My dearest friends,
Over the past 30 years, I have made more pipes , greater certainly than all the number of pipes made in antiquity and for all time on this continent by all other pipemakers combined. The sacred pipe is alive and many of you who use the pipe for prayer continue to carry on the ancient traditions thru the stones I was given to hold and shape for you.
For that, I will be eternally grateful for the opportunity to have done the Creator's work.
For those of you who collected my work for sake of owning it, there are no words I can find to express my gratitude to you.
Both groups of you have fed my family, helped pay my bills and stay in business just another day. Thank you so much.
Many have asked me to continue yet I grew tired and found it much harder to take up a stone and find the hidden treasure inside. The years of mass producing for the tourist trade , the hunting stone on mountainsides and carrying much more weight than I could or should have taken their toll on my hands back and spirit. I guess we might say I am "burned out", but there is something more.
I wish to share with you. I know how mysterious my sudden disappearance has been and you deserve to know a little bit of what has taken place.
Back in the early 1970's, I was a young man who had decided to be a soldier in the US Army. One horrible night, my life was forever changed. The details are too painful to write and I will spare you the crap that old soldiers like myself seem good at telling. I am not good at it nor will I even relive the horror by attempting the verbage.
Needless to say, I didn't try back then to pursue anything in regards to help after I left the service. My deep wounds, my devastating injury was something I thought I was man enough to live with and I have done so for all those years. Yet daily, ghosts haunted me. For a time, I attempted to drown myself with alcohol and would do anything I could to stay drunk because sober, the ghosts of the past would come and visit. I would carelessly risk my life to the point of stupidity and had death came to greet me, I do not think that in that last breath, I would have even cared.
Only for the love of my wonderful wife and son made me give that up. You cannot imagine the nightmares and the anguish I have dealt with on a daily basis. For years after the service , I wandered from job to job, the ghosts in hot persuit and I never fit in anywhere I went or whatever I tried to do. Perhaps that was what drove me to carve the stone? Alone with only the stone. No emotions, no drama, only peace and tranquility. Part of my life path and the Creator had his reasons for my path, to make me his instrument.
For the next 30 years, I have sat with the stone and you have witnessed a very miniscule part of what has taken place. To show you everything would be impossible.
Whatever the reasons or results, I finally realized back last fall-winter 2010 that I could no longer walk this path alone. The burden I had carried for all those years was wearing me down and it was time to heal. I contacted a friend with stars on his uniform at the Pentagon and he set the wheels in motion back in January 2011.
Today, I have finally retired like the soldier I was, with honor, dignity and justice. The VA has given me a small pension and I am getting much needed help dealing with the crap from almost 37 years ago that I need to bury once and for all.
So if you had wondered where I was for the past many months, I have been working on becoming whole again. I have removed myself from Facebook and all social media and have not opened my email in months. My shop door has not been opened in months. All part of the healing I have had to do and I am sorry if you wondered where I went off to. I have not forgotten you but this was something I had to do for sake of the rest of my life.
Please do not call or email me asking if I will take an order. My heart and my mind are simply not into it at this time . There are many carvers out there and I am most sure that one of them can make you whatever it is you need. Will I ever carve again? I simply do not know right now. I do not know what the Creator has in store for me.
Perhaps we shall meet on the trail of life??
Love and Blessings to each and every one of you!
Tali "Two Feathers"
