Or, how I became a Real Writer.

By Zach Hively

I’ve struggled for years with figuring out when, exactly, I can call myself a writer.

Sure, I’ve been published, sometimes in actual publications, and I have written actual books, which have been enthusiastically accepted by more than one Little Free Library. I was once introduced at a social function as a writer.

My father worries about my career choices.

But these things seldom feel like Enough. Even writing doesn’t feel like Enough.
There’s something more to earning the title of Writer. Something the French call je ne sais quoi and I call “elbow patches.”

I tried those. I did! I have a jacket—a tweed one, even!—with elbow patches. But sometimes wearing tweed is just too hot. And I have to take the jacket to the dry cleaner. That’s just more busy work that detracts from the real work of trying to appear like an official writer.

The ideas were running out. I’ve set myself up in coffee shops so people can witness me in the act of writing. I’ve used a typewriter for the audibility factor. I’ve gone to grad school. Nothing stuck.

But I finally hit on what I needed, what had always been missing from my repertoire, when I was gifted my very first fountain pen.

Oh, this pen is magic! You really feel like a writer when you get ink on your fingers! I clip this pen to my breast pocket every chance I get so everyone can understand my specific flavor of pretension. And I now have an inkwell on my desk. I don’t write at my desk. It’s more of a paper storage unit. But I have these physical objects now that make it look like inspiration could strike at any moment. Or, that ink could spill out of this pen and ruin a perfectly serviceable shirt.

But who cares! I’m a writer now! I’m writing this very piece with one of my fountain pens and only twice so far have I lost the cap in the couch cushions!
That’s right: I said one of my fountain pens, plural.

The first one came from a dear friend and fellow writer—let’s call her Jona because that is her name. She is very good at making me realize that I didn’t even think to get her a gift.

This iridescent teal pen came from her in a little gray pen-box, so I therefore estimate it to be worth in the ballpark of ten thousand U.S. dollars. It is a Pelican. I generally despise identifying with brand names, but the names of these fountain pen companies evoke for me a time when all a man had to do to become a writer was to publish in the New Yorker and all a woman had to do was pretend to be a man.

So I, as a writer, am now writing with a Pelican. Please respect me accordingly.
Jona showed me how to draw ink up from the well through the nib in my Pelican, thus filling both my pen and a significant void in my public school education. She then welcomed me to the Pen Club, a club that also includes another mutual dear friend and mentor, a man we will simply call B because he is ours and we’d rather not share him.

B and I had a writers’ breakfast—another thing we writers do—and I, of course, made certain to take notes with my Pelican where he could see it and admire it. Which he did! So much so, in fact, that after breakfast he took me to his writer’s den and his own fountain pen collection, amassed over decades of being, quite frankly, too good for the likes of the New Yorker.

I crumpled into an armchair in awe. For a newly minted writer, this—this assembly of pens was akin to Wonka’s chocolate factory, or Smaug’s bed of gold in the Lonely Mountain, or any other literary reference you care to make for something you cherished your whole entire life once you learned about it for the first time.

“Would you like to have one?” B asked me.

Of course, I had to deflect my eagerness and enthusiasm with a muted “Yes! Yes! Holy inkwell of eternal glory, yes!” But in the end, B wore me down, and he graced my writerliness with an elegant blue Esterbrook with a silver nib and this pump-action ink-filling lever in the shaft.

​He will hardly miss it, one pen among untold thousands. But I—I am now an Esterbrook man, seeing as the Pelican ran out of ink two paragraphs ago.
And now I am temporarily a Bic man again, seeing as the Esterbrook appears to have popped a leak in the previous sentence. Doesn’t bother me! I probably didn’t screw the nib on tightly enough or some such simple thing. What do you expect? I’m new to being a writer.

Speaking of which, I must go. I have to be seen in public before washing this fresh ink spill off my fingers.

By PATRICK LOHMANN
Courtesy of Source NM

By BRYCE DIX, KUNM NEWS
Courtesy of Source NM

A recent report estimates that New Mexico has the potential to produce substantial power from its geothermal resources.

But what will it take to tap into this substantial energy source underneath our feet that could reduce emissions and curb climate change?

Geothermal energy comes from deep within the Earth’s crust, where heat is produced by both the decay of radioactive minerals and molten rock.

This heat is key for generating electricity – usually from tapping into a hot water aquifer – which can directly heat buildings or spin a turbine’s rotor. This process emits no pollutants and, unlike solar or wind, can be available around the clock.

This type of electricity production has actually been around for a long time – getting its start over 100 years ago in areas experiencing significant subsurface geologic activity.

Tom Solomon is the head facilitator of the New Mexico Geothermal Working Group, a slew of volunteers who explore geothermal and ways that it can be brought to the state.

“New Mexico is number six in the nation in terms of its resource potential for geothermal,” Solomon said.

He’s referencing a report by Project InnerSpace, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and the Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, which singled out Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, Sandoval and Taos counties as the best candidates for geothermal exploration.

It found that New Mexico has the potential to produce 163 gigawatts of geothermal power. Just one gigawatt can power roughly 750,000 homes on average.

That power could then be sold to other states or attract private investment opportunities, such as data centers.
Solomon says New Mexico is just starting to explore this massive source of energy.

Right now, there’s only one utility-scale geothermal power plant, located in Lordsburg, and state officials in June announced a deal between Meta and XGS Energy to significantly boost the state’s geothermal output.

“The really exciting possibility is what’s called ‘advanced geothermal,’ or ‘hot dry rock geothermal,’ which New Mexico has in abundance, primarily because of the Rio Grande rift,” Solomon said.

Bisecting the state, the Rio Grande rift is a place where the earth’s crust and mantle have been stretched, thinned, and fractured by tectonic forces – pushing heat closer to the surface.
​
“Meaning you don’t have to drill as deep to access that really hot rock, which is the source of potential geothermal,” Solomon said.

Similar to oil and gas fracking, this method works by drilling wells into the Earth’s surface and using high-pressure water to fracture hot basement rock, creating a piping-hot reservoir.

Then, engineers can inject cold water into a well, which circulates and heats up through the hot, fractured rock, and then is brought up to the surface for use.

Wells must also be drilled very deep into the earth’s surface – sometimes 15,000 feet down. For context, the highest natural point in New Mexico is Wheeler Peak, at just over 13,000 feet.

Despite the promise of geothermal energy production, it’s been a difficult pitch to policymakers and utilities because it’s both expensive up front and the technology is rapidly evolving.

In fact, advancements in hot, dry rock geothermal are so new, experts are closely following the construction of a first-of-its-kind utility-scale project by Fervo Energy in Utah.

There, engineers are hoping to put out 100 megawatts of electricity next year, adding 400 more by the end of 2028.

The excitement surrounding advanced geothermal system research lies in the potential to drill both vertically and horizontally, allowing wells to have more contact with a geothermal source.

By doing so, power plants can be placed pretty much everywhere, and can access more heat from the same depth. Another plus: it can utilize readily available expertise from the oil and gas industry – who use a similar technique to tap fossil fuel reservoirs.

Regardless of the type of geothermal energy, the fast pace of the industry is creating some red-hot buzz in the Land of Enchantment.

“Geothermal energy will fit like a hand in a glove in New Mexico,” said Rebecca “Puck” Stair, director of the energy conservation and management division within the Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD).
Stair estimates that around 40% of the state’s electricity is sourced from renewables, putting it well ahead of its self-imposed clean energy goals. To her, geothermal could fill in the remaining 60%.

“There is a possibility that we could switch our entire electric grid over to clean power fueled by solar, wind and geothermal, and the math is penciling for that,” Stair said. “And, at the same time, still be pumping oil and gas out of the Permian [Basin] for use elsewhere in other states.”

New Mexico heavily relies on the revenue generated from the oil and gas industry to prop up its economy, and is slowly diversifying its portfolio by shoring up permanent funds and investing in other industries.

In 2024, Stair and her team were tasked by the legislature to develop rules and regulations for geothermal permitting and a separate grant and loan program to help fund projects.

Her department is still drafting those rules, but Stair said these initiatives are a huge investment, because geothermal will only be possible with private-public partnerships to construct those expensive geothermal power plants.

“I think the ball is in our court right now, and we’re hopefully carrying it hard and fast,” Stair added.

Still, she hopes the state will fund mapping options to pinpoint the ideal places for geothermal, who owns that land, and nearest transmission lines to evaluate infrastructure needs.

At the Roundhouse, lawmakers continue to be enthusiastic about geothermal and say they’re open to funding more research.

“It’s a pretty win-win deal,” said State Sen. Pat Woods (R-Grady). “We’ve got the oil and gas industry that is very efficient at digging these deep wells.”

A longtime supporter of the oil and gas industry, Woods thinks that together, fossil fuels and geothermal could bring new rural jobs, but he’s not totally convinced it’s a silver bullet.

“I think it’s a hell of an idea, but it’s a ways out,” Woods said.
Woods is clear: he doesn’t want to replace oil and gas anytime soon. For now it keeps crucial dollars flowing to his constituents in the far northeastern stretch of the state.

​However, state analysts predict that fossil fuel production will start to decline sharply in the near future – maybe by 2035 – raising real questions about New Mexico’s plan to tackle the energy and economic gaps it will leave behind.

Courtesy of United Way

Throughout an ever-changing rotation of social workers, families and judges, one thing remained constant: her Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) advocate. CASA First Judicial District is an organization that recruits, trains and supports volunteers to advocate for children in the welfare system throughout Santa Fe, Rio Arriba County, and Los Alamos County.

​“I knew that no matter what home I was in or what school I went to, she would always check in on me. She was a person who wouldn’t change,” Veronica said. After graduating from college, Veronica joined CASA First in 2018, this time as an advocate.“There’s a reason I ended up at CASA First,” she said. “I knew firsthand how much it meant to have someone who truly cared.”

As a foster youth advocate, she provided the same consistency she once received, creating spaces where young people could speak openly about their experiences. “I didn’t pretend to have all the answers,” she said, “but I could meet kids where they were, be honest with them and help them find resources.” Annie Rasquin, Executive Director of CASA First, emphasizes the importance of listening to those with lived experience. “My staff always tells me, ‘Listen to Veronica,’” Annie said. “She helps shape who we are, identifies the needs in the community and shows us ways to grow.”
​
Veronica’s leadership in child welfare expanded as she transitioned into legislative work, serving as a leadership analyst for the New Mexico House of Representatives majority leader. Even as her career in policy continues to advance, she remains connected to CASA First, serving as vice president of the Board of Directors.

CASA First is one of 24 nonprofits supported by United Way Northern New Mexico (UWNNM), ensuring children in the foster care system have dedicated, consistent advocates.

“United Way is the organization that connects the dots,” Veronica said. “They help shift organizations away from a scarcity mindset and create a community built on abundance.”

Liddie Martinez, Los Alamos Market President at Enterprise Bank & Trust, was drawn toUnited Way’s support of multiple organizations that serve the area’s most vulnerable. A donor for 30 years, Liddie recently completed her tenure as chair of the board at UWNNM.

“United Way has been such a huge part of my life,” Liddie said. “The organization has an incredible reach and depth of impact.”
Enterprise committed to a three-year $300,000 matching grant to support UWNNM’s staffing and programs, with funds distributed in annual $100,000 installments. 

“No single person or organization can do it alone,” says Cindy Padilla, Executive Director ofUWNNM. “Working together amplifies our impact.” Liddie helped guide UWNNM through transitions, ensuring stability for the organization during leadership changes and strengthening policies to keep the nonprofit moving forward. “As native New Mexicans who both grew up in Hispanic households, Liddie and I understand the value of community,” Cindy said. “We both feel a responsibility to give back.” 

For Veronica, responsibility drives her work every day. Just as someone once showed up for her, she remains committed to showing up for others.  
“Whether it’s between youth in the welfare system and their advocates, or between partnered organizations like United Way and CASA First,” said Veronica, “true progress comes from genuine relationships built on mutual trust.” 

This giving season, donate to nonprofits such as CASA First or United Way Northern New Mexico where one donation impacts many nonprofits, builds a stronger community. 

Original content source: www.enterprisebank.com/impact-united-way-of-northern-new-mexico

​In baseball as in life

​By Zach Hively

Two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Game Seven of the World Series. The opponent’s ace throws me a heater. I murder it! The crowd goes bonkers as I win the championship for the Kansas City Royals. After celebrating, I fetch the Wiffle ball from the other side of the house, and I set up to win it all over again.

​If each of these imagined championships of my boyhood had earned a real flag, the house would have looked like the United Nations.

I let go of that dream a long time ago. I was not skilled enough to be a world-class baseball player. Or, more honestly, I was unwilling to put in the time to find out whether or not I was good enough. I built fresh dreams atop my fantasy of baseball stardom. Write a world-renowned column. Write great novels. Write anything else I damn well pleased, but write it evocatively and maybe even change the world with it.

Those who really and truly push themselves know how much effort goes into spinning hay into gold. The Royals’ erstwhile left fielder, Alex Gordon, was the type of athlete who spun that gold into platinum. He dedicated himself to baseball at a level I wish I would offer to my writing, or to anything, really. Others have penned stories in actual respectable sports sections about the one time he broke his dietary regimen to eat a hamburger. His dedication transformed him from a top-prospect bust to one of the silent stars of a short era in the 2010s.

Back in 2014, he lived my old dream. His Royals were down 3-2 in Game Seven of the World Series. Two out, bottom of the ninth inning. Gordon faced the Giants’ best pitcher—a pitcher on the threshold of legend—a pitcher whose name we dare not speak.

That the Royals would play in the playoffs at all, let alone on this stage, boggled the oddsmakers. The Royals were mediocre at best in July of that year. They had no standout star. Not even Gordon, whose biggest, most reliable successes were on defense, which fans and analysts both tend to overlook. Then, to lean on a cliché, something clicked. So much of the team stood out in overlooked ways that people started looking.

The Royals turned scrappy and resourceful. They figured out what they do best, and they played that way, even when it went against current baseball conventions.

A bunch of guys having fun suddenly plaused the implausible. They earned the team’s first playoff berth in twenty-nine years. They won the Wild Card game after their win probability was literally three percent in the eighth inning. They won seven more straight to reach the World Series.

Forget pigs flying and hell shivering. Anything was possible. I felt it. I mean, just look at me: I was writing a weekly column and had already secured multiple publications—hey, two is a multiple—pleased to run it. Solid accomplishments. More pieces of ether made tangible.

Then, with Alex Gordon at the plate, the whole magical season reached its final out. No one on base, down by one run. The first pitch was a strike.

The most finessed storyteller could not craft a more perfect way to play out this postseason. All the seeming restrictions of life frayed and fell away, turning reality beautiful and glorious and completely ridiculous.

The second pitch, Gordon swatted into center field.

The ball touched the grass. A two-out single. The slimmest deli slice of hope.

The center fielder missed the ball. It skittered to the wall. Gordon sped up for second base.

The left fielder bumbled the ball against the wall, buying a couple seconds more valuable than a lifetime of fandom. Gordon ran for third base.

The left fielder corralled the ball and threw it to the shortstop. The Royals’ third base coach read the tea leaves in an instant—Gordon’s speed, the shortstop’s arm strength, the distance of the looming throw—and he hoisted his hands up into the air. He wanted Gordon to stop.

What do you do? You work hard for years for one goal: maybe a World Series ring, maybe a book. If you’re very fortunate, the universe sets up the grand opportunity, or a whole Rube Goldberg of opportunities, just for you. Then, the universe does what it does best. It pulls back its hand, takes a step into the shadows, and lets your own actions determine the finale.

Comedies and tragedies are the exact same stories until this final beat. Everyone ends up in love, or everyone ends up dead. You live forever, or you disappear. In these big moments, you get one or the other. There is no compromise.

Alex Gordon listened. He stopped at third base.

The next batter popped out in foul territory. Game over.

The third base coach made a rational call, and Gordon very defensibly trusted him. He put hope on a respirator for one more batter. He put his faith in his teammate to hit another baseball even though, win or lose, his dash would have been pantheonized.

Probably nine times out of ten, he’s out.

But one time out of ten, he lives forever.

Listening to the base coach is the smart choice, every time. I survive by listening to the conventional wisdom of my own inner base coaches. Play it safe. Don’t throw away your chances. Never make the final out on the basepaths.

Game Sevens are not conventional. Big moments are never safe.

When an entire lifetime of striving is on the line, hope has no value. The universe will not hand you victory. You go for it, or you sit on your heels.

For all my emotional investment, for all I didn’t sleep that night, I was zero percent pissed that Gordon did not run home. Time and patience softened this blow when those improbable Royals won it all a year later. But even before 2015 retconned the tragedy of 2014, I played out a fabricated memory of his running home, over and over and over. I still do. Even when he’s out by a mile, I am proud of him, this person I will never even know.

That year’s Royals team showed me the value of fun, and amazement, and wonder, and dedication, and a fair bit of bravado. The season is long over, the band is broken up, and yet they continue to inspire me.

​Here I am, rounding second once again. I’m always and perpetually rounding second. But when I get to third this time, I’m blasting past the base coach. I may get thrown out by twenty-five feet and silence the stadium. Analysts may pick apart my boneheaded decision. But I don’t care. I’m through living for hope. The dash for home is the play I want on my highlight reel.
Safe or out, there’s always next year.

NEW YORK, NY / ESPAÑOLA, NM — The good news continues for Moving Arts Española. Co-Founder and Creative Director Roger Montoya, a CNN Hero, has been selected as a recipient of the 2025 Dance Teacher Award, one of the nation’s most prestigious honors recognizing outstanding contributions to dance education.

Montoya and fellow Co-Founder Salvador Ruiz-Esquivel attended the awards ceremony held in New York City on Tuesday, October 7, where Roger was celebrated alongside other distinguished educators from across the country.

The Dance Teacher Awards honor exceptional educators whose dedication and artistry have made a profound and lasting impact on the field of dance. Montoya’s recognition reflects decades of commitment to teaching, mentorship, and community leadership through the arts.

At Moving Arts, Montoya teaches Ballet and Dance Performance, in addition to serving as a Gymnastics Coach and the organization’s Creative Director. His holistic approach to education emphasizes both artistic excellence and the development of critical life skills, inspiring countless young people in the Española Valley to pursue their potential through movement and creativity.

Montoya’s own journey as a dancer began early. At age 20, he earned a merit scholarship to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City, where he trained under renowned mentors Louis Falco (Limon Dance Company) and Pearl Lang (Martha Graham School). He later apprenticed with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and toured internationally with the Parsons
Dance Company through 1990.

Reflecting on the honor, Montoya shared:

“I am deeply honored to be recognized for my mentorship in the arts at this national level. The true gift is in watching a student apply the critical values and life skills they learn through the performing arts.

”This national recognition underscores Montoya’s lifelong dedication to the transformative power of the arts and his unwavering commitment to creating opportunities for youth through dance education.

About Moving Arts Española
Founded in 2008 by Roger Montoya and Salvador Ruiz-Esquivel, Moving Arts Española provides affordable, high-quality arts education, academic support, and wellness programs to the youth and families of Northern New Mexico. Through a wide range of creative disciplines, Moving Arts fosters self-expression, confidence, and community engagement.

For more information, please contact:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 844-623-2787
Website: movingartsespanola.org
​
###

By Peter Nagle
​
Gold: what kind of investment is it? 

Gold is a difficult asset for an Advisor to recommend because it has nothing to measure it by. No earnings, no revenue, no debt to equity ratio, no P/E ratio, etc. nothing to measure it by, EXCEPT price. Which is to say, what it sells for and whether it goes up or down. You don’t have to buy actual gold to invest in it, you can buy either a Gold ETF, or, interestingly, a Gold Miners ETF. 

Today gold hit $3,983 per ounce. It’s up over 60% in the last year alone, which is a lot for anything BTW. Gold miners are up over 150% though! Miners are far more volatile than the metal itself. Before this past year Gold traded in a range for years. That’s what it has done historically: trades up and down for years, then shoots up, then trades up and down again for a long time. Whether that will happen now is anybody’s guess except for one thing: the reason it’s now going up. So let’s talk about that. 

Experts will give you various reasons why Gold has gone up so much recently. Usually they say it’s because it’s the only true store of value in the money world, as compared to Fiat Currencies (i.e. the dollar, Yen, Pound, etc), which can fluctuate in value and have nothing behind them but the “good faith and credit” of the country issuing them. And that’s a valid point. But why so much now? This is way more than the usual run up. 

I think there’s another reason happening here: the Dollar. First, a little background. The world operates on “Dollars”. The Dollar is the world’s reserve currency. This was decided after WW II by a bunch of old white men. Which means it’s what most countries use to pay for things worldwide. They convert their currencies to dollars and pay then. So what’s going on with the Dollar? 

Well, it’s declining in value vs other currencies. The Dollar buys less than it did even 3 months ago. If that keeps happening, it will buy less and less. That’s inflation as well as a dollar decline. Maybe that’s temporary. Maybe it’s not. What is making it decline? 

The reasons stated vary from the Trump-Effect (the negative side of it - some people think there’s only a negative side), to Climate Change. I think there’s another cause: Reserve Currency, as in: what would happen if we were no longer the Reserve Currency? Pres Trump thinks it would be a catastrophe, like losing a World War he has said. 

Anyway, if that happened gold would, in my humble opinion, explode in price. Yeah, go way up. Next time we’ll talk about the Dollar’s situation and the possibilities of outcomes. 

I provide financial advice to individuals in our Abiquiu community at no charge as a way of giving back. I also wear a completely different hat as a Spiritual Director. If you have questions in those areas feel free to contact me. I’ll do the best I can to help you sort through the issues. 

Peter J Nagle
Thoughtful Income Advisory and
Soulwork Spiritual Direction
Abiquiu, NM
505-423-5378 (mobile)
[email protected]

BY: NADA HASSANEIN
Courtesy of Source NM

CHANDLER, Ariz. — Art Martinez has seen the power of ceremony.

Martinez, a clinical psychologist and member of the Chumash Tribe, helped run an American Indian youth ceremonial camp. Held at a sacred tribal site in Northern California, it was designed to help kids’ mental health. He remembers a 14-year-old girl who had been struggling with substance use and was on the brink of hospitalization.

On the first day of the four-day camp, Martinez recalled, she was barely able to speak. In daily ceremonies, she wept. The other kids gathered around her. “You’re not alone. We’re here for you,” they’d say.

Traditional tribal healing practices are diverse and vary widely, unique from tribe to tribe. Many include talking circles, sweat lodge ceremonies with special rituals, plant medicine and herb smudging, along with sacred ceremonies known only to the tribe.

​Martinez and the girl’s counselor saw her mental health improve under a treatment plan combining tribal traditional healing and Western medicine.
“By the end of the gathering, she had broken through the isolation,” Martinez said. “Before, she would barely shake hands with kids, and she was now hugging them, they were exchanging phone numbers. Her demeanor was better, she was able to articulate.”

Indigenous health advocates have long known the health benefits of integrating their traditional healing practices, and studies have also shown better health outcomes.

Now, for the first time, tribal traditional healing practices are eligible for Medicaid coverage in California and three other states under a new initiative. Last October, the federal government approved Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage of traditional healing practices at tribal health facilities and urban Indian organizations in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Oregon.

These were approved under a federal program that allows states to test new pilot health programs and ways to pay for them.

Arizona’s waiver went into effect Wednesday. While California’s waiver currently only covers patients with substance use disorder, like the girl in Martinez’s camp, any Medicaid enrollee who is American Indian or Alaska Native is eligible in the other three states. Officials have said California’s program will expand to have such coverage in the future.

Under the waivers, each tribe and facility decides which traditional healing services to offer for reimbursement. Services can also take place at sacred sites and not necessarily inside a clinic, explained Virginia Hedrick, executive director of the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health.

“If a healing intervention requires being near a water source — the ocean, creek, river — we can do that,” said Hedrick, who is of the Yurok Tribe and of Karuk descent. “It may involve gathering medicine in a specific place on the land itself.”

Tribes long had to practice out of sight. The U.S. government’s assimilation policies had targeted tribal languages, cultural and religious practices — including healing. It wasn’t until 1978, when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was enacted under President Jimmy Carter, that they regained their rights.

“It was illegal to practice our ways until 1978 … the year I was born,” said Dr. Allison Kelliher, a family and integrative medicine physician, who is Koyukon Athabascan, Dena. “Traditional healing means intergenerational knowledge that have origins in how our ancestors and people lived generationally to promote health, so it’s a holistic way of looking at well-being.”

Last month, Kelliher and hundreds of others gathered at the National Indian Health Board’s health conference on Gila River Indian Community land in Chandler, Arizona. During a panel discussion about the waivers, tribal members discussed how health centers will bill for services, ways to protect the sacredness of certain ceremonies, and how to measure and collect data around the effectiveness of the treatments, a federal requirement under the waivers.

But teasing out those new protocols didn’t dull the enthusiasm.
“This is where we really start intersecting the Western medicine as well as traditional healing, and it’s exciting,” said panelist Dr. Naomi Young, CEO of the Fort Defiance Indian Hospital Board in Arizona.

The Trump administration announced earlier this year that it doesn’t plan to renew certain other Medicaid waiver programs approved under the Biden administration. But it hasn’t announced any changes around the traditional healing waivers.

Studies have found that incorporating sweat lodge ceremonies and other cultural practices in treatments led to substance use recovery and emotional health, and better quality diets when incorporating traditional foods, according to analyses of research by the National Council of Urban Indian Health.
​
“When there is an opportunity to braid traditional healing with Western forms of medicine, it’s very possible, and the research is indicating, we may get better health outcomes,” Hedrick said.

Traditional practices
Decades of historical trauma, such as displacement and forced assimilation in boarding schools — where American Indian and Alaska Native people were forbidden from speaking their languages — are behind their disproportionate rates of chronic illness and early deaths today, tribal health experts say.

Tribes have long offered traditional healing — both outside brick-and-mortar health care settings as well as within many clinics. But health centers have been paying out of pocket or budgeting for the services, said retired OB-GYN Dr. John Molina, director of the Arizona Advisory Council on Indian Health Care and member of the Pascua Yaqui and Yavapai Apache Tribes.

Molina said the new Arizona waiver may help clinics afford to serve more patients or staff more traditional healers, and build infrastructure, including sacred spaces and sweat lodges. For other clinics, “They’ve been wanting to start, but perhaps don’t have the revenue to start it,” he said.

“I’m hoping that when people engage in traditional healing services, a lot of it is to bring balance back into the lifestyle, to give them some hope,” Molina said.

That’s the effect traditional healing practices have had on Harrison Jim, who is Diné. Now a counselor and traditional practitioner at Sage Memorial Hospital in Arizona, Jim, 70, said he remembers his own first all-night sweat lodge ceremony when he returned from a military tour.

“I [felt] relieved of everything that I was carrying, because it’s kind of like a personal journey that I went through,” he said. “Through that ceremony, I had that experience of freedom.”

Kim Russell, the hospital’s policy adviser, who also spoke on the panel about the traditional healing waivers, told Stateline her team hopes to bring on another practitioner along with Jim.

Tribal health leaders have expressed concern about people without traditional knowledge posing to offer healing services. But Navajo organizations, including Diné Hataałii Association Inc., aim to protect from such co-opting as it provides licensures for Native healers, Jim said.

Push in Washington
Facilities covered under the new waivers include Indian Health Service facilities, tribal facilities, or urban Indian organization facilities. In Arizona, urban Indian organizations can get the benefit only if they contract with an Indian Health Service or other tribal health facility.

In Oregon, Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center spokesperson Shanna Hamilton said that while the center can’t speak on behalf of other tribes or clinics, many are still in the early stages of developing programs and protocols. She called the waivers a “meaningful step forward in honoring Indigenous knowledge and healing practices.”

Meanwhile, in neighboring Washington state, the legislature this session allocated $165,000 for the state to apply for a waiver by the end of this year.

​The Washington State Health Care Authority in a statement to Stateline emphasized that each tribe would determine its own traditional health services available for reimbursement.

Azure Bouré, traditional food and medicine program coordinator for the Suquamish Tribe, a community along the shores of Washington’s Puget Sound, called the waivers “groundbreaking.”

“We’re proving day in and day out that Indigenous knowledge is important. It’s real, it’s worthy, and it’s real science,” Bouré said.

On a brisk summer day in 2009, Bouré recalled, she had attended a family camp hosted by Northwest Indian College. It was then she tasted the salal berry for the first time. A sweet, dark blue berry, it’s long been used by Pacific Northwest tribes medicinally, in jams, and for dyeing clothing.

“It was just that one berry, that one day, that reignited that wonderment,” Bouré said. For her, it unlocked the world of Indigenous plant medicine and food sovereignty, a people’s right to the food and food systems of their land.

She got her bachelor’s in Native American environmental science and now runs an apothecary, teaches traditional cooking classes, recommends herbs to members with ailments and processes foraged foods.

One day she could be chopping pumpkins or other gourds and the next, cleaning and peeling away the salty-sweet meat from dozens of sea cucumbers harvested by shellfishbiologist divers employed by the tribe.

Bouré’s grandmother died when her mom was 12 years old. “That’s a whole generation of knowledge that she lost,” she said. One way she unearths that lost knowledge is by learning tribal medicine and teaching it, and holding on to memories like watching her great-grandmother Cecelia, who wove traditional sweetgrass dolls even when she was blind.

“I think that I come from a long line of healers,” she said.

Gary Ferguson, who is Unangax̂ (Aleut), is the director of integrative medicine at the Tulalip Health Clinic about 40 miles north of Seattle. He’s certified in naturopathic medicine in Washington and Alaska.

His health center already has a variety of integrative medicine offerings, he said, including traditional ones grounded in Coast Salish traditions of the Pacific Northwest. He said he hopes the waivers and continued support for Indigenous ways of healing will help tribes address health disparities.

“These ceremonies and ways are part of that deeper healing,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Dr. John Molina’s tribe and to include the Washington legislature’s funding to apply for a waiver. Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at [email protected].

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.