Picture: Pat Taylor, ED of Faces and Voices of Recovery (on the right), Carla Ayres, a Boardmember for Faces and Voices for Recovery (in the middle) and Harlan Pruden

On Saturday, September 27, Harlan Pruden, NE2SS councilmember, joined thousands of individuals and families in recovery, treatment partners and advocates from all fifty states to form a human chain – a living symbol of recovery - across the historic Brooklyn Bridge and marched to a rally at City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan featuring a special solo musical performance by singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright. The Recovery Rally - organized in partnership with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) – marks the launch of The Recovery Project, a wide-ranging, multi-year initiative of A&E Network, federal agencies and leading non-profit organizations designed to help raise awareness that addiction is a treatable disease and recovery is possible.

Befitting the enormous interest in the upcoming election, advocacy will be in evidence at this year’s Rally. There will be an Advocacy Tent set up to register voters as part of this year’s Recovery Voices Count Campaign and to encourage rally participants to advocate for policy change. Harlan helped with this effort to register people to vote and helped collect 100’s of names of people that endorsed the “Recovery Bill of Rights.”

Recovery Voices Count is part of a national movement spearheaded by Faces and Voices of Recovery to make it possible for even more of our friends, neighbors and family members to experience long-term recovery from addiction by building recognition of the recovery community as a constituency of consequence.

Redhawk Native American Arts Council Presents
 Lower Hudson Valley Native American Celebration
Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park
2957 Crompond Rd
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

September 27, 2008 - 11AM - 7PM
grand entrance of dancers 1PM & 4PM
September 28, 2008 - 11AM - 7PM
grand entrance of dancers 1PM & 3PM

Free for children 6 years and under!
$6 young adult/senior
$10 adult

Enjoy Native American Singing, Dancing, Food, Crafts, Educational Programs and More!

Redhawk Arts Council
(718) 686-9297 / (718) 686-0012
Email: redhawkarts@mindspring.com
Websites: www.redhawkcouncil.org
www.myspace.com/redhawkcouncil

You are invited to Mixed Phoenix Theatre Group’s
TUESDAYS IN OCTOBER
play-reading series

RSVP by 5:00 p.m. the day before reading by emailing

mptgroup@yahoo.com

First reading will be begin at 8:00 P.M.on
October 7th at Bar on Avenue A (170 Avenue A, near 11th Street)
Plays to be read are:
Rock or Hard Place
By Cindy Pierre
Director – Robert Gonyo

Hanging Cloud
By Christine Emmert
Director – Dana Panepinto

Broken English
By Nina Ki
Director – Richard Aven

Upcoming readings:

All readings begin at 8:00 p.m.
October 14th: American Indian Community House (11 Broadway, 2nd Fl. in The Circle)
Play to be read:
Our Land
By J. L. Christa
Director – Tony White

October 21st: Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd St., 5th Fl., North Room Studio)
Play to be read:
HOMELAND
By Christopher Cartmill
Director – Richard Aven

October 28th: American Indian Community House (11 Broadway, 2nd Fl. in The Circle)
Play to be read:
The Second to Last of the Wobbly Tipplers
By Elanna Stauffer
Director – Steve Elm

For directions to each venue, please visit www.hopstop.com.

(more…)

On Saturday, September 13, 2008, Kent Lebsock and Harlan Pruden traveled to the Plimoth Plantation (that’s right:  the site of the “Rock”) to  make a presentation  at the first annual “Out at Plimoth Plantation.”  This all-day event was billed as a gathering specifically for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals, families and friends to enjoy the two living history museums.  Contrary to the mission of the original Plantation founded by the Pilgrims, the idea was to create an atmosphere of acceptance and tolerance, celebrating diversity.

The event was planned and conceived by Paula Peters, a person of the Wampanoag nation who also does double duty as the marketing director for the Plantation.  Additionally, Kent and Harlan were warmly welcomed by Linda Coombs (pictured above with Kent and Harlan), who is the director of the Wampanoag Indigenous Program, and John McDonagh, the Plantation’s executive director and the entire village of Wampanoag people working in the village, his team ensure that the entire site is historically accurate.  The Plantation is not a state park and is privately owned and operated.  It includes many different interactive media tools in a sincere effort to abolish the myth and get at the truth about the English and Wampanoag and other Indigenous nations’ experiences subsequent to 1620.  The Wampanoag village consists of people of that nation interacting with visitors to explain their history and way-of-life in a setting including traditional engineering, construction, gardening and social interaction.  It is truly inspiring as a method of reminding us who we are as well as where we might be going.

Continue reading and see photos!

The NYU’ Department of English and the Native Peoples Forum invite you to a talk:

Prof. Alan Velie, David Boyd Ross Professor of English at the University
of Oklahoma.

“The American Indian Renaissance”

Thursday, September 18, 2008
3:00-5:00 PM
Deans’ Conference Room, Rm 222,
13-19 University Place

Professor Velie specializes in Shakespeare, Renaissance Drama, American Indian Literature, Contemporary Criticism, and the Bible in Literature.
He is the author of “Native American Perspectives on Literature and History” (University of Oklahom Press 1995) and “The Lightning Within” (University of Nebraska Press (1991) among others.

NE2SS has been invited to be part of “Out at Plimoth Plantation” next month! Harlan Pruden and Kent Lebsock will be headed out to Wampanoag territory to offer a discussion on Two-Spirits. Check out the write-up in Outtraveler.com:

Celebrate Thanksgiving early and get a real taste of what LGBT life was like back in the 17th century at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

On September 13, the museum will host “Out at Plimoth Plantation,” a one-day celebration of homosexual history and 17th century tolerance. At 2 p.m., a museum expert will present “We’ve Come A Long Way Baby,” a lecture taken from a colonial perspective. Then, at 3 p.m., two guest lecturers will present “Two-Spirit Is Better Than One,” a recounting of sex, gender and sexuality in Native American society. A traditional Thanksgiving meal tops off the day of historical edification.

Or if you just want to know more about Massachusetts, check out our Three Gay Days: Boston feature.

(This article originally posted August 15, 2008 at http://gps.outtraveler.com/2008/08/out-at-plimoth.html
Story by Brandon Miller; photo credit Getty Images)

You can find more information about Plimoth Plantation here: http://www.plimoth.org/

As a member of the NE2SS’s Leadership Council and a someone with over 20 years of sobriety, Harlan Pruden participated on the special population panel as a representative of the Native American and the two-spirit community at “Aligning Concepts, Aligning Practice, Aligning Contexts – Building a Blueprint for Action,” this May 1-2 in Philadelphia sponsored by the Institute for Research, Education, and Training in Addictions (IRETA). It was a valuable opportunity to share his experience in recovery with nationally recognized recovery leaders and offer his input to bring about necessary change for the recovery community.

For both those who attended and those who missed it, the resources and presentations are now available online at IRETA’s website. You can also view a copy of Harlan Pruden’s PowerPoint presentation, Recovery Oriented Systems of Care from a Two-Spirit Perspective.

You can also watch the video taped presentations by visiting the IRETA homepage and clicking on the link to the Recovery Symposium under the “In the Spotlight” section. Please feel free to share this exciting resource with your colleagues.

Once again the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society lead the People of Color contingent in this year’s NYC Gay Pride Parade. Despite the heavy thunderstorm that occurred as participants were approaching Christopher St. in the West Village, NE2SS members and proud Two-Spirit community members from around the NYC area proudly marched the full stretch of the parade trail. Take some time to browse through a few of the photos taken before the downpour courtesy of Othell:

Meet other beautiful two-spirit women and trans folk, and let’s build community together!

Wednesday, July 2nd
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Brooklyn, NY
5 mins from Atlantic/Pacific stop (N/Q/R/D/B/2/3/4/5)

RSVP to melissa@ne2ss.org or for exact location.

Inwood Hill Park
Saturday, May 03, 2008

Take the ‘A’ Train to 207 Stop**
11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Manhattan

Drums Along the Hudson includes native drumming from around the world, intertribal social dances like the Round Dance, the Iroquois Smoke Dance, and the Jingle Dance. Native food, crafts, and art will be for sale.

Shad Fest celebrates the annual return of spawning shad to the Hudson River. Shad Planking demonstrations by Chris Letts of the Hudson River Foundation and free tastings are Featured. “Planking ” is a Native American cooking method taught to the European settlers.

For more information, please visit the Drums Along the Hudson website:

Co-sponsored by Northern Manhattan Parks, Lotus Music & Dance, and The Hudson River Foundation.

** Take the A uptown to 207th street. Exit at the front of the train (Isham street). Walk West on Isham, up the hill. Enter Inwood Hill Park and take the 1st path on the right (which follows Seaman Avenue) to the end (past the ball fields and play ground).