INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW THOMAS (DINÉ)
Join IPCC Librarian & Archivist Jonna Paden as she talks with Diné (Navajo) flute player and long-time IPCC employee Andrew Thomas. Learn about the Native American flute, how he started playing, and the places his music has taken him. This conversation is part of programming funded by a 2022 American Library Association American Rescue Plan grant.
Dear Andrew Thomas,
Your interview with Jonna Paden is a gift to the world.
The beauty of your words and your flute playing inspires
the listener, in this case me, to believe and live more deeply my relationship to Mother Earth and all Her Beings.
I googled the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center this morning to see how I could reconnect with you. I bought the Changing Woman Blessings CD some years ago along with a ring that you had made. You were the person who assisted with purchasing the ring that tells the story of Creation. I asked you if you knew the artist who made it and would it be possible for me to meet that person.
When you identified yourself as the artist, I felt blessed.
Everyday I said a ritual prayer as I. put it on my finger. And remembered you and all those engaged at the Center. This past winter with all of the cold and rain in Los Angeles, one day without my realizing it, the ring slipped off my finger.
I have daily searched my yard and my surroundings in hope that it will return to me. It’s loss culminated a long period of major loss in my life. But the learning came to me in March on my 81st birthday, while it is time to let go of things, it is also time to connect the story of Changing Woman’s Blessings as I understand them to people that I meet and serve now.
Andrew, I am wondering if there is another ring that would call to me like that one did. I love the earthy ritual that connects my soul and spirit with all Peoples.
I am hoping that a younger friend and I will be able to come to New Mexico in late Spring. We will look forward to visiting the Pueblo Center.
Thank you for your teachings regarding the flute and your life’s wisdom.
Blessings,
Mary Luanne Coughlin
Very good Bro.
Thank you for remembering Paul, he and I did many projects together before his death, his family intertwined with all the members and families of Cumulonimbus.
Keep the playing going and the stories along with good words!