I have wanted to write this post for years. However , I have been afraid. I thank a new friend for encouraging me to write though I have not written for so long. How can I speak these words? They have become so dear to me and always held in silence. This tiny truth of mine.
I must admit, I am common Swedish, German, English trash. I must insult my blood by bleeding it into a river that I care not where it flows. I must admit. I denounce my blood. I hate it. I must confess. I am Lakota. I must confess, I choose my spirit, my blood line cannot own me. For my heart belongs to the people.
What are the “people”? They are my Nation. My family. My belief.
These are a people that hate me. Though I do not hate them. I follow them, though they do not know it. As a child in Nevada, as a teenager in Oregon… I have always followed the path. My Shaman could not teach me. She had another student and I had a demon. How can I express this? How can this be known? I follow a people that would slay me for my white flesh. That would cut my scalp from me in victory and never know that I had followed their spirits all the while.
These people have long past, they are dead now. Tis my ancestors that destroyed their Nation. Raped their women. Killed their children. If my spirit was so powerful as to invoke the God’s, I would beg for mercy. I would give my life to give to them what was taken. Stolen. Raped of my people.
Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.
–Chief Yellow Lark, Lakota Tribe
Please forgive me Great Spirit as I wallow in my own resistance. Please breath into me the strength of your being. Please know that I know. The crow watches me. Watch over me my Father. Protect my spirit. Allow for your children to see past my flesh and into my being. So that I may walk with the people. For my Great Father, I so long to walk with the people.
Ičhé.