[Woman vocalizing] [Electric guitar playing] Carlos Santana, voice-over: Everybody has a story.

My story is deeply connected to my love of music.

This love opened me up to feel what it is that connects all of us.

So I wrote my own story.

It's an autobiography, and I call it "The Universal Tone."

Welcome to "Global Spirit."

I'm Carlos Santana.

Hi.

I'm Cindy Blackman Santana.

Some stories give us a sense of purpose or make us stronger.

Tonight, we'll hear stories about the Crips and the Bloods and how these rival gangs fought for over 20 years and made peace.

Similar stories are told in most native societies, stories that help shape and define a people.

These are "Stories to Remember."

Carlos: So let's sit back and join our guide and host, Phil Cousineau, for a journey into another dimension.

"Global Spirit," the first internal travel series.

Phil: As the author of over two dozen books and several screenplays, I believe its stories are what make the world go round.

Walking in nature gives me time to reflect on many of our ancestors' stories that need to be retold again and again.

On this sacred ground, where once stood a Coast Miwok Indian village site, I'm learning more about the culture and storytelling tradition of the original Coast Miwok and Ohlone natives who once thrived in this rich land that we now call California.

[Woman singing rhythmically in native language] Phil: I'm grateful that there are still native peoples who remember their stories and who are determined to pass them on.

Woman: It was raining.

Aw, and poor Crow.

Now he had to go beg to the people.

Phil: In this "Global Spirit" program, we are joined by two storytellers from different cultures who share at least one thing in common: they both use stories to teach, to heal, to inspire, and to remember.

Kay Olan is a renowned storyteller from the Mohawk nation in upstate New York, who comes to California to join us for this unique conversation.

Orland Bishop is a mentor and community organizer in Los Angeles, working with current and former members of the notorious gangs known as the Crips and the Bloods.

Do you know why we tell stories?

Girl: To remember?

Welcome to "Global Spirit: Stories to Remember."

Welcome, Kay Olan.

Welcome, Orland Bishop.

It gladdens my heart, as they used to say, to have us together today to talk about something that's been very important to me since I was a kid, and there's this whole realm of storytelling and soul and myth, and the fact that the great stories, the sacred stories, have a deep purpose; not just entertainment, but a deep purpose.

And it was Campbell who gave me this notion that one way to deeply appreciate the earth and the different peoples all around the earth that we're living on is to learn each other's stories, to learn each other's mythologies, our fables, our legends.

How important is it for us to know each other's stories?

Kay: I--I think it's so important, and especially in this day and age, where everything is done so quickly and we are used to speaking in sound bites instead of going into depth, into the different layers of what it is that we are trying to express in terms-- in terms of our experience and our values and our viewpoints.

It reminds me of something Reuben Snake, the great Winnebago elder, told me years ago, that some of our stories are quite long.

They can take days to tell, right?

But in a mysterious way, small portions, details of the story, contain the whole.

Phil: Orland?

Orland: The story is the fastest way to transfer the heart to the sense of the mystery.

Kay: Hmm.

Orland: The sacred is not something that has to be found only in the monastery or in some enlightened practice, even though that is-- been good for some.

But we found that young people, when they are exiled, when they're in this aloneness, the sacred comes.

How it comes--it comes as a sense of... search for meaning through the question "Why me?

Why am I going through this?"

William Stafford, the poet, puts it this way-- "A Story That Could Be True"-- "If you are exchanged in the cradle, "and your real mother died without ever telling the story of it, no one really knows your name," and he asks in the last line of the question, "Who are you really, wanderer?"

And you have to step into an answer.

Even if the world doesn't give you an answer, you have to answer, "Maybe I'm a king."

That's how he ended the poem: "Maybe I'm a king."

So there's a certain kind of nobility...

Absolutely.

In asking yourself the question, "Who am I, really, "apart from the story that I grew up-- "others telling me that I am?

Who am I, really?"

My first newspaper editor, Roger Turner, back in Detroit, told me, "Phil, we need journalists to tell us "the facts of the world, but we also need the poets and the philosophers to tell us about the soul of the world."

Right.

Does that make sense to you?

Yes, and so this is the mind.

The mind has the factual level, and--but the mind also has the poetic level.

At the level of the poeticus, the mind is not translating, but transferring imaginations, and so we actually journey into the very experience that we are encountering by being told the story.

Kay: There are so many different kinds of stories, um, and when we take the time to share those stories, no matter what kind of story it is--whether it's, uh, an old story or a new one, or a family story or a creation story or, uh, a story that explains, um, why things are the way they are-- all those stories bring us together.

They bring us together so that we understand each other better.

Phil: And now we'd like to turn to the video that was shot of you in your storytelling encounter with our local Coast Miwok and Ohlone people.

Kay: Hi.

Woman: Welcome.

Kay: Hello, hello.

Oh.

Welcome to my ancestors' part of the world and my world.

This is my daughter.

Hi.

Oh, hello.

Hi.

My name's Kay.

Oh, mine's Mona.

Well, it's Ramona, but you can call me Mona.

Mona.

Yes.

And your name?

Ruth.

Ruth?

Uh-huh.

Oh, it's so nice to meet you both.

Pleased to meet you.

Oh, it's so good to be here.

Yeah, meeting a--a native from the other part of United States.

I can't believe it.

Oh, my gosh.

Who knew?

Yeah.

Uh, my reservation is called Akwesasne.

Oh.

Oh, that's pretty.

And it's, uh, Mohawk territory, and one of my aunts that lives there is a basket maker.

Oh, my goodness!

And this is a basket that she made.

Thank you.

Oh, my God.

It's made of sweet grass.

If you smell it, you'll smell the sweet grass.

Mmm!

Mmm!

And black ash split, so if you turn it over, this is the split from a black ash tree.

Those are her initials.

We have a gift for her.

Ruth: She's going to get you something.

Mona: This is a village site, and it's over 2,000 years old.

Oh.

Mona: There it is.

Ruth: And I'm going to give you this.

This is made by one of the California natives in the Ohlone territory that lives down in Fresno.

Her name is Eleanor Castro.

Oh, my gosh.

Thank you so much.

Ruth: This is my mommy.

Oh, wow.

And this-- she was, uh, um, 30-- let me see, she was 32 in June.

This was taken in March, so she wasn't quite 32 yet 'cause she was 32 when she had me, but, uh, this is my native mommy.

Her father was a red-headed Spaniard, like she always told us, and her mom was the native.

And on her mom's side, they were pure up until, uh, her dad came along.

Oh.

That was her.

She was a very proud lady of her--her native heritage, and she always told us we were Indians, and they had all kinds of names for us, but we were California Indians and we were all brothers and sisters anyway, so don't worry about the name.

"We are Indians and you always know that."

She even used to tell the kids 'cause Mona's one of seven-- Yes, she used to tell us, uh, uh, you know, only take what you need.

Don't take any more.

That's how the Indians do it.

Yeah, yep, she said that, uh-huh.

And that's our--our teachings.

You know, take what you need.

It was put here for the use, but just take what you need and leave the rest for the future.

And always give thanks.

Yes.

And later on in life, when I started to learn how our people lived, that's what they did.

They even thanked Mother Earth.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kay: Oh, it's so pretty.

I like it.

Ruth: It smells good.

It looks like a fox's tail.

Heh heh!

She always told us who we were, always, you know?

And on our birth certificates, she put she was an Indian, and that was the--that wasn't something--she was born in 1902.

Kay: And that was a time where a lot of people were hiding that information, right?

And that--were taught to be ashamed of it.

Yeah, it was, uh-- that made life more difficult for them, too, to let people know that.

When I go through, um, Niles Canyon and come out to the area where my mom was born-- Sunol and Pleasanton-- there was this-- part of the hill on the side there and, uh, she used to tell us that was a special place in that hill for her-- the, uh, natives.

She used to call them for her Indians that lived there.

And that's where-- 'cause that's her area, where she was born, and she-- she would tell us, but, you know, kids, little kids, it went through one ear and out the other.

But then, after I got older, I wanted to know what she meant by that.

I should have paid attention.

So I always tell the kids, "Pay attention when--when we're talking, you know?"

There are so many questions we should have asked when we had the chance.

Yeah, and that's one I really wished I would have paid attention to, yeah.

And--and there were so many stories that we heard, but so many we never got to hear.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

And it's-- it's a shame, so we treasure the ones that we did get to hear, and we try to pass them on.

We need to remember... to give thanks each day for all the gifts that we have been given and that we are all connected.

When we are invited to share our stories, we--we feel enabled, we feel we have power.

We are--we feel as though we really exist.

Somebody is seeing that we are here, and they want to hear what we're feeling and what we're thinking about and what we've experienced, not just to hear our stories, but possibly to learn from it as well.

So we become each other's teachers and each other's doctors because, in the process of telling our stories, we are able to let go of some experiences and feelings that maybe we need to let go of.

And...in the process of telling our stories, sometimes we're able to draw back a bit so that we can see those experiences from another viewpoint, and then we have, hopefully, in some cases, an "aha" moment, where we've learned something that we hadn't thought about before, not just for ourselves, but also our listeners sometimes have that "aha" moment, and they all of a sudden... if they've experienced something similar, they don't feel as alone anymore.

"Somebody else went through what I've gone through."

Or "somebody else thinks that this is important, and I always thought it was important," you know, so there's a sharing there.

Orland, I remember you saying that it's your job, your task of tasks in life, to help the kids on the street tell their stories, but also to tell them stories from the outside world that might help them.

How can an old myth like "The Iliad" help kids on the street today?

Well, this is a-- that story gives us the background to mentorship.

The whole idea of journeying was to make the person move from their place of origins to a place of destination.

So destiny and destination are the same thing: "Where are we going?"

And so, when a person is stuck, even in the street, there's a level of destiny that wants them to navigate those streets and find even, a certain way, a guide.

Streets have guides.

Wonderful.

Can you describe the actual project that you're involved with there?

Who are those kids?

Well, uh, our--our work for the last 18 years has been centered in the organization we founded called ShadeTree.

Orland: And in this particular clip, we show, uh, some young friends who are visiting from Germany, one from Brazil, one from South Africa.

And so they were here for an internship to explore social entrepreneurism, and n this particular day, I was introducing them to Elvonzo-- we call him Red Man"-- for them to get to know his story.

The storyteller is a host when you are telling the story, of not just a story itself, but those who are listening to it.

Red Man: ...yeah, where I was born and raised at.

Right across this here way is, uh, Markham Middle School.

Uh...yeah, we called it "Thunderdome"... [Laughter] as a youngster, so-- Orland: That's where the gladiators are born.

Yeah, man, it was gladiator school, man.

That's where all the-- like this bridge.

I remember when it wasn't a bridge, but--but the-- it's just like the train tracks is... it divides us from the Crips and the Bloods.

This side here would be the Crips' side, that side over there would be the Bloods' side, you know.

How--how does that-- that middle-school relationship affect the...

I mean, the later, supposedly opposing gang sides?

I mean, you've got friends from-- that are--that end up in the Bloods.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Orland, voice-over: How do we cross into the social consciousness whereby you can meet a person and get to know their relationship to their neighborhood, to their life, by walking the place with them?

Ever since then, we would give each other, since we know one another, and he's a Crip--if I'm a Crip and he's a Blood, and--and so we knew how-- and we had that mutual respect for one another, so I wouldn't fight him.

I'll fight his homies, though, but I wouldn't-- I'd give him a pass because me and him cool.

Uh, but other than that, you know, got to let the 'hood be the 'hood and... Yeah.

just let him know, "OK.

baby."

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And, uh, we made it out here, man.

We're still surviving, man.

My best friend, he was-- man, he got shot over 16 times?

13.

13 times, man, and he made that, um, we made that agreement, man, to live, man, and, uh, he's a survivor like I was, man, being shot 10 times.

He'd been shot 3 more times than me.

Red Man: Man, one of my survivors, man, one of my partners, man, because we didn't want to die.

Ha ha ha!

We wanted to make it.

We wanted to survive to make sure that we would--get the-- you know, man, and do-- I'll say the "do the revenge" part, but it ultimately-- man, to see your family, man, so you know what I mean?

So we're living a whole 'nother path now, man.

Oh, homies.

Orland: The bridge has both a symbolic and a reality behind it, too.

Red Man: Yeah, yeah, it does.

So people always say that there's two sides of the tracks, but... Ha ha!

a bridge is not on two sides, it's on both sides.

Yeah.

Yet it's not, and so the potential is that there could be an imagination for bridging whatever is dividing this community.

Exactly.

[Birds chirping] Orland, help me unravel a mystery here.

Red Man uses the expression "an agreement to live."

Uh, what did he mean by that?

Well, in--in the morning, when he came over to, uh, meet with me, he was in such despair that death was right there, waiting for him, either by what the environment would bring-- someone shooting him-- or he taking his own life.

I just knew soon I would die, you know?

I was--had a... it was just this morning where, uh, it was yesterday in the morning where I--I knew I had to... find...find someone just to...help me find myself and... help me choose a path from death to life.

And, um, at this time, um, I just barely met, um, Orland... Orland, voice-over: There was no sense that something could be different than what's happening.

So when we spoke, basically ask him, "What would it take for you to live?

"What level of commitment would it take for you to live?"

And I let him know.

I just broke down.

I--oh, man, feel like I'm going to die.

I can feel death around me, like, you know.

And he knew I was-- he knew I was serious 'cause I never came at him like that, and I know I kind of scared him because I don't think nobody else came at him like that, ever.

Orland, voice-over: And so we explored this-- "Is there a--a dream that you have in the future that you want to achieve?"

And he said no, there was no dream.

He had two young children, and they were not at the center of his life as a priority where he wanted to live for them, either.

Ah!

He prepared me and did some rituals and we did some meditation.

I think we sat there for, like, 2, 2 to 3 hours of just praying and meditating.

Orland, voice-over: And so I asked, "Can we make an agreement to live?"

Creating a choice, I mean, creating for me to make a choice for life or death... Orland, voice-over: "And if you don't know how to hold "that intention for that future, can you allow me "to hold it for you?

Can you allow me to want you to live?"

...that it was up to me now and the spirit--in my spiritual realm of what I wanted to do.

Why is this agreement so important for these kids to announce to themselves and to you?

Well, we--we often say that there's a first agreement that a person makes in coming-- African story says you made an agreement to be born, that you are not a mistake and you're not someone else's, you know, uh, purpose for coming into the world.

You're--you are your own purpose.

And so you were chosen for a certain possibility of tasks, and you agree to it.

And to take on a physical body is itself an agreement, and so the--to--to exist is an agreement.

To now enter into these other levels of agreements brings our spirit into our physical life, and so every social agreement that expands my role in society brings more of me into the world.

Is it your interest to help these kids tell their own story?

Orland: That--that's--we call it the Genesis pathway.

You get the Genesis pathway-- the point of beginning is for the person to take personal responsibility for what they know.

They know their story, they know the, um, the feeling that could-- that if the story is told, that it becomes, actually, more true.

Is this related to the concept of Sawubona, and if so, how?

Well Sawubona is also a Zulu word that translates, "We see you," and it makes me affirm that my seeing is connected to the eyes of ancestors and even the eyes of the place where we are meeting, so--we say the spirit eyes.

And the response is "Yebo, Sawubona"-- "Yes, we see you, too," so it becomes an agreement.

And in this agreement, other possibilities can be fulfilled, and so there's a kind of code in the soul of the future selves of ourselves.

And one can see that.

We call it prophecy, and so, um, uh, Ralph Waldo Emerson, uh, says this: "There's a power in love "to divine another's destiny "better than that other can, and with heroic encouragement, hold him to his task."

Kay, what did you see in this clip?

Kay: Uh, I think we need to share our stories because otherwise, we just get a superficial view of one another, and we don't really understand why we're saying and doing what we're doing and what the intent is.

And, uh, very often we're taught to analyze situations and other people and see what the differences are instead of the commonalities.

But it's the commonalities that pull us together, the things that we have in common and the things that we can relate to in one another that remind us that we're all related and that we all share this wonderful planet that we live on, and that we all have the same hopes and dreams for the future generations, that we hope that they will be able to live in a time where there's sharing and mutual respect.

None of us even learned anything about California Indians, none of us.

I like to say "native" because we're really not-- it's not--we're not Indians because we were native people.

We had names that per-- pertained to the area that we lived in, and that's what they called us, which was not anything that the-- the white man knew, so, I mean, we're native people.

And that shows, also, how close we were connected to the land because we identified with the-- what was ever unique to that area where we lived, yes.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was lucky because I had, um, relatives of my mother.

My mother was Mohawk.

Mm-hmm.

We say-- "Kanien'keha:ka" is the real way to say it.

"Mohawk" is what other people have called us.

Mm-hmm, And, um, she was Mohawk.

My dad is non-native and-- but he's always wanted us to learn, my sister and myself, to learn about my mother's culture and traditions and been very supportive.

And I was lucky because a lot of my mother's family were involved with trying to keep our culture and traditions and history alive, and so, um, I had nearby teachers in terms of relatives.

Mona: Mm-hmm.

So my-- my necklace that I have on, my uncle made it.

Oh, that's beautiful.

And this is what we call the great tree of peace.

Oh.

And what happened was, in our history, there were 5 warring nations: the, uh, Kanien'keha:ka, or the Mohawk; the Oneida; the Onondaga; the Cayuga; and the Seneca nations, and they were fighting with one another.

And sometimes people will ask, "Well, why were they fighting?"

And we don't really know why, but one person that I know said, um, "Maybe it's because we're only human," and so even though we had wonderful values, after a while, sometimes we get lazy and we stop giving thanks for all the gifts we've been given.

And when we stop doing that, when we stop acknowledging, expressing our love for everything around us, you know, um, all--all of the different aspects of nature and each other, then we, uh, forget our connections to each other, and that makes it easy to get angry and to be at war with one another.

So, um, so that's what has happened in our history from time to time, is we would forget to give thanks, we'd forget about our ceremonies, and then somebody would come to us and remind us... Yeah.

again 'cause we forget.

Yeah.

and we need to be reminded.

They would remind us to give thanks, and then we would remember that love.

That's a wonderful story.

Kay, in my understanding-- the wampum belt plays an important role in the telling of these stories.

Wampum belts are made out of beads that are made from shell.

And...those beads are sometimes strung together in strings, and are sometimes used in ceremony.

They're sometimes used for sending messages.

But sometimes they're woven together into belts, and there are many, many different kinds of belts, and each belt has a story about our history, about events, important events, or treaties.

And so we would notice which of our young people had good memories, and we would train them to memorize the speeches, uh, or the stories that go with each belt.

And we would ask them from time to time to tell those stories so we would know our history, so that we won't forget them.

This wampum belt that I have here, it's called Guswenta, it's called the Two Row.

And this--this, again, is a replica of a 400-year-old wampum belt that reminds us of an agreement that was made with Euro-- some of the Europeans that came to this part of the world 400 years ago.

And when it became obvious that they weren't just visiting, that they were going to stay for a while, that we had to figure out a relationship between our people, we had to figure out, "How are we going to relate to one another?"

And so this-- the background of this wampum belt are white beads representing a river of life.

And progressing down that river of life, there are two vessels-- one belonging to the Europeans and one a canoe belonging to us.

And symbolically, in that ship that belongs to the Europeans, symbolically are all of their people and everything that makes them who they are, how they identify themselves-- their language, their history, their spirituality, their traditions, their music, dance, their stories, clothing, food-- is in that ship.

The other vessel that's going down that river is a canoe belonging to us, and in that canoe are all of our people symbolically and everything that makes us who we are and how we identify ourselves: our songs, our dances, our stories, our ceremonies, our food, clothing, history.

And the agreement that was made was that we would not live side by side as father and son, but as brothers, as equals traveling down this river of life, and that the Europeans would not leave their ship and go into our canoe and try to steer our canoe, and we would not try to steer their ship because we would live in mutual respect with one another.

We would respect each other's ways forever down--going down this river of life.

And that's still the hope.

We're still hoping for that, and that's the story that we pass on because we want to keep remembering it and make it happen.

Phil: Orland, do you see an equivalent on the streets of south central L.A.?

The equivalent of the wampum belt, the reminder of telling a certain kind of story that can help us heal the grief?

Well, as you say, in--in the urban setting, the--the ground carries the shrine of those whose lives were lost there.

Um, uh, different places, there are the tags of "Someone died here."

And so, in-- we say "the killing fields of our urban spaces," where death has occurred so many times, it's hardly-- certain places you can walk without walking upon the grave site of someone that they know.

Red Man: Man, this...right here.

As I was--as I'm speaking to my friend... he comes out the back door... Mmm.

and shoots my friend right here.

My friend died right here, and while he's shooting my friend, he just had his--his son.

Mmm.

He just had his baby and he, uh... and his, uh, his girl is pregnant.

Woman: Your friend's name?

Oh it was... And this is one of my moments-- this was the first time I seen, um, a friend, um, a friend die.

Close friend of mine's died right here.

Orland, voice-over: The place where the death itself happened stands as the informal ceremonial ground, and so something else happens in the exploration of these physical and geographic spaces.

...'cause...um...

So this is the thing about memory.

[Coughs] The earth-- the earth-- not just we remember, but the earth remembers, too.

I know.

You can't forget.

[Distant children clamoring] Orland: Wow.

Red Man: And then being so close to being killed 'cause he could have killed me, too.

Orland, voice-over: Over and over and over, people are re-initiated into what their death means for the future.

Orland, it was pretty powerful to hear you say that the dead can guide us.

That sounds like a line out of a...powerful poetry class, "Beowulf" or the Greek myths.

How does that work on the street, where there is so much literal death?

Do the guys on the street get what you're-- know what you're getting at?

Well, this is the other-- this is the other reality, that, yes, they know-- they know what it means to...know so many people who have died.

This changes fundamentally the orientation of what we call time.

Time for them is not just a long life, it's the depth of the weight of carrying the memory of the dead.

At a certain age, some of them know 20, 30, 40, 50 people before they reach 25 years old that have died.

This--this--this phenomena of knowing the dead is one of the ways by which people come into knowing the depth of the mysteries of what we call it, the mysteries, the... the--the world behind the world.

The veil is removed, and what they are able to see always is the living memory of those dead ones, the living memory of the dead ones.

But that needs ritual and ceremony, right?

Yes, the only thing left to do is to initiate a task for that memory.

Someone--we have to do something with their memory.

It doesn't-- it's not a passive thing.

It still asks people to live out what the dead no longer can live out, and so we carry the--the-- so the living memory of their...potential life.

Phil: Kay, does that make sense to you?

That the dead can guide us, that the ancestral spirits are there to be invoked, human tragedy?

Kay: When we remember the ones that have gone before us, we are hopefully also remembering what it is that they... can teach us... from what they said, what they did, and what they experienced, what they endured.

And hopefully we learn from it.

We learn from history, we learn from our families, we learn from one another.

If we don't share those stories and we don't pass that on, then we're at a standstill, you know.

It's--it's part of their education, and--and we-- we build on that as we progress through life, hopefully.

What happens if we don't tell those stories?

Someone else, someone else has to go through the experience and become the teller of some things that we know, but we don't reveal.

The story ends certain realities and begins others, and so the part of the telling the story-- what we call destiny-- is a transformation so that their life becomes part of the life of others, and there's a continuity of meaning that brings an end to certain specific kinds of suffering and then brings the healing in because this is the thing-- the story brings the medicine in and he had to tell his to--to complete, know, um, do something for his sons, his children.

Orland: I think this next phase of the story is about prophecy, the idea that people could look into the future and see not just possibilities, but probability, and choose when you want certain things to happen.

It comes to you because you're ready to receive it, and you can make a choice to receive it and then it comes in.

And so somebody have to choose to receive it, and how those relationships are made, um, is what I think I-- I'm trying to host... Mmm.

because... it's been prepared.

Hmm.

Not just our generation, but many, many generations have prepared it, and there's a way to let it... happen now.

Orland, voice-over: We live as people who hold two parts of a shared future, and we can come back to that future every time we recognize each other again.

And so Sawubona is a way of giving permission for the person to take up their spiritual responsibility when we meet.

Kay, I was struck by Orland's use of the word "medicine" to describe the work that he does and the stories that he tells and elicits out of people.

Are stories medicine?

Kay: Definitely, definitely.

Um, if you invite me to tell my story, I--I feel valued, I feel important, I feel like somebody really cares and hears me and sees me and I'm really present.

We have, uh, a tradition of talking circles, where people gather together and are invited to tell their stories and talk about their experiences, whatever it is.

And the only rule is that those stories stay in that circle, stay in that circle because they're-- they're personal, so there has to be that feeling of safety.

And when we tell those stories, within that story, the listeners sometimes all of a sudden experience, "Oh, I'm not alone," you know, "I've--I've felt like that" or "I've seen that" or "I've heard that" or "I've experienced that or worried about that," or "I was hurt in the same way," you know, so all of a sudden, that listener-- or listeners--they don't feel alone anymore.

Somebody else has gone through that.

Man: One of the stories my father would-- told us, uh, the turtle was, uh, one of my fa-- well, my, uh, spirit creature.

And there's a story that says, uh, that the creator, great spirit, grandfather, he wanted to teach his children, uh, a lesson.

And he would do things to teach us lessons, uh, in whatever way he thought was appropriate, that people would remember.

And so what he did was he sent a beautiful shell down to Earth and just left it.

And this young native boy, some Ohlone boy, came along and he found the shell, and it was a beautiful shell, and so he decided it must belong to a beautiful creature.

So he went searching for the creature that belonged to this beautiful shell.

And he came across a pheasant and he asked the pheasant, "Do you want this beautiful shell?

"Because you have beautiful--you know, "you have beautiful, beautiful feathers and you're so colorful.

This must belong to you."

And the pheasant said, "Of course it must belong to me if it's that beautiful."

Kay: Ha ha!

And so he put on the shell, but you can imagine how hard it was for him to-- to fly with the shell.

[Laughter] And so, of course, that didn't work, so the young boy took it back and he came across a jackrabbit.

Now, jackrabbits are very athletic, but they're also known because they are very clever.

And he--the boy said, "This shell must "belong to you because you are clever and you "are athletic and you're good in sports and everybody chooses you first for the baseball team."

And the rabbit said, "Of course it must "belong to me because I am all those things you just said."

So, of course, he put on the shell and obviously he couldn't run, he couldn't get away from his--the fox and anything else that was chasing him and he didn't--didn't fit in his burrow anymore, so he gave the shell back.

And so the boy kept going on, and then, um, he came across this-- this ugly little reptile, slimy and green, with cold claws, and the little--little creature looked up and said, "Can I try on the shell?"

And the boy said, "I don't--I don't think "this is your shell because this is "a beautiful shell, and I'm not trying "to offend you, but you are not the most beautiful creature I've seen."

And this creature said, "Yes, but I--I-- I bruise easy, people don't see me and they step on me, um, and I'm cold."

And so he put the shell on and, of course, it-- my dad taught me this.

He says-- Ah, ha ha!

It was the-- it was the turtle.

And the turtle put on the shell, and, uh-- And he became the hero.

Became the hero.

Ha ha ha!

Man: Well, a good story draws everyone in.

A good story is-- And they all find their own entrance into the story.

And I think, uh, what I was told was that when we--long ago, uh, when stories were told, afterwards there would be discussion.

Mm-hmm.

Discussion about the story, you know, what--what do we learn from it, you know?

How can we apply it to our lives?

Um, what does that remind you of?

Did anything like that happen in your life?

You know, there was discussion, and sometimes-- especially young people at-- maybe this happens with you, too.

Sometimes they'll say, "Is that true?

Did that really happen?"

Ha ha!

Yep.

And I had to think about that for a long time to try to figure out how to answer that.

And what I've come up with-- I don't know if this is the perfect answer, but it's the one that I've come up with-- is, uh, "I can't tell you "what you should believe.

"I can just tell you what I've learned "and what I think.

"Now it's up to you to figure out "if that story can help you at all "because that's really where the truth is, "is if there's something useful in that story for you."

That was marvelous.

I was transported, and I think that's one of the great properties of stories, right?

It moves you from one place to another in the telling of the story.

Orland: And I think, when we listen to someone else's story, we have to suspend our, uh, disbelief that that's how their story went.

And by doing this, the mind does something very, very creative.

It chooses to participate in the story as a witness, and so this is the critical part.

We're not just listening, we are witnessing, and at the level of the witness, one experiences yourself being there 'cause we can call this the transcendent mind and any--every human being can participate in the creation story of every culture if they choose to par-- to--to, a certain way, embody through these senses the natural capacities, which is to be where the speaker is at that moment.

It also seems that every era... has tried to come up with an elegant balance between modern stories and ancient stories, modern symbols and ancient symbols.

I'm reminded of another clip that we have of you near the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, pointing out the obelisk.

Orland: When we look at this-- this symbol here, this obelisk.

I would say-- This.

Why was this created here?

In order to bring... a consciousness of the economy itself.

The original ones that were made by the Egyptians were taken from Cairo and given to... city of London, the city of Paris, the city of New York... Mmm.

um... city of Rome, and...one more.

But they all created the financial center of the world.

Any place where that is becomes a focus point for a certain kind of economy because it's the oldest symbol for...bringing something from the other world here.

Yeah.

Man: Do you--does the one in Washington, D.C.-- um, you know, Washington, D.C.?

Was that created--what-- do you know what intention that was behind it?

Power.

[Red Man chuckles] Orland: Governance.

Of what?

Still to be determined because the--the powers that are emerging in our world is not yet finished.

Man: Yeah.

So, but... yeah, government of a new nation.

That was the intention of Washington's vision.

Thank you, Orland.

Kay, what did you see when you saw the obelisk?

I--I was wondering if, um, it would mean different things to different people, if maybe, uh, to some people, it may symbolize male power.

Um, for us, a very powerful symbol is the circle, and the circle reminds us that everything of importance in life goes in cycles, moves in cycles, and that we come from the mother's womb, and it's the women that are the life givers.

And we live on a round planet, and the sun and the moon, they revolve around us and they're round and, you know, so I'm wondering if it's a, uh, influenced by various cultures, the kinds of symbols that we select to mean power.

Very intuitive, very perceptive.

It is a male symbol, masculine power.

Consider this--in one of the oldest mythol--myths is the myth of Isis and Osiris.

And...when Osiris was dismembered, cut up into pieces, and the body-- the parts put all over the world, there was one part that was missing when he was found-- when his pieces were found and brought back together.

But what they couldn't find was the phallic symbol.

They couldn't find his male organ.

And Isis, the goddess of the world, put her body on him, not only resurrected him to life without this missing part, but conceived a child.

It was one of the earliest ideas of an immaculate conception, without this...part being there.

And so the idea of this, um...erect gesture is the conceptual power of not just fertility, but immortality and, uh, conceptuality of life, whereby everyone has the power to conceive of their own future.

So "masculine" in that sense did not mean men.

"Masculine" just meant the conceptual power to, um, potentize, uh, the sphere of life.

Orland: The--the--the holistic aspect of--of an economy is fundamentally an agreement between the masculine forces that, um, draws out from the feminine the creative intention, so that's the economy of spirit and economy of peace.

One person cannot make peace by themselves, and so the critical aspect of--of this is to remind us that Isis, or the feminine, is the entire sky being that is constantly regenerating life by these symbolic, upright gestures of--of willingness to participate in her sacred task.

I appreciate the serendipity of this because we've been talking about how stories can help us learn about each other, appreciate the parallels, but also the nuances of difference.

So we've been looking at one symbol from two different perspectives, and it is a wonderful segue into a thought that I found recently by one of my favorite writers, N. Scott Momaday, the great Kiowa writer, who wrote several years ago that stories are predicated on belief, not understanding.

"Belief is more essential to a story "than the understanding of it.

"The primary object of storytelling is the establishment of wonder and delight."

What do you think?

Stories serve so many purposes.

There are so many levels to it.

Um, we have a circle wampum.

Uh, it's--it's not shaped like this.

This is a rectangular shape.

We have a circle wampum, and on the outside of that circle, there are two strands of beads that are interwoven together.

The men and the women, the chiefs and the clan mothers, because to maintain our culture and our traditions and our spirituality, they need to work together.

There has to be that cooperation between men and women to maintain, again, that balance which is a--a lifetime job to try to figure out how to maintain balance within ourselves and the rest of the universe.

And then everything inside that circle belongs to our traditions, so we say when somebody's doing something or saying something that is helpful to the community or to the society or to the nation, they're working within the circle.

If they're doing something that's not helping, that's not helpful, we say they're working outside of the circle.

I always know when I'm in a good conversation, when I...am challenged to think about something I never thought about before.

And what you just expressed was the dimension of hope in a story, and so I'm wondering if you think that it's possible to change our story, both as individuals and cultures.

Well, yes, uh, in '92, when some friends created a peace treaty between the Bloods and the Crips.

The idea is that they insisted that the story was going to change, the story of gang violence was going to change.

And they made a choice, and they chose not to be enemies.

They chose it.

Now, the risk is that if the other person wanted to--to take their life, that could have happened.

But because they took such a risk, the other person didn't shoot.

Heh heh!

And the fact--of the fact that they actually came into an agreement because some--one of-- several of them chose that they've had enough of living that way, and then work-- had to come together to sustain it, and it's sustained for 12 years.

Kay, any final thoughts about stories, memory, place?

Kay: One of the teachings that's been passed down to us for a very, very long time is the idea that... whenever we say something or do something, we need to take the time to reflect first before those words come out and before we act on how that's going to impact us as individuals sitting right here, but also the next generation.

How is it going to impact the next generation and the next and the next?

We're supposed to think 7 generations into the future.

If we think 7 generations into the future before we speak, before we act, then we're more likely to make a good decision.

So it isn't just about us, it's about the future.

Orland: Uh, um, so much deep gratitude for having remembered so much more, having spent time in this conversation.

But I remember when I recovered my story, um, it was close to the death of a friend.

And he was in this state of consciousness where he was asleep but spoke from this place, and he told me, "You better do what you're here to do."

I was on the way to a--a different career path; I was studying medicine, and I--and he--he forced me to remember what it was I was here to do.

And I sat by this bed for about two hours, and I asked myself, "What am I here to do?"

And it came to me.

This is what I'm calling prophecy.

One can ask, and even if there is no one there to tell you, you can remember because this is-- this is the dimension of our current age.

It's not a--just an age of inheriting things.

It's the age of invoking and calling things into being because the world wants you to be you.

The earth wants you to be you, the future wants you to be you, and I think this plays a role as well in this current societal age, where we actually think we are going our separate ways, but we are coming close into a common belonging.

I hope.

Hope.

Heh!

The poet Muriel Rukeyser would be very proud of this conversation.

She once wrote that the world is made up of stories and not atoms.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Heh heh!

I'll agree.

I think the two of you have helped us evoke just that, so thank you, Orland Bishop, thank you, Kay, for sharing what you know and what you've lived in the world of stories.

Thank y. Hi, I'm Carlos Santana.

This is "Global Spirit," the first internal travel series.

Peace.