"Native elders taught me that the environmental crisis is a spiritual crisis because the absence of a conscious connection to land and water inevitably leads to violence and threatens all life."
So says La Honda filmmaker Christopher "Toby" McLeod, in a statement on a Web site listing his films. The soft-spoken, erudite McLeod is summing up the impacts he experienced over two decades of visiting and listening to the world's indigenous peoples, pondering their uneasy fit into modern America, and translating their wisdom into documentary films.
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His latest film, the 72-minute "In the Light of Reverence," continues in that tradition. Ten years in the making, co-produced by American Indian filmmaker Malinda Maynor and written by McLeod's wife Jessica Abbe, it probes the culture and religions of three native peoples and their sacred places: the Lakota Sioux at Devils Tower in Wyoming, the Hopi of the Colorado plateau in the American Southwest and the Wintu near Mount Shasta in Northern California.
It will be shown twice locally this weekend, at the Community United Methodist Church at 8 p.m. Friday (through the Coastside Film Society) and in the Ranch House Room of the Costanoa Coastal Lodge and Camp at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. McLeod and Abbe will be present at the film society's screening to discuss the film.
At the heart of the issue, McLeod says on the Web site (www.sacredland.org), is the sacredness of the earth in the eyes of peoples like the Sioux, Hopi and Wintu, and the responsibility they feel to take care of the natural world by performing ceremonies at their sacred sites.
But, somewhere between hikers, rock climbers, New Age seekers, artists, mining, logging and economic and land development, and native religions, worldviews clash. Questions arise as to issues of religious freedom, respect and cultural understanding.
"As one native elder put it, 'This is not a playground. This is sacred ground,'" McLeod recalled on the site. His film looks into these issues and
their implications.
Previously, McLeod, 50, a graduate of Yale University and of the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism, produced three hour-long documentaries: the award-winning "The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area?", "Downwind/Down-stream" and "Poison in the Rockies."
Abbe, 46, who holds an undergraduate degree in drama from New York University and a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley, says she "came in to filmmaking as a writer." From the original 150 hours of raw footage, she culled bites of information and arranged them to flow smoothly.
The work proved an eye-opener for her: She is from Redding, near the original home of the Wintu.
It was powerful, she said, "to go back and relearn the history of my hometown through the eyes of Native Americans. That isn't taught in school, I can tell you."
This film really begins in 1978 to 1983 when McLeod was producing "The Four Corners." After listening to native elders recount how sacred places were being leveled for strip mining, and after touring the Southwest, he decided that more work needed to be done to chronicle the issues.
So he helped launch the Sacred Land Film Project of Earth Island Institute in 1984.
Doing the research for "Reverence" required careful handling, as he sought the trust of a scarred people.
"I tried to articulate that my intentions were different," he said. "We took time - we were willing to go back (and show the American Indians) the rough cut and the fine cut. It was a much better film because those people were able to help me avoid mistakes. They're the experts; I'm a translator."
Filming began in 1994. In 1997, Maynor, a Lumbee Indian, brought in her perspective as co-producer.
McLeod has shown "Reverence" at La Honda Elementary School and other venues. Everywhere, it has sparked discussion, he said.
At La Honda Elementary, students "were totally tuned in to what it would feel like to have rock-climbers going up (sacred hills) and swearing," he said. "They were outraged."
American Indian audiences have received it well, he added.
"We opened up the window on how they feel, about the earth," he said. "They wanted to keep (that) secret because no one ever understood the significance of sacred places to native people."
Agreeing with the American Indians that the Western culture suffers from "a spiritual crisis" brought about by its dissociation from the land, McLeod says his film articulates what is needed for Western redemption.
"I believe that environmentally and spiritually, our culture will not evolve further unless we acknowledge the history of how the land was taken from the Native American and how their culture and religions were treated," he said firmly. "I think until we recognize history and have some reconciliation with the Native Americans, we're stuck, and we won't evolve as a culture."
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