Shelley Muniz
When hippie activists first wound their way on to the Navajo Reservation at Big Mountain, Arizona, what they saw and what they did would influence social and environmental activism in the Black Mesa region for many years to come. Navajo Grandmothers were being tormented. Water wells had been capped. As a result of corporate interest in uranium and coal extraction, and the passage of the 1974 Navajo/Hopi Land Settlement Act, sheep, goats, cattle, and horses were being confiscated and sacred ceremonial sites desecrated. In 1994, the activist band, Clan Dyken, followed the lead of their predecessors and made their first annual Beauty Way Supply Run to Big Mountain. When the Creator Moves Me is the story of both the Big Mountain Dineh, and Clan Dyken—what happened, how they met, and why they have remained in each other’s lives for over a quarter of a century.
Chuchip lives on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Hototo lives on the South Rim. For years, members of their two tribes have told stories, naming one another as enemies. When Chuchip and Hototo accidentally meet near the river one day, a fight breaks out. Their squabbling disturbs Grandfather Squirrel, and he orders them to stop, explaining that though they may look different, they are members of One Great Tribe.
Seventeen-year-old Loretta Lynn Duvall has spent her life cleaning up her mother’s messes. When her mom leaves on a summer business trip, Loretta and her friend Cora get stuck working at Willow Grove, the house and property owned by crazy Noleen Deerborne.
Meanwhile, Loretta’s friend Ethan, who has Asperger’s, has grown suspicious of his parents’ involvement in a survivalist organization called The Group. Moreover, Ethan suspects that a connection between Willow Grove and The Group lies in an underground maze of tunnels dating back to the Civil War.
After a series of suspicious incidents, these inquisitive teens decide to investigate further. Soon Loretta and her friends have tunneled themselves into a mess of their own.
The Chase family, Shelley and Del and sons, Micah and Nick, lived in the home they had built in the foothills of Central California amidst manzanita, cedars and pine. Happy and healthy, the family worked, romped and played in their hilltop paradise where homegrown food and family rituals were the norm. All of that changed in the summer of 1991 when twelve-year-old Micah was diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia. What followed was a nightmarish battle waged not only in Micah’s young body but also on fronts unimaginable and unconscionable. Narrated by his mother, Eagle Feathers and Angel Wings chronicles Micah’s courage and the demolition of foundations her family believed were enduring: home, integrity, and the fulfillment of obligations. Muniz reveals the vivid truth about the essential rights of the catastrophically ill, struggles with health care coverage, and medical care. This inspiring remembrance is the documentation of a family’s love, their efforts to find answers for Micah, and a resolution to his pain even after his death. Eagle Feathers and Angel Wings is much more than a story of loss. It is a story about living.