Travels in a Stone Canoe: The Return to the Wisdomkeepers

According to Iroquois legend, a son born of a virgin mother carved a canoe from a block of white granite and, traveling the shores of Lake Ontario, convinced five feuding tribes to lay down their arms and join together as the Iroquois Confederacy. The boat's ability to float was proof to the chieftains that the youth was a divine messenger. As a metaphor for Arden and Wall's 15-year investigation into Native American belief systems, the stone canoe is the vehicle that transported the journalist and the photographer to their awe-inspiring encounters with contemporary spiritual elders. What began as an engaging assignment for National Geographic and, later, Wisdomkeepers, their first coauthored book, evolved into a life mission often rife with difficulties. In this shared memoir, the authors describe with candor their false starts and their frustration as well as their remarkable spiritual experiences. Gaining the trust of Indian chieftains, many of whom intentionally avoid outsiders, was never simple; Arden and Wall occasionally mistook charlatans for real teachers and found themselves in disastrous situations. Native wisdom, they explain, counsels that ""the notion of failure is always a fiction, a false self-judgment"" and that ""on the path of the Wisdomkeeper, there's only the closing of one possibility and the opening of infinite others."" This concept and other ""Original Instructions for Being Human,"" presented as a final chapter, sustained the authors on their spiritual journey to ""the inward landscape of our humanness""--or what the elders call the Great Turtle Island. In a heartfelt, humorous and respectful account of their close relationships with Iroquois, Lakota and Ute chieftains, they bring to mainstream culture profound insights into Native American spirituality. Photos. (Nov.)