Tau My Relatives
This past Saturday, June 27 I had the honor of leading the first Taino kansi sweat ceremony in the state of Georgia. I was invited to build the traditional thatched roofed guanara lodge in the manner of the Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle at the home of Boriken Taino couple Johnny and Lupe Negron near Canton, Georgia.

Lupe is a remarkable healer in her own right. Practicing professionally in the Canton area, I found her and Johnny, her husband to be profoundly comitted Tainos who walk the sacred Indigenous path of our ancestors in the company of their friends, hosting regular gatherings at their beautiful four-acre log cabin homestead in the outskirts of Canton.

Lupe, Johnny, I, and a number of other participants spent the whole day Friday and much of Saturday building the large guanara lodge which would shelter the group that evening during our healing ceremony.

After our sacred circle ceremony with burning tabonuko, Taino clay pipe tobacco ritual, and cemi sculpture images of the Taino ancestral spirits we entered the beautiful brand new guanara and experience a profound encounter with the sacred hupias of our Taino forebears. We were blessed with what I considered to be four rounds of the most intense steam-purification that i have had the honor of leading in a long time.

Taino Ti
Miguel Sobaoko Koromo Sague

Tau My Relatives
In spite of the forceful weather that prevented us from celebrating our Summer Solstice Ceremony outside at the public park in Youngstown, Ohio this past Saturday the Sague family and the Simmons family did get together and we did celebrate the sacred seasonal event at my house in the Pittsburgh suburban community of Verona. Because the ritual was a much more intimate and private one as compared to the more elaborate ceremony celebrated during a public Summer Solstice event we followed the scaled down version of the observance as laid out in the personal ritual pages of the Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle 's w....

Please enjoy the images of the family celebration:

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Tau My Relatives
We are probably all familiar with the fact that President Obama attended the O.A.S. (Organization of American States) sponsored Summit of The Americas gathering of leaders of countries from all over this continent last week in Trinidad. The most attention-grabbing news surfacing from this event seems to have been 1.)the fact that President Obama announced a loosening in the restrictions on travel by Cuban-Americans back to my homeland of Cuba for visits to relatives, and 2.)the now much photographed warm greeting betweent President Obama and the progressive leader of the nation of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez . What most of you don't know is the role that our own Taino leadership played in that international phenomenon.

The fact that President Obama is pledging a change of attitude toward the nations of Latin America, many of whom have huge Indigenous populations and many of whom have been, over the years, victims of the most rapacious type of imperialism originating in the U.S. is a remarkable step forward for this country. Our Indigenous brothers and sisters stand to gain much from this important change of attitude. And yet this new attitude is not just a change in the U.S. It represents a much broader process of evolution of attitude among people all over the Americas. The change in attitude is only possible because of the hard work of self- determination carried out mostly behind the scenes within the last several decades by Indigenous peoples such as the communities that comprise Mr. Chavez's large Native constituency in Venezuela, and the Indigenous constituency of other progressive new Latin American leaders such as President Evo Morales of Bolivia (who is himself a full-blooded Aymara), and President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala (who trained to be a traditional Maya Calendar oracle reader from a Quiche Maya spiritual teacher).
It is the untiring labor of these long-disenfranchised Native people that is now finally bearing fruit in tangible terms in spite of prodigious opposition. That work is the work led by determined leaders of these Native communities in the last couple of decades through international bodies such as the Indigenous NGO's of the United Nations and similar organizations associated to the Organization of American States.

The Taino people have long had a voice in these proceedings. Sometimes that voice has featured very prominently. This past week the O.A.S. was furnished with a document outlining the important demands that Indigenous peoples of the Americas expected to be seriously dealt with by the national leaders at the Summit of the Americas conference. This document had been formulated in a special previous summit of Indigenous leaders held in Panama City, and our own Roberto Mukaro Borrero of the United Confederation of Taino Peoples, along with several other Indigenous Caribbean leaders participated in that conference and were instrumental in the formulation of that document.
More recently Kasike Mukaro was given the honor of playing the guamo shell trumpet at the opening of another important conference that he participated in right here in New York. In the United Nations General Assembley, Bolivia's current Indigenous president, Evo Morales instituted a move to designate April 22 (commonly celebrated in many countries as Earth Day) as a specially dedicated official UN observance day to be called "Mother Earth Day" . The formulation of this proclamation is a concensus process that took time and effort and that Kasike Mukaro participated in fully. This proclamation establishes a set of requirements before national leaders of member nations of the UN which make very clear what we the Indigenous peoples of the world demand for them to do to correct the terrible environmental pressures that have been imposed on our global environment. Without the hard work of Indigenous leaders such as our own Taino Kasike these important initiatives would not be possible and we would have no voice in these global developments.

Whether at the O.A.S. or at the U.N. the voice of the Taino is becoming more and more prominent, and we owe a dept of gratitude to our Taino leaders for making that possible.

Taino Ti
Miguel

Tau My Relatives

Just today April 10, 2009 I had the opportunity to speak by phone with our Mexica sister Jennie Luna, who was the main co-coordinator of this past summer's East-Coast leg of the JOURNEYS FOR PEACE AND DIGNITY.
http://uctp.blogspot.com/2008/06/native-runners-continue-on-sacred....
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/06/walking-through-pittsburgh-in...

Jennie is organizing a re-union meeting of New York City area collaborators, runners and supporters this coming week where she plans to share experiences from this year's Journeys.

My conversation with Jennie covered some of the highlights of this summer's events and brought back to my mind my personal experiences with this powerful manifestation of the prophecy of the eagle and the condor. Our conversation also stimulated thoughts in my own mind about the wonderful juncture of events represented by the convergence of the P and D Journeys here in Pittsburgh this past June with the 30th anniversary re-confirmation of the 1978 historic Longest Walk
(LONGEST WALK II).

Having been a participant at the original manifestation of both of these efforts I tend to have a very strong sense of belonging to them. I participated in the original Longest Walk when it came through Pittsburgh in 1978 and I also participated in the original Peace and Dignity Journeys when they came through Pittsburgh in 1992.

By 1992 Our Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle was in its tenth year of existence and had just made its now historic links with the New York-based Taino Resurgence movement via the visit here in Pittsburgh of elders representing the Taino Native American Association (later called Maisiti Yukayeke Taino)and so the arrival of the Journeys in Pittsburgh in 1992 was considered by me to be yet another manifestation of the overall prophecy.

Now this whole thing is coming to a head. The participation of all of us in the June, 2008 annual White Buffalo pow wow in Farmington,PA was an extraordinary confirmation of the reality and the energy inherent in this millennial prophecy. I am still moved by our wonderful photos of our participation in these two efforts, the march of the Longest Walkers through the streets of Pittsburgh, the runs into our city from New York of the P and D Journeys runners, the addition of a Caney Circle staff to the bundle of staffs carried by P and D Taino runner Maximus, the visit to the ancient ancestral archeological site of Meadowcroft Rock Shelter here in Western PA, and finally the White Buffalo Pow Wow in Farmington, PA.

I invite you to enjoy images of these experiences in the photo album of the Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle's Yahoo Group "sobaokokoromo2" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sobaokokoromo2/photos/album/151850976...

Now our own Taino kasike Roberto Mukaro Borrero prepares to go to Panama, coincidentally the very country which served as the focus of the P and D journeys this past summer. Mukaro is participating and representing his Taino nation in this year's Third annual Indigenous Leaders Summit in Panama. Mukaro was one of the organizers of this event at the March, 2009 co-coordinating meeting in Otawa, Ca.
http://uctp.blogspot.com/2009/03/3rd-indigenous-leaders-summit-on-c...
Now the great prophecy of the eagle and the condor continues to manifest in his participation with our northern and southern brothers and sisters in Panama.

The voice of the Taino is a strong voice in this current era. It is an important element in the manifestation of that prophecy and, as such, I believe it is a confirmation of the message of our ancient Taino prophets Aurasurey and Guaricheanao, a confirmation of the message of the Twentyfour generation prophecy, a confirmation of the prophecy of the White Cemi that manifests every year in Jayuya, Boriken at the annual Jornada Indigena Taina

We continue to struggle for full reconciliation among our Taino brothers and sisters, as well as full reconciliation among all human beings and between humans and the ancient covenant between the human species and Mother Earth.

Oma bahari
Taino Ti
Miguel Sobaoko Koromo Sague