Breaking the cycle For Hawk Henries, music is a wellspring of healing

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After the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, flutist Hawk Henries of Sullivan fled with his family to the rocky coast at Schoodic Head in an attempt to find solace in nature.

They were not alone.

“There were so many people there, just sitting in silence and wishing and praying for peace in the world,” Henries, 48, said Wednesday after a concert in Bangor. “I know that a lot of the people at Schoodic were sending out their thoughts and prayers to everyone involved.”

Henries was struck by the sudden sense of community, the peacefulness he felt rise from the quiet people on the rocks, and most of all, the silence.

“There were no airplanes in the sky, and you could feel that. The air was softer. The sky was softer,” Henries said.

Through his life, Henries’ quest, conscious and unconscious, has been to break a cycle of pain and tap into the wellspring of healing, powerful energy that he feels is in all of us.

Henries is a member of the Nipmuc Nation, in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Nipmucs were one of the first groups of native peoples to be devastated by European colonization. He is no stranger to hatred and atrocities.

“We weren’t a small nation,” Henries said. “But after contact, lots of things happened. POW camps. Indian schools. There was and continues to be an effort to commit genocide.”

While the atrocities continue, Henries has faith that the cycle can end.

“Maybe you’ll say Christ or you’ll say Allah or you’ll say Jah or Buddha or the Creator, and it’s all the same,” he said. “The Creator’s energy is a part of us. And when we reawaken that, I think that the wars will stop. Whether they’re internal wars or wars between people or between the nations, they’ll stop.”

The audience at Wednesday’s concert at the campus of University College Bangor attested to the ability Henries and his music have to help reawaken the positive, peaceful energy inside them. As Henries coaxed beautiful, haunting sounds from his hand-carved wooden flutes, the small crowd listened attentively, often with closed eyes.

In between songs – some of which Henries improvised – he sparked a running conversation with the audience, asking what compassion meant to them and what stories they heard in the music.

Nicole Fields, a Penobscot from Old Town, heard stories about her past and her nation’s past come alive in Henries’ songs.

“It brought me back to first grade on Indian Island, learning history,” she said. “I really felt spiritual when I was listening to him.”

Henries had no formal musical training and began playing the flute in his 30s. At first, he regarded his musical ability as a gift that might disappear if he shared it.

“I was selfish with the gift of flute,” Henries said. “I was afraid it would go away.”

Henries then realized that an important part of his gift was the need to play for and with others.

“This is my job,” he said. “I consider my work to be engaging people in a dialogue of peace.”

His careful attention to the Creator comes out in all facets of his gift for the flute.

“As I’m walking in the woods, I have the intention of looking for wood for flutes,” Henries said. “I ask the trees, who wants to be a flute?”

After choosing – or being chosen by – a tree, he leaves a gift of tobacco, chocolate, money or another flute as thanks.

“I think of building flutes like a ceremony, like a prayer,” Henries said.

He carves a small, meaningful design on each flute as a sort of cosmic signature. There are tiny dragonflies to represent peace, lightning to signify balancing the light of the Creator, an eagle and seven dots that represent creation.

When the flute is carved and Henries is ready to play, he continues to have careful intentions.

“When I play my flute, I close my eyes and ask for help from the Creator,” Henries said.

He knows that music has extraordinary effects on listeners.

“I think that the flute has a way of helping people relax in a nonintellectual way. They stop thinking,” Henries said. “And when they stop thinking, they can hear other things.”

In this season of remembering Sept. 11, 2001, Henries hopes that people will hear a message in his music. He also hopes that a message will be gleaned from the current shaky state of world wars and affairs.

“I would hope that humanity can learn – the things that we consider mistakes actually aren’t,” Henries said. “They’re opportunities to learn. They only become mistakes when we don’t learn from them.”

Henries remembered a bad blizzard in 1978 when he was in the Navy and working in Rhode Island. He considers this story an allegory that applies to the post-Sept. 11 world, too.

“People were broken down on the side of the road and people were stopping to help them,” he said.

When he arrived home, he found that residents of his previously indifferent neighborhood were shoveling each other’s walks and helping each other out. “This snowstorm, which everyone called destructive, afforded people the chance to be human with each other,” he said.

Hawk Henries’ next concert will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 19, in Minsky Recital Hall, Class of 1944 Hall, at the University of Maine in Orono. Tickets are $5. Call 581-1901 for information.