About Balo...
Balo is the love of my generation, it is her that makes this site promising. I am just a wordsmith; it is her flair for perfection that created that which makes me shine. I needed an anvil to pound my words out on so she found the anvil. The anvil was useless to me for I did not know how to use it. She learned and taught me. My work became a voluminous stack of papers so she bound it into a book. We created many things together selling books along the way with our creations. My work became a ministry of change so she produced a web site for me to have as a classroom. In her perfection she found a better way to execute the site and maintain it. She labored again unto perfection then taught me to do the updates. Balo as you might guess is left-handed and I am right-handed, together we are ambidextrous. My teachings are of the woman being first before the man, for my heritage sees the woman as the keeper of the seed. Without the seed the generations would come to an end. Without Balo, you would know little of my work or myself. My efforts move around the world, as on this site you will see because of the creativity of Balo. As it should be, you read initially of her hard work and then a small history of mysef, that you may know whom it is that smiths the lessons and stories you read.
About Yogi...
Born in 1954 into
a family only two generations removed from native life and no
reservation roots at all I am able to claim my native roots from the
work of my aunt. In my household it was not acceptable to say you were
Indian. My father’s father was full blood Seminole from a family
hoop that chose the swamps of south Georgia and north Florida over
the infamous trail of tears. My pap paw was a principled man who
learned not to speak of native things as a means of protection
from a prejudice society that thought they had learned to live on the
Turtle Island without the help of the indigenous peoples who were already
here. If he tried to practice his heritage in any public way he would
have been moved to a reservation, in fact all of his generation faced
brutal changes to eliminate any competition to the theology that
conquered his people. As one of two brothers, he was orphaned at age
four when his mother died and his father's wife would not accept half
blood children. Relations of his mother who were actually Timucua, a
name their people were given by Ponce De Leon before the Seminole
Alliance was formed, took them in. At ten, the Timucua family could no
longer afford to raise them so another family of the Seminole
Alliance took them in. They were from the Ashanti Nation, once proud
Africans who had escaped slavery to associate themselves with the
Seminole Alliance. At age sixteen, he migrated north to Tennessee to
begin a life where his was native was not known. The most telling part of his heritage were the
lessons he taught, for they were of respect no conqueror comes to by means
of their hereditary nature. He taught his family to live as a part of the environment
you moved into rather than destroying all that's there then rebuilding
it to suit your ego. He also taught when you leave a spot, you should leave no
footprints. Which is to say, leave no destruction in your wake. He toiled to survive in the world we find
ourselves surrounded by today while teaching the ways of the past as a
means to hunt and live with the Island Planet of our birth. They were the
lessons that he as a boy had been taught but learned not to identify
the heritage of. His generation of reservation counterparts lived in
constant fear and chastisement.

It
was my generation that rose up in the internment camps, called
reservations, to win the rights of heritage from the occupying
government of today. I am the beneficiary of this fight, not the
warrior. I thank my reservation brothers for the victories that bring
wholeness to my life and honor their proud struggle in my prayers. My
pap paw’s wife, my mam maw, was one of two sister’s orphaned into
the white world from a full blood Catawban father and a white mother
so that they might have a chance in the harsh world of their birth.
They favored their mother, appearing to be white, thus they were accepted among the whites as equals. This was the sacrifice of
many mixed native families that were shunned by their relations from both sides. They made such a scarifice for the sake of their little ones, that the little ones might experience life without prejudice. Respect for
their surrender is a part of my daily existence, although as a young
mind I was very bitter when first told. My mother’s roots from her
natural father, my granddaddy, were of double fisted Scottish drinking.
Her mother, my grandmother I never knew was of full Cherokee heritage.
This family hoop, as so many others, survived by becoming a part of rather
than fighting against the people of their era. It is my belief that my
Creator is always with me. Respecting the challenges of my
ancestors, in and out of the internment camps, causes me to write in
the third person using we instead of I many times. Without their struggles I
would have nothing to write nor an earth walk.

I dedicate this
website to all who came for
before me, all who have walked with me and all who will follow me in
the continuation we call life. For though the lessons of my
youth were not taught as native, I now know that they were.

I received my
medicine shields from my Seminole and Abenaki teachers. I have been
given many native bequests to pass forward that so they might continue to
be appreciated. Each gift that was given to pass, was passed and in
doing so I gained the trust of guides that work with me daily. The
trust was granted because the gifts that were given were of
significant value and by releasing them to their highest good I passed
a test that I did not know I was taking.
My life story is
one of survival. Through childhood and adolescence I passed through
trials that built a soul immovable from my Creator's side once
sobriety took hold and memories were healed. Without the help of my
Creator and the Earthbound Angels , there are many times my body would
have been laid to rest. Yet, in the present day, I walk in no more pain
than most and much less than many. I have learned to journey inside to
find answers to passage of outside struggles and in my writings I try
to pass a little of that forward.
I now live in
Georgia with my wife who is my life and business partner as well as
my best friend. Our life is complemented by my wife's mother whom
enhances our lives greatly. We also share our live's with our two
children, Harley the dog and Randi the cat. In our home love is
abundant. Our natural children all have lives of their own and live eslewhere.
Contact Yogi
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