Dancing Moons: Poems by Nancy Wood & Paintings by Frank Howell (1995)
80pages US$22.50 C$29.95

It's taken a while to understand that Native American wisdom, so envied by non-Indians, so imitated and so abused, is basically an awareness and appreciation of the complex, magical world around us. Neture, not us is what keeps on giving. To the Pueblos of New Mexico, the Twelve Great Paths of the Moon are part of that awareness . The moons they watch are the moons of their ancestors and of children yet unborn; they are our moons, too, inviting reflection on our lives and on the alarming condition of the world. For it is not through war or violence that lives and nations are changed, but through appreciation of old, enduring truths. These truths have no label - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist - for they are simply our most basic connection to one another, to origins, and to a future that must contain the promise of ages past. I offer here my own interpretation of the Twelve Great Paths of the Moon, a series of poems and meditations to help each of us on our journey. - from the author's Preface

Shaman's Circle: Poems by Nancy Wood & Paintings by Frank Howell (1996) 80 pages

More than thirty years ago, I visited Taos Pueblo for the first time. It was a clear, cold March morning, with the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains towering above the six-hundred-year-old adobe village....If I closed my eyes, I could imagine myself in the fourteenth century, when the mud house I was sitting in had been built by Ben's ancestors, more than twenty generations before. On that day, past, present, and future blended into one continuous circle of life, like the ripples caused by tossing a handful of pebbles into a pond. I felt something sacred and profound happening. This sacred circle is, I later learned, an ancient, revered means of passing wisdom from generation to generation, through storytelling, ritual, and common sharing by like-minded people. The Indians call this sacred knowledge the shaman's circle; it embodies the highest form of respect for the living world. In essence, the shaman's circle lies at the very core of Pueblo Indian belief... These poems are a ritual in themselves. They're meant to be read in private, preferably under a tree or beside a stream. They're meant to trigger a desire to get up and dance. Or to sing. Or to write a poem of your own as you enter the shaman's sacred circle, where anything can happen. - from the author's Preface

Spirit Walker: Poems by Nancy Wood & Paintings by Frank Howell (1993) 80pages

Now, twenty years after completing Many Winters, artist Frank Howell and I have decided to produce a companion piece, Spirit Walker...These poems, like the others, are based on my long association with the Taos Pueblos Indians, who shared their deep spirituality. From the time I first met them, in 1961, I was impressed by their values and by an unshatterable outlook that stemmed from their interconnectedness to the earth as a living whole. Was it possible for me, a white woman, to understand these values? For years I merely observed, absorbing what I could. Slowly my perceptions and, ultimately, my way of life began to change...This is what matters now, acquiring what the Indians call the quiet heart. In so doing, I have learned to live life from the inside out. We are all a part of something largely undefinable, call it God or the Great Spirit, Buddha or Allah, Krishna or mazart. I feel connected to this mystery on rivers, in deserts, and on the sea, but mostly in the mountains....This is what Red Willow dancing meant about interconnectedness. A blade of grass was where he said God lived; the wind was the breath of the Great Spirit, renewing us once again. To me, this is what life is all about. There, between earth and sky, suspended in time, I begin to understand. - from the author's Preface

Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, & Pipe Carriers - Medicine Women of the Plains Indians
Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Long Soldier (1995) 239pages

Walking in the Sacred Manner is an exploration of the myths and culture of the Plains Indians, for whom the everyday and the spiritual are interwined and women play a strong and important role in the spiritual and religious life of the community. Through interviews with holy women and the families of women healers the authors paint a rich and varied portrait of a society and its traditions. It is an authentic record of the participation of women in the sacred tradition of Northern Plains tribes including Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, and Assiniboine. (Touchstone / Simon & Schuster)