An artist and a poet, Patricia Wainberg traces her Cherokee roots and finds that as she looks back…all of her foundational principals for living stem from her Native heritage.  She finds her roots for living are deeply planted in being a descendant of the Cherokee Nation.  She says her grandmother was the first to tell her about her heritage. 

 “Well I remember my mother and my grandmother speaking of it when I was growing up. My mother had me at 42 so my grandmother was probably in her late 70’s at the time and she was married to Ben P. Edwards who was born in Quallatown, N.C. in 1899. 

Patricia says as an adult many years later, she discovered some family papers that rekindled her interest in her Cherokee roots.

“We ran into paper from the Spanish-American war of my grandfather’s, which said he was from Quallatown and my grandmother did mention that he was part Indian, but they never spoke  about it.  It was against the rules.  That was something that was never talked about and I never knew why?  And then I found this paper of my grandfather’s in his affects which stated where he was born…that made me very curious?  I’m very interested now.  I’m very proud.” 

She says even without her fully understanding the significance of her being Cherokee, it has always been innate within her to live her life within the cultural and spiritual beliefs of being Native American.

“Even growing up... I grew up in the late ‘50’s.  When we would play cowboys and Indians…I was always the Indian.  I always felt very drawn to it. Very drawn to anything of Native American….that even hinted at a Native American.  I felt completely comfortable there, including the Lakota medicine wheel and the belief in the Great Spirit.  This is what I believe Major Earth and Mother Sky.  I tried all religions, found them all unsatisfactory and then I’ve done research into the Native American way of thinking and it became so easy to me…it was like I already knew it.  It fit like an old shoe, it was comfortable…and it was home and that’s where I stay.”

Also, she says, the Native ways of living influenced what she taught her children about life and living.  Patricia says,

“They are very nature oriented….very down to earth.  They are not proclaimed any religion, except for the Great Spirit.”

But, it is her love of nature and animals that have most impacted her life. Being a horse owner and trainer for over 30 years, she tells of a love without boundaries.

“Daisy…I had her for 31 years…I was only separated from her 14 days in those 30 years. She died two years ago next February.  She was beautiful….four white stockings and a white blaze…gentle.  I showed her, paraded her, I probably rode her ten-thousand miles all over the mountains…barrel raced her and then she was my best friend.  I miss her today even…badly.”

Patricia says her farm in Northeast Georgia first began with the her passionate desire to give Daisy a place to roam and be free.   But she says later to her joyful surprise after moving to the North Georgia Mountains she found there was another special significance to her moving.

 “I had no idea.  It just felt comfortable. It was one of those instinctive feelings of coming home.  I spent a lot of time in the North Georgia Mountains because we had family still on my grandmother and mother’s side.  We would come to Atlanta…but I always wanted to come to the mountains...  It was an innate feeling of home.  And I did not know…and we found Indian mounds, what we feel are Indian mounds on our 17 acres across the road.  The arrowheads were found by a neighbor, who grew up in this home.  He had a hand ax… it was a 10,000 year old Creek hand ax.

Although the artifacts found on her property intrigue her interest, Patricia says what ultimately identifies her most with being Cherokee is her love of the earth.

The closeness to the earth… Although, I grew up in a big city, I was not comfortable.  I was never comfortable unless I was in the woods in the mountains.  I was home.  I drove out of Miami and never looked back.  With my children I’ve taught them the love of nature.  My children can name all the stars.  They can name every tree…every blade of grass…every wildflower that grows…we just became closer to the earth. That’s why I wanted to come here and that’s why I wanted to be here…that was my faith.  My faith is in the earth.  I think you see God in everything. Every leaf…tree…flower…bird…animal you see God…the Great Spirit in every thing.”

Patricia says, for her, life is a continuation of all that has come before her.  She says there is only one word that could possibly define her.

Searcher…I think being Native American is such an ancient…almost breed of a very highly intelligent animal, so intertwined…all of the Native Americans, with the earth and with so much trouble that it is in right now with the global warming and the sense of needing to care…more and more.   So I am a searcher, I want to be a preserver.  I want to love it and take care of it.  We never own it.  It’s never ours. Nothing is ever ours. This is what I told my children. I said, “This will come down to you, but don’t think that you will ever own it.  It is only in your care, while you have it….so take good care of it.”

Patricia says she not only wants to pass on the love of the land to her family, but also, fit together the missing pieces of her Cherokee heritage for her future grandchildren.