Ghost Walk

This newly released audio from Speaking-Volumes is subtitled Native American Tales of the Spirit.  That idea was suggested by a Havasu friend, deep in the heart of the Grand Canyon where the stories were lived, witnessed, seen and heard.  I just opened the book to page 77 and found this line -- ". . . she named nine things that she loved: the river, the toads, the wrens, the pebbles, the wolf, the trees, the sun, the canyon, and most of all, the morning."  On the next page is a message that I saw posted on the community bulletin board in the village of Havasu: "White people will give up digging for uranium when mother earth's heart stops beating."  There are spirits moving in and out of this book and the audio is all the more ambient and other-wordly for Ray Griffin's enchanting music.  Cicadas come and go in the desert heat.  Owls call.  I remember diving underneath Havasu Falls and hearing voices.  And hearing the corn-carrying woman whose basket was round in her arms as she walked by our tent.  She wasn't a ghost; she was a presence.  For as the book tells us -- among the watercress and wild celery, the cattails and watersong, Spirit prevails.  Havasu is a place where earth, water and sky meet.  A place where you are in the center of all things.  Your inner-self expands, floats high above the red rocks with the canyon wren.