GIVING THANKS IS THANKSGIVING

"When we met the English, we made that offering. And of course it would take time for them to know who we are and what we are, to be able to be in thanksgiving. If you think about it, we gave them unconditional acceptance and love and nutriment. Otherwise they would have been massacred at the beach. That was an ability of my people of which I am most proud. But to say thank you for the love you receive from another group of people and to peacefully and happily coexist with us that did not happen. And it still isn't happening. That is the only thing that we can lament about, is not to be received for who we are. For we are the people of the First Light. The new and original thought of the Creator is on that light." - Ramona Peters, Wampanoag

Native American artist Ramona Peters, Wampanoag at work

NASA SPACE PROGRAM

"The Wampanoag Nation has the true, powerful and painful story of the spirit of the Pilgrims, Europeans, and the consciousness known as the White Man in its infancy of spiritual development that has grown in small increments the past four centuries. Space travel, to me, is the Western paradigm of death, destruction, and division applied to interplanetary travel, war, conquest over people, and control of resources.  Why in God's name would Creation allow, or at the low end of the spectrum, why should any of us on Earth allow the space program to advance to the level of travel knowing the paradigms of yesterday live in the hearts and minds of today's White Man?" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories, 2009