This is a story that has no beginning and no end.  It is woven within a circle and spirals into an inner meaning, creating an infinite matrix of possibility and relationship.  Although it seems to start at the first page and moves forward to conclude on the last page, that simply is the limitation of our agreement for reading and writing a book.  Closely related to this agreement is the limitation of how we perceive space and time in a linear, sequential way.  We find these agreements generally useful for most of the Earth experience--so much so that we find it almost impossible to escape these boundaries of our own making and become entrapped in a mind-set that is illusion. 

Constructed within the same confines is our language.  Languages are very well designed to communicate within the boundaries of our commonplace experience.  Yet, when we wish to share experiences outside of the social contract, our belief system, ordinary language is generally inadequate to the challenge.  Instead we use art, poetry, song, and storytelling to describe our new, unconventional wisdom.  The primary function of most art forms is to communicate the information, ideas, and possibilities that lie beyond the capacity of common language. 

The Dream-Catcher is an art form that was developed by Native Americans to teach natural wisdom and to catch dreams.  Most of what has been written about Dream-Catchers is about catching dreams.  Little has been said about the natural wisdom that they teach.  Theirs is a language that transcends the limits of our social agreements and beliefs.  Nature is an insightful teacher if we learn how to listen.  I learned to listen to the stories that the Dream-Catchers weave.  I hadn't planned to become a weaver of dreams.  Dream-Catchers began to weave me. 

            Ask now the beasts,
            and they shall teach thee;
            and the fowls of the air,
            they shall tell thee;
            Or speak to the earth,
            and it shall teach thee;
            and the fishes of the sea
            shall declare unto thee.

                        Job 12:7-8 

And the spirals turned. 

I thought I was just a white man interested in "Indians."  Their history and the conflict between their values and Euro-american values intrigued me.  I accumulated and read a large library of books about and by Native Americans, and I began to include their history in the American History classes I taught.  At the powwows I felt the sound of the drum in my heart and the songs resonated through my body. To understand the modern socio-economic and political problems of Native Americans, I visited a reservation where I learned first hand the connection between history and current events.  The few words of Ojibwe that I taught my students gave a flavor of the culture we were studying.  An Ojibwe man that I had met in social advocacy work with my church spoke to my classes about Native American history and life on the White Earth Indian Reservation.  One nice day I took each class outside to talk about how the "Indians" in our history felt about the world all around them, how they listened to the wind in the trees, treated all beings as brothers--the four-legged, winged and finned ones, the plants, even the rocks and rivers--and that they could not imagine owning their brothers and sisters, much less selling them.  I taught that they revered Mother Earth as the provider of everything. To understand the clash of indigenous and European cultures is to understand American history more clearly. 

Even though I was a whiteman, I began to feel comfortable praying to the four directions asking the grandmothers and grandfathers for guidance and assistance.  Soon power and wisdom began to flow through me as my heart began to open.  Much of my spare time was devoted to providing food for food shelves, soliciting and delivering donations of clothing and furniture, and serving as a hospitality host at a free meal program in the urban Native American community.  I came to feel the helplessness and hopelessness of racism and poverty and what it does to a people and their culture.  One day to begin a geography class, I was about to write an assignment on the chalkboard and this poetry came out of the chalk: 

Heartland 

With a computer chip brain
and a cash register heart
Middle America flies off to Cancun
to escape the Third World
living in her belly
obscured by indifference
out of sight, out of mind.
Busy, busy
business of America
bottomlining millions to the
desperation of poverty
confining body and soul,
stealing goodness
to support a habit
of Perrier, Calvin Klein, and BMW.
Nice people doing nice things--
for their family and friends.
Narrow vision in a global economy.
Heartless and soul dead
in the Heartland. 

Stunned and amazed by what I had just written I put the chalk down, turned, and sat down in a desk.  A student asked, "Mr. Becker, are we supposed to copy that?"  I replied, "You may if you wish.  I am."  After I had copied it, I erased it and went on with the class.  It was a bit fiery and perhaps too judgmental to use in my teaching, but I learned a valuable lesson about the flow of power and wisdom. 

I read about another Native man, White Feather, from the White Earth Indian Reservation who was in prison for his protest of the nuclear missile siloes being built throughout the heartland of the continent and the failure of the United States government to honor its treaties. The elders of the tribe had asked him to bring attention to this violation of Mother Earth and the trillions of dollars that were being diverted from fulfilling treaty obligations to the Native American people.  I wrote to him while he was in prison and we became close friends when he was released on parole over two years later.  We built and used a sweat lodge, did pipe ceremony, and talked about life on and off the reservation.  A writer, artist, play-wright, with a Ph.D. in Sociology, he was also close to his culture and its traditions, able to move easily in white society and among traditional people.  He smashed many stereotypes that had found their way into my thoughts about what a Native American should be like.  And I learned more about power and wisdom. 

For most of my teaching career I taught science with an emphasis on ecology and protecting the environment.  Growing up on a farm I had many opportunities to climb trees, build tree houses, create mazes in the tall weeds of the hog pasture, gather gooseberries in the woods, skinny-dip in the river, tame pigeons to sit on my shoulder, go fishing with my dad and brother.  I loved to sit by a window during a thunderstorm to watch the light show and feel the power of the thunder.  On summer nights I would lie on the lawn to watch the stars, the changing face of the Moon, the dancing of the northern lights, the aurora borealis.  I had earned a Master's degree in biology but I had also included courses in astronomy, geology, meteorology, chemistry, physics, history, geography, sociology, psychology, art, and anthropology.  I wanted to teach children about the beauty and wonder of the universe.

My innovations and leadership were valued by my principal who, at the first teacher meeting, introduced me as someone every teacher should get to know.  Five years later Bob wrote a letter of commendation glowing with approval. 

However, in a few years budget cuts and enrollment declines began to force newer teachers to find work elsewhere.  For two years I taught social studies as well as science because I was state-certified for both.  Finally, my position was cut and I was a salesman on the road for one year.  One day as I was driving through my sales territory I prayed to the grandfathers and grandmothers to "Please get me back into teaching, but this time in social studies instead of science."  

When I returned home for the weekend Bob called.  "Allen, I have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that we have a position for you.  We want you to come back to West Junior High.  The bad news is that we don't have a science position for you, you'll have to teach social studies."  

I smiled and thanked him and then said a prayer of thanks to the Grandmothers and Grandfathers.  I knew I was walking a red road in a white world--even though I was a whiteman. 

My public school teaching career came to an unexpected end over my reluctance to teach only the white man's story in the history book.  Bob was upset that I was "tearing down our heroes," Columbus, for example, and teaching about racism, sexism, discrimination, and propaganda in American history.  The students loved it.  They wanted to know more.  Upset and angry that they had never been taught what really happened, they later told me that they had discovered that history was interesting now and that they could see  its value.  One of my students told me that he was half  "Indian" and that now he had a new respect for that part of himself.  It was a long, hard year.  I was accused of incompetence and insubordination and I was required to use only the textbook provided by the school district which was filled with inaccuracies, misleading information, and the mythology of Euro-america.  The office staff was instructed to search the waste baskets near the copy machine for evidence of my noncompliance, and I had to submit detailed lesson plans to use anything that was not in the approved textbook. 

One day as I was backing my car into a small space in Minneapolis, I became aware that several cars ahead there was ample space.  Instantly, I knew that I was being told to notice that I was trying to squeeze my spirit into a small space at school when ahead of me was a great vastness.  The next day as I entered school I was asked to come into the principal's office for a moment.  I had used day-old doughnuts for prizes in a current events game we had played in class a few weeks earlier.  I had been asked to not bring such things to my homeroom group and they were upset that I had used them with a class.  They were also unhappy with the alternative lessons I had written to teach about Vietnam.  I was going to use a video that had been shown on public television and at the Walker Art Institute, Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam,.and Bruce Springsteen's song, Born in the U.S.A.  Students were going to interview members of their family or neighbors who had experienced Vietnam--sort of an oral history project.  I had located a Navy recruiter who had been involved in river pacification in the coastal waters of Vietnam.  Since he was still in the military, I assumed he would take a cautious position that would balance the position of my friend who was a former marine in Vietnam Vets for Peace.  The administration had decided against allowing me to use these alternative sources.  That was my last day as a full-time public school teacher.  A very small space.  There was to be something more ahead. 

The spirals danced. 

"Soon," they sang, "soon he will dance the new dream." 

Finding the "something more" required much sorting, discarding, and relearning.  When life seemed precarious and unclear, I would pray to the Four Directions of the Grandmothers and Grandfathers, to Mother Earth, Father Sky, and to the Great Mystery.  One day as I prayed on a mound in a field in near downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, a man in a blue station wagon drove up and asked if I was okay.  I was.  He asked if I was "Indian."

"Well, no actually--but in a way, yes," I replied. 

"Is this a sacred place?" 

"Well, probably not," I said, "but all places are sacred."  

"If you wanted to pray at a sacred place, you could go up to the Mounds," he offered. 

 I asked for directions.  

"Over there," he pointed.  "See the cliffs?  Up on top.  You'll see as you get closer." 

I thanked him and started walking toward the cliffs.  I had no tobacco to use as an offering before entering a sacred site and I had no gift to leave in thanks.  I wanted to do this as respectfully and honorably as I could.  As I walked along I discovered an orange golf ball in the grass.  Picking it up to examine it, I knew that I was supposed to take it with me, perhaps as an offering or gift.  Then I found another, then another, and another.  Within fifty feet I had found six bright orange golf balls and put them into my pocket.  I could see three mounds on the distant cliffs.  Perhaps two golf balls were to be left at each mound after prayers?  

Beginning to get thirsty, I realized that I had not brought along anything to drink and I could see no way to get a drink near the railroad track that was to be my route.  Several hundred feet along the railroad track I came to a plastic bag between the railroad ties.  Picking it up I discovered two sealed bottles of drinking water--one to quench my thirst, one for later.  A few hundred feet further I found a 25-cent coin among the rocks of the railbed.  It, too, must have some significance, I thought.  Getting closer to the bluffs I saw several teenagers climbing on them.  They showed me the path that lead up the face of the bluffs toward Mounds Park.  As I turned to ascend the path I realized that they would probably have tobacco.  I turned back and asked if they had a cigarette.   

"Sure, man." one of them offered. 

I thanked him and started up the path--and stopped.  That was the purpose of the quarter!  I could pay for the tobacco offering.  I returned to the climbers and gave the young man a quarter.  At first he refused it, but I insisted and I returned to the path to the top of the bluff. 

As I approached the mounds area I stopped at the edge and prayed, offering the tobacco in the cigarette.  Suddenly a gust of wind pushed me onto the sacred area. Climbing to the top of the first mound, I completed prayers and left two of the golf balls.  This was repeated at the top of the second mound.  Reaching the top of the third mound I was amazed to discover that there were actually six mounds!  I went back to the first and second mound to retrieve the extra balls I had left there and after I completed prayers on each mound I left one ball at the top. 

I was filled with joy!  I knew that the Grandfathers and the Grandmothers were with me, guiding and helping me, protecting.  I knew that somehow I was walking the good red road--even though I was white. 

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White Eagle Soaring: Dream Dancer of the 7th Fire