Greetings fellow dreamers. I am a child of rivers and a friend of rain, a wandering fool and nitwit shaman who has howled with wolves, run from bears and collaborated with killer whales. I was born in the Ozarks and grew up near the mighty Missouri River (which translates as "River of the big canoe" ).Like a migratory bird or salmon, I first arrived on the rainforest coast of Alaska in 1977, and have been roaming in and out ever since. One of my main migration routes has been between the north and south poles of the coastal temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, which I call FishTree or Salmon Nation—a great living being of ocean and forest, mountains, rivers and salmon that communicate all the way from Prince William Sound and the Copper River in Alaska to Monterey Bay and Big Sur in California.
I've been a musician all my life, though lyrics never used to come to be. In more recent years words have been pouring out of me like a river. My fingers start dancing on the guitar, I open my mouth and a song pops out. Damnedest thing.
In this dream of life, I've been a gypsy bard, a musician and storyteller, an environmental activist, mariner, wilderness guide by river and sea, and a former commercial fisherman. Following the 1989 Good Friday Exxon Valdez oil spill (epicentered in my home waters of Prince William Sound), I have been one of the artist/activists working and playing to help protect and praise wild ecosystems—the beautiful earth organs that are fundamental to our collective health.
I've spent a lot of time messing about in boats, on rivers and oceans, and a lot of time in the rain, so there's water in my music. I'm on a musical axis between Ireland and Brasil, with American folk, jazz, hillbilly and blues influences. Frequent themes are those of sacrifice and resurrection, and the pervading presence of the Trickster Fool--who appears in many cultures in the guise of Raven, Coyote, Br'er Rabbit, Reynard the Fox, Tanuki the Raccoon Dog, or High John de Conquer. Able, as Zora Neale Hurston said, to "make a way out of no way and hit a straight lick with a crooked stick."
Or as Coyote Caroline Casey says, "Against all odds is the odds the Trickster likes." Leaping out of winter into spring, the compassionate Trickster Fool bridges the sacred and profane, making art out of drama and humor out of adversity. This is the powerful magic that shows up in dangerous times, the secret of our song and laughter, the blossoming of egalitarian culture.
Or as Coyote Caroline Casey says, "Against all odds is the odds the Trickster likes." Leaping out of winter into spring, the compassionate Trickster Fool bridges the sacred and profane, making art out of drama and humor out of adversity. This is the powerful magic that shows up in dangerous times, the secret of our song and laughter, the blossoming of egalitarian culture.
My dear trickster friend Marie Smith Jones—honorary chief of Alaska's Eyak Indian tribe, and last speaker of the Eyak language—died January 21, 2008 at the age of 89. Marie said she believed her language wouldn't truly go extinct when she passed away since "the language comes from the land, and as long as the land and water and animals are alive, the people will learn the language." I dedicate my music to the land and water and animals, human and otherwise. In 1994 I was adopted into the Eyak tribe's Eagle moiety, but I'm pretty sure I'm a Raven disguised as an Eagle. Chief Marie gave me my Eyak name, YaxadiliSayaxinh--which means "The Thinker", or more literally, "He who causes his mind to involuntarily roam in an indeterminate direction." Whew.
My written essays have appeared in a number of anthologies including "Ascent", "Prarie Schooner", and "From the Island's Edge". In the realm of film, I directed and co-produced the 1989 citizen's oil spill video, "Voices of the Sound", and as a wildlife film guide I've worked with National Geographic, Survival Anglia, the BBC, Sierra Club and Cousteau Society on films about killer whales, sea otters, wilderness habitat protection, and the Exxon oil spill. Recently, I've collaborated with wonderful rascally wildlife photographers Kennan and Karen Ward, providing soundtrack music for their film "Making Tracks", about the growing-up adventures of young grizzly bears.
With the Netherlands-based Artists for Nature Foundation I've participated in projects in Alaska, Spain and Israel. ANF organizes wildlife and nature artists from around the world to visit threatened natural ecosystems, using art and music as a universal language to help remind us of the importance of beauty and natural diversity in the health of our world.
It has been my blessing for a number of years to cavort and collaborate with Caroline Casey of Coyote Network News—whose weekly Visionary Activist radio show (broadcasting live every Thursday on the web and on Berkeley's KPFA radio station) provides crucial bits of magic, alchemy and humor to this dire and beautiful time on earth.
Most years I assist the North Gulf Oceanic Society with whale research in Prince William Sound and the Kenai Fjords. For many years I have spent summers living out on the Copper River, guiding wilderness trips that renew the spirit and rekindle tribal shenanigans, often in collaboration with my Eyak brother Dune Lankard and the Eyak Preservation Council. We believe the wilderness world of land and water and animals needs us just as much as we need it. There's nothing here but Nature, all of us born native to campsite earth.
On the Copper River my favorite rafts have been named Tasnuna, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Grey Matter, April Angel and Splash. The two favorite vessels I've partnered with on the briny deep are the "Orca II" and "Senang Hati" (the Contented Heart), both cedar over oak with well-found souls of adventure, grace and destiny. Lovely old wooden boats like these prove Mae West's observation that "The most beautiful distance between two points is a curved line."
My escapades, larks, and adventures and foibles have appeared in a number of books including John Keeble's "Out of the Channel", Art Davidson's "In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez" and Grant Sim's "Leaving Alaska", as well as in Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, Audubon, Outside, the Amicus Journal, Sierra magazine, and periodically on National Public Radio.
I currently have two CD's of song and music--"Raven River" and "Raised on Rabbit", and I'm working on a book tentatively entitled "Escapades, Larks and Adventures: being Tales of Human Redemption through Synchronistic Reconnection with the Rest of the Creation".
Many blessings my friends. May your compassionate dreams bloom and dance into being. Remember to create art or live drama. Maximum effectiveness with most amount of fun. Play fair and dream big. Panic early to avoid the rush.