Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

One other etheric quality, that of “sound,” or chemistry, remains to beexamined. We have seen that at a very early stage, this region was uniquelysusceptible to the creative powers, as in the formations of rose rocks. Thissame force appears later in formations of alabaster and selenite crystals.Just as we hear in the booming thunder of an Oklahoma storm the powerof God’s thought, so we see in her rocks an openness to the creative Word.One wonders if this characteristic of Oklahoma’s geology hasn’t foundexpression in the significant contribution that Oklahomans have made toculture and the arts. This contribution has been made, first of all, by manyof the Native Americans: Sequoias, Jim Thorpe, Walter Richard West, “Doc”Tate Nevaquaya, the Kiowa Five, the five Indian ballerinas and many others,some of whom have gained international recognition. The annual Red EarthFestival in Oklahoma City is the premier celebration of Native Americanculture. Reduced almost to extinction, the Indian spirit has found new life,creative power, and honor once again through art, music, and dance. Whatthe skill of their statesmen and the courage of their warriors could not accomplish,the inspiration resident in Oklahoma achieved by releasing thespirit of their peoples through their artists.This same resonant quality then found expression among the settlers,most notably in the songs of Woody Guthrie. He countered the cowboymyth, which some Oklahomans had helped to popularize, by singingfrom the heart of a common man. With a courage gained in the “Oklahomahills” that he sang about, the truth rang out in his music. Since his time,Oklahoma has produced an unending string of musicians—black, red, andwhite—who have followed him from the hills of Oklahoma to the concertstage of America and the world and placed an indelible stamp on the emergingAmerican culture.If Oklahoma’s heartstrings are tuned to the creative Word, there isanother aspect of Oklahoma’s geography that stirs up discord. As we haveseen, Oklahoma is bisected from north to south by a line running generallythrough Oklahoma City. First marked by an ancient mountain range,which later submerged, it is now marked by the change from the ecology ofthe East to that of the West, along with scattered remnants of the infamouscrosstimbers, over which broke the advancing wave of European immigration.The crosstimbers was indeed the end of “habitable land” as Europeanculture understood it. Here stands a threshold at which the rules change,not only on the level of ecology, but at higher levels as well. This the Plainstribes understood well. Beyond this crossing, buffalo roamed by the millionsbefore the white man came, so the astral forces here were intense. Mastery of74