What does coming home mean? / Where do I come from?

What does coming home mean?

"Coming home is completing the circle. It is finding the truth. Knowing where you are in the circle and how to get out of the cycle of life and death when you have completed your work here on earth. 

Fully enlightened beings who come back, not because they need any more reincarnations or to learn anything more, but to help others on their journeys; acting without concerns for themselves but for bettering humankind. Unrecognized acts of kindness. 

These countless ways are how we help each other on their journeys and recognize the good in the not so good. That is part of our search for the meaning of life."

"Truth does not usually come in brilliant flashes. It is around us all of the time. Our breakthroughs are when we are able to see it in the ordinary. 'Washing dishes when they are dirty, chopping wood, carrying water, or feeding the cat, for examples.' 

It is doing the ordinary in a sacred way. All that we do is precious. Every breath of life is special and a gift from the Creator. 

That is what truth is and what life is all about."

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Where do I come from?

I was born in the town of Coshocton, Ohio, formerly known as:

Goschacngunk / Cushanghkunk / Cooshocking founded by Netawatwees in 1775 as a new Capital of the Lenape Nation. Site of monument to historic Lenape (Delaware) Xingwikaon (Council House) site.

My great-great-grandmother was a member of the Lenape/Delaware Nation.

The area I grew up in will be described below. My Lenape ancestors were bordered by the Shawnee & Wyandot Nations.

For the first 18 years of my life I lived in Otsego, Ohio.

Otsego was the last historic village occupied by the Lenape in Moschkingo (Muskingum) valley.

It was abandoned in 1812 when the Lenape went north to join the British in their last fight for 

independence. Otsego was named for the Otsego Lake region region in New York. It is currently a 

depressed, abandoned Ohio coal mining/farming village.

Over 200 years ago a powerful Lenape chief foresaw the birth of a new nation and understood what was  happening to his people. That they could not survive unless changes were made. The Lenape had already been forced to relocate twice; first from their ancestral home near the Wittitack (Delaware River) Valley. They next migrated to the Susquehanna Valley, protected by the Iroquois Nation.

Due to disease, alcohol and invading Europeans they had to relocate to my homeland area of Ohio in the Moschkingo (Muskingum) River Vally in Southeastern Ohio.

In 1775 Chief Koquetagcthon (White Eyes) made a passionate appeal to Congress to let them live in peace here in Ohio. All Congress did was send them someone to instruct them on religion.

The chief related the relation of the colonists with England to the Lenape under the yoke of the Iroquois who sided with the British. Chief Koquetagcthon knew the importance of forming an alliance with the new Americans in order to guarantee the survival of his people. He was able to obtain a treaty that would eventually become the state of Ohio as a separate Indian state for the Lenape people.

In exchange for this treaty they agreed to be neutral in the war with England. For this he was named a Lt. Colonel in the Revolutionary Army, even earning a silver medal from Congress for trying to make peace.

These are known facts, but Chief Koquetagcthon was probably assassinated by his fellow soldiers on November 10, 1778, probably for jealousy. More than likely it was the hatred toward Indians was too great to allow him to live. Fearing an uprising the military kept his death from being revealed to his people. They told the Lenape that he had died of small-pox.

Due to pressures from betrayals and atrocities the Lenape were forced to join other Ohio tribes: Chippewas, Ottawas, Shawnees and Wyandottes to side with the British. Since there were on the wrong side of this war history tells the rest of their story.

If Chief Koquetagcthon had survived and the US had honored his treaty then the state of Ohio might have a different name today. We may never know!

This was the idea behind the novel / autobiography called "Sara's Home" which was authored by my sister and is the basis for this excerpted information. 

"This novel / autobiography takes place in the mythical place of the Indian state of "Moschkingo" (Muskingum) located in the rolling hills of the Scioto and Moschkingo watersheds north of the Ohio River between the states of Indiana and Pennsylvania in the last decade of the 18th century. It attempts to speculate the answers to these questions through the lives of individuals who belonged to them." (Ancestors of myself and my sister)

This novel is dedicated to Chief Koquetagcthon and his vision of how we really could have lived in peace! They say that the Chief's ghost weeps and still roams the area where I grew up, trying to find peace among the waste and pollution that once was his home!