Honor Day 2008

[RedRightHand]

I came across the following and was wondering if anyone here was familiar with this or any of the people involved?

HONOR DAY 2008: Honor Day 2008 celebrates the Hoop of the Universe,? Spiritual Leaders, Saturday August 16th at Seattle Center

During the past six month?s NICO (Northwest Interfaith Community Outreach) has been privileged to collaborate with Patricia Anne Davis, a Choctaw-Navajo Healer, Rudy James of United Indigenous Nations, and a number of other leaders and elders in deepening understanding of Native American experiences, practices based on the natural order of life on Earth, and issues surrounding Indian Sovereign rights. Through the NICO sponsored Seeds of Compassion workshop ?Indigenous Wisdom:? Awakening and Remembering Compassionate Living? we worked with Patricia, Gene Tagaban, Silversong Belcourt, a Native American artist, and other Native American spiritual leaders. Silversong is the inspiration for ? Honor Day? (http://www.honorday.org/) which has designated August 20th as a day for honoring Native American people and traditions, and all of humanity. Silversong and her colleagues will be gifting this year?s ceremony to spiritual leaders of all traditions. NICO is proud to support this event which takes place on Saturday, August 16th at Seattle Center. Please hold the date and plan to join us for a day of ceremony, celebration and honor to the Universe and the realms of spirit which guide and support us.

A little research on Patricia Anne Davis turns up http://www.wiserearth.org/user/patriciaanne and http://www.worldofwomin.com/symposium-2004.htm.

I haven't researched the other people. It seems well intentioned but the phrase "...a day for honoring Native American people and traditions, and all of humanity" (my emphasis) rings my bells. Perhaps I'm being narrow but I'm wondering why the overbroad "humanity" is tacked on. Why isn't it just for "Native American people and traditions"? This could be NICO's wording though; the Honor Day website doesn't seem quite so universal. http://www.honorday.org/.

Thoughts?

[educatedindian]

Davis seems to be a fairly serious person. Her work is aimed at getting western medicine and institutions to integrate Navajo healing into their practices. Notice at the bottom of this link she's aiming her work at organizations, ie hospitals, clinics, HMOs.

http://www.nativeamericanconcepts.com/index.cfm?page=chooselifeworkshops.cfm

Also Native arts conference she was part of.
http://www.bienaldearteindigena.org/pdfs/english.pdf

James and the UIN also have some declarations online.

Gene Tagaban, actor and musician. Probably best known for "Business of Fancydancing."
http://www.genetagaban.com/

Silversong Belcourt is listed as the founder of Honor Day.
http://silversongsart.com/about.html

And her story of how and why it came about.
http://honorday.org/silversonghonor.html

I'd call all of these well known people, not necessarily leaders, and not exactly spiritual leaders. You have a point about it being kind of strange to have an honor day to honor literally everything.