Is your soul alive with the Original Instruction of always keeping the future generations in mind?

In this episode, I delve into the concept/idea/teaching of considering the future generations in everything you do. This teaching is as alive in my people's culture as our awareness of the ancestors and love of our Mother the earth. It's foundational, a guiding force, the right kind of inspiration to have powering your heart. Half the secret of why we're here is embedded in its teaching and accompanying vision.

This episode is also particularly special because it was recorded in the Anita Building, where the Indigenous Visions art show I curated was on display for the last two months, radiating its immeasurable medicine into the community/world. Indigenous Visions was a major highlight of my year and it happily bleeds into this episode in all sorts of sweet and lovely ways.

So, grab a mug of your favorite beverage, call up the future generations in your heart, and enjoy!!!

And as always, for more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast please check out my Patreon and consider joining the story-and-poetry-loving community there!

This week I'm sharing the latest episode of The Ponca Poet's Podcast from over on my Patreon, to give listeners a taste of what's happening over there.

Happy Fall, stay magical, and rock on!!!

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Do you remember the first time you came across a zine? The most recent time you flipped one open? Maybe it was filled with hand drawn comics, vegan punk recipes, a tour of the best local bridges to write poetry under...

This past Saturday I had the joy of participating in Astoria's First Annual Zine Fest. It was festive, colorful, diverse, well-attended, a unique happening with a ton of super creative zine-makers composing its heart. It was a blast.

On this episode, I do a recap of the Zine Fest, a behind-the-scenes (behind-the-zines maybe?) day-after storyteller zinester's share, having some sincere fun and celebrating zine culture as I've known it. I also read a poem from local poet Logan Garner, from a zine of his I picked up at the fest that he created specifically for the fest.

So, grab a mug of your favorite beverage, give yourself a big do-it-yourself hug, and enjoy!!!

Stories guide, uplift, cut through the darkness, showing us the way forward. Stories are magically capable of a million things, can transform into a gift, a friendship, a warning, a doorway, an owl with mysteries in its eyes. Stories carry the voice of the Ancient, making the oldest wisdoms legible to our curious, yearning souls...

On this episode, I tell the Mongolian story of Blind Taarva, the half-dead boy who journeyed to the Underworld and brought back...well, you'll have to give his story a listen to hear what exactly he returned from that shimmering spirit-realm with. Hint: they are wondrous and still blessing us today.

So, grab a mug of your favorite beverage, spill a bit out for the Bigfoot outside your window, turn on your magical listener's ears, and enjoy!!!

And as always, for more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast, please check out my Patreon. All support is appreciated and all deep-hearted folks are most welcome in our ever-growing little community.

Have you ever caught a smell from out of nowhere that was most certainly from a spirit?

In this episode, I read a poem titled Mouse Perfume, that's about a time I was visited by such a scent, by such a visitor.

When I was a little kid my mom talked about ghosts and spirits all the time and now that I'm older, I'm filled with gratitude over how much she normalized both the possibility of otherworldly encounters and the reality of otherworldy encounters. In this day and age, we need to make this conversation about the Other World healthy, present, and empowered again -our soul requires it, depends on it.

So, grab a mug of your favorite beverage, prepare to hear a poem that's spirit world-positive, smile at all of your spirit-relatives, and enjoy!

And as always, for more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast, please check out my Patreon. All support is appreciated and all rad-hearted folks are most welcome in our ever-growing little community.

This past weekend was the 31st Annual Ponca Powwow in Niobrara, Nebraska. Sadly, living out here in Oregon, I was not able to attend. Hopefully things will come together for me to make it there next year.

On this episode, I read a poem from The Creator's Game, the poetry collection I wrote after attending my people's powwow last year. I'm so glad I wrote that little collection. It's a record of family, Ponca bliss, old friends, Indian humor, ceremony, little people knowledge, and just unforgettable good times. It really was a comfort to read from, feeling all that I was as I thought about this year's powwow from afar.

Grab a mug of your favorite beverage, blow a kiss to powwows past, kick back, and enjoy!!!

And as always, please check out the Ponca Poet's Podcast on Patreon to hear more episodes of the podcast. All listener support is appreciated and welcomed.

These are some hard, unbelievable, maddening, and dangerous times we're living in. Are we safe? How did such a heartless, only-in-it-for-himself person come to be the most powerful person in the land?

I don't have all the answers, but I do know one of the answers is for all of us to keep showing up and contributing what we can to those whom love.

In the spirit of that, on this episode, I share a poem by W.B. Yates, and then dive into the beauty of what's possible in a well-lived life; of what it means to be blessed; and then what it means to have the opportunity to bestow a blessing on someone else.

Let's keep what gives us strength and joy close, keep our visions for a better world alive in our daily heart. Let's keep tending what we love and standing up for what we know is right.

For more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast, please check out out my Patreon. This show is supported by listeners like you and wouldn't be here without you. Weblaho!!!

Humor does a million things in our lives. It gives us strength, keeps us going. It bonds us with the people around us, makes memories that're hard to forget. It facilitates encounters with truth, sometimes even gives us a chance to cry.

On this episode, I tell a funny little story involving an early morning drive to work in misty Astoria and a certain tricky banana peel. This story just kept tapping its knuckles on the back window of my brain and I finally had to answer. Want know what was behind this story's insistence on being told? There's only one way to find out: grab your favorite beverage, invite a friend over (because why not), and give it a listen.

For more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast, and to up the radness of your character, please check out my Patreon. There's a lot of sacred fun happening over there and I'd love to have you join us.

Take one look at the headlines and you can see that we're living in some complicated, scary times. Monsters are in power. Half the country is under their spell. And the rest of us are wondering what we can do.

On this episode, I find myself wondering, remembering, calling on the knowledge of my elders, praising the sacredness of my backyard, carving a poem of hope, and leaning into the realness that we all carry within our souls. There are things we can do. There are always valiant, beautiful, humble, inspiring, deeply human, things we can do.

Thanks for joining me around the sacred fire. Together, we can make it through anything.

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For more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast, please check out my Patreon. Bring your dreams and I'll see you there!!!

And in this corner, all scraggly and wily and full of oftentimes questionable brilliance, we have Old Man Coyote!

And in this corner, all studious and packing his strange equipment and oftentimes questionably good-intentioned, we have The Anthropologist!

Who will get one over on the other? Who will recreate the world anew with their storytelling? Who will keep the Indigenous Soul of humankind alive and kicking against all the odds?

To answer these questions, you know what to do: pull on your Coyote ears, turn on your Indigenous Soul, and give this Old Man Coyote Story a listen!

On this episode, if you haven't already guessed, I tell a Coyote story and have a mighty fine time doing it. When's the last time you turned off the static of the world to listen to one of these old-time Turtle Island stories that come from the mind of our Mother Earth Herself? If it's been a minute, I invite you to join me.

Stay magical, people, and enjoy!!!

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And, as always, for more episodes of The Ponca Poet's Podcast, please check out my Patreon. It's all howls, deliciousness, poetry, more stories, and, of course, much unquestionable brilliance over there. See you there!

Have you had a chance to see Julian Brave NoiseCat's documentary Sugarcane yet? It's about the Indian Boarding Schools and was recently nominated for an Academy Award. It's powerful, not easy to watch, but beautiful too.

On this episode, I read a poem I wrote the day after I watched Sugarcane, titled 'The Undoing Shame Sonnet,' and then I wade into all of that difficult subject matter that is still tearing through many of our Native people's lives, including my own.

Be strong, relatives, and reach out for help when you need to. None of us needs to be alone with happened to us. It's time to tell our stories, be there for each other, and create a way forward that's rooted in healing and hope.

"Indigenous people are still dying from residential boarding schools. And still living, despite them." -Julian Brave NoiseCat