Several years ago, I received a request from a man in Belgium asking me to doctor owl feathers for him. I had never met him. He said his name was Roger and he and his wife had sat with OhShinnah in France. He had asked her to talk to him about the owl feathers he had been picking up on hikes, and that friends had been gifting him with. She referred him to me. This was the start of a penpalship that has become close to my heart, and was then a new experience: from another country, with someone who spoke another language in his everyday life, who perhaps thought differently about things than me, having grown up in another part of the world. I doctored the feathers for him that he sent me, in the way taught to me by my Cherokee owl teacher, Grandfather Robert. When Roger received them, he asked many questions that showed me another way to look at what I am learning. It was a bit of a quandry for me when I asked him about the energy of where he lives... OhShinnah says the energy of a place has a lot to do witih its history and the people who have lived there for centuries. I needed to share my learning and practice in ways that could be adapted to his home energy. He had never thought about this and together we needed to find words that worked to bring common meaning for both of us.

After two years, Roger wrote that he needed to come to the States and spend time with me, "so you can translate what you wrote to me in person." I was surprised that anyone would decide it important enough to go to the other side of the world. He must be a seeker! And when he came, he found much more than either of us thought was there. The Community here welcomed him warmly, there was room in the longhouse for him to have his own room near the bathroom... "you mean I don't have to live in a tent or use an outhouse??" as was his experience when he had visited a healing community in Vermont the year before. He gave us generously of his time and energy, helping with many of the chores that always need doing here on the land. It was greatly appreciated. His timing was superb, for experience to be had. Our sweat circle had agreed to host the sweats for the Northwest Medicine Wheel Gathering in Oregon and he got to come with us, helped tremendously with the work we were all doing (Building the sweats and keeping fire) and got to experience the ceremonies, and the teachings of the elders at the Wheel. He was ecstatic.

Roger shared many things about himself with us while he was here. Like most of us, he had had many life experiences. Unlike many of us, these experiences set him on a severe course of self-examination. Now, at the age of 67, he was exploring the viewpoint of the native peoples of North America, looking for something that could help him make sense of his life, his choices, and his commitment to his wife. He felt a lot of resonance with what he had heard about from the native people he had spent time with. Our group was showing him new ways of living the philosophies among rainbow people (people of all races, one race on the planet.) He felt he was healing from his past patterns of reacting to the world and beginning to take charge of the choices he made from a conscious place of wanting to be about helping and healing. He shared his struggles with himself with our circle. One night at the Wheel, we talked about how wonderful it was for all of us to have a mature elder man sharing about his growth, how all of us felt he was a better role model than many others we had had experience with. We decided to ask him if we could adopt him as our circle father. His job would be to love us all, hold us in his heart, and share his learning with us, as an example of mature male balenced energy. He was very surprised when we asked him to adopt us. "But," he said, "I am not special. I am just an ordinary man who was in pain and needed to find a new way." Exactly, Roger. What other man could be our father, us ordinary mixed bunch of learning and growing people, but an ordinary man following his heart and finding answers. We held the mutual Adoption ceremony around the sacred fire the next morning and our global family was born.

Now Roger writes to us several times a year. I love the postcards he sends of his tralvels, and the pictures of his family. I also love when he shares his continuing new growth insights. We keep him and his family on our Prayer Board in the communication room, and we keep him in our ceremonies and prayers. We treasure you, Roger. Creator holds you and yours in the hands of beauty. We love you.