-------Introduction
-------Hippy.com or Hippyland, the world’s biggest hippie site on the internet, a site with 26,000 registered members,
recently posted
-------an article of mine on its "Activist Spotlight" forum. In the article I wrote about the simular history and commonalities of my
-------visionary mission and the visionary mission of The Farm, the biggest hippie community in the
world. And after my article was
-------posted on hippy.com’s, "Activist Spotlight" forum, I sent an e-mail to The Farm’s Ecovillage
...informing its director and other
-------members of the Ecovillage about my "Activist Spotlight" article. And in the e-mail, I also
included a link to another article
-------of mine that Skip Stone, the creator and webmaster of Hippyland, posted on his website’s
sister site, Coolove. In response
-------ALBERT BATES, the director of The Farm’s Ecovillage wrote, in respect to the Coolove
article:"good article" This Hippyland
-------Coolove article is Hippyland forums' most popular article about religion.
-------Mr. Bates is an internationally renowned hippie counter-cultural activist and a very prominent member of The Farm. He became a
-------global authority on ecovillages, founding the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology. He is the author of several
-------books. One of his books Climate in Crisis is introduced by Al Gore. Bates, as an attorney, argued environmental and civil
-------rights cases before the U.S Supreme Court and served on the steering committee of Plenty International for 18 years, focusing on
-------relief and development work with indigenous peoples, human rights and the environment.
-------****************************************************************************************************
-------A 1960s hippie activist
-------by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
-------This article is about my contemporary, Thomas Merton influenced, youth of the 1960s counter-cultural mission
-------and [associated] international geographic site name-changing movement.
-------In Minnesota, "the land of ten thousand lakes", there is a large and beautiful lake named Mille Lacs. Its
-------outlet river is named Rum. The "Sioux", or Dakota Indian, name for the Rum River is Wakan, which is translated
-------as Spirit or Great Spirit. According to historical documents found in, "Minnesota Geographic Names", a book
-------written by Warren Upham, and published by the Minnesota Historical Society... in the late 1700s, white men gave
-------the Rum River its current name by way of a "punning translation" that "perverted the ancient Sioux name Wakan".
-------I became aware of this profanation of the sacred Dakota name for the "Rum River" some twenty five years ago.
------- And then 10 years ago I established a movement to change the river's profane name.
-------When I discovered this profanation of the sacred Dakota name Wakan, I was participating in a - worldview around
-------the word wakan - movement. (The word wakan sometimes translates as sacred or holy) This movement originated
-------as apart of the 1960s youth counter-cultural revolution. A revolution with a mission to establish a single united
-------global culture, a culture made up of the best of the past of all the worlds’ different peoples’ cultures and
-------traditions. A culture wherein, we hoped, all of humanity would eventually be united. This movement was founded
-------on lyrics in the Beatles' song Imagine: "hope you join us and the world will be as one".
-------And this movement is still active. Near Summertown, Tennessee, there is a 250-member and very successful youth
-------of the 1960s counter-cultural commune with a - worldview around the word wakan - hippie visionary mission. Its
-------founder and leader [Stephen Gaskin] is internationally known and his commune has gained national recognition as
-------a creditable environmental organization.
-------The "Sioux" are used to portray all Native tribes in Hollywood, anyone wanting to see a "real Indian" wants to
-------see a war bonnet and a tipi. Therefore, I believe that the world psychic views all Natives as “Sioux”; and
-------that when people watch the traditional Hollywood movies about Natives they often hear the "Sioux" using the
-------word wakan [sacred], or the combined words Wakan-Tonka [Spirit-Great]. Hence, a lot of people believe that the
-------word wakan and the name Wakan-Tonka are used by all Native tribes. Stephen Gaskin once wrote: "The word
-------wakan has a strong and universal concept and people all around the world know something about it."
-------Because the members of my organization believe that Native culture has the most valuable features of all
-------cultures, features such as kinship tribalism, an ecological spirituality, a charismatic spirituality...etc.,
-------and also because we have therefore made it the predominant culture of our globalization movement, we therefore
-------describe our movement as a - worldview around the word wakan - movement.
-------And it is by way of our Rum River name-change movement that we are promoting respect for traditional Native
-------culture and spirituality. And we are doing so by showing respect for the sacred Native word wakan as well as the
-------sacred Native name Wakan.
-------The Tekakwitha Conference is an international Catholic Native conference that represents many tribes throughout
-------North America. And at the 1983 annual Tekakwitha Conference, a conference that I attended, a missionary Priest
-------addressed the conference and said: "There is a whole worldview behind the word wakan".
-------And during the 1983 conference, I was interviewed by Matthew Fox. At the time, Fox was the international leader
-------of the Catholic Church's single united global culture movement. And at the beginning of the interview, Fox told me
-------that Thomas Merton had asked him to reach out to the youth of the 1960s counter cultural revolution with the
-------intent to help them find the truth and live holy lives. And then Fox asked me, a hippie counter cultural
-------revolutionary, what I thought about this connection with Thomas Merton. I responded by telling him about my--
-------strongly influenced by Merton--worldview around the word wakan--hippie counter-cultural mission. And near the
-------end of the interview, Fox ask me to keep in touch with him, so as to keep him informed about the progress of my
-------mission. And just recently, Fox, emailed me to give his support for the effort to change the profane Rum
-------River name.
-------And during the 1984, Mr. & Mrs. I. C. Rainbow family reunion my uncle Don Rainbow addressed the seventeen
-------families gathered at that Rainbow family reunion and said: " A Rainbow is a sign of God's salvation plan and
-------I believe that we may be used to glorify God more than any other family in the world." He made this very
-------grandiose statement after I spoke to him about my vision of our family coming together in kinship tribalism
-------in order to promote the tribal way and to also promote my expression of the counter-culture's--worldview around
------- the word wakan--mission.
-------Years later, I met and became friends with Chris McCloud, an internationally renowned song writer, who in the
-------1960s socialized with Paul McCarthy and other internationally known counter cultural leaders. When McCloud
-------was socializing with McCarthy he was of the, strongly influenced by Thomas Merton, Catholic expression of the
-------counter culture's--world unifying--globalization movement, and he is still of the Catholic expression to this
-------present day.
-------In the 1960s, I met and became friends with Richard Carter. Carter was a San Francisco Bay area leader of the
-------counter-cultural revolution and he occasionally met with Stephen Gaskin. When Gaskin and his commune moved
-------to Summertown Tennessee, Carter his wife[Lois] and myself traveled to Wahkon, Minnesota. Currently, Carter is
-------an internationally renowned environmentalist. And the headquarters of the Rum River name-change movement are
-------now located in Wahkon. Wahkon is a different spelling of the name Wakan.
-------These mentioned above experiences inspired me to increase my dedication to my mission of promoting my
-------expression of the counter-culture's worldview movement around the word wakan, and to do so, by showing respect
-------for the Native word wakan. And in order to show due respect for the sacred Native word wakan, I, as previously
------- mentioned, established a movement to change the profane name of the Rum River.
-------My organization’s efforts to change the river's name has received support from a very long list of organizations
-------and individuals. Some of them include: a Mdewakanton Dakota Community, a Mdewakanton Dakota organization,
-------Cankdeska Cikana Community College, Tekakwitha Conference (an international Catholic Native organization),
-------the UN Secretariat of the Permanent Forum On Indigenous Issues, the National Environmental Coalition of Native
-------Americans, Joe Day (Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council), Russell Means (internationally
-------renowned American Indian activist), Pat Albers (Chair of the University of Minnesota's American Indian Studies
-------Department), Archbishop Harry Flynn (of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul), American Indian Cultural
-------Research Center at South Dakota's Blue Cloud Abbey, the University Creation Spirituality, Pax Christi USA, and
-------many other human rights organizations, internationally renown Native activists, historic preservationists as well
-------as thirty pastors of Christian churches located within the "Rum" River area.
-------For more information about the Rum River name-change movement click
http://www.towahkon.org
-------Click the following link to read more information about the - worldview around the word wakan - hippie
-------counter-cultural movement.
http://www.towahkon.org/links.html
