The story unfolds through the eyes of Angeline, a young Native American woman who was given up for adoption as a baby. As an adult, she moves her life to Madeline Island in search of her cultural roots just as conflicts flare. The conflicts serve as a wormhole that quickly and completely inject her into her Native American culture. She strives, as do all those involved in the conflict, to find a balance, or equilibrium, in her life between the real and the ideal. She does so with the aid of a Native American spirit, simply called Grandfather, who teaches her Native American culture and enlists her aid in bringing the Spirit Stone back to the Reservation. Based on the 1996 blockade by the Anishinabe Ogichidaa of the Wisconsin Central railroad tracks to prevent sulfide tankers from crossing the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin for delivery to the White Pines Copper Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The manuscript explores multi-faceted Native American perspectives of the culture's spiritual beliefs that justified and supported the blockade, as well as ancillary conflicts that occurred during the same time span (the Madeline Island croquet incident, leasing of tribal lands on Madeline Island to wealthy summer residents for upscale houses that restricted access to burial grounds, repatriation of the Spirit Stone to Bad River from the Wisconsin Historical Society Museum on Madeline Island). Rather than encapsulate Native American perspective through the eyes of a single tribal representative, this book offers a full spectrum of tribal perspectives. In contradiction to the popular mainstream view, tribal beliefs span a wide spectrum from traditionalists to skeptics, from those who stand with one foot in both tribal and mainstream cultures, to those who lean toward political viewpoints or those who rely heavily on spiritual beliefs, from those who believe in the power of the gun to those who believe in the spiritual path, or acting only in "a good way." In this time when mining issues are paramount in Wisconsin, and support for environmental protection enjoys widespread support nationwide, this manuscript explores spiritual, political and sociological aspects of those issues. A proposed open-pit iron mine in northern Wisconsin has generated discussion in Wisconsin about environmental issues and the state Assembly's decision to water down environmental safeguards. The proposed mine would be located in the Bad River watershed, which directly threatens the Kakagon wild rice sloughs. According to the Ojibwe migration story, the Ojibwe migrated to northern Wisconsin from the east, along the St. Lawrence Seaway, in search of a place where food grew on water (wild rice). The Bad River Tribe has already gone on record in opposition to the mine. This is a work of "faction," fiction based on an actual historical event. The 1994 railroad blockade was noteworthy for two reasons -- first, the Anishinabe Ogichidaa managed to avoid violence and, secondly, the Tribe won. The treaty rights conflicts of the 1980s, the 1996 railroad blockade and today's conflict with the proposed iron mine all center on the ongoing question of assimilation. In each instance the Anishinabe were expected to give in to business interests. This is a book for those ready to deepen their spiritual ties to Mother Earth by learning from a culture that has had an unbroken relationship with the earth for thousands of years. If you recycle religiously and are ready for the next step, this is a must-read. If you have ever walked in the woods and made eye-contact with wild animals, you are ready for Equilibrium.
About the Author: Evan Sasman has been writing about Native American conflicts in northern Wisconsin since the treaty rights battles in the 1980s when he moved to the Lake Superior Basin. This story, and the cultural information it contains, were "gifted" to him by tribal members and spiritual leaders. Within the culture an idea can be given as a gift the same way an object, like an eagle feather, can be given as a gift. They are given for many reasons: because the giver is directed to do so by a dream, or directed to by a spiritual leader; because the receiver is in need of it; or because the receiver has demonstrated that he or she will be a good guardian. For those reasons, actual objects take on meaning beyond physical characteristics, and ideas can take physical form. If any of those apply to you, then you may buy this book. The author worked as a journalist for 35 years, winning Wisconsin Newspaper Association awards for his work. He wrote the first news story from the Native American perspective during the treaty rights conflicts in the 1980s, and wrote the first newspaper editorial printed by a northern Wisconsin newspaper urging residents in the North to accept the prerogative of Native Americans to exercise their treaty rights. He worked 10 years for the Ojibwe tribe, including as a teacher for the Bad River Tribal School, the Lac Courte Oreilles Community College, the Odanah United Methodist Church, and as editor of the Bad River tribal newspaper. During that time he undertook a 10-year spiritual path that deepened his spiritual beliefs and ties to the earth. He invites you to share his perspective fashioned by those experiences and the many Native American spiritual leaders who helped him become, as they say in the Native American culture, "human."