The Walking People by Paula Underwood
Keeper of a 10,000-year-old Oneida Oral History
âNew shoots of all the varying grasses burst through the crusted, yielding earth
Each small fissure forming a minute valley
Out of which new life sprungâ.
There was joy among the People
Earth began a new song
And the People
Voiced her melodyâ.
Spring feels to be a good moment to read The Walking People.
A Native American Oral History by Paula Underwood.
Keeper of a 10,000 year old tradition.
This book shares this 10,000 year old history.
It is a long song. In which the voices of countless generations echo their Wisdom forward.
Every part of that song is memorable.
Shows folks today what could be ways to Walk Together.
To Learn Together.
To Listen Together.
To Counsel Together.
To Walk a Path.
To have a guideline that links a long past to a long future.
Gathering dates of The Walking People Reading Circle
Every Wednesday starting March 26th
From 19.00 - 20.30 CET
10.00 -11.30 PST
Gathering 1: Meet each other.  Stephanie Nestlerode, who has a long history with Paula Underwood and the book, will set the stage and share stories of Paula.
Gathering 2: The First Principal Telling
Gathering 3: The Second Principal Telling
Gathering 4: Three Mountain Tellings
Gathering 5: Grass Ocean
Gathering 6: First Peoples Child: Many Paths to Learning
Gathering 7: We call the River Beautiful
Gathering 8: The Eastern Ocean
Gathering 9: Beautiful Lake
Gathering 10: What may we learn from this? Closing the Circle and listening for which new one we might open.
Â
Guides will be Odette Bovenberg and Deborah Cruzen Baird.
In this Reading Circle, we will meet weekly (10 times) during the Spring Season, starting Wednesday, March 26th.
Every week on Wednesday we will meet through zoom to share about the part we have all read. There will be weeks with fewer words and weeks with more words. We follow the roadmap offered to us in the book.
All members of the Circle will have read the words for that week.
Â
The gatherings all will follow the same rhythm.
We will create our Central Fire.
Take the time to link to the Ancestors who offered us these words.
We then will share our personal thoughts, insights on what we have read.
What caught our attention?
What will we remember?
As a group and in break outs.
We will close the loop of every gathering by expressing gratitude for the telling.
Your Guide Odette BovenbergÂ
Many winters ago, wandering on all sorts of small almost hidden paths to find simple yet strong ways of working together, I stumbled upon the work of Paula Underwood. An encounter that turned my wandering into walking through all she has left. The deeply pragmatic knowledge and wisdom she shares hit home for me. Her âdances of words on paperâ gives a smile. These are words that reach my heart.
Her encouragement that this is for all Listening Ears, give me the assurance I might share her work further on. To other wanderers of small paths. The Walking People I loved reading. And the idea of going through it again with a Reading Circle makes me feel like you would feel on a first warm spring day. Full of anticipation of good to come.
Your Guide Deborah Cruzen Baird
In my long and precious life, I have been gifted with many invitations into a deeper way of knowing, being.  Humans were a mystery for me, so many of my early friends were the four legged, wingeds, insects and reptiles that lived in the sage and cactus covered hills of Southern California. Â
In the past many years, I have studied in the Moonwalker tradition. Â I remember when I first met Grandmother Tu Moonwalker she said, âwelcome home.â Â Now, I have been welcomed into the beautiful wisdom of Paula Underwood through Odette and Stephanie. Â These teachings have given me a sense of hope, a blueprint of how to live through challenging times when what we hold most dear is under siege. To embrace Mother Earth and all our relations, plant, animal and human.
I am so honored to be walking this road with Odette and helping to bring these teachings to you. Â May we all find our way forward in a good way.
Now the People sang a new song
Let us learn all we can
Let us see all there is
Let us hear every sound
Let those who come after
Receive this gift.
To all those who went before
Sitting at the edge of any fire at all
Patiently learning each and every song
To all those who may now follow
Patiently turning each and every page
On which these songs are now sung
To all these
But most of all to my Grandfathers, Grandmother
Who walked away from her people
At a tiome of Great Change
So that the childrenâs childrenâs children
May yet learn.
This patient weaving
Of Ancient Tellings
Is most gratefully dedicated.
