From the Pages
Selected passages from the contributors — in their own words.
I grew up in a 2-room log cabin in rural Alaska.
During the cold winter months I breathed holes onto white-frosted windows so I could see outside. My home town, a small village of less than 200 people, is a place far away from any city highways, big stores, or gas stations — our cabin had no running water or electricity and the ‘machinery’ was my dad’s dog team. Our culture grew on independence and figuring things out ourselves. There was nowhere else to turn but to ourselves or each other.
This is the way of life I come from. Traditions or ‘ways of being’ was not a thing to define — it was, and continues to be, life lived based on the environment and what was passed on from our ancestors. The Dena’ina language, stories, songs and values all relate to and revolve around the land. I remember clearly the first days of school: white walls, fluorescent lights, a teacher with lipstick and high heels. Nothing, absolutely nothing, related to the world I came from.
Back in the early ’80s, as an undergraduate at Hamilton College, I discovered details about the transatlantic slave trade that troubled me deeply.
Acidic bile against white supremacy arose, filling me with rage. One day, while walking toward the shared kitchen area, I heard a joke being told in a dorm room. I paused by the door and heard the punchline: Niggers. I heard nervous laughter. And realized that to some of my classmates, I didn’t belong because of the color of my skin.
Yet, ultimately, the grand tradition of jazz helped me resist biting into a rancid apple of hatred. I had fond memories of a local saxophone legend who once told me: “Greg, you learn all of the scales, chords, arpeggios, and patterns — but after you have them down and you begin to improvise, let that stuff go and just play.”
Through the healing medium of music, artists touched my soul with a depth of artistry that came from their very being. I couldn’t hate them for the sins of those who happened to share their skin tone. I would take another path.
I thought that the journey to recognition, wholeness, and living my purpose began with a few steps across a university stage with a PhD diploma in my hands.
I was in for a big surprise. The journey took way more steps than I anticipated. And it was not across a university stage, but along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. All 500 miles of it.
Someone appeared to me while walking the Camino. They were inside my awareness and manifested as a person — an authentic expression of the highest ideal I could see for myself, but did not know at the time. This superior ideal is most loving, tender, transparent, free, and lighthearted.
My name had been Pete Saunders, and now my name was Akasha. The first time I said the name to myself, it felt like a giant tree woke up inside me, stretched, and said: "Now you see me; now you are awake." I felt a sensation in my physical body. A tree was standing tall. Rising up inside of me.
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