I am thankful to my student who recommended the book, “Black Elk Speaks,” to me. Black Elk was an Oglala Lakota medicine man and holy man (1863-1950). He speaks with a poetic voice and gives us insights into the Native American life and perspective of the time. It was a sad, tragic, disgraceful, completely unjust, and deplorable time in American history, when the arriving European forefathers murdered, massacred, robbed, and cheated the Native Americans, though Black Elk speaks in a poignant, observing and elevating voice.
Even after all of these years I still wonder how we can make Ho’oponopono (Hawaiian making things right) with our Native American brothers and sisters? How on earth can we make sufficient amends, heal, and be forgiven?
When I first moved to the Western United States in 1991, Arnold Rice blessed us in the central park of Prescott Arizona, with, “you are all Native Americans, as you were all born here on American soil." I felt humbled by his generosity and kindness.
Seven years later, I was invited to Lakota prayer lodge in Colorado. I found Lakota prayer lodge to be exceptionally powerful ceremony for purification, connection, and healing. The experience of physically sweating was linked to psychological sweating, with the stripping away and release of the ego and all that doesn't belong to us. I felt like I emerged from the womb of lodge a soft, tender, pure soul.
The drumming, praying, and singing, combined with the heat in lodge put you in a trance. In this altered state of consciousness, we melt into a complete surrender. We are immersed with the elements, ancestors, and Great Spirit who feed us the necessary strength to endure the physical hardship of the sweat, and whatever awaits in the outside world when the flap lifts.
Endurance is a divine quality which the Native Americans seem to recognize well. When we are in the midst of enduring anything painful, we often turn to something above and higher and more than ourselves in order to bear it. This greater Source has many names in many languages. But it is in this surrender to and allowance of a greater Source where we ultimately find miracle, mercy, grace, magic, comfort and relief.
We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota with our children. The mission of Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation is to protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians.
We are all indigenous peoples. We all came from and are connected to some land somewhere, including wherever we are living now. I have a Powhatan 9th great grandmother (Ontonah “Mary” Arroyah Wahanganoche) and a Cherokee great great grandmother.