

Dear Friends,
A new sun moves north as the days slowly lengthen toward spring. In Southern California in the Simi Hills, for a week before and a week after the solstice, at dawn a finger of light enters the notched entrance and passes along the length of the ancient pecked and painted sandstone cave. As it moves, it vivifies the images and all they portend.
May the new light also move through each of us, awakening our courage and concern of all beings.
Susan
Please join me for my first reading in the new year hosted by the venerable Harry Northup.
Harry’s Announcement: Please join us to see/hear two brilliant poets, Susan Suntree & Tom Laichas, read their poetry on Harry’s Poetry Hour, Creative Chaos MPTF, on Tuesday, January 3, 2023, 1-2 PM PST. Thanks to Jennifer Clymer, Director, MPTF Studios, & the Creative Chaos Team.
Here is the Zoom link. Please check in a few minutes before 1 PM.
https://mptf.zoom.us/j/86032964290… Passcode: MPTF Please share.
Here’s the discount link to the Sacred Sites audiobook where you can learn about the Simi Hills sacred sites: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook
A Three-part Series
Free and open to the public! In addition to my talk and Raven’s observations, I will show slides of places in Southern California that are rarely seen and even more rarely recognized for what they are. Learn the story! See deeply into this amazing homeland!
Susan
ANNOUNCEMENT from Duane Bidwell
Can’t wait to attend this Monday night–Susan Suntree is a treasure.
Join Raven and Coyote as they guide us on a tour through the primordial origins of Southern California, beginning with the Big Bang/Great Silence to the present.
It’s the first gathering of a three-part series, “Indigenous Peoples and Native Realities.” Join us for a meal in Fellowship Hall at 6p, followed by the performance at 7p in the sanctuary.
Susan’s presentation, drawn from her book “Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California,” is equal parts Western scientific thought and Native American myths and songs, telling a dynamic and poetic story about the Southern California landscape. Included in the presentation is a full-color slide show of images taken by renowned photographer Juergen Nogai.
Dear Friends, On Sunday, October 16, 2022, at 2 PM I’ll be reading from my recent book harvest at the Seven Stars Gallery, 210 Spring Street, Nevada City. Please join us! Refreshments! Signed books!
Good company brings literature to life!
I will accompany my reading of Dear Traveler on the dulcimer, joined by Tynowyn, Nevada County’s celebrated flute and dulcimer player. And I will play an excerpt from the audiobook of the new, revised paperback edition of, Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California, as well as read excepts about the ancient era when CO2 was at the level it is now. Though the past does not necessarily predict the future, it helps us understand the Earth’s ways of responding to dramatic changes. If time permits, I may read a few new poems apropos of this critical moment.
I’d love to share this celebration with you! Join us!
Susan
PS Your reviews really do help! If you shop on line, I recommend www.bookshop.org.
MORE GOOD NEWS!
Recently I was honored by being inducted into the Antelope Valley High School Hall of Fame. Our high desert high school, serving a community of only fifty thousand people at that time, has saluted such alumni artists as Frank Zappa and US Poet Laureate Kay (Pederson) Ryan. I am especially pleased to join my cohort of honorees who have made rich contributions to music (including a founder of Captain Beefheart and His Magic band), journalism, teaching, and coaching. I posted on my website (go to Posts) my short speech and a poem describing how I came to be a student there and how the school and my childhood in the desert became significant roots, nourishing my life path and work.
AVHS HALL OF FAME MY TALK September 22, 2022
Thank you for this honor! Your praise and appreciation is deeply moving.
My grandparents moved to the Antelope Valley when I was six and they soon bought us grandkids a horse that became our transport into the then wild desert. Gramp installed the glass in the new schools and housing for Boeing and Edwards Air Force Base workers. The flood of these new residents generated a real estate boom. When my family returned to California from our stint in the Bahamas, I was thrilled by the prospect of attending a real high school.
I arrived at Antelope Valley High School as a junior, followed later by my brother Ted and sister Peggy. I’d spent my freshman and sophomore years, along with my older sister, Ginger, at a very strict girls’ boarding school where there were no televisions, radios, or record players. Our mail, in and out, was read and censored, though somehow a few letters from friends in Arcadia, where I attended middle school, arrived with news about high school life: surfing, the Beach Boys, sports, boys, dances! And, oh yes, so many classes! Wow!
The first day of the fall semester at AV, I was terrified: There would be boys everywhere and such a complex world, one I had longed for but that suddenly looked overwhelming. Quickly, however, it became my teenage paradise, a feast of opportunities. There was a theater program, a speech team that went to tournaments, student government, a newspaper, clubs and classes of all sorts. There was sports for girls as well as boys, and modern dance, and so much more. I loved it even as I suffered my teenage miseries. And there were my excellent teachers, especially Mr. Guzman, my English teacher, who was a foundational influence in my life.
My two years at AV, junior and senior, shaped my life in ways that have become more and more clear to me over the decades. In fact, my first one-woman performance, “Origins of Praise,” was based on my experiences in the Antelope Valley desert.
I’d like to share with you the poems I wrote and presented at my class reunions which starts with the year of my graduation. I think it describes the world I experienced and that deeply shaped who I am and how I have lived:
For Antelope Valley High School’s Class of 1964
1964
High desert children
migrants to Lockheed payroll
to Edwards Air Force Base
to test pilot’s BOOM banging into windows
to Yes it’s gonna BOOM next year
real estate jumping up and down
with a speculator’s wink
Oh beautiful for spacious skies
wide ocean skies
wind blown into waves across the Great Basin
the ancient dust stirred
from dry lakes’ once blue green shores
Joshua forests made farmland
alfalfa, hogs, cattle, horses, and wheat
Wildness around the edges
coyote’s cry heard in the housing tracts
Kids working on their algebra look up
smell dust in the wind
worry about their hairdos
Dardenelles, LaDonnas, Debonairs
Spartans Barons Lettermen
our tribal collection
practicing everyday
who we thought we wanted to be
each the most lonely
most likely to say the wrong thing
Cruising the Drive In, A&W, Denny’s, cafeteria odors
drift from sandwiches all day in paper bags
trays rattling with the jukebox beats
Angel Baby my Angel Baby He’s a rebel and he never does what he should
Do you wanta dance and hold me tight?
Our dreams
spread out so wide
the moon is no limit
Burst from our simple desert socks
Right on! Sisters and Brothers
into George Orwell’s arms
We, so finely shaped
and sent to the streets to change.
20th Reunion–1984
“I had a good time at my 10th when I went with my wife.
Going single to my 20th was different….”
20 years making lives
To explain atom bombs to step-children
our short hair
coifed to fit an uneasy era.
How do we look?
How do we feel?
Deaths, broken homes,
sagging or sharp successes
new loves, knowing our work well
Those of us who are happy with small things
happy with layers and layers of things
never happy
Alma Mater, nourishing mother, the reliable desert wind
reveals our bond:
it is not this year
these memories
this paraphernalia of the past
Our bond: death and the dreams
we measure against our youth
Dancing at the Antelope Valley Inn
awakening the dreamers
for another 20 years.
50th Reunion–2014
“All paths are the same: they lead nowhere…I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use.” Carlos Castaneda
Since we met, thirty years
to get it right
or wrong, to fit our lives to
old dreams new dreams no dream
Upwelling
dawn to dusk
the wind still blows,
dust clutters the windowsills
ravens turn across the sea blue sky.
Our memories toss their burdens, bright
or fraught, into the present
We fray and bag in familiar places
old Levi’s fade, stitches loose at the seams
Yet we are sturdy in spirit
children unto grandchildren
careers unto beguiling vistas or debt and worry.
There are no recliners for our lot
the fuse of history lighted under our hearts
sent us flying into our lives
with rockets to the moon, space shuttle to the space station,
classes to teach, newspapers to edit, pipes to fit, gardens to tend.
Vapor trails of Endeavortomark our passage
through wars, assassinations, climate threats, cycling boom and bust
Wherever we go, our inevitable interior landscape:
desert simple vistas.
If all paths lead nowhere,
here we are
Our bond: death and the dreams we measure
against the spaciousness of our hearts
We 60s dreamers
this year more dining than dancing
at the Embassy Suites Hotel.
Susan Suntree
Dear Friends, Celebrating the publication of Dear Traveler and the new paperback and audiobook editions of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California at Beyond Baroque was great fun!
In addition to playing a selection of “Origins of the Universe” from the Sacred Sites audiobook, I read from the section about the Pliocene, the era when carbon dioxide measured 400 ppm, as it does today–a thought provoking comparison. When I turned to Dear Traveler, I accompanied myself with the dulcimer for the first time! Next: the harmonica!
What a pleasure to celebrate at the renovated Beyond Baroque theater and garden patio with a wonderfully responsive audience, and to share the evening with Tom Laichas, who presented his deeply moving book, Sixty-three Photographs at the End of a War, showed slides of the book’s photographs, and sang a few new poems.
Here is the link the book party recording: https://youtu.be/5zvVDTT_MvU
Note: Unfortunately Zoom did not pick up the music in the audiobook selection. Click on the speaker and listen to the reading with the music!
The music composed by Tom Zehnder with contributions by the venerable flutist and Serrano Elder, Ernest Siva, was central to the Sacred Sites audiobook being selected as a 2021 finalist in Sound Production by the Society for Voice Arts and Sciences.
Here’s our discount link to the audiobook: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook
I hope you enjoy the party! I’ll keep you posted about readings scheduled for the fall season.
With mid-summer heat!
Susan
Dear Friends,
On 16 April 2022, I’ll be reading from Dear Traveler and the updated edition of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California with the award-winning poet, Tom Laichas.
WHERE: The Book Jewel Bookshop, 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester CA 90045
WHEN: Saturday, April 16, 6PM
The bookstore will have books ready for signing and enjoying! There is ample easy parking. What a joy to read in person!
The poems in my new collection address a traveler navigating our ordinary world, now grown precarious. Dear Traveler wends its way through the cycles of a year and of a life-time from garden figs and squirrels to freeways, fires, war, and more. Perhaps you, too, are on the traveler’s path?
I’d love it if you could be there!
Susan
Praise for Dear Traveler
Susan Suntree powerfully adds her work to the travel poem traditions of her Classical Japanese predecessors, Saigyō and Basho. Dear Traveler is a Postmodern travel diary taking us on a journey through “a fevered civilization.” These poems shine with moments of quiet astonishment as they guide us into the interior of the self during these turbulent times. Her poems remind us “Your wild life is listening.”—Alan Soldofsky, author of In the Buddha Factory andDirector of the MFA Program in Creative Writing, San Jose State University
Dear Traveler is a gorgeous poem-cycle as well as a journey we all must make. —Marsha de la O, author of Every Ravening Thing
This book is a series of poems addressed to Traveler. Immediately one wonders, who is this Traveler? which is a mystery throughout Susan Suntree’s brilliant book, a lyrical tracking of dancing mind in the “oracular present.” “Time is opening its map” Susan tells us at the beginning of the book.
By addressing the Traveler, Suntree reveals our everyday experiences as the mystical inner journeys that they really are. The poems take us through the daily life of figs and squirrels, take us on journeys through the seasons, through fire, all the way through death and disintegration, letting the body go and then, desiring a return, to its reforming, “awakening love’s beloved body.” These are everyday journeys, celestial journeys:
journey of soul, journey of body, journey of mind
Who is the Traveler?
It is us — revealed in these dazzling, dancing poems. —Phoebe MacAdams, author of The Large Economy of the Beautiful
There is a silence at the heart of all things. It is part of the miracle of this world in all its wondrous detail and sometimes frightening potential as each of us travels the landscape of what the zen tradition refers to as the great matter of birth-and-death. The poems in Susan Suntree’s Dear Traveler are true and gifted companions of this journey; they emerge from the poet’s years of deep listening as she made her way on this traceless path, and leave their echo in the reader’s heart. But there is something more here for you to discover; in some mysterious way, Suntree’s poetry itself listens. It listens without ears, and speaks without a mouth. —Peter Levitt, author of One Hundred Butterflies, Within Within, translator (with Kazuaki Tanahashi) The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan
These finely crafted poems map onto the Pacific Coast a quest for balance and self-possession. “This road is a welcome,” writes Suntree, and that’s a fact: whether humorous or bleakly prophetic, they draw us in with considerable clarity and force. These poems remind us that though the journey’s stakes are high and the risks great, every step takes us closer to “awakening love’s beloved body.” —Tom Laichas, author of Empire of Eden, XXXX, and 2022 winner of the Jabberwocky Press Poetry Award
Like the music of the tall grass and dry sticks that Susan Suntree writes about, these poems sing. Her writing here is spare, her economy of language admirable; there’s not an extraneous word or piece of punctuation anywhere. Each tiny poem floods dark corners with light. Tight as a coiled spring, these pieces test the limits of compression. Each is a jewel. —Jana Harris, author of Horses Never Lie About Love (memoir) and You Haven’t Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore (poetry)
Dear Friends,
A new year arrives as the sun moves higher overhead and a goldfinch couple feeds in the lavender by my front door. After a month of rest, I am reviewing the marvel of our Sacred Sites audio book adventure. I am heart-full with gratitude for your support! Thank you to all who have written to us since the audio book was released. Your praise has kept us steady and inspired!
“…riveted from beginning to end.” ” Thank you so much for creating this beautiful experience.” “… an absolute delight.” And from AudioFile magazine: “…don’t miss listening to this astoundingly creative exploration of the history of place… Gary Snyder’s introduction, read enthusiastically by Peter Coyote…The emotional nuances of Suntree and Queypo’s delivery will make your ears dance.”
We intended to create a beautiful, entertaining, and mind -changing production, and your responses tell me that this is what we accomplished.
Just before Christmas our production team attended the Society for Voice Arts and Sciences (SOVAS) awards gala at the Guggenheim Museum theatre in New York City because Sacred Sites audio book was chosen as one of five finalists for sound design. We were competing with an international slate of entrants, which highlighted all the more our composer/editor Tom Zehnder’s fabulous work. What a delight it was for our team to celebrate our Sacred Sites audio book this way.
Now we continue the adventure of letting people know about this work. Your ideas about how to get the word out are most welcome! Please be in touch. Radio, TV, print, pod casts and social media connections would be great!
Author’s discount: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook or wherever audiobooks are offered including many libraries. (Yes, our GoFundMe is still up if you would like to support our publicity campaign: http://www.gofundme.com/f/sacred-sites-audio-theater)
[Photo: Susan Suntree; Tom Zehnder, composer/editor; Gopika Sharma, producer; Tom Keegan, director]
JULY 1, 2021 THE ARGONAUT PAGE 17
A R T S & E V E N T S
SoCal’s Secret History Santa Monica author releases new audiobook
By Haley Beyer
Susan Suntree’s best-selling, award-winning book, “Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California”, was first published in 2010 and describes the origins of the universe, the evolution of plants and animals, migration of humans and much more.
In 2021, Suntree released a new audiobook version of her book, which is available on 41 sites including Amazon, Google and Audible. The inspiration for the audiobook stemmed from her curiosity of how things came to be. “I asked myself how did things come to be the way they are?” Suntree said. “I wanted to see through the palm trees ; and concrete.” Suntree wanted people to feel like they were part of the world they lived in. SoCal expert Susan Suntree’s new audiobook “Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California” features little-known information about the geological formation of the landscape, Native American sacred villages, and the coming of the Europeans, She felt misplaced in Los Angeles because there was no information available about the landscape or indigenous people. She used her experience as a performance artist, teacher and 18th Street Art Center resident artist to start her research and worked with tribal leaders, artists, historians and scientists at major universities and museums.
What Suntree discovered changed the way she viewed her home and she wanted to share that with everyone around her. “Southern California is a dynamic place,” Suntree said. “There is continual transformational landscape. It is a force of life on this astounding planet. It is all intelligence. All alive.” In the audiobook, Suntree covers the history of the Native American people who lived in Southern California for more than 15,000 years. She also shares information about the Tongva and other indigenous tribes with their villages Cahuenga, Tujunga, Topanga and other familiar locations. One fact that most people do not know is that the oldest human skeleton in North America was found in LA. After exploring the Santa Monica Mountains, 16-millionyear-old seashells that were once coastal seabeds were found as well. Earthquakes are responsible for pushing the mountains higher, and after the Ice Age ended, the bay that once filled the LA basin retreated and the region basked in the current Mediterranean climate that LA is known for today. Suntree’s journey began as a one-woman show, which was then made into her best-selling book. Making it into an audiobook “restored it to its native being.” “My worlds didn’t collide, the two worlds became braided together,” Suntree said.
To prepare for recording, Suntree went through voice exercises and lessons. Once the work began, she worked every single day until it was completed. The work was tedious because the layering of the music, voices of the characters, and creating a clear concept of the timeline was essential to creating the perfect interpretation. The music helped move the story along and Suntree enjoyed working with composer Tom Zehnder and featured Ernest Siva. She also worked with actor Kalani Queypo and Peter Coyote, an Emmy Award-winning narrator of documentaries. “It was so important for me to work with these two people,”Suntree said. “It felt right to have the male voice of Queypo, an indigenous person, tell the story alongside someone as brilliant and experienced as Coyote. “To purchase the audio book, visit shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sitesaudiobook The audiobook is narrated by Suntree and actor Kalani Queypo, and features Peter Coyote, the voice of Ken Burns’ documentaries. CREDIT: TONY VEREBES
CREDITS: AUDIOBOOK COVER IMAGE: JUERGEN NOGAI;
COVER DESIGN: TIM GIBBS-ZEHNDER
November 19, 2020
Dear Friends,
In a year of continuing challenges, we have very good news to report: Phase one of our Sacred Sites audio theater production is completed! I am thrilled to type these words!
We are so grateful for the support so many of you have provided. Without you, we would not have come so far. After months of preparation rehearsing, working with linguists and other consultants, and much more, we have completed 22 hours of recording. The Media Staff studio, a supporter of this project, has one of the best recording rooms in Los Angeles. The raw material sounds excellent. In my next letter, I will share clips of the recordings.
It is a pleasure to introduce to you Kalani Queypo (Blackfoot, Hawaiian) who reads with me Book 2 and the Epilogue. He is a founding member of the National American Indian Committee at SAG-AFTRA. Among his many credits are Terrence Malick’s The New World, Jamestown, and Fear the Walking Dead. I’ve included his headshot and bio plus studio shots at the end of this letter.
Phase Two has begun: editing, music composition and licensing, mastering, distribution, and publicity. Since we are an independent production, we must do everything we can to get this timely and inspiring project out to the public.
To do this, once again I need your assistance. Please reach out to anyone you feel would love this work and would join our mighty team of supporters — no amount is too small (or too large!).
Sacred Sites is a story that weaves the world together. It inspires us to love this earth and, thus to care for it in every way we can. It is essential that we understand natural systems and learn the many ways we humans have and can, once again, live in harmony with all life.
Thank you for being a part of this creation.
http://www.gofundme.com/f/sacred-sites-audio-theater
Or send a check made out to Sacred Sites LLC to 41 No. Logan St., Denver CO 80203.
With deep appreciation,
Susan
Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet, Hawaiian) proudly serves on the Native Voices Advisory Council and is a founding member of the National American Indian Committee at SAG-AFTRA. He can be seen in the Oscar-nominated, Terrence Malick film, The New World, Steven Spielberg’s Emmy winning Into the West and Slow West (Sundance GRAND JURY PRIZE). Television credits include Jamestown (producers of Downton Abbey), Saints & Strangers, Fear the Walking Dead, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, Bones, and Hawaii Five-0. Queypo is currently filming the new CBC series, The Trickster.
Kalani and me at the end of his session.
Director Tom Keegan and engineer Anthony Alfaro
Me on my last day of recording (16 hours over four days!)
Jerry Mayfield, whose Media Staff studio was a wonderful place to work. He is famous for his sourdough bread which he served at every session with his homemade jam. What delight!
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