The Winter Feast for the Soul, a 40-day mediation period, entered its second full week on Monday with mediations being held all over the valley.
Bennie "Blue Thunder" LeBeau, a spiritual leader and advisor and tribal member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, was scheduled to give a lecture tonight in the valley. However, travel issues prevented him from coming as planned.
Instead, "We will have this wonderful woman, Tzo'-Nah, of the Shoshone-Bannock Nation," said organizer Valerie Skonie. "Peter Hodges (philosophy professor from Boise State University) recommended her. It's going to be good. She'll integrate the Western mind with the native people."
Tzo'-Nah—born and raised on the Fort Hall Reservation in eastern Idaho—will speak on the integral relationship between humans and nature.
She was raised in the traditions of her people, the Shoshone-Bannock Nation, which is "grounded in the sense of sacredness of spirit in all of nature," Skonie said. Sun Valley is the aboriginal territory of the Bannock people.
Tzo'-Nah was educated in physics and astrophysics, with an emphasis in the study of the behavior of light. She is the author of "I am Joseph, The Instruction: An American Indian Philosophy for Modern Times."
A Boise resident, she is the founder of Native Education World Intelligence, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the general public of American Indian contributions of inspiration, inventions and innovations to the world. She is also adjunct professor at Boise State University, where she teaches American Indian philosophy and ecology, humans and nature, as well as interspecies communication. She has also taught a course in the relationship between the federal government and the American Indians.
For more information, call Skonie at 788-6373.
Lecture & Workshop
What: "Winter Feast for the Soul" lecture with Boise State University professor Tzo'-Nah.
When: Friday, Jan. 25, 6:30-9 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 26, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Where: Light on the Mountains, south of Ketchum.
Suggested donation: $12, for work being done with reservations in Montana and Alaska.
Bring a sack lunch on Saturday.
