(C) Red Cliffs State Park, by Nathan Cowlishaw

My name is Nathan Cowlishaw. I am a 23 year old 'non-native' male living in Southern Utah, but I was born and raised here. My hometown was in Salt Lake City, but was overjoyed to leave that place when I was little. I wrote this bio when I was 17. So the following paragraphs remain unchanged! Know that the following is the perspective of a 17 year old, and if there are any prejudices present, my perceptions might've since changed. When a person learns something new, it is often wise if they choose to "flip-flop" on an issue, or a certain truth.

About Me

I am in the rock and mineral business with my grandparents. We mine it open pit or quarry. Our main stock is a sculpturing rock called alabaster. We also sell cut marble, obsidian, and jaspers. Our main customers are the Navajo which travel up from the Arizona, and New Mexico regions. Being able to talk and have conversation with these people is where my feelings toward them were developed.
 
Being blessed, I have come to have great respect for the Native American culture, and their ways of life. Their good truth, which came from their wise men was simple yet very moral. These people deserved better than what the White Man gave them, when they carelessly pulled their home lands out from underneath them and placed them is closed reservations.
 
White People, too much of the time, do not understand the ways of life of these traditional people  who once lived long ago and today.
 
I was born into this modern age, and have developed a passion to hate it to a certain extent, because of its vanities and false ideas. The materialistic way of living is lazy. I do not like large civilization, it is a lonely place to me.
 
It is important to me that I am able to go and be away from this. I like the mountains and the places where the ancient people settled or migrated. They endured harsh winters, and good abundant summers, and slept close to the Mother Earth each night instead of beds.
 
Civilization was never a bad thing, but when it becomes too giant or prideful and boasting it can be bad. It is my opinion to say that soon things are going to have to change. The Mother Earth can't tolerate mankind's abuse to her. It is the human responsibility to care for the heart of our Mother.
 
The mountains are the last things that are remaining old and undisturbed, but even now we are building things into them. I still can go in them, camp out, and watch the stars, sleep and dream in the night by an old fire, and wonder some where else other than this realm of confusion. It truly is something simple, easy, and very righteous. It is being alone and hearing the voices of the past.
 
We must preserve the remnants of the past. When they are destroyed, we care not to listen to those ancient humans who once walked upon this ground and called it their own. Chief Seattle said that man did not weave the web of life, he is only a strand in it. The white man has yet to learn how to help preserve and kindle what is left of these people who are struggling today because of an oppressive government that now controls them.
 
Native people every where are suffering, such as the traditional Dinah on Black Mesa in Arizona. A local mining company called Peabody is depleting their only water supply. The Dine people are good people, and I hold them up with much respect. The United States should stop the mining of coal on these sacred traditional lands, but they allow it to continue, even against the wishes of these traditional people. It is sad.
 
I am lonely sometimes in the way that I feel about life. Hardly any one I know agrees with me. I feel sad because I find a beauty that I can never put down. I carry it in my heart. My spirit can not be broken because I have found my place in life. I cannot go back to my past. My future will be radical. I have found my song. It is in my soul that I can stir up the old way.
 
How can I convince people who I know that using up the earth's resources is not good. The Creator gave us this home; we must care for it! Where does it end? Is our cities and towns going to grow bigger? Is our trash going to fill every crook and cranny? I hope not! I love the clean wilderness, and a sky without clutter. It is the sacred duty of every human to pray for the protection of our Earth.  She will clean herself. She will cast off what ever is dirty and unacceptable to her. She is self-aware, and is mighty! She has given us a home. We must keep our places clean and pure.
 
In beauty everything must be done!
 
 

About This Website
 

Welcome to my web site. I would just like you to read this before you check out these following pages, that you understand that I am not indigenous, nor am I affiliated or related to any tribe. My website is "in" the honor of the traditional North American People. I consider the appropriate words to describe my writing would be "Native Heart, or Native related." Please understand that I have deep respect, and  I do not desire to infringe upon any tribe, belief system, or artist. My writing and poetry has been inspired by my own inventions and ideas, and what I have learned. I am from Irish, English, and French descent. My own ancestors are European immigrants and settlers that came across the plains and settled in the west during the 1800's. I was born and raised here in the state of Utah. As so, I understand no other land better then this one. This land has cared for me, and I feel it is time to protect it!
 
My web site is non-denominational. I believe that it is vital in spirit and reality to protect indigenous traditional ways. The Creator made laws for us to live simple without the material things. In my years I have met, and made lots of close native friends, and I have learned about the great injustices being committed against the modern day traditional Hopi and Dinah at Black Mesa, and Big Mountain, in Hopi land. My heart goes out  to the Traditional Navajo, and Hopi people in Arizona who are suffering at the hands of Government and corrupt institutions.
 
Please feel free to comment on what you think.

The Superstitions
 
 

Hair from the old cactuses falls to the ground. The landscape sun is creeping downward. The mysterious night is beginning to throw her shadows down upon the field of creosote bushes. The air is thick with warmth, as the evening locusts finish up their buzzing.
 
The spirits of the mountains are waking up. White men once went into them searching for their gold, only to mysteriously disappear, and never return, because they decided to trespass.
 
A cloud from the twisted past is blanketing the shady Earth, while the crimson sun falls. I am in the heat of this aged desert of the Sonora.
 
White men went into those forbidden mountains. Yes they did, while monsters waited, to take them away, and kidnap them into the silence. I wonder where they went. I wonder what's in there? It claims those common victims, when they seem to misbehave!
 
Gold was never to leave those mountains, For in them everything is sacred, and protected. They are meant to be left alone. Foolish people who do not understand, seem to venture where they are not supposed to be! they will see the white faced ghosts, and the disturbances they create.
 
Yet, I dare not cross the line, and so I stay away, and out of those quiet mountains. For there are only certain people that are allowed to enter the doors thereof. It is only for me to wonder about, and dream.
 
Respect the old way, and those who request it. Do so, and you will always have a friend!
 
 

Earth is Sacred
 

Away from the darkness, a dreamer's journey begins towards an incredible healing. his dream inside conjures up images from the bottom of waking hours. The spent thoughts were turning up nothing, the imagination was sad because it did it all in vein, and trial.
 
Yet, he wanders beneath shield and sky, and crosses the beautiful Desert, that goes on flowing through him like a river and that is where all of the hidden wounds have been sewn. When young, he knew not what his fear was, Now he knows.
 
This is my own walk on the Red Road, and it's across a cheerful landscape, a vista of quality, and color. The bad things in my life are forgotten. They matter not! They are just small thoughts that are cast from the mind! In peace, I shout it all out, until I feel unworldly silence.
 
A bush, a stone, the sound of crickets, a river in the mountains, the meadowlark hidden in the sunflowers, whirling it's incredible whistles, all is beautiful. The desert heals this old worn-out soul. The deepness thereof is possessive me as a castaway! As far as I am concerned, The raft and me can just float forever.
 
Supernatural clouds in their frames sail along the horizon.  I can hear the beating heart of the Mother Earth. The wind stirs the forces of life, and I am in the corners of God's imagination. Free of any pain I might have suffered.
 

The Only Land I Know

 
I drive my old yellow Toyota through a sea of desert west of my home and it is bone dry. In the summer it is a frying pan. Hardly any moisture can be found out there in the emptiness where dust devil, whirl winds call it their own. Everywhere around my home, the old people use to travel. They left their rock writings in hidden canyons and rock face walls. They left behind their dwellings, their belongings. I can imagine them out hunting or visiting among each other.
 
All over that country I drive that Junker wherever it will allow me to go. Out to places without any incredible features, to places that are starving without the green beauty. Areas that are flat and dead-like, and have their own loneliness. Out there in the desert the dreams, and ghosts pass by bottomless mountain ranges under blue sky. The father sits up in his heaven, and he created this place for me because I love it. I love traveling a highway for 100 miles without services. In three days I might only see one other car or truck.
 
The power of the sky, and the desert, I cannot get it out of my head. I stand up in the wild, and can feel the ancient way that is still alive. At night when I sleep close to the Earth, I know that every thing will be all right in the end! I can't let go of what I have found and learned about the old way. I will always remember to know that I will always have my place in this universe, and that I will always exist, some place, some day, forever!
 
Places of silence, is where I can find the great mystery. He knows me and I talk to him. I know that something listens to me out there in the endless void.
What I send out comes back to me ten times over.

My Personal Log: West Desert Journal

Clipart (c) by http://www.rtcomputer.com/