Odyssey of the 8th FIre

"The natural Law is a spiritual law. Its powers are both light and dark. There are some characteristics that are evident in the system which the Creator made. He made balance, harmony and polarity.

"In other words, every plus has a minus. Every positive has a negative; every up has a down; every problem has a solution. The Spiritual Law is the same, it has light and dark...both need to be honored. Lessons can be learned on both sides."

- Oren Lyons

Day 203 - Thursday, January 11, 1996 - Everything is supposed to happen for us from here on to the Pacific. No scouting, coordinating, or other preparation needed. Tom told Joe and Ned that we can all just relax, and that he will set everything up for us; Joe and Ned then got all the walkers together, and relayed that message to us.

Dry road - the walkers continue through the Mojave Desert.

They said, without much detail, that "the grandmothers" in Los Angeles (whoever they may be; no one is saying their names), have given their okay for our spiritual passage through their territory. They also told us that the Chumash Nation is already preparing for us. We hear that they are setting up a place for us to camp and to have our ceremonies so we can walk to the Western Gate, located in their ancestral territory, in a sacred manner.

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We will make our next move in a few days, shifting our base camp from Twentynine Palms to the Morongo Indian Reservation in Banning, California.

The people of Twentynine Palms have welcomed us with warmth and enthusiasm. An article about our walk appeared in the Sunrunner, a local newspaper, today. The article invited the public to join us tomorrow morning as we walk into the town and also to participate in a pipe ceremony with elders from the local tribes.

Jim and Willa Jean Dooley, proprietors of the Cowboys and Indians store on the main street of Twentynine Palms, in a wing of Skip and Peggy Hull's thrift store, have been terrific. They responded immediately to our request for help, and within hours, with friends, they organized the whole town to receive our walk in ceremony tomorrow.

Students from Twentynine Palm's Monument High School kindly cleaned the vacant lot between the Cowboys and Indians shop and the Circle K convenience store. That's where we will hold ceremony after our prayer walk enters the city tomorrow. Word went out over local radio, and the local newspaper. Everything is ready.

Desert scene - As we cross the Mojave Desert toward Twentynine Palms, California, everywhere we look we see the beauty of the desert and hazy mountains in the distance. (Photo by bad_dog_ny, courtesy of flckr.com

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Read Day 204 -- Odyssey of the 8th Fire