Last week I celebrated my 70th birthday . . . I’ve not looked forward to greeting this decade because it just sounds old to me. The week before my birthday, I had a chance to hitch a helicopter ride down into the Grand Canyon and visit the home of the Havasupai Indians (the People of the Blue-Green Waters). Supai canyon is one of the magical places in the world. It’s a tiny village of less than 800 people who every day are treated to a billboard of changing colors on the canyon walls depending on the time of the day. The turquoise waters in the creek flow over spectacular waterfalls into Colorado River.

Last August, a severe thunderstorm resulted in a surge of water through the canyon that flooded the village and profoundly altered the falls and deep, crystalline pools. Since that flood, the reservation has been closed to visitors; this has shut down the economic life of the community.

The tribe needed to improve the trails and campgrounds if they wanted to open them to the public for this coming season. The tribe had flood-relief monies, but what they needed was manpower. Some volunteers had been coming, mostly Boy Scout troops, but the time was now getting short. The Havasupai Tribal Vice-Chairman asked his close friend, Ken Duncan, who has contacts all over the world, if he might find them some more hands.

Ken is an Apache Indian whom I call my little brother (Shidizeh), and the Director of the internationally touring Yellow Bird Indian Dancers ( HYPERLINK “http://www.yellowbirdindiandancers.com” www.yellowbirdindiandancers.com). He got together with Los Spiritu del Pianetta (The Spirit of the Earth Mother), an Italian eco-tourism company that specializes in connecting ecologically conscious tourists interested in social action volunteerism with needy communities the world over.

Twenty-two Italians (ranging from their 20s to 50s) volunteered at their own expense for a two-week tour of duty to finish the repairs before opening day. I joined a group on the bus from Phoenix; we stopped in Flagstaff to eat and do food shopping (a serious undertaking for the Italians who were cooking for themselves). We arrived at the Hilltop Trailhead and its helipad an hour and a half late, just in time to see the last flight of the day taking off as the sun was setting. My first thought was, Oh my God, the only way down is on foot. I wasn’t prepared to walk down. When I decided to come on this trip it was because it would be so easy to get down. Instead of a five-minute helicopter ride I was looking at an 8-mile hike that took the average hiker 4 1/2 hours.

It was an hour before dark, so most of the hike would be at night. My balance is a little shakier at night nowadays, but the alternative was sleeping in the bus. I took some solace from the fact that there was a full moon, and I was with friends I knew I could lean on. And deep down, I believed that whatever my limitations and fears, in my heart I thought I could do it.

After the first couple of downhill miles, my toes, banging into my boots, began screaming for mercy. But holding a stick in one hand, and an arm in the other, I took one of the most incredible walks of my life.

I’ve walked this trail twice before, but never at night in the full moon. In this magnificent isolation, with no light pollution, the stars descended in twinkling showers of light. Even in the darkest crevices, the sheer walls were illuminated in a silvery fluorescence. When we were quiet, the silence was deafening. Once Ken got up and sang an Apache lullaby. The words echoed off the canyon walls, and in that moment I felt one of those mouth-opening pauses when you know you are in the presence of the Awesome.

I came here thinking it would be an easy, quick recharge and, instead, found it was a hard road to an incredible revelation. If l let my limitations define the path I choose to take, then I’ll only walk the trails I’ve already taken. Somehow “70” sounds less old today; my limitations lie within, and old is when your memories exceed your dreams.

I say this for all my relations, mi takuye oyacin.

P.S. The Italians are leaving on April 24, and we can say thank you by helping them with expenses. If you are so moved, donations can be sent to Yellow Bird Productions, 3827 E. Contessa St., Mesa, AZ 85205.

Last August I joined my holy brother Dr. Patch Adams and 100 other clowns from around the world in the Peruvian Amazon to do the humanitarian clown work for which Patch is famous. Clowns from South America, Central America, North America, and Europe went to Iquitos, Peru, to support the Belen Project. This is a multi-disciplinary team effort, providing sustainable healthcare for this poverty stricken population.

We visited orphanages, AID’s shelters, and homes for the abused and abandoned, hospitals and prisons. Clowns danced in the streets, paraded through open markets, and spread love. Clowns also conducted workshops for children, teaching skills like juggling, photography, drumming, puppet-making, and hip-hop dancing. Clowns painted houses and created outdoor murals; the doctors among us consulted in a medical clinic run by a non-sectarian medical mission called Amazon Promise (AP). Since 1993, AP has been providing essential medical services not only in Iquitos, but also to 36 villages in the remotest jungle where they are still met by warriors holding blow-guns.

The founder and president of AP is Patty Webster (I call her the Amazon Queen); she handles the logistics, raises funds, and recruits volunteers. The clinic was held under a house on stilts, where she supervised the examining room, pharmacy, and medical supply dispensary. Patty called me over to see Jay, a severely spastic seven-year-old boy who was carried in his mother’s arms, curled into a fetal position. Jay spoke in grunts or snarls; his skin was covered with oozing wounds caused by his severe self-mutilative behavior.

Other doctors had seen Jay, all of whom agreed he was severely brain-damaged, without much of a future. They prescribed the potent antipsychotic Risperdal, in an attempt to modify his self-destructive behavior, but nothing worked. After examining the boy, his mother asked me if I thought her son would get well. I said her son was severely brain damaged and would probably never walk, talk, or interact with others. She wept in my arms and shook her head, saying, “No, no, no.” Patty and I discussed Jay’s case afterwards, and I told her maybe the best we could do was to quiet him down so his frazzled mother could get a good night’s rest. I suggested we give the boy some Valium before bedtime which would quiet his nighttime agony.

I just got a note from Patty with some pictures attached; she saw Jay a couple of weeks ago for the first time since that clinic visit. He walked in with his sister. Patty said she was flabbergasted — most of his wounds were healed, he was relating to his siblings, and articulating words. Patty was thinking that if she could raise the funds, she might be able to get him into a special needs school.

It turns out the Valium I had prescribed to quiet him down also made him far less spastic which, in turn, lessened his self-mutilative behavior. Everybody in the family loosened up as they all slept through the night. I told his mother he would never walk, speak or socialize, and I was wrong. His mother said, “No, no, no,” to my prognostication, and she was right. This reminds me, once again, never to subordinate somebody else’s dream to my sense of the likelihood that it will be achieved.

To all the clowns who heal in this world, I say Gesundheit! God Bless you.

P.S. for more info and to support these efforts go to:
www.amazonpromise.com
www.gesundheitinstitute.com