00:02.20 Alan Welcome back to episode 74 on your rock art podcast. This is your host Dr Alan Garfinkel and we have Cynthia Wald but that's ah talking to us today about her passion and love and success. And the world of writing she is an author of children's books that often focus on native american themes and sort of entwine rock art and sacred narrative into the stories that she has developed and that they're beautiful and compelling. And wonderful Cynthia it's ah take it away and let's continue talking about that second book of yours. How about that. 00:47.98 Cynthia Waldman Okay, well I should finish the story about the crying rocks because that that explains how the the Kuu the newah had tried to stay in their own territory. So the cavalry or the. 01:02.98 Alan Please. 01:07.55 Cynthia Waldman Army came by and they tried to get them out and the women had to hold onto their babies and keep them from crying and this was often not very good. Outcome. So um, so this is the reason why they they fought to stay in their own. Land in their own communities and so they aren't reservation group and what they would do is you know just work in the community as cowboys bacaros housekeepers having their own businesses. Whatever and then. So at the time of my second book. Um Lena her uncle and is working at the cement plant there which is still there. It's a plant that actually first was developed in order to get cement for the California Aqueduct and it's the cement was also. And out to the hoover dam then called the boulder dam and other places and the cement plant is still there. It's still a big employer in the community and in the second book lina moves there along with Sarah in order to go to school and. They live on the opposite side of the tracks because this is how it really was and so in this book. There's not so much about the culture. Although there is something about the culture but it's about how in in within the past hundred years it was it took place in the 1930 s how. How a young girl like that would have to integrate into the society and what they had to do about the prejudice that arise and the two girls are separated physically and they're separated in other ways and they have to figure out what to do. To heal their community and to and to find a way back together again despite the prejudice that existed and they managed to do it so that book's about the power of girls and so it's not your typical you know story about um. You would expect many indigenous stories to take place on reservations and things like that and this is not that way. Um, so that's the second book and it's called turning gold um, and then the third book which is not out yet called saving coyote that one. Well you alan gave me a lot of help with that one. Um, it's that sarahra and Lena actually go into the world of the narratives. The sacred narratives of thewa si knewah people and so part of the research I did was fun. I. 03:56.27 Cynthia Waldman Got to go down to little Petraliff Canyon on a field trip with you and um and when I walked down into it I felt like I was walking to a graphic novel I had already been reading the mythology and the narratives and I just felt like I had gone into the underworld of of. 1 of the I don't know if you well the animal master you call him named Diwara and I felt like I was yowera kind of lives in an underworld and I felt like as I walked down into this landscape which is very deep with um with these. 04:18.27 Alan Yes. 04:34.61 Cynthia Waldman Straight up walls just painted with all these paintings of the what do you call it. You wear a yeah, the. 04:41.32 Alan They're the yeah, they're they're rock drawings and they're and they're and they're and they're they're covered with Imagery and yes, many of them are what we call decorated animal human figures that certainly are. Are prototypic or hallmarks of such creatures. How's that. 05:00.57 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, yeah, and um, so they were there all over the place and they just seemed to come out of the story about Yowera being a healer in the underworld and the animal master I felt like I was walking into his world where he lived. 05:17.83 Alan Well I want I want to just jump in briefly and tell and tell the listeners that Cynthia is absolutely off the charts brilliant in the way that she you know had an epiphany about that that I've been going into this canyon for about 40 years and 05:19.94 Cynthia Waldman Underworld. 05:36.88 Alan Had never thought about it in that way. But what happens with this canyon so that the the listenership understands it daylights on the valley floor but it goes down it and you cannot see the canyon from the valley floor. Because it's it's embedded and goes deeper and deeper channeling itself and ultimately dropping out of the side of the canyon into a waterfall and then down into the valley below. So what what I heard from Cynthia. Was that well alan, you're missing this. This is ah this is a threedimenional story here. This is the immersive experience and all the pictures relate back to one of the you know Hallmark narratives the nature of the cosmology. The religious. Metaphor the theology of the indigenous people and I think she's onto something very important. Go ahead. 06:39.17 Cynthia Waldman So so I had that strong feeling and then I started imagining I've never been able to be there night of course but you can imagine it would be very dark. You know the you weed looking up at the dark vault of the sky with some of the stars and it would be. As if you were in an underworld as if you were underground. You get that feeling and we even saw there's ah even a little side room that had these drawings on and that looked like drawings of medicine bags. Well in the story. Um, you wear as a healer and you can get the. Sacred songs the healing songs and the healing items out of these medicine baggs. So I incorporated all that into the story and and so this story um they two girls have to go into the underworld to heal one of them and um, and. So that whole underworld situation is in there and then um and in order to actually save they have to save coyote in order to save Sarah They have to save coyote. That's why book's called saving coyote as you know if you know anything about the the. Stories of indigenous californians coyote is the the trickster and he's huge in the stories and he's huge in the new us stories. So you know it's just all about how they save coyote after that and so they're back in the before time and they actually. Go into these real narratives that the people have told for thousands of years and these two girls enter into them and they become a part of the narrative and they look learn something from coyote and coyote learn something from them and eventually of course they do save them and there's one element in these you know the people there there. Animal people that lived there in the before time and they're kind of part animal part people when you read the narratives. It can be confusing. You know what do they look like but sometimes they get down on all fours and run around like and regular animal or there can be standing up and kind of. Their hands might turn into pause. It's just very interesting to think about um I visualized it more more you know more like they look more like animals that can walk around in two feet but it's it's interesting and. There's 1 element that's unique I read by Maurice Sigmenti somebody who one of the people collected the the narratives the stories and he said a unique item is the star shirt like none none of the other stories from the other groups that he knew about had this thing called a star shirt. 09:24.10 Cynthia Waldman So I made the star shirt a really integral part of the story. 1 of the things they have to do is learn how to save coyote and they also have to get a star shirt. So so that's the third one and and I'm just very grateful for all the help I've had through the years I've had a lot of help from the from all kinds of people. You are one person. Um and the newer people the twice who help me especially well with all 3 books you know, especially they gave me a lot of help with the language on the first book and so I just I don't know I hope everybody enjoys these books. 10:00.00 Alan So What is your favorite Thing. What is your the lesson learned or sort of the takeaway from working on 3 different books that you've done so Far. What's been the most inspirational or the most important lesson that you've learned. By having to craft these books. 10:22.38 Cynthia Waldman Um, boy that's a hard question. What's the most important lesson. 10:28.20 Alan Or or what's a lesson, not the most important. But but what's what's some of the lessons or some of the things that you're most thankful for in terms of this journey. You've had in in fashioning 3 different books. 10:42.75 Cynthia Waldman Well I think I've grown up and you know as I've grown up and matured as a human you know I think you know it's taken me 10 years to write all 3 of these books? Yeah, yeah, well not quite 10 years but almost and um. 10:53.16 Alan Ah, yeah I know it has It's quite a while. Yeah. 11:02.47 Cynthia Waldman And so you know I've changed as a human being over the course and I think that the books have become a little more mystical with each telling you know I was in depend on what I was interested in the time I think I was very interested in the basket making and took the basket making class and. Culture and the language and what was going on at first and so that one's more solid but all 3 of my books actually have quite a mystical connection because that one does to the mom's the mom's always there even though the mother has passed away and that's why there's grief in the first story. Um, she's still there in many ways she's there as a butterfly she's there in the butterfly basket you know the girls are there together in the spirit of the basket because you know they both their spirit since they both helped with the basket is woven into it. Um, and so there's all kinds of kind of mystical. Philosophical elements. The second one was more realistic I mean I actually was able to interview a bunch of people that lived in this town called monolith which was the inspiration for the book I call it town proctor and you know it is a made up book. But you know it was inspired by things that really happened. Some things that really happened and you know most of it was totally made up but still, there's there's um, you know that that had to do with the ongoing racists and the but we're always fighting about you know and the power I wanted to give girls or anyone who read it. Children the feeling that they could were powerful enough to solve a big problem like that and then finally I think the third book became the most mystical because you know we were at the time of all of this upheaval in politics and um and. While I was writing it and coyote is a trickster. He reminded me of a certain person I considered to be a trickster and he and that inspired me to just kind of try to see what you know there's a trickster. What can be good about this person. How can I feel compassion for this person. Yeah, there has to be a way to feel compassion and so that was the journey because the girls have to discover that it's love and compassion that saved coyote. It's not criticizing him or anything like that. It's. 13:13.66 Alan Ah, ah, ah. 13:24.91 Alan Well. 13:31.19 Cynthia Waldman It's you know they want to criticize him they want to think that they're nothing like him. But in reality they find out that they have coyote inside of themselves and that everybody does So so I think that that you know yeah. 13:42.23 Alan Sounds like there's there's some serious lessons in the books that people can take away from and there are parallels in our own lives right. 13:53.38 Cynthia Waldman Right? exactly and there was definitely a parallel in my life. You know to what I was thinking and growing and I felt like coyote was with me every step of the way in that third book you know he was there. He teaches the girls a thing or 2 in the book and of course he was teaching me a thing or 2 at the same time. I can understand how people you know to to people who tell these stories these aren't stories. They're real and I and I think writers go through that too. Your characters become real and they become like real people and and coyote became very real to me and he's still a part of my life. And I you know you instead of saying you know nobody should say they're perfect. You know that's what it's about you know everybody has all kinds of sides to them and so that's what this was about and coyote you know there's something to be learned from that side too. If it's you could call it your shadow side. There's something to be learned because it's not all bad. You know you can love it There's you know all of the aspects of you need to be to be owned and loved and that's really what the story's about and that's what the girls learn but it. 15:03.82 Alan Sounds like it's a sounds like 1 of the themes or about acceptance correct accepting. yeah yeah yeah I say acceptance is the answer to all of my problems. 15:08.44 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, it's about acceptance that's total who you are and who everyone else is you know about acceptance. So yeah. Yeah, just accepting? Yeah yeah. 15:22.74 Alan We've we've talked about that before that's amazing. Well this is the second segment and it's a great place to break and see all in the flip flop gang and we'll try to tie a tie a bow around this one and and try to integrate it into some of the. Studies of rock art that I've done and we'll talk about it from a perspective of Cynthia as well see you shortly.