Maya/Hooks

• Music: Maya is a singer and guitarist, currently playing at coffeeshops and bars either alone or with a small group of others. The band's music is eclectic and often pagan: a fusion that pulls influences from folk. kirtan, world music, and fringe artists like Tina Malia and Suzanne Sterling. They do a few covers from those two and others, but most of the music they perform these days is their own, much of it written by Maya along with the group's string player. When she performs alone, Maya plays a wide-ranging blend of covers as well as some of her own songs. Much of that music is inspiring, hopeful stuff, about love and compassion, about nature, about raising voices and changing the world.

Song lyrics (originals and covers) available at: stormandhawk.blogspot.com

• Pagan: She's a devout pagan, a priestess for a local coven of like-minded people, and interested in all sorts of occult subjects. Maya's part of the Reclaiming Collective, and she's put out word to Reclaiming as well as to university pagan groups, the Covenant of the Goddess, and a few Midwestern forums, letting others know that she's building a circle for healing work in the city of Detroit. She currently works with a small group of others, volunteering for cleanup projects and celebrating most Wiccan holidays with group rituals.

• Caregiver: Need help? Maya has been known to distribute peanut butter sandwiches to the homeless, volunteer at soup kitchens, and give her last dollar to a kid who needs bus fare. Interestingly enough, though... she seems to know when someone's trying to con her. And she sometimes finds the people who need help and don't say anything.

• Empath: She's very strongly empathic and perceptive, the sort of person who reads others out of habit. If something's wrong, if someone's upset, or if someone's bursting with joy, she's likely to pick up on it.

• Hangouts: Museums, coffee shops, occult hotspots and parks are favorite places. They're likely places to find her, if she isn't at home or working. She goes dancing as well, and frequents some pretty edgy clubs.

• Spirit Speaker: Maya is linked somehow to the spirit world. The Gauntlet is slightly weaker in her presence, and she often has her awareness open to the spirit world. She also speaks with spirits from time to time--outside a certain boundary in downtown Detroit, at least. The Umbrood sometimes recognize that she is one who can see and hear them, and they might try to interact if they need something. She also has a companion, a Hawk jaggling, who's often close by.

• Community and Charity: Maya tries to follow the activities of nonprofits in northern Detroit and Hamtramck. She is especially interested in helping those who might be pushing for education reform, or trying to get the arts back into public schools.

• Native American Ties: Despite her white skin, the Dreamspeaker shows up fairly regularly at the North American Indian Association of Detroit. She occasionally helps in the kitchen, keeping herself relatively invisible. Maya usually attends protests related to Native American issues, and goes to as many powwows and gatherings she can manage. She speaks passable Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language), and maintains contact with Chippewa and Potawatomi in Grand Rapids, Saginaw and anywhere south of the U.P. (the Upper Peninsula, for non-Michigan folks). Although she doesn't have the means to prove her own native ancestry, she is an adopted member of the Bitterroot Salish (Flathead Reservation, Montana) and knows a few people on the reservation, having spent some time there a few years ago.