TRIBAL HOSPITALITY AND INCREDIBLE JOURNEYS: Sometimes the most important journey we make, is the journey that takes us home.
Last Thursday, Larry and Debby, neighbors in our small mountain community of less than 100 homes, sent out a plea to help them look for their lost dog. Molly, a beautiful Golden Retriever they had rescued when she was 6 months old, had apparently wandered away from home the day before. Snow had fallen that evening, blanketing the dirt roads, the yards, and the thick forest in white. I set out that morning on a walk in search of Molly, as did several other neighbors. We saw Larry on the road. He’d been searching for hours—along the snow-covered hiking trails, near the picnic grounds, down to the meadow, among the wild grasses and groves of aspen that grow among the pines. This neighborhood was my childhood home—my first introduction to real community. When I moved back a year and a half ago, I was greeted by neighbors who had known me for fifty years. Many, like me, had journeyed away, only to return home. Mountain lions and coyotes also call this landscape home. The big cats prowl a