Hank, Markwood, Loren and Tom
Board Directorship Body
Chief Tom Dostou Abanaki
Tom Dostou Abanaki (Innu Chief; Subchief of the Algonquin Nation) Massachusetts/Port Angeles, WA
Tom Dostou has worked with the UN as well as national governments within Europe, Canada, Japan, and Africa. His efforts include initiation and development of a Native American alliance or United Nations of N. American tribes—while serving under the tutelage of William Commanda and Thomas Banyaca—as well as numerous awareness advocacy campaigns for the ‘healing and defense of Mother Earth’. He recently completed a peace walk in the N. Eastern US (summer, 2006) where he led many people in 'a prayer of remembrance' for sacred sites and lands; these sites were once revered as 'temples' by the ancestors of the tribes currently living there. Tom and Lauren coordinated their efforts, and joined forces with leaders among regional tribes in order to assemble this walk.Tom has led many prayer walks over the past 10 years. He and several elders carried the atomic flame from Hiroshima to Chief Seattle's grave and from Suquamish, WA they traveled on foot to the UN building in NY City. From there it was reburied in Red rock, AZ, (by Hopi and Navajo medicine men) where it is believed to have originated.
Tom spent eight years with a community of Innu people in Quebec, Canada, where he followed the traditional nomadic life style of the tribe. Due to a vision he received in the forests of Quebec, he dedicated his life to the service of God, nature, and humanity, under his traditional elder, Chief William Commanda, and other spiritual leaders such as such as Thomas Banyanca and Martin Gashweseoma. He has worked as an advocate for indigenous people, seeking ways to defend the Earth, and working for the betterment of humanity, ever since.
Dianne Walkup Lakota/Choctaw Auburn, WA
Dianne joined the Tree of Life Guardianship in 2006, and serves as a board member. Prior to joining the TLG Dianne worked for 15 years in the Allied Health Field as a Registered Diagnostic Medical and Cardiac Sonographer with specialties in General Ultrasound, High Risk Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Fetal Echocardiography.
Dianne was raised as a Spiritual Healer, practicing Native healing methods from childhood, and is an ordained Minister of the International Assembly of Spiritual Healers and Earth Stewards. Ms. Walkup studied indigenous healing methods extensively and earned a Holistic Health Practitioner degree from the Global Institute for Alternative Medicine in 2005.
She is currently a (December 2006) candidate for a Bachelor of Arts with emphasis in Native American Health from the Evergreen State College.
Dianne has dedicated herself to teaching and promoting indigenous healing. She has volunteered over 750 hours with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe’s Canoe family since April of 2006, teaching indigenous values and customs, and making regalia for many tribal community members.
Redwing Cloud
Dr. Vi (Taqseblu) Hilbert
TLG Board Director
Dr. Hilbert is a traditional Puget Sound Salish elder. Her parents raised her in Native ways of inner strength, sharing, caring, and high minded altruism. Dr. Hilbert's parents were both medicine people descended from royal si-ab lineage.Vi worked to teach her culture and language for 20 years at the University of WA and Seattle University (where she received an honorary Phd; and was told she deserved 5 Phd.s for her knowledge). She is presently the only truly fluent speaker of Lushootseed, which is the Skagit Salish Language of Western WA. Dr. Hilbert composed a symphony called the Healing Heart in response to 911 that was performed at Bena Roya Hall. She drew upon the healing songs of her people to find a way to reach humanity with compassion following the catastrophic event of that day. The situation occurred because many women in the middle east are not properly loved and this leaves their sons bereft of love. When lacking love and compassion human beings resort to less than positive means when attempting to solve their difficulties. Dr. Hilbert hopes that her magnificent composition will help to heal the wounds of all people devoid of love and those who suffer as a result of their abuses. Dr. Hilbert's life resume is inexhaustible, and at 90 years of age, it is still a great work in progress. She is presently part of a TLG project that will bring Lushootseed into the digital world of language software and role playing games. She has compiled 3 dictionaries and a voluminous source of Salish literature and documentaries.
Sarah James Gwich’in Arctic National Refuge, ALHas been, and is now, deeply involved with the permanent forum for indigenous peoples at the UN. She has been awarded several 'humanitarian awards' for her work: which are easy to locate on the web; please see:
http://leadershipforchange.org/awardees/awardee.php3?ID=15 or
http://www.gwichinsteeringcommittee.org/whoweare.html and
http://ecotrust.org/buffettaward/2004/sarah_james.html
Sarah, together with Jonathon Solomon and Norma Kassi, are lifetime members of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, which is the voice of collective leadership for all traditional Gwich'in communities of artic Alaska.
Since 1989, she has served on the board of the International Indian Treaty Council, and participates in national and international forums. She is a human, environmental, and indigenous rights advocate of no small demeanor.
The Mamallactas have been at the forefront of the indigenous unification movement in Ecuador, beginning with Casimiro’s donation of personal lands in 1962 to solidify formation of an early affiliate organization of FOIN. FOIN became the first Organized Federation of Napo Runa Indians, established in 1973.
In 1992, the Mamallactas founded IMU to spearhead conservation of Sumaco-Napo-Galeras. They fought to legitimize it as a region worthy of high conservation status; this status was conferred in 1994 when it was declared a National Park. IMU worked closely with RIC-Ecuador and the Federal Government of Ecuador to protect Sumaco-Napo-Galera cloud forests and gain them National recognition. IMU employs 6 park guards to oversee territories throughout the Bioreserve.
The Mamallactas are deeply devoted to their culture, playing major roles as teachers, leaders and exemplars of Native tradition. Elias Mamallacta has spent his adult life collecting oral tradition, recorded in stories, songs, and narratives. He has gathered endless volumes of Napo Runa cultural heritage. Elias is a leader in ecological sustainability practices, botany, and permaculture among Napo Runa Kichwa.
Jarrod Da San Ildefonso Auburn, WA. Jarrod is an artist who specializes in the expression of Native American art as ‘Kosmo-vision’. Using Native American cosmology to symbolically convey traditional spirituality, Jarrod stands on the frontiers of the ‘spiritual art movement’.His beautiful artistic style adeptly conveys the spiritual understanding of traditional Native Americans, particularly the Puebloan culture to which he belongs. Jarrod is one of a handful of pioneers who are currently at the forefront of the ‘spirit-art revolution’. He uses a variety of medium, but prefers to work with pastels to produce conceptual imagery. Jarrod is the son of famed pueblo San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez.
Lauren Keahbone Silverbird Kiowa/Wichita Anadarko, OK/Port Angeles, WA
Lauren’s life was dramatically changed after witnessing the Oklahoma city bombing. The scene of the bombing woke her up and she suddenly felt a strong need to help people. In 1995 she went to Boulder Colorado to change her life. She was decided in finding a way to help others who suffered life’s difficult misfortunes.In 1996 Lauren helped create the Boulder homeless union in Colorado. She slept and ate in the shelter, alongside impoverished, homeless people, as she worked to help them. Due to her efforts, Boulder’s homeless were able to form and join a membership union. Prior to its formation, there was no way to acquire health care, and many of the homeless people were sickly.
The union became well known to the people who ran the shelter. Out of concern that the media might pick up on the story, a group of Christians were called in to do damage control. The Christian group cleaned the facilities, painted the building, brought in mattresses, and helped the sickly access health clinics. The union originally began as a proposal to develop a Native American theme park. The park, it was hoped, would inspire a return to traditions, and keep Native American culture alive. The Proposal which Lauren and her group wrote up would also provide for homeless peoples, native and nonnative, on the reservation. Lauren worked on the proposal for 2 years before shifting gears to concentrate the sum of her resources on the homeless union.
Lauren then traveled to Kansas City, Nebraska with rail-riders to investigate the condition of other shelters. She was interested to know what shape other shelters in America were in, and if they provided adequate services to their residents. She found the shelters she visited to be in satisfactory condition. She worked to improve food bank sanitation levels before leaving the area.
During the last 5 or 6 years Lauren has worked with many senior centers. Her efforts focused on nutrition programs, providing massages, and evaluating the effectiveness of basic need services.
Lauren feels that nutrition standards need to be increased as afforded senior citizens. This is most evident in Tribally governed nutritional facilities. Tribal elders in these facilities typically subsist on commodity food, which is of poor quality but is cheap to supply them with.Lauren envisions the creation of gardens within lots surrounding senior homes. Gardens would provide a solution in helping the elderly spend their time positively and productively. Senior programs would make money if the gardens were large enough; that money could be used to help elders and their children buy the things they like.
Lauren’s work over the last several years has focused on helping people with special needs She has also participated in spirit walks to help bring needed awareness to native issues.
John Pappan, Omaha/Pawnee Omaha, Neb
John has traveled, visited, and taught on the Navajo; Hopi; Lummi; Rosebud Sioux; Pine Ridge Sioux; Yankton Sioux; Cherokee; Mesquakie; Neemeepoo; and Omaha and Winnebago reservation homelands. He served the Bahá'í Faith for a year as an Auxiliary Board Assistant for Propagation and as Chairman for the Regional American Indian Teaching Committee for Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.
He worked for the American Indian Center of Omaha as Media Specialist and Native speaker in 1979-80. This included the Standing Bear project which told the story through a native play of the Ponca chief ordeal. In 1996, he produced four half hour radio shows titled "Native Voices" through the KIOS Omaha Public schools National Public radio station.
He has studied at the Southwestern Indian Polytech Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he received certificates in Entrepreneurship and Data Processing, May, 1989. In 1992, he received an Associate Degree in Business Administration from Deganawida-Queztalcoatl University, Davis, California. He has senior status at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in the International Business management field.
He is a member of Dreams of Eagles organization dedicated to cultural preservation of native ways among native youth in the Omaha urban community. He served as member of the Bahá'í Public Affairs committee of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. He has a small enterprise selling his family's native art and the Indian Country newspaper.
Markwood Hull Mede-Dakota/White Seattle, WA. Markwood Hull has spent over 20 years working with (and for) native spiritual leaders, elders, and medicine people, on reservations from the Southwest (Navajo, Hopi, Western Shoshone, and various Pueblos in N. Mexico (Picuris, Nambe, Santa Clara, Jemez, etc.)), to the Mid-west (Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne river, Standing rock, Turtle Mountain, and others, including the Nemeepoo reservation in Lapway, ID). He has invested time learning and teaching in the Northwest (at Neah Bay, Suquamish, Lower Elwa, Yakama, Muckleshoot, Lummi, Snoqualmie, Swinomish, in WA; in OR), in AL (Kenai peninsula and Tanacross); and in Canada (Okanagan, B.C. and in Regina, Saskachuan).He lived among Huichol people in Nayarit/Jalisco, Mexico, and spent time with Sakha, Evens and Evenki tribal peoples as he traveled to villages throughout mountainous regions of Yakuts, Siberia. He began an intensive study and practice in medicine ways under the tutelage of Johnny Moses (Wistemenee; walking medicine robe) in beginning in 1985. After a year he moved to the Navajo reservation were he continued to pursue studies in traditional medicine ways. When returning to Washington state, he continued working with the red cedar circle. A lifelong apprenticeship under Johnny Moses developed in piecemeal fashion. This pattern of visitations earned him the Salish nickname ‘he who comes and goes’.
Navajo medicine man Chee Dan Yazzi, Lakota medicine man/sundance intercessor Charles Chipps, Potawatami Spiritual Leader Ben Rhodd, medicine man/spiritual leader Lee Brown, native cultural advocate and educator Phil Lucas, Navajo roadman Jonah Nez, and Michael Twofeathers, Lakota sundancer intercessor, have all played an important role in the development of his knowledge and understanding.
Mark devoted several years (1989-1994 and ongoing) working with the Spiritual Unity of the Tribes org., and was part of the steering committee of the S.U.T. Gathering held in Lummi, WA. While in Siberia, he worked for the Inter-Cultural Alcohol Program (InterCAP). InterCAP was founded by Tlingit Chief Jim Walton ( Wolf/Eagle Clan Moiety). Jim created InterCAP to address alcoholism prevalence among indigenous peoples. InterCAP’s philosophy is to combine concepts and practices from A.A. with native spirituality, to devise solutions through grass-root engagement, and to implement programs through the development of strong community support systems. InterCAP empowers communities to seek and implement social solutions actively and cooperatively.
Markwood has worked resolutely, within frameworks of religious organizations, the Native American Church, and various Indigenous Medicine Societies, to help serve basic social and spiritual needs of Native American populations. He worked as a gardener and shepherd for 6 nearly consecutive years (4 and 2) on the Navajo reservation. During this time he assisted several medicine men perform healing ceremonies. He returns annually to ‘Dinetah’, which he views as his homeland. Mark spent 3 years on the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation, where he devoted time to the needs of a number of children. While there, he served as an assistant teacher at Crazy Horse School in Wanbli, S.D. He visited this reservation a number of years both prior to, and following, the 3 years he lived there.
Mark has worked actively and diligently, over the past two decades, assessing a multitude, and diverse range, of social conditions occurring on reservations, reserves, and other indigenous territories. He continues to seek, identify, and conceive sensible solutions for the improvement of life on native territories across the continent and throughout the world. He formulates his perception of social environmental health through the integration of observation, intuitive faculty, and inquiry. To validate perception, improve clarity, and refine understanding, he spends time consulting with various Native traditionalists and tribal elders; elders who live in land he habitats, visits, scouts or searches out. Over the years his discernment has steadily grown—due to the help and guidance his elders and spiritual teachers have afforded him. His sense, perception, and issues of concern, converge naturally, and are in accord generally, with the observations of elder traditionalists who he knows and loves.
He spent a good portion of time (over 4 years) listening and learning from the views and visions of Kikmongwi or Chief, David Monogye and eldest Elder Dan Evahema, both of Hotevilla, AZ. During this time he made frequent visits to learn from elected Hopi spokesman Thomas Banyaca, of Kikotsmovi, AZ. The prayers and visions of these traditional spiritual leaders, which he took to heart, became a meditative basis, over two decades of time, and eventually led to the birth of the TLG. Mark is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in tribal law and administration at Evergreen State College. He is Founder and President of the Tree of Life Guardianship.
Heather M. VanDorn Fall City, WA. Board of Directors, Secretary Director Communication and Public Affairs. Heather VanDorn joined the Tree of Life Guardianship in 2004 and serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors and also as the Director of Communications and Public Affairs. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. VanDorn practiced as an attorney for several Colorado law firms before starting her own civil law practice.During her legal education at the University of Colorado in Boulder, she served as Associate Editor for the Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy ("the Journal"). While working for the Journal she performed extensive research for environmentally based articles and in 1998, her article, The Rotterdam Convention, regarding hazardous materials and energy, was published in the Journal’s Yearbook.
Ms. VanDorn graduated summa cum laude with her B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration from the State University of New York at Oswego. Ms. VanDorn subsequently received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Colorado, School of Law in Boulder, Colorado. Ms. VanDorn lives and writes in Fall City, Washington.
Christopher B. Cullen Mandan/White Seattle, WA. Board of Directors, Vice President, Chris Cullen serves The Tree of Life Guardianship as its Vice President of the Board of Directors and is the Chief Advisor for programs and events.Chris is known as one of the Nation’s leading experts on alternative youth recreational programs. He is currently the Director of the Old Fire House Teen Center for the City of Redmond, and was one of its original founders in 1992. He also worked for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America for eight years to create a pilot project teen center in Bellevue, WA, which became a blueprint for their establishment of teen programs across the nation. Additionally, he consulted for the Lower Elwha Native community in Port Angeles, WA in their efforts to establish teen programs.
Chris’ experience also extends beyond programming exclusively for young people. For three years Chris acted as the Education Project Manager and Public Programs Producer for Experience Music Project in Seattle, WA, a non-profit music museum and performance center established by Microsoft founder Paul Allen. He also worked for two years as Manager of a large event center in downtown Seattle, WA, and volunteered as the Music Director for the non-profit Whatisart—Whatissound music collective’s Music and Arts Festival in Mannheim, Germany in 2003. Chris is also an active member of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences.
Chris is Mandan, Cherokee and Irish and was introduced to Native culture at the age of 15 by Phil Lucas (Crow and Choctaw) and Lee Brown (Cherokee). He has traveled extensively throughout Alaska, South Dakota, Northwest Canada, and Arizona learning about the Native way of life and has been adopted by his Din’e Grandfather, Henry Whiteshield Bainbridge who now resides in Seattle, WA.
Jessy Lucas Choctaw Issaquah, WA. Jessy has been involved with his Native American culture since birth. It has always been a very important part of his life. Jessy Lucas has worked with Lucas productions for the past 9 years. He has traveled much of the United States helping his father produce Native American documentaries.
Christine (Gathers Rain Wildly to the Sea) Johnston Skokomish/Yakama/Hawaiian Olympia, WA
Christine is a direct descendant of John Slokam, prophet visionary of the Indian Shaker Church. She has worked to serve her people in their struggles with drug, alcohol, and social abuses. She has been involved in archeology digs and the finding of elders to interpret the meanings of ancient artifacts. Christine has also worked with WA secretary of state in order to help her community gain necessary social funding, as well as several nonprofit organizations. She is currently going to school at Evergreen State Community College.
Advisory Board membership
Modesto Riviera Huichol Tepic,Nayarit Modesto, Son of Mara’ak’ame Custodio Riviera, is an artist, storyteller, and traditional Huichol medicine man. He owns a fishing company in the Huichol village of Agua Milpa. He is author of ‘When the Animals were People’, and a renown creator of Huichol sacred yarn paintings. Modesto was one of the earliest advocates for incorporation of the Tree of Life Guardianship.
Henry Bainbridge Dineh (Navajo) White City, OR
Henry Bainbridge is a Navajo medicine man as well as a roadman of the Native American Church. He is a veteran of the Korean conflict and Vietnam war. He is a Native artist whose generosity has reached many people over many years. Henry was one of the first advocates of the formation of the Tree of Life Guardianship.
Rebecca Michele Hill City, South Dakota. Rebecca is a long time advocate for indigenous rights who has helped a great many Native American spiritual leaders throughout the course of her life. She has spent a great deal of time traveling with elders such as Arvol Lookinghorse and is given much to the Native American community and people of good will everywhere.
Betsy Stang N.Y. City, New York Betsy has been a remarkable champion in the plight of Native American struggles. She incorporated the Wittenburg Institute which has helped Native American leadership figures gain entry into the United Nations and U.N. programs such as the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples. Betsy has been a source of blessings for Native peoples everywhere; her life work is gratefully acknowledged by many people who dream of a better world in which great wisedom and kindness are key factors for social motivation. Stories and Profiles Warranting Greater Vested InterestFormative Period of the Tree of Life Guardianship (TLG); a summation of events based on the personal experience of one of the Board Directors, and Founder, of the TLG.
