As spirits predicted, it was love at first sight, proposal four days later

They say their meeting was presaged by omens from the grandfathers, which is how Native Americans refer to ancestors who serve as guiding spirits.

Both of them — Ruby Arnella Owens of Grants Pass and Clifford Two Smokes Comer of Phoenix — knew they would meet their true love at a powwow, a Native American festival of dancing, drumming, ritual, inspirational speeches and trading of native goods.

It happened June 6 at the White City Veterans Powwow. The announcer asked all single women to raise their hands. Owens, uncharacteristically she said, raised hers, but the announcer didn’t see her, so she waved both hands.

Across the arena strode the 6-foot-tall Comer, dressed in full Indian regalia and sacred hat and laughing.

"I’m single, I’m single," Owens shouted in jest.

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"You won’t be for long," announced Comer as he reached her side.

As they got acquainted that day, Owens recalled a dream and poem from 20 years ago, in which the man of her life walked toward her. "This was that man and I became totally positive we would marry," she said.

When Comer learned her Indian name, Otter Song, he knew, too. For weeks before the meeting, the otter totem (sacred helping animal) had been appearing in his life.

"The grandfathers were telling me she was here now," he said.

Four days later, singing karaoke at Medford’s Red Lion, Comer proposed from the stage.

"My chin hit the table," Owens said. "I couldn’t speak, I was so shocked. I just nodded my head yes."

On Sept. 11, at the Pottsville Powwow in Merlin, the two, dressed in full regalia hand-sewn by them from beads, horsehair and buckskins, will be married by Takelma elder Agness Baker-Pilgrim in a blended Native and Anglo ceremony, attended by hundreds of friends and powwow guests.

"Thank God he saw me waving my arms," said Owens, 60, a Cherokee-Crow-Blackfoot with a swatch of Irish and Dutch genes.

The two have come a long way through many difficult life experiences to be in the shared joy of their wedding, which will include a sacred dance in honor of their love. They hope the dance will take some of the hurt out of the fateful 9/11 anniversary, said Comer, a highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran.

"I’m a pacifist now and don’t even own a gun," said Comer, 62, a martial arts instructor who spent 19 months in a POW camp. "I hardly remember any of it. It took me a couple years to get back to feeling human and I don’t talk military to anyone." He left the Marine Corps in 1984 as a lieutenant colonel.

Owens is writing a book called "Dear Dad," retelling her "horrible childhood experiences" being abused and raped, she said. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go to battered women and children programs, she added.

Owens said a lot of "incredible" counselors and years of her own inner work have now brought her to forgiveness.

Part of her journey included helping establish the Josephine County Women’s Crisis Support Team, acting as coordinator of Parents Anonymous (to help prevent parental abuse), and directing the Clothesline Project, where abuse survivors display T-shirts detailing their journey from abuse to healing.

For Lakota-Scot-Irish Comer, his preparation for life’s blows came at age 12 when he performed the Sioux Sundance in the tribe’s Montana homeland for four days without food and water, dragging buffalo skulls tethered to his back and held by skewers through his skin.

"It was a very spiritual passage to manhood — and painful as hell," said Comer, who preceded the feat with a Sioux-style vision quest (fasting alone in the wilderness, seeking guidance from benevolent spirits) near Prospect. Comer was raised in the Rogue Valley.

The ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. on Sept. 11. Potawatomi-Athabascan David West, a Southern Oregon University professor, will stand in as the bride’s father to give her away.

The couple will seal their bond by drinking from a traditional wedding vase, allowing both to drink water at once, "mixing our blood with Mother Earth’s blood so we all have the same blood," Comer said.

Weddings and other Native American ceremonies always honor the elderly "who teach us all we know," said wedding organizer Jody Falske, a Muskogee Creek-Choctaw living in Grants Pass. An elder will address guests on behalf of the couple, speaking of their character and good deeds in life.

For their wedding, Owens will wear a mid-calf buckskin dress, adorned with cowrie shells and red and yellow beads, fringe on the arms and buckskin leggings and a single feather in her hair.

Comer will wear white elk hide with full-feathered sacred hat (also called a medicine hat), with green breechclout and pants and shirt of white elk hide. The shirt and pants are adorned with 100 scalp locks of horsehair, with beadwork strips across the shirt shoulders.

Laughed Comer, who is doing most of the sewing by hand in his Phoenix home, "We will definitely be stylin’."

John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org.