Laguna Pueblo Quotes

To be able to make up stories has been a great gift to me from my ancestors and from the storytellers who were so numerous at Laguna Pueblo when I was growing up. I learned to read as soon as I could because I wanted stories without having to depend on adults to tell or read stories to me. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko

if you measure

the length

of your ego,

it will equal

the distance

between you

and your freedom

if you

are far away

from yourself,

how could

you ever be

close to another? ~ Yung Pueblo

I sat at a lunch table with a professor of premonotheistic spirituality, plus several women from some of the tribes in this state that has more Native Americans than any other. All agreed that the paradigm of human organization had been the circle, not the pyramid or hierarchy - and it could be again.

I'd never known there was a paradigm that linked instead of ranked. It was as if I'd been assuming opposition - and suddenly found myself in a welcoming world; like putting one's foot down for a steep stair and discovering level ground.

Still, when a Laguna law student from New Mexico complained that her courses didn't cite the Iroquois Confederacy as the model for the U.S. Constitution - or explain that this still existing Confederacy was the oldest continuing democracy in the world - I thought she was being romantic. But I read about the Constitutional Convention and discovered that Benjamin Franklin had indeed cited the Iroquois Confederacy as a model. He was well aware of its success in unifying vast areas of the United States and Canada by bringing together Native nations for mutual decisions but also allowing autonomy in local ones. He hoped the Constitution could do the same for the thirteen states. That's why he invited two Iroquois men to Philadelphia as advisers. Among their first questions was said to be: Where are the women? ~ Gloria Steinem

don't run away
from heavy emotions
honor the anger;
give pain the space
it needs to breathe
this is how we let go ~ Yung Pueblo

The Pueblo story is that everyone started out underground. People and animals, everything. And then the badger dug a hole and let everybody out. They climbed out the hole and from then on they lived on top of the ground. When they die they go back under.

[…]

'I always try to think of it that way,' he said, after a minute. "He had a big adventure up here, and then went home. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

...he was such an ass - I mean if he was any more of an ass, he'd be saddled and ridden in a small pueblo in Mexico.
--Ashland ~ Lila Felix

Beauty Way
Today my heart will have harmony;
My spirit singing the songs of happiness.
My mind will seek balance, one with Mother Earth and the Creator.
My eyes will look for good and there I will find it.
My mouth will whisper the words of gratitude. Today I will walk the beauty way. ~ Howard T. Rainer

When you look at the Pueblo communities along the Rio Grande, when you talk to the Navajo people, the Ute people, and certainly the native peoples of California who still have their communities intact, it is what they have always known: that we are not apart from nature but a part of it. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

It has been more than 30 years since this disgraceful episode occurred, and I believe that the United States government should demand the return of the USS Pueblo to the United States Navy without further delay. ~ Wayne Allard

Pueblo, Colorado, a corrupt and decaying mining town high in the Rockies, is the setting for Heidi Julavits's The Mineral Palace, a story of motherhood, a troubled marriage, and the unveiling of long-held secrets. ~ Nancy Pearl

She gave us a small, difficult smile, as if it was the last coin in her wallet. ~ Sofie Laguna

Designed in a 'Pueblo Deco' style, which blends Mission with Art Deco influences, the DCA tower is a composite modeled after real Hollywood landmarks built in the 1920's; possible influences include the Hollywood Tower at 6200 Franklin Avenue, The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard and the Chateau Marmont at 8221 Sunset Boulevard. ~ Leslie Le Mon

self-love is a sincere
acceptance of the past
an agreement to make
the most of the present
and a willingness to allow
the best to occur in the future ~ Yung Pueblo

There was a muchacha who lived near my house. La gente del pueblo talked about her being una de las otras, "of the Others." They said that for six months she was a woman who had a vagina that bled once a month, and that for the other six months she was a man, had a penis and she peed standing up. they called her half and half, mita' y mita', neither one nor the other but a strange doubling, a deviation of nature that horrified, a work of nature inverted. But there is a magic aspect in abnormality and so-called deformity. Maimed, mad, and sexually different people were believed to posess supernatural powers by primal cultures' magico-religious thinking. For them, abnormality was the price a person had to pay for her or his inborn extraordinary gift.

There is something compelling about being both male and female, about having an entry into both worlds. Contrary to some psychiatric tenets, half and halfs are not suffering from a confusion of sexual identity, or even from a confusion of gender. What we are suffering from is an absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one or the other. It claims that human nature is limited and cannot evolve into something better. But I, like other queer people, am two in one body, both male and female. I am the embodiment of the heiros gamos: the coming together of opposite qualities within. ~ Gloria E Anzaldua

sometimes growth hurts, but it is the type of pain that is easier to endure because it is helping us come forward as a better version of ourselves. ~ Yung Pueblo

The entire federal budget for landslide research is $3.5 million a year - far less than the property value lost on a single day when 17 mansions slid down a hill in 2005 in Laguna Beach, Calif. ~ Bill Dedman

Science? The Savage frowned. He knew the word. But what it exactly signified he could not say. Shakespeare and the old men of the pueblo had never mentioned science, and from Linda he had only gathered the vaguest hints: science was something you made helicopters with, some thing that caused you to laugh at the Corn Dances, something that prevented you from being wrinkled and losing your teeth. He made a desperate effort to take the Controller's meaning.

"Yes," Mustapha Mond was saying, "that's another item in the cost of stability. It isn't only art that's incompatible with happiness; it's also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled."

"What?" said Helmholtz, in astonishment. "But we're always saying that science is everything. It's a hypnopaedic platitude."

"Three times a week between thirteen and seventeen," put in Bernard.

"And all the science propaganda we do at the College …"

"Yes; but what sort of science?" asked Mustapha Mond sarcastically. "You've had no scientific training, so you can't judge. I was a pretty good physicist in my time. Too good–good enough to realize that all our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook. I'm the head cook now. But I was an inquisitive young scullion once. I started doing a bit of co ~ Aldous Huxley

i do not wish
to change the past
it made me
who i am today
i only want
to learn from it
and live in a new way ~ Yung Pueblo

Just as I was about to close my eyes I saw a faint line connecting the shadows, like string you take into a forest so you don't lose your way. Everything in the room was joined by one line; the frame to the curtain, the coil to the crack, the belt to the shoe. I closed my eyes and in the vision behind the skin of my lids I saw the line stretch way out to sea, like cobweb blown by the wind, further and further; it crossed the Pacific until the Pacific became the Indian and it found Robby in his ship. It touched his shoulder and moved across the sleeve of his shirt and up to his eyes and across the top of his head and then the line went to all the other men on the ship; then all the way back to me. Everyone was joined. ~ Sofie Laguna

I really loved working on 'Laguna Beach,' and I'd do it all over again. I'm one of the luckiest kids in the world, but I thought it was going to be a documentary about kids in high school, and they exaggerated all this drama. When it came out, it was this weird thing. People feel that they know you. ~ Stephen Colletti

If you're waiting for me to declare my undying love for you, I can't do that yet, blood-bond or no blood-bond. If you think I'm the swoony type of heroine you find in romance novels, who'll fall into your arms just because you saved me from an alternate reality or whatever, get ready to leave empty handed, because I don't want to be caught. ~ Dianna Hardy

Working on 'Laguna' was great because just being in production and shooting stuff and having to go back and relive some things, and there were some lines here and there that the producers would want us to say, and just kind of, you're forced to recreate moments, and just working on the show was so much fun. ~ Stephen Colletti

All communities have a right to clean water. The taxpayers of Pueblo should not have to carry the burden of the clean up cost simply because they live downstream. ~ John Salazar

I like the beaches in Orange County the best. I think Orange County has great beaches. Everything from Dana Point to Newport to Laguna; all over the place. ~ Mark Hoppus

a hero
is one who heals
their own wounds
and then shows others
how to do the same ~ Yung Pueblo

I didn't belong to myself anymore. I had no mouth or eyes or thoughts. I didn't need anything to change or be different... The hole inside me was filled... and I was a part of things that couldn't be seen. I don't know how long I was there. There was no time. ~ Sofie Laguna

I love the ocean; growing up around Laguna Beach, I spent my summers surfing, diving, and snorkeling. ~ Greg MacGillivray

I was fooled a bit during 'Laguna Beach.' I was 17, 18 years old, and I thought they just wanted to shoot a documentary, and that it probably wouldn't end up anywhere, anyway. Little did we know about the power of editing. I had no idea that it was going to be the soap drama that it was, but I picked up on that pretty quickly. ~ Stephen Colletti

I never forbid myself anything. ~ Ieva Laguna

I like to think of myself as classy. ~ Ieva Laguna

i cannot
make you happy,
but i can
commit to support you
in the creation
of your own happiness ~ Yung Pueblo