Allen Becker
Allen Becker teaches both the art and the craft of dreamcatchers. His deep insights lead dreamcatcher users to understand them as a special creation.
The Monthly Aspectarian: Allen, I see that for several years you've been designing and weaving dreamcatchers and teaching others to make them. What led you into this?
Allen Becker: Well, my Master's degree is in Biology, and here I am, doing dreamcatchers! I taught for nearly twenty-six years in the public schools, and ended up teaching history. I included Native American history along with American history, and my principal didn't agree with that sort of approach.
TMA: You mean you told both sides of the story?
AB: Actually, I was telling all sides of the story. The principal wanted to keep the course very much according to the book -- so that ended my career. The day before it ended, though, I was backing into a tight parking space in Minneapolis when I recognized that farther ahead there were several car lengths available for me to drive into easily. I knew instantly that I was being taught a quick lesson: I'm trying to back myself into a small spot and in front of me is a great vastness . . . so don't be worried. So, I was able to tolerate the surprise the next morning when the principal called me into his office to tell me they were upset and were going to have to do something. I didn't know what was going to come next, but I was already looking forward to whatever it was.
For quite a long time, Guy, I thought I was a white man doing Indian things. I took a lot of interest in Native American heritage and culture and had been going to powwows, and I was very taken by the respect that Native Americans show to the ecology of the planet. That's what got me started. One day between dances, I walked off to see the crafts and find what food was available, and saw a dreamcatcher. I studied it for about half an hour, and satisfied myself that I had figured out how to make one. I wasn't planning to do dreamcatchers, but a friend of mine called a week later and asked if I knew how to make one . . . and that kind of pulled me into it. Once I learned to do many different kind of dreamcatchers, creative energies just began to flow through me.
Two summers ago, I took my dreamcatchers to the family reunion, and there they started talking about my Great-Grandma Bertha. They used to call her "Buckskin Bertha." My mom hadn't known that she was a Native American, so all of a sudden I found I had a heritage that had been kept secret because of race and all that comes with that.
Well, I've got a picture of my great, great grandmother, Bertha's mother, and yes, they look Native American. My cousins, uncles and aunts -- many of them had high cheekbones, the nose, and a couple of them had the darker skin coloration. I didn't think too much about it, but we did talk about it a little bit when I was a kid. When I went to my first powwow and had a traditional Native food, the fry bread, I wasn't very impressed. My mom had been making fry bread when I was a kid; I had grown up with fry bread, so I didn't think that was particularly Native American. I'm not sure if she got that recipe from Great-Grandma Bertha, or if it was even really Native American -- but in any case, it was a surprise to find it as a Native American food.
Last fall, I was asked by a Native friend of mine, an Elder, to take him to the White Horse reservation for a conference that was going on with the Native American student associations. I brought along my dreamcatchers, started weaving and after a while, people came by and asked if they could watch me make them. They wanted to know how. And sure, no problem. The next day when I came back, I brought additional materials . . . and within half an hour, I had a whole table crowded with people wanting instruction. Here I am, someone who used to think he was a white guy, and I'm teaching people on the reservation how to do dreamcatchers.
TMA: Some people might find some irony here.
AB: Yes, it was very interesting. At this point, I've taught well over 4,000 people how to weave dreamcatchers, and hold classes in the schools. People haven't found anyone in their community to teach them how to weave them, so they came to my classes . . ..and hundreds of them identify themselves to me as having Native heritage. I was really pleased to be able to bring that heritage back to them, kind of like returning it.
TMA: How do you respond to the charge among some Native Americans that it's cultural imperialism for white people to do Native American spiritual practices?
AB: The Native Americans themselves are very split on that. There are many who have no difficulty whatever with it because they find it an honor to share what will help change the white man's culture so it doesn't continue to do the things that have been done to the planet. Some of them feel very pleased that this can be spread into white culture. Then there are others who are carrying an awful lot of anger.
TMA: Well, it's quite understandable that vanquished people will have some resentment.
AB: Yeah, there's resentment. I know a lot of the history . . . I don't know all of it -- I don't know all of the suffering, haven't suffered at all myself, but I've read and also spent some time on the reservation. In modern times, with white man's established governmental institutions on the reservation bringing corruption and bribery and fraud and election stealing and all kinds of things -- I know that's a very painful experience. It's not like it happened way back then and never happened again since. The imposition of the white man's culture continues to happen. What I think is important is that Native culture being brought to white people can help change white people's whole vision of what life is and what being on a planet with each other is about.
TMA: My position for a long time has been that there must be a great deal of value in Native spirituality that the non-Native American world could find very valuable and of benefit to the planet itself.
AB: Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the reasons I'm pleased to be working in schools, bringing this to the children. The classes I teach aren't just about arts and crafts, but really about spirituality. What we're doing in weaving the dreamcatcher is weaving the dream of the earth; the Native American understanding that the earth is not to be owned; the earth is our mother and each of us is connected to all other beings on the earth. As we weave the dreamcatcher, we weave the connections to each other. That's very powerful. There's even a dreamcatcher that's come to me that demonstrates that all four races have come from the creator and that our pathways all lead back to the creator . . . and therefore, in honoring each other's pathway, each other's heritage, we're honoring the creator, we're honoring the creation, and we're honoring ourselves.
TMA: Is it troubling to you at all that dreamcatchers are so -- I mean, they're everywhere. There's even dreamcatcher earrings. Do you find that it's become trivialized?
AB: I think in some ways it has become trivialized, especially if each dreamcatcher doesn't come with the story, the legends. If it's not connected to the spirituality, if it's just a thing. Many people think of a dreamcatcher as just another artifact, just another thing they can hang on their wall or above the bed or wherever. Just another object.
TMA: A cool thing.
AB: Yeah, and not understand that it has a purpose for them and for the whole planet. I do have difficulties with a lot of dreamcatchers being made out of non-traditional materials, metal rings and leather wrap, when the traditional materials from a long way back are sticks and real stones and real feathers, not plastic . . . and aren't dyed pink or mauve, and don't have peach fluffs and buckskin. These are things that happened later. They're pretty, some are very beautiful, but using those materials is missing the point. By using twigs, we're honoring the plant people, and by using real feathers, not the painted feathers, we're honoring the birds and all the other animals for their beauty. And we're using undyed stones, not plastic or wood beads or whatever. Using stones, we're honoring the rocks, the hills and the waters. All these beings are woven together into the dreamcatcher as part of the understanding of our connectedness to each other. We are involved in the dreamcatcher.
TMA: Were you taught by somebody authentic, or did you resurrect this information on your own?
AB: A lot of it I resurrected on my own, I guess, and brought it back. I was honored for my teaching on the reservation and danced the honors dance with the elders. I haven't met all the elders, but those I've met have accepted and honored me for the work I do. One of them has my angel dreamcatcher; that was her favorite. My dreamcatchers are on a number of reservations around the country, and I've been accepted into the many, many reservations and Indian stores.
TMA: Have you been accepted into one of the clans?
AB: No, I don't have any papers or anything saying I belong to this or I belong to that, and at this point, I'm not certain that's something I must do. I feel connected without having that. Actually, way back, my ancestors who were Indians might very well not have even wanted to have their names put on paper. Some of them stayed away from the forts and avoided the reservation life, and they were the most traditional of the people. Sometimes the people who don't have papers are the ones who come from very traditional ancestors, if you take it far enough back. The backing I have is simply acceptance by the people and that, in my book, counts very much.
TMA: Well, you can't answer it better than that.
Do different dreamcatchers made out of different materials have different functions?
AB: I always make them out of the same traditional materials that have the function of honoring the plants, animals, rocks and hills. They're to honor mother earth and ourselves and all the other beings, and to sort out the good dreams from the bad dreams and give us the knowledge we need, and wisdom, to walk the good red road, the path of beauty, where every step is a prayer and every breath is a prayer. It's a prayerful life.
The dreamcatcher is done with different designs to teach different things. There's one called All Paths that tells us we all came from the creator, all of our paths lead back to the creator, and we need to be honoring each others' path. That's a very, very important piece of wisdom for any day and age, but particularly, it seems, for today. Then there's the Two Paths - One Journey and Marriage dreamcatcher, where two paths are brought together to make one journey, a co-creation of love, a gift of the creator. And then there's the Body/Mind/Spirit dreamcatcher that reminds us that we're more than body, more than mind -- that there's body, mind and spirit.
TMA: How do they differ?
AB: Well, you really have to see them to see the differences, I guess. Each of them is constructed differently. The Body/Mind/Spirit has three rings made of different colors of wood, one inside the other. The inner ring is a red wood, representing body, the one in the middle is gold and represents mind, and the outer ring is black, for spirit. Then there's Two Paths - One Journey with crossing rings that definitely show different paths; there's a weaving in between that creates one understanding of the multi-dimensional journey that creates. And then for the All Nations or All Paths dreamcatcher, it all comes together in the center with a turquoise stone which represents Great Spirit, the Creator, and spreads out in four directions from there to recognize the horse dance done by the Lakota people according to the vision of Black Elk -- with white horses in the north, black horses in the west, red horses in the east and yellow horses in the south; they danced and pranced and came to the center; it shows a lot of healing and bringing together of all races of man at the center.
A Dream within a Dream has a dreamcatcher within a dreamcatcher; Sunset-Sunrise honors the time between sunsets and sunrise, and it looks like a sunset or a sunrise. Another one, called Sun-Moon, contains a partial ring that looks like a C, representing the moon, and attached to that is a golden ring in the center to honor the sun. It reminds us of the marriage of the sun and the moon, and the bringing together of the eternal and the temporal as one; that they're all one in the All of creation of the Creator.
When I create the dreamcatchers, they're really creating themselves; I don't know what's going to happen until I get done and then when I get done, I find that they teach a story. I ask them what stories they teach. Times come when I think I've made a mistake, that I've done something wrong -- that I've screwed up the weaving or something else. I was weaving the spiral dreamcatcher, Path of the Spirit, and was making wood for it, and I made the wood wrong. It came out flat instead of being kind of like a spring spiraling upwards. I broke three rings trying to stretch it. I finally realized it didn't want to become Path of the Spirit, it wanted to be something different, something new. So I said okay, and when it was done, I asked it who it was and it said Rolling Thunder -- and then told me it was for those who want to follow the path of rapid transformation, the thunderbolt path. Later on, I found out that Rolling Thunder is the name of Chief Joseph. I'd really been a real fan of his, really appreciated what Chief Joseph was about and the power that the man carried. I found out that in his native language, his name means "thunder rolling out of the high mountains." I had inadvertently created one that was a Chief Joseph dreamcatcher. I had created a new version of the dreamcatcher that honored this great man.
TMA: How does one properly use a dreamcatcher?
AB: Well, a dreamcatcher essentially is hung above someone's bed so that the dreams, the beautiful dreams, fall upon them as they sleep. Dreamcatchers have a creative spirit of their own and are beings that are honored. If I drop one, I apologize to the dreamcatcher and thank it for what its done, treat it as though it were a living being, because it is.
TMA: And by having one over one's bed, one that's properly constructed with the proper respect, can one expect that their dreams will be affected by it?
AB: I'm not sure you can say "expect," but that's one thing that definitely has happened. I know children and adults have found that it changes the nature of their dreams, gives them more beautiful dreams. Sometimes there's things to clean up in one's life that don't look so very pretty, but the dreamcatcher will pass along information in the dream that will help us in our daily life. So although sometimes we might make a judgment of something being bad, it might be something very good even though it isn't very pretty. It helps change our understanding of how we operate with other people and how we operate on the planet.
A woman from Pennsylvania who worked in a nursing home called me and asked for some sage that she saw I offered in my dreamcatcher kit. She told me she had woven a dreamcatcher and gave it to a man in a nursing home who had been a survivor of the Holocaust and had been having terrible nightmares ever since. She gave him the dreamcatcher to use, explained to him what it was and how it worked, and every night thereafter he had beautiful dreams. The nightmares went away. So for all races, for all cultures, it has the possibility of working.