma of a flower arrives on the wind.

I thank the Mystery Life every day for my brain, for my curiosity to learn. If you are open to learning, you will learn. Some things I learned quickly, some more slowly. It was no time at all before I came to understand how sweet nature could be, and how resolute and unforgiving. It was easy to find stories of exceptional people at every level of society. I was never attracted to violent films, violent stories and films or aggressive music. I have always been attracted to people who have sterling characters and courage, and either a good working world intelligence or exceptional common sense. All the great intellectuals I have read, and understood much of what I read. I loved great science fiction, which was one of my early passions. All these great science fictions were hopeful about where we have been as a society and where we might be going. Though they might see us having to pass through Hell to get there.

I occupy my own unique position here. I have intervened with my ceremonies here from time to time. Some of the original people, the Pantesche, of the island have shown up, which has been my great pleasure. I have developed ceremonies around the grape that grows here, which brings forth the unique wine of this place. It is a rare wine called Passito, a very particular Passito. This wine transcends the limits of commercial wine as being more than a mere beverage with alcohol in it. Of all the wines I have known it has a very clear place as a correct and powerful ceremonial wine. In the bundles of the world, few wines would qualify but to my mind this one does. While alcohol has not been kind to American Indian people, tribal people nevertheless recognise the difference between alcohol and sacrament. I have made ceremonies here with the growers of the grapes. I do drink a little wine, a very little.

In the old Spanish Castle here on Pantelleria they recently had a showing of the bust of Julius Caesar. They had it mounted on a pedestal which approximated his true height. I was able to look eye to eye with the old Senator of Rome at last. I was all alone in the empty exhibition room for about 10 minutes. I used the opportunity to get right up close to him. The artistry of the sculpture was vivid, clear, remarkable. Clearly, I surmised at that moment, this is some kind of full circle for me....for the little boy who dreamed of an adventure and the old man, tired and stooped a little from his travels, comes to rest at last. I day dream now that Caesar and Cleopatra came here for a holiday. It is very close to Egypt really. During their time it was very likely an Egyptian controlled island. It has always been known as a place of gardens, wine, fruit and peace. The old Arabs in Caesar's time called her “the Black Pearl of the Mediterranean” and the “Daughter of the Wind”. “YRNM”….

Many of the most influential people in all of Italy have homes here, as well as many of the government ministers. Most of these people live very private lives, so their presence on the island is of no practical value to me or to the regular citizens. They contribute nothing….. The situation makes one aware of the class system of the western world. It realises itself very clearly here. The different classes seem invisible to each other. I am an oddity--the rumour of an American Indian on the island is pretty widely circulated. There are several other Americans here. A southwestern artist named Doug Cofin has some major works he has created right here on Pantelleria. Most of this was done some years ago, long before I arrived here. His work is on the estate of one Italian man, a prominent EU Industrialist with a truly beautiful estate. I have since made four sculptures on his land as well. The “accidental” commission which put them there is what enabled me to stay for some time to get to know Pantelleria.