Coffee Novelist

 

 

A few months ago, I began work on the third Trier novel and was doing some reading to help me with the background of one of my characters. The character is a weatherman who works at a very badly run TV station called WONO, as in “Oh-No!” 

 

Anyway, Gil (his name for now) doesn’t have a degree in Meteorology but has one in Native American Studies but gets the job as the weatherman, partly because WONO is a badly run TV station. The novel is set in 1985 before one could easily Google someone.

 

But a couple lines for the novel became reading the whole book. Most of which was taken from speeches, writings and recollections from before 1900. I read them in the context of global warming, the internet, the presidential election and Instacart. Times have changed but these wisdoms only seemed more relevant.

 

Native American Wisdoms for today world

The white man does not understand America. He is too far removed from its formative process. The roots of the tree of his life have not yet grasped the rock and soil.

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the children of the earth.

It does not require many words to speak the truth.

Knowledge was inherent in all things. the world was a library, and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of the earth.

• Without love we can no longer look out confidently at world. We turn inward and begin to feed on our own personalities, and little by little we destroy ourselves.

Native American faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.

The air is precious for all things share the same breath-the animals, the trees, the man.

Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit.

Silence is the cornerstone of character.

All who have lived much out of doors, whether Indian or otherwise, know that there is a magnetic and powerful force that accumulates in solitude but is quickly dissipated by life in a crowd.

The miracle of the loaves and fishes excites not greater wonder than the harvest that springs from a single ear of corn.

All learning is a dead language to one who gets it secondhand.

It has always been our belief that a love of possessions is a weakness to overcome.

Our transition from our natural life to the artificial life of civilization has resulted in great spiritual and moral loss.

I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable.

When I reduce civilization to its most basic terms, it becomes a system of life based on trade. Each man stakes his powers, the product of his labor, his social, political, and religious standing against his neighbor. To gain what? To gain control over his fellow workers, and the results of their labor.

Words do not pay for my dead people. Good words will not give me back my children.