Citation Presented by Susan Bell,
member, Board of Managers
Yes, I also
graduated as you are graduating, but I didn't go to my graduation
ceremony. I'm at yours, though. There is karma. I was always
interested in the fact that "karma" started with
the word "kar" and ended with "ma."
And after this time of graduation
I set out to try and find my destiny. I was really looking
for signs, or ways it would appear to me. It seemed to me
that it should come in transcendent or magnificent signs of
some sort, and I really searched for that. I spent seven months
flying the western states to find a place that would connect
sky and earth, cosmos and common. And after finding it, I
was surprised that it wasn't for sale.
These are things that seem to be
against the signs I had felt, but after staying in the area,
I was met by this man of the Hopi Tribe and an elder of the
Eagle Clan. And he would come usually about once every two
weeks, sometimes more often than that, and just talk to me.
And he did talk to me about signs, saying that there were
signs all about. I was taken to several of the Hopi dances
and went to a snake dance, which was amazing to me, because
after being in the Cueva with snakes for nearly a week and
feeding them cornmeal, something that they didn't normally
eat, I saw at the beginning of the day, right at dawn, I saw
some men, 80 years old, coming up a near-vertical ladder carrying
two or more snakes in each hand, in the middle. This relation
of man to animal was amazing.
I talked to him often about signs
in a way we white people do, seeking this from others, hoping
others will help us. They told me about a number of signs,
about weather, about the coming of winter, and one of the
things they told me was how the Hopis could discern the severity
of the winter to come. I was really quite taken by this man
and how he was so serious about how he looked at everything:
how he looked at nature, how he looked at people. He told
me that the Hopis looked to the woods for signs of the severity
of winter, the woods that the white chopped up for their fire:
The greater the amount of wood they stored, the more severe
the winter.
Yes, there are signs about,
and sometimes we're the ones who make these signs. These signs
are simple, and part of the self-fulfilling prophecy that
we create as we make our lives. These are in the small choices
made every day, small choices that when put together fulfill
a full life. And one of the things that was important that
he said to me is, "Each day, make that day holy."
