8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating and inspiring book, January 1, 2008
This review is from: Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (Portraits of American Genius) (Paperback)
Mabel McKay, Weaving the Dream is a profound, poetic, and magical journey. I have read it aloud a number of times to savor its depths. If you have any desire to know Native Californians as human beings rather than museum pieces, you may want to start here. The book, which is steeped in the oral tradition inspired me to write the following poem which was published some years back through U.C. Davis.
Mabel McKay (Weaving Poem) (by Norm Milstein, 7/97)
Plumage of a Pomo basket
Flame of feathers blue and black
Strung with glistening abalone
Rimmed with ivory disks of shell.
Read her book slowly or not at all.
She believed that stories should be heard many times
To sink in and merge with the heart of the hearer
To sink like pebbles in the soul of the listener
To grow like seeds in the earth of our minds.
Read her book slowly or not at all.
Better still, read it aloud.
Taste each word and savor the flavor
Of willow and redbud and sedge.
"I never knew nothing but the spirit," she said.
"Only the spirit trained me.
I only follow my Dream. That's how I learn."
Plumage of a Pomo basket
Flame of feathers blue and black
Strung with glistening abalone
Rimmed with ivory disks of shell.
Read her book slowly or not at all.
She believed that stories should be heard many times
To sink in and merge with the heart of the hearer
To sink like pebbles in the soul of the listener
To grow like seeds in the earth of our minds.
Read her book slowly or not at all.
Better still, read it aloud.
Taste each word and savor the flavor
Of willow and redbud and sedge.
"I never knew nothing but the spirit," she said.
"Only the spirit trained me.
I only follow my Dream. That's how I learn."
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, December 9, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (Portraits of American Genius) (Paperback)
I read this book for an anthropology class that i am taking, and i found it to be very good. We get a first hand account of what role Mable McKay played for the Pomo Indians as a medicine women and as a basket weaver. Everything that she did was for a purpose, even though at times she had to deal with not everyone accepting her. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in Native American ways of life
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
continues to resonate over time, August 17, 2005
This review is from: Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (Portraits of American Genius) (Paperback)
This is just a wonderful piece of writing, one which keeps resonating with me, even several years after first reading it. This book should have more readers, and seeing so few reviews for it, I want to argue for it as a must read on anybody's list. We all know books or speakers, writers and lecturers who could take any subject and make it worthwhile, just to spend time in their company. Greg Sarris is one of those magical presences we can be lucky enough to get to know through the medium of the page. Saying this is not intended to undercut the amazing person of Mabel Mckay, by the way. The way the past present and future weave in and out of this book, her stories, Greg's life, the future of land use in California... all of this is here, an enticing mix of POV's, passed around like a sacred pipe.
A great read....
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