"2008 Art Theme: 'American Dream'
In 2008, leave narrow and exclusive ideologies at home and carefully consider your immediate experience. What has America achieved that you admire? What has it done or failed to do that fills you with dismay? What is laudable? What is ludicrous? Put blame aside, let humor thrive, and dare to contemplate a larger question: What can America contribute to the world?"
- burningman.com

In 2007 I went to Burning Man on a Green Man dream in barter for my participation in open source education, to tell others about a mud mix called cob. I still carry my Gift ticket stub everywhere along my path to remind myself that right here is a living dream, to sate my nomadic spirit for know that I very well could have followed another path to an American Dream known as Black Rock City right now. Last year I got two burns for the price of none, last year some would argue that the only way to make the burn greener is to stay at home, this year I did just that.

This year I have followed a different dream closer to my heart within the sovereign nation of the Anishinaabeg, where the watershed I grew up in meets the world's largest lake. This freshwater estuary is the largest and possibly most pristine remaining on Lake Superior. Just a walk away from the confluence where the sloughs thrive with manoomin at this time of year is an incredible remote beach with northern hardwood forests, Black Ash bogs, grassy campsites, traditional wigwams and a modern ceremonial roundhouse. Within sight from here lies the island where the former capitol of the Ojibwa people was seven generations ago, the extraordinary gatherings of today's students in traditional cultures during these times of the seventh fire, and not least the dreams of seven generations ahead.

Along this sacred beach live soulful stones unique to this area. Tradition says these grandfather stones are sculpted by the spirits of this beach during thunderstorms, following these storms are when they are found most abundantly. Geology says the concretion stones were born some 20,000 years ago within these red clay banks lining the shore in a host nucleus, often organic, such as a leaf, tooth, or piece of shell or fossil. Their myriad of unusual shapes and sizes are described as marbles, dinosaur eggs, cannonballs, pumpkins, peanuts, monster eyes, various animals, ripples, warts, round people, miniature planets, or extra-terrestrial debris. Whatever their origin is they are known for not wanting to leave the beach after enduring such incredible journeys to be there.

At this time last year I shared my dream with tens of thousands for an artistic experiment in community on the playa, this year I shared my dream with a gathering of less than a dozen dozen to share traditional earth based living skills on the Kitchi-Gami. My gift to this community remains the same, sharing the knowledge of making modern concretions known as a cob-creation from the soils, fibers and water of the lake itself. This past week a loving earthen oven was born along with this tradition remembered through our spirits participating intimately together.

Perhaps someday around the year 22,000 AD someone shall walk along these same shores and wonder about the cob-creations and dream about the curious forces that created these. If art is whatever I can get away with, then may I not live a better American Dream than this.