As an historical memoir, The Wild Gentle Ones offers a simple yet revolutionary solution. Its Road sign questions cause the reader to set out upon a personal odyssey to learn or relearn how to follow their own natural native ways and those of their ancestral heritage. It puts forth a plan that everyone of whatever age, gender, culture, religion or philosophy can follow as they become new pioneer-pilgrims in search of answers within themselves that will reverse these alarming realities. The ensuing Turtle Island Odyssey examines how and why human consequences, historically, has negatively impacted upon all native human and non-human species of life and how to turn that around 180 degrees. Its tale encompasses a vast array of encounters with the land and wildlife of Twin Rainbow-Irwin's Irish Countae Mhaigh Eo and Countae Claire lineages, his Southern Tyrolean Dolomiten ancestry and native birthplace in Leadville, Colorado. Mystical childhood moments in San Francisco are capped by vision-questing experiences as a youth in the San Bruno Mountains of Northern California, followed by otherworldly relationships, as an adult, with Sioux elders in South Dakota.

Volume II is a sequel filled with rich accounts of a decades-long pilgrimage to First Nation gatherings Metis encampments and their Sacred Sites in Canada and the United States.

Volume III brings the odyssey full circle when Twin Rainbow-Irwin returns to the lands of his ancestors in the wild Western mountains of Ireland's mystical Countae Mhaigh-Eo, the Burren of Countae Claire and autonomous region of South Tyrol in the Dolomiten Alps. In so doing, the reader is called upon to make a similar pilgrimage to the lands of their ancestors.

PIONEER REMEMBRANCES OF THE ODYSSEY IN VOLUMES I & II
At each important crossroad stop are important road signs that ask the pilgrim to answer a myriad of questions:

Artwork: Charles Van Sandwyk www.jwprintsandmaps.com	*	WHERE DID YOUR LIFE'S ODYSSEY BEGIN?		*	WHAT IS YOUR TRUE BIRTH-RIGHT?
	*	WHAT IS YOUR GRANDPARENTS LEGACY?		*	WHERE DID YOU COME FROM & WHY?
	*	HOW HAVE YOU FELT THE CLASH OF LIGHT AND DARK FORCES IN YOUR LIFETIME?		*	HOW DO YOU RESPECT YOUR CHILDHOOD DREAMS & FAIRYTALES?
	*	WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT WHO YOU ARE FROM TRAVELING THE GOOD RED, WHITE, BLACK OR YELLOW ROAD OF LIFE?		*	WHAT NATURAL OR HUMAN-MADE THING SYMBOLIZES YOUR WILD GENTLE VOICE'S IMAGE OF ITSELF?
	*	WHO HAVE HELPED YOU MAKE CONTACT WITH THE INDIGENOUS SPIRIT OF LIFE?		*	WHAT CLANS DO YOU BELONG TO OR IDENTIFY WITH?
	*	WHERE DID YOU RECEIVE YOUR LIFE'S PERSONAL SERMON ON THE MOUNT?		*	HOW HAVE THE POWERS OF THE SACRED CIRCLE RENEWED YOUR LIFE?
	*	HOW DID YOU FIRST EXPERIENCE THE STRUGGLES OF TURTLE ISLAND AND ITS NATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS?		*	HOW DO YOU DAILY LISTEN TO THE ANIMALS & LAND WHERE YOU LIVE?
	*	WHAT WISDOMS & HEALINGS HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM RETURNING TO THE VISIONARY PLACES OF YOUR CHILDHOOD?		*	WHAT WISDOMS & HEALINGS HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM RETURNING TO THE VISIONARY PLACES OF YOUR ADULTHOOD?
	*	WHAT IS YOUR WILD GENTLE VOICE’S INTIMATE NAME?		*	WHAT PERSONAL VISION DOES THE HOUSE OF YOUR DREAMS REPRESENT?
	*	HOW HAS YOUR LIFE TAKEN TO THE OPEN ROAD?

THE WILD GENTLE ONES is an authentic answer to the discredited works of award-winning memoirists of the past and present like Carlos Castenada, Grey Owl and Nasdijj. Its Turtle Island Odyssey trilogy is a rich tabloid of little known spiritual travels through North America's Indian Country of the 1970's, 80's and 90's. The author's visionary trek across the United States and Canada in Blue & Alta-Dena, his 'New Age covered wagons', and how he came by his intimate name Twin Rainbow, enjoins the reader to discover where their own 'native name' awaits them within the post-modern world.

Though at times reminiscent of the Chen Guevara's Motorcycle Dairies, Jack Kerouac's On The Road, Alex Haley's Roots or Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, this rare documentary represents a dramatically different work.

Moved by a defiant spirit akin to Walt Whitman's A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads or Henry Thoreau's Walden, THE WILD GENTLE ONES narrative offers up a bounteous blend of history, religion and philosophy, laced with humor and wisdom.

Its sage chronicles Twin Rainbow-Irwin's half-century rite of passage to find his people, discover new sacred lands and recover old aboriginal truth's. In the course of his epic explorations, what begins as an historical North American travelogue soon turns into a mystical pilgrimage across a Turtle Island of ancient indigenous lore.

As the epic unfolds, the reader is afforded a unique perspective of how the Native, Irish and New Age peoples momentous spiritual and political renaissance movements first came into contact. A rendezvous with Metis mixed-breeds in Canada and the United States, and the unique blend of Old and New World races and traditions they represent, reveals a little known underbelly of North American history.

Vivid vignettes in Volume's 1 & 2 also offer peerless perspectives on the:

•	1960's 'War on Poverty' and once-upon-a-time revolutionary role of the VISTA Volunteer in places like Crow Creek, South Dakota.
•	Intimate, first-person accounts of what led up to the emergence of the American Indian Movement in South Dakota and Medicine Man's Sun Dance at Wounded Knee prior to the infamous military siege by the U.S. Government;
•	Occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco By by Indians of All Tribes;
•	First Nation People Earth Healing Ceremony, attended by the world's seven major religions, during the United Nation's landmark Habitat Conference in Canada;
•	Evolution of the Indian Liberation Movement of Canada and its relationship to the repatriation of Canada's Constitution;
•	Anti-war sentiments that once led Vietnam War resisters and other dissidents to flee to Canada for political and spiritual asylum;
•	Cultural clash between Indian spiritual practitioners and New Age Shamans;
•	Struggle to protect the rate species and habitats on San Bruno Mountains in Northern California where the U.S. Endangered Species Act first was born, and later compromised by the ESA's Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) amendment.

Twin Rainbow-Irwin's moving testaments reveal classical allegories that have played out in every human society since the beginning of time. Each passage speaks to a universal tale of diaspora that people the world over will readily identify with.

His travels along the razor's edge of the Indian, European and Metis worlds - his constant comings and goings across the political and philosophical divide that separates Canada's 'Great Mosaic' from the 'Melting Pot' of the United States - provides a penetrating view of the vast chasm that divides Western Civilization from the planet's Earth-based cultures and religions.

The many transformations Twin Rainbow-Irwin undergoes as he seeks to bridge the vast historical chasm he finds himself teetering on the edge of, culminate with his radical politicization and eventual peaceful spiritual conversion as a self-professed New Frontier Breed. In the process, the reader is called upon to reflect how their own life represents an age-old tale of the human spirit's desire to move beyond all the hatred, violence and division in the world as they reclaim their singularly unique heritage.

Turtle Island Listening Post meditative passages, epigrams and epigraphs - that appear at the beginning of each of the odyssey's 'signpost turn' chapters - further summons the reader to recall their life's cameo moments and personal vignettes that rekindle remembrances of their life's transformational odyssey.

The mainstream reader who enjoys the biography-autobiography genre will be intrigued by the trilogy's wealth of intimate cross-cultural accounts. Those Americana buffs interested in the native cultures of Canada and the U.S. will at once recognize this work to be a rare view through a now all but closed cultural window in history. Theologians and philosophers, eager to learn about how the combining indigenous environmentalism and spirituality leads to a deep ecological view of life, will deem it to be an essential read. University professors from many disciplines, Eco-Psychology and Multicultural Studies in particular, will find the work an invaluable reader.

Those who enjoy oral storytelling will take great pleasure in the way THE WILD GENTLE ONES lyrical prose converts oral tradition into written form without losing the essence of the spoken word. Another appealing aspect is the way the voice of the Earth - spoken through the image of Turtle and the spirit of Bear animates the text. An audio version of the work is a commercial possibility. Musical bars, interspersed throughout the text, also act as the unique musical score of a future possible screenplay.

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