Path of the Warrior

There are many paths of the warrior spirit.
My Dad followed the warrior's path with a band of brave men in a Superfortress, a Boeing B-29, over the Marianas in WWII.

Their warship was called Three Feathers and Dad was commander-USAF Captain Edward B. Feathers from the foothills of the Smoky Mts.

March Air Field Museum in California recovered Dad's plane in 1981, but not until 2002 was its early history discovered. In a seemingly fit WWII tradition, a gorgeous blond-flight engineer and then museum restoration director, Shayne Meder-headed up the restoration of Three Feathers to its original glory. http://www.marchfield.org/b29a.htm In fact yesterday three members of Dad's crew visited the plane they risked life and limb to keep airborne between the island of Saipan where they were based to bombing raids over Okinawa and Tokyo 60 years ago. http://www.janeresture.com/saipan/index.htm

In the footsteps of our fathers...
Two years ago I was privileged to join Joan Liska, daughter of my father's right waist gunner, Sargeant Matthew Moore, when we crawled into the restored Three Feathers and sat in our fathers' respective seats. We cried for joy and for the memory of her father who passed away. Then I fired up my cell phone and we called Dad. What a joy it was for him to know that after all these decades his own child sat in his cockpit! It was a peak moment in two daughters' lives.

I listen to accounts of how they skimmed the ocean at a harrowing altitude of 1500 feet with only two operable engines on one side, listing like a wounded bird, on a wing and a bunch of prayers. Or the time they stayed behind, circling Tokyo Bay under the nose of the entire Japanese fighter force, to call in help for a downed fighter pilot. As a child these seemed like tales from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It's taken decades to grasp even an inkling of the immensity of that world war, the incredible oneness of the American government and people, and the terrible loss of life and the darkness that threatened the world.

I realize how this path left an indelible trace on my Dad's life map. The crew's ages ranged from 19 to 27. Most were kids! In fact, they had not flown the new B-29 much at all. It was specially produced by Boeing for the Pacific Theater and crews were rushed through training for heavy bombardment on Japan in 1944-45 near the end of the war. Dad's crew went out together in harm's way and each person's life was in the others' hands. War is not glorious but the human bonds forged therein are lasting. While the crew now lives far apart, they still check in with each other and remember those passed on-mostly the funny stuff.

Citizen Warriors
I am very proud of my Dad. He put in another 20 years of military service retiring as a Lt. Colonel. He remained what he calls "a citizen warrior" as a reserve officer. In the war and his career in the Air Force he received many commendations. But, Dad never defined himself by the war or even his USAF career. He is a modern man who moves on and today finds he has changed many of his perspectives on war. After another dozen have come and gone, he doubts the value of war in modern times. I do, too.

We often reflect on the wisdom of the Marshall Plan that recognized the value of rebuilding Europe to prevent the conditions that foster hatred and lead to war or genocide. http://www.usaid.gov/multimedia/video/marshall/av.html General Marshall won the Nobel Peace prize for his work toward international peace. There is a great lesson that we have forgotten. The man who led the Allied Forces to victory in WWII turned peacemaker.

Eisenhower followed the path of peacemaker, too. As President, Eisenhower's prophetic view from the top (when he realized that America's corporations and U.S. military were too closely aligned for comfort) fell on deaf ears. Citizens forgot about the wisdom of Marshall and Eisenhower. As we entered the Cold War we massed arms. There was simply too much money to be made in building the military for more war. Eisenhower saw clearly how a democracy must be ever vigilant that her hard won freedoms not be chipped away from within. http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/hartung01.html

Dog Soldiers
In long ago times on Turtle Island in North America, a sacred society of warriors known as Dog Soldiers was established among the Cheyenne people. www.manataka.org/~manataka/page164.html

Of all the Cheyenne soldier societies, they were the the most respected. Dog Soldiers wore a sacred sash called a Dog Rope. It was staked to the ground where the Dog Soldier defended his nation as the last line of defense-often unto his death.

This impressed me so greatly that one night I dreamed that a new kind of American spirit, like that of the Dog Soldier, spread among the people of this nation. I saw people stand their ground for principles. They were the Senator that says no to preemptive war, the corporate boss willing to be transparent, the citizen who dissents on moral principles, and all who show compassion for the human condition. I saw the Nation defended fiercely by a new kind of warrior, one who uses words backed by action, and one who drives her/his stake into the ground, not yielding to convention or the path of least resistance. Some things are sacred and inviolate.

Running Raids on a Virtual Battleground in the 21st Century
Dad once flew a Superfortress, was as tough as nails. And for that war, I am glad for it. But now he flies a computer and runs raids on a virtual battleground. He's out there ambusing the charletons and misled leaders of this crazy world with a few strokes of his keyboard.

And he has organized his family and remaining crew members and their kids to our online Family Council. Everyday we receive Postings from the Chief. At 89 years of age he is still in command! But today he has joined the ranks of the gentle warriors, the peacemaker society.

I can only hope to live so well and to continue to grow with the times as he has. Today we deal with great uncertainty, and we are now a global tribe linked by our economies and a shared ecological future. All of us will have to find the new path of the warrior spirit, one that secures the peace and conserves the Earth.

~In honor of my Father, the crew of the Three Feathers,

and all the men and women who have gone down

the Path of the Warrior.~

Go in peace and wear your "Dog Rope"! The battlegrounds are everywhere Liberty is at stake.

Susan

Frolicking by the edge of the sea

Twenty years ago I had the good fortune of meeting Donis Davey. She was then a preschool instructor at the Orange County Marine Institute at Dana Point, California. http://www.ocean-institute.org/ Donis taught me how to recover the child in me so I could teach the smallest of students. We became friends along the way, and now, after her passing last year, I am missing her terribly. For Donis possessed the most treasured of qualities in a human being: passion!

Donis lived by the sea, actually by the San Clemente Pier, a famous place for surfers and beach goers in southern California. http://www.beachcalifornia.com/san-clemente-pier.html When you go to this link, follow the curving street up the hill and look for a white watch tower on top of a house. That's the tower she and her husband Don built so they could continue observing the ocean, something they did everyday. That house is where they raised their kids, and where Donis lived for over 30 years. She walked that beach everyday except when she was too sick to go down there.

The reason I am sharing this life with you is that I think Donis was on the right track in her life. She was fearless when it came to protecting the ocean and all its life. She was very active in land reforms and zoning policies and fought hard to keep the town and her neighborhood from overdevelopment. Well, as you can see in the picture of her neighborhood, she was not successful in keeping development down, but she influenced the way it happened. The point is Donis stood up for what she believed in.

My daughter recently accepted a position with the Ocean Conservancy in Washington, D.C. One visit to their website reveals the need for citizen participation in the ongoing pressures of human activities on the ocean: http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home.

Donis taught children through her intuitive wisdom. She studied preschool education at Pasadena College, but her ability to engage little children in learning emanated from her own child within. Docents at the Marine Institute helped make puppets of all sizes and kinds for her programs. One remained a hallmark of Donis around Orange County: Sandwitch, a funny old witch who trashed the beaches and made the kids go wild with laughter at her antics. Donis had Sandwitch toss the plastic rings from a six pack on the "beach" only to find a bird or an otter end up strangled by it. She always had the kids rescue the victim. Other puppets were large enough for kids to get inside, like a gray whale that four kids could get inside and work the flukes and open its mouth to gather krill. Donis was alive and full of surprise and mystery. She always started off with a Treasure Box. What little kid doesn't want to know what's inside? There was a story connected to each object she slowly pulled from the box as kids stood up to see what was coming next!

Donis became a professional storyteller in her seventies. She travelled around the county performing in libraries. Her energy was boundless. She instituted the famous Ocean Birthday Party program that thousands of kids and parents attended. I helped her with these elaborate parties. She wore a lobster hat with long red segmented arms and pinchers protruding in every direction! We sang and danced the Hermit Crab Cha Cha which the kids loved because at one point they have to shake their "tails" and wiggle into a new shell. Watching parents shake their booty always made the kids crack up.

Toward the end of her life she held performances on the pier outside Schleppy's Bar and Grill on the Dana Point wharf. There one could find her dressed in purple, of course, and doning some crazy hat, draped with gorgeous jewelry made especially for her in the shape of seastars, dolphins, sand dollars and ocean waves. Sandwitch would be there, too, throwing styrafoam cups and saying the most outrageous things like, Why should I care about what happens to birds and fish? Donis's puppet co-star exemplified the worst human behavior toward the environment. Before long she would have a crowd around her with little kids booing Sandwitch's behavior.

Donis suffered from a host of life-long illnesses and finally died of a brain tumor. But inspite of her physical challenges, she accomplished more than most in a lifetime. Because of Donis Davey, there are tens of thousands of adults - once child prodigies of the woman who loved the ocean - out there with a love for the ocean in their hearts because Donis taught them to love it, to keep it well and to fight for the magnificent creation we hold in trust with our Creator.

Good teachers are worth their weight in gold. But sometimes we don't recognize them because they follow unusual paths. Donis's contributions to the Ocean Institute's program (then the Marine Institute) were never fully valued. The Director cast dispersions on her parties and while he never said it outloud to her, he thought they were frivolous compared to the other more scienctific classes taught to upper grades. Yet Donis followed the rose colored stream of passion that Rachel Carson so eloquently explained as the key to engendering a desire to protect and value nature:

Once emotions have been aroused – a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love – then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.[1]
[1] Carson, Rachel (1965). A Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper & Row.

I look around and still see the stale factual presentations about "the environment." Once an Indian elder told me that her people have no word for environment because they do not conceptualize themselves as separate from it. "We are the environment," she told me.

Donis's abilities to bring the love and wonder about the ocean into the hearts of children derived from her own deep love for marine life - and that welled-up from a lifetime of exploration and experiences in and around oceans.

Even into her late 60's Donis could be found in a purple bathing suit with her colorful boogey board surfing the waves in front of her home at San Clemente pier. With the Boogaloos, a surfing club for which the only entrance requirement is you have to be at least 60, she held firm to the life force so many of us forget and eventually lose!

To my friend and mentor, Donis Davey, I am so glad that one such as you walked the Earth and that by the grace of God I had the opportunity to know you! Your spirit lives on in all of us who were lucky enough to know you and frolick with you by the edge of the sea!
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/edgeofsea/

http://www.mbayaq.org/ Monterey Bay Aquarium
http://www.sheddaquarium.org/ Shedd Aquarium

For some real fun, read Carl Hiaasen's two books: Hoot and Flush or go see the movie "Hoot" and fall in love with Florida oceans and estuaries. http://www.hootmovie.com/

Wild Thing

Backed into a corner she is a wild thing that will devour you. Three Floridians went to that wild appetite this week down in Swamp country. There are laws of the natural world that can not be violated. Nature is feeling the pinch of the human footprint and innocent victims pay the price.

On a recent trip into the back country of Florida I made this photo. I consider it a window into a real world that can be pushed only so far.

Florida, the Real Florida, still exists - though it is harder to find through the web of artificiality humankind's insatiable appetite for land has created. Is this a reptilian payback? Not in a premeditated sense, but when we push closer and violate the boundaries of habitat other species require, well, gulp... those glittering white teeth probably are not smiling at us.

See Carl Hiaasen's article from the Miami Herald. He has the long perspective on gators! http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/

I for one never want to be part of a gator's food chain. It is indeed tragic for the three women.

Wild thing! You make my heart...scream!

Susan