On July 15th, 2023, Shawn Stevens offered a story-telling workshop along with Flying Deer Nature Center and Stockbridge-Munsee youth at Freedom Square in North Troy.
Shawn Stevens (Red Eagle) is an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans. He lives among his people, who are originally from the Hudson Valley, New York, but now reside in Bowler, Wisconsin. A spiritualist, musician, artist, historian, and sharer of knowledge, Shawn has been fulfilling his path journey for the past few decades by doing a variety of sharing in his people’s ancestral lands as well as the Midwest.
Shawn describes himself as a “Helper” not only to his people but to all. He explains that his spiritual path is to share the many things given to him for spiritual direction and purpose. He does not have nor will accept any titles such as “Medicine Man” or “Shaman.” Shawn is also a traditional Native American storyteller, drummer, dancer, singer, and flute player. He is an ordained minister of the Universal Church of Light and a certified facilitator of White Bison’s Mending Broken Hearts.
Shawn has been fulfilling his path journey for the past few decades by doing a variety of sharing in his peoples ancestral lands as well as the Midwest. Shawn describes himself as a “Helper” to not only his people, but to all of the Creator’s children. He explains that his Spiritual path is to share the many things given to him for direction and purpose.
OUR WORK
Flying Deer Nature Center (FDNC) is a nonprofit wilderness school and community dedicated to mentoring children, youth, adults, and families in deep connection to nature, self, and others.
Our work aims not only to teach naturalist practices and wilderness survival skills, but also to foster in participants a lifelong relationship with nature and access to the gifts it brings: resilience, creativity, and the ability to listen deeply to ourselves and to others. We all need the benefits of connecting with the natural world and, in like measure, nature needs our care. This deep and reciprocal relationship with the earth is at the heart of our mission.
After this event, Stockbridge-Munsee youth from the Reservation in Bowler, NY who had traveled for the first time to their ancestral homeland of Troy, took boat rides on their sacred Mohicanituck (Hudson River). Special thanks to all who supported this event, including Richard Sleeper, who sailed the youth across Lock 2 of the Erie Canal, and Scott Kellogg from The Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, who journeyed from Albany in his solar pontoon to give them a ride to Adams Island and supported the youth in launching a Floating Island for bio-remediation!
This event is part of the Sanctuary Eco-Art Trail project, funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town creative placemaing grant, connecting Indigenous legacy to an urban nature walk on 6th Avenue. The Eco-Art Trail weaves a journey from Freedom Square on 101st St south to our newest community platform, NATURE Lab (with Citizen Science Laboratory and People’s Health Sanctuary) and on our growing permaculture forest reaching south to Glen St.
