The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
tells us that a towel is the most vital item to travel with,
but I’m sticking with my pillow.
*******
I had finished the latest draft of the book, a milestone I didn’t mind hitting while connected to the prayerful prairie, but the thing about an ebook, is that you need to be online to publish it. I could probably just find a phone to copy and paste, but I knew that as much as I hated it, I needed a solid calendar week of clocking into the grid for daily internet disconnection. And I still had to design the cover, I mean, the e-cover. I wasn’t getting antsy yet, I knew it would all come together at the right time, I just wanted to smoke a cig and think about it all.
But, alas, just like with any good resistance camp, we were out of papers. We searched and scraped, but cupboards were bare, so I went on a few overt missions. The first was to the tree to pray, not about smokes, but about forward momentum. Then I walked the grounds and picked up outlying trash, and with the very last piece, I found two rained-on papers. That’ll work. For now.
So an hour later we were back on the hunt, my closest spiritual guide mentioned a convenient store a few miles away, and he happened to have a few dollar bills to feed the habits of the revolution. I had a pretty free schedule, so I quickly volunteered to take a hike, although he was certain that someone would stop and pick me up on the way.
Hitchhiking is another one of those things that I knew would be on my path. Without me personally purchasing petroleum, it was apparent that I would be hopping in with strangers who were already headed that way, but I haven’t tried it so far. He said it was easy on the rez, a roadside walker isn’t looked down on as a second-class citizen, they’re just another member of your family walking around.
Cars come and go on the rez, and some never had them, so if you happen to be the one driving that day, you’re eager to stop and offer a lift to a relative who could've just as easily been you. I’m obviously no Sicangu, which could slow some down from stopping, but he was pretty sure that someone would pull over just to see what this southern boy was doing out here in south dakota.
I took off footing it, down to catch a ride, but also ready for a personal walkabout. And I had just crossed another boundary that seemed foreign to me - for the first time since Standing Rock, I touched money.
And I felt it. I felt a wave of grossness as he put a couple dollars in my hand, perhaps a feeling of discord as my current walk through life collided with capitalism, or maybe an actual vibration that I felt grab my hand as I was pulled away from spirit, and back into the material world. I shoved it in my pocket real quick, and only removed it with the sleeve of my shirt. I understand that I sound crazy most of the time, and that even if I’ve convinced you of the evils of a fiscal philosophy, it’s a far-fetched step to get you to believe in something inherently evil about a physical representation of monetary value. I’ll assume the disconnect was in my head, not in my heart, but I will also cringe at every instance that my hand plays a part in the circulation of indebtedness to the noteworthy federal reserve.
*******
They own the country, and your income tax is their dividend check, which essentially grants them a third of your self worth. And they taxed the income of your employer before you, double dipping. But the worst bit, is the part about controlling interest rates and cash flow of a country who they are the sole source of financial backing for, and that every dollar bill issued is due back to them with interest. And the loan is only payable with more borrowed money, which is taxed at every step of income and outcome, leaving the nation in a similar position of poverty as the people they were pretending to represent.
They determine the inflation of balloon payments and the bail out of banks, both of which seem to be fairly beneficial to their own bottom line. They’re the unquestioned deciders of economic policy, responsible for more crashes than drunk senators, yet not an official branch of the government. Nope, the federal reserve is a private corporation that prints their own money, as they collect the debt of a nation, and they’ve managed to run up our tab to 200 trillion buckaroos, even though there’s only 80 trillion in circulation.
1913, in true washington style, congress passed the federal reserve act during christmas break. They would now print the money that they would loan to us, regulate its effect on the economy, and all we had to do was pay them the interest on the national debt, through the income tax. The income tax amendment was never ratified, and the fact that an amendment was even thought of, makes it apparent that it’s unconstitutional, plus Woodrow Wilson had this to say:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world - no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
We already know that the entire colonial infrastructure is built to govern and suppress, but he could see that the prosperity and abundance being received by the privileged middle class of an industrialized nation, was about to be siphoned off by the lifeforce collection agency. Before then, people didn’t pay income tax. Imagine that, how much more privileged you could feel with the missing third replaced in each week’s pay check. The federal reserve was created by bankers, in order to charge americans for the operation of the bank, it’s kinda like the machine that builds machine building machines.
*******
Nothing new here though, central banks control all of the global superpowers, and were publicly denounced by plenty of american presidents, especially those who mysteriously fell victim to assassination, which seems to make sense when you think about the privatized agendas of world war profiteering. The same entities own enemies, and fuel each side of every conflict of interest with the capital needed to blow themselves further into debt.
This is no new thing, the Rothschilds are fairly well known for their armored bank heist of nations, including ours, where they installed J.P. Morgan to head up the Federal Reserve scheme. His alliance to Rockefeller’s standard oil intertwined the two, along with corporations like General Electric and DuPont, who all seem to destroy the planet for a paycheck, and happened to be financed by the same international crime syndicate. These companies, along with their subsidiaries Remington and Winchester, were then contracted to manufacture war crimes. They were even ahead of schedule, so Morgan Jr now moved to enter the country into the first global conflict, and the international bank cartel profited from every angle of the war machine. But don’t take my words for it, even our senate agreed that we’d been manipulated into world war for the boom of their bottom line.
And not that much has changed, as our war-torn planet continues to be demolished in exchange for little scraps of paper. Sure, there’s deeper webs of conflict interest, but with generational inbreeding among the powers-that-be, that would be most expected. Like how George W. Bush was hired by a company owned by the Carlyle Group, which he then ran into the ground faster than he did the country, and once they got him elected as the governor of texas, he opted to invest the state’s pension fund into the pockets of Carlyle. Their new office is located right between the white house and the capital building, which is extra convenient once you see the long list of washington insiders that have been hired by the company, including the first George Bush, while his son was still in office. Among their billionaire stockholders are the Bin Laden family, who happened to be in a conference with Carlyle execs on the morning of september eleventh, and conveniently they were meeting on the other side of town, far from the conspiracies of their world trade headquarters.
We now entered the unwinnable ‘war on terror’, a never ending spiral of declining national security, but luckily we have private contractors that can enforce the evictions of whatever natural resource we set our eyes on. And who are these contractors might you ask? Well, that’d be the Carlyle Group. They manufacture the latest greatest death machines of doom, stuff like futuristic mech-warriors and anti-aircraft missile launchers, and their stocks seem to go up with every skirmish. They have a revolving door hiring policy, as they recruit influential government officials, like defense secretaries, and they send their own representatives to officiate the government. They make money from mass-murder, and they fabricated the weapons of mass-destruction lie, and I remind you that our president’s dad was on the payroll as he advised his son to go to war.
War is privatized, which means for profit, and the corporations who pocket the proceeds are in bed with the government who decides to send our babies off for slaughter. Or they decide to genocide an entire population of some lesser nation, one who americans will hardly even be able to pronounce, let alone care anything about. And now we’ve reached the modern warfare of nuclear disarmament, which sounds like a great plan, even in korea, especially knowing that a worldwide nuclear war isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time. Just one problem, nobody makes any money from disarmament.
The nuclear weapons manufacturing industry brings in trillions, and they’ve spent lifetimes of research and development to calculate the odds of us blowing up our planet, which they don’t want to do either, but if they stop making them, then it’s game over. From railroads to mushroom clouds, a job’s a job, and a dollar’s a dollar, and when you prioritize money over life, bad people are free to run the world, as they destroy it. And as much as I hate to even touch these units of our gross domestic products, I’m really starting to need that smoke.
*******
I walked a mile or so, and as I started down a gravel road, a couple of young guys in a pickup scooped me. They were conveniently headed to the same store that I was, a tiny corner mart at the edge of the rez. It looked like a disheveled closet, the only place for more than ten miles, which explains the ability for a white guy to charge six dollars for a ninety-nine cent loaf of bread. I overpaid for the papes and hit the road, then those same dudes rolled back by and lifted me the rest of the way. First hitchhike complete, cool, tomorrow I’ll try to make it to an actual town.
I don’t mind walking really. I get to take in every detail, every rock, I can talk to curious dogs, and trees, I can practice songs and pray and discuss deep philosophical topics with myself. The skies are wide open here, and the only inclement weather we’ve seen was an all-of-a-sudden crazy thunderburst hailstorm, just as we were climbing out of the inipi... where we sang that thunder song. But that just gave us an excuse to huddle in the cook shack while we made Buffalo bites and sang some more.
It does get a little warm walking in august, especially the twenty miles I’m trying to cover. I’m not standing around waiting for a lift though, I’m not even asking anyone for a ride, I figure the person I’m meant to meet will feel compelled to pull over all on their own. I look behind me at the cars approaching, and step off of the road for them to pass, a subtle signal that I’m not just out for a morning jog, but no pressure to do anything but wave.
And right on cue, as soon as I walk the mile to the intersection, a car stops on the way to the town I’m looking for. Not some cooky coincidence of cosmic connection, it’s simply the closest town and this is the only route, which makes this the absolute easiest road to hitchhike on in america, in my experience at least.
The two guys get my credentials, and as instructed, I name drop Harvey, which steers the conversation down the Red Road. They asked if I was connecting with the Sun Dance way, and then wanted to hear all about my spiritual awakening at Standing Rock. Most of the indians I’ve known so far had been at the prayer camp, the exceptions being only the recent introductions at Sun Dance, and anyone out there was of a particular prayer vibration as well. So I have no idea what to expect from a native living on the rez without this way of life.
I kind of assumed that all of them held the chanupa sacred, a pretty colonized assumption considering what I know about the generational genocide of Lakota spirituality. But people are waking up all over the world, and the indians are the least removed from the DNA of Unci Maka, so they stand a good shot of getting out of bed before the alarm goes off. Everyone here knows about Standing Rock at least, but even though our subcamp was started by this tribe and led by a Sicangu warrior, only a tiny fraction of the faction made it out there. It wasn’t their fight, or they had to work, or drink, or they just weren’t connected enough to feel the call in their heart, so now I find myself sharing stories of spirit as I inspire my Lakota brothers to find their own path to creation.
They drop me off in town and I walk around casing the block for internet, get it, get in, get out. I’m not publishing here, I’m just putting out feelers for whichever way calls me, I’ll send a few messages and let the universe do the work overnight. Then I gotta walk out to the city limits to catch a ride back, otherwise everyone just thinks you’re tromping through town. I started to pick up trash on my way, mainly looking for stray cigarettes, and too quickly realized that I could never carry it all. And sometimes I’ve seen piles of bagged garbage on the side of the road, and as you enter most reservations there’s a “no dumping” disclaimer, because the people who live in neighboring rural areas will drive onto the rez just to abandon their burden of waste on indian land.
Just more white people polluting the small piece of Earth that we haven’t yet seized from a lesser class of human. Not that you feel this way, but just know that the ambassadors who represent america in the relations between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the white folk who surround the rez, they do. An up-and-coming Lakota warrior may have lived his whole life and never had a positive interaction with old whitey, and with that kind of conditioning, how’s he ever going to understand anything other than bigotry outside of the rez? I know these people, I know their deep pain, I know their path of healing, I know their strong warrior spirit, these are not people that we want to be facing off with, they are allies. You better hope they are at least.
The mistreatment of natives is not a long forgotten blemish on america’s untarnished reputation, it is happening on every level at this very instant, and while it may not be you pulling the trigger, your elected officials are authorized to shoot on your behalf. Unless you stand up and tell them not to. Unless you get in their face and prioritize life over the economy. Unless you’d rather be another silent partner, of yet another generation, who seemed to be just fine with the oppression of yet another race of people, as long as you can have your consumer class SUV.
Were the americans who didn’t live near plantations, not responsible for our country’s slave trade in the name of fashion? Did they not have a duty to see that their countrymen treated humans with decency? And they did, they even went to war over it, then the civilization of america devolved into this fractured mess, and now the fight against evil is lucky to get a few facebook likes.
*******
There is a war against hate, we were recruited, or maybe we were groomed all along. We gave up our lives and stood up for humans that needed our help, we didn’t think that it wasn’t our battle. We knew that countries crumble at the missletips of american superiority, so a tomahawk tribe is going to be outgunned from every angle, and as american citizens we had a duty to stand up for the lives threatened by our own empire. Only americans can stop america. If you only worry about the things that are ‘your problem,’ then your government is free to commit grievous acts of oppression in your name, like suppressing a 15,000 person movement of peace in the name of indigenous rights. But probably good you stayed out of it, cause now that you got a pipe going in your backyard, you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out on your own.
JK, we’ll be there. There is a revolution against the corporate takeover of our planet. If you feel a moral obligation to stand up for her, or for them, or for anyone in your life that means anything to you, then you have a civic duty to put your body where your heart is. Join us in the fight and depend on us in the struggle. Just call us. By phone or by prayer. We are the water protectors, defenders of the sacred, warriors of Unci Maka, and it’ll be way easier to get ahold of us if you’re already on the family plan.
We can only win united. They want us separated as we each fight our divided battles, split our numbers so as to keep us silent, because they know that the moment we understand that we are all related and rise up with one unified voice of resistance, will be the instant that their entire charade crumbles and the metamorphosis of humanity will occur. So let’s get this party started already.
*******
Next day I walk to the mailbox to check for evites. Only make it to that first intersection before my path intersects with another’s, they can only take me halfway, but within about thirty seconds of dropping me, a little old grandma grabs the baton. We have such an engaging conversation, reminds me of the instant connection I feel with my other Lakota grandmas, so once I log in, I send a few love notes from my heartsong. And I logged onto facebook. Ugh. I hadn’t been on here since I made a hurried post for proof of life. I’d been disappeared, checked out, so the instant I showed up online, I got bombarded.
Tough not to get overwhelmed, but super nice to talk to some long lost water protectors, it’s easy to see the allure of this mindless suck of data mining in the name of conveniently forgetting the world around you. Certainly a tool for information sharing, awareness, and I was being informed that they were in the market for a late-night snack chef at the Line 3 camp. One of my dearest pals was there, and they made it sound pretty appealing, though I still have that dumb book to publish before I can dig back into the trenches.
Also talked to my brother Ziggy Zag. He had recently been with some of the water protectors who had shown up here, and one of his hometown cohorts made an appearance too, so I’d hoped that he would pop in for a hug, but turns out that he was a long way from the dakotas. Though, now he was talking about making a trip this direction soon, to deliver a truck of winter clothes to the rez, cool, and I got invited to roll with him and sleep in the van. Or if I needed more convenience, I could stay at his friend’s house... ha. But I could use their wifi.
I made a few other connections and checked in with my mom, she’s the only one I have regular contact with. I try to keep her up to date with what state I’m in and reassure her that I’m safe, both of which are a tad complicated when I’m sometimes unsure of either. Her unconditional love and understanding, and faith that I can do anything that my heart desires, is incredibly empowering as I continue to illuminate the darkened path into the unknown.
I messaged my dad too, not the same connection, but with my new understanding of cosmological consciousness, I’ve now dissolved any lingering resentment that had been weighing me down. I genuinely do look forward to the day that we break bread again, and are able to sincerely open our hearts to each other’s life way. I also asked about our native ancestry, turns out that our bloodline’s a little thicker than I thought, I got a name of a biological Cherokee grandma, cool, now I can go to the tribal office and look up ledgers. Or maybe the web of water protection will manifest a relative miracle, I know first hand of several reunions between unknown cousins who reported for duty in the family foxhole.
My reunion to technology was not as welcoming. The vibrations of the computer, and wifi radiation, and concrete, and traffic, and angles, and all the things, were not all that conducive to maintaining my harmonious balance. My conditioned sensitivity to colonization, both through the cleanest consumption of farm life and the spiritual elevation of Sun Dance, had me in a place of attunement that made a jump into a world of disconnection, feel like an earthquake in my soul. So I put my soles to the concrete and got on up outta there.
*******
I got to the edge of town and caught a ride next to a backseat baby who was as talkative as a grandma. They were headed into Rosebud proper, near the powwow grounds, which meant that they were forking off of the road that took me directly to the outskirts. I could get dropped off at the branch, but I figured that it was just as easy to hitchhike from Rosebud, probably easier, in fact.
Started stepping again, a passing thought confirmed that I could use a snack, and I looked down to see a stray caramel cube leftover from the parade. Gross, some would say, but I’m grateful for any gift from the candy gods, although you’re right, the refined sugar is pretty gnarly for my health. I walked a few miles, a bit longer than I had anticipated really, but it gave me a chance to sing through my growing database of songs. Just like any other pathway, you have to use them or you’ll lose them. It’s easy to sing along once someone has opened up a tune, but quite different to be able to call up the lead line on your own.
So I sang them all, four rounds each, intermittent with prayers of finding my route on the path ahead, moving in a good way, but feeling a slight angst about still being here without direction, and uncertain of my current place in the global scale of healing. And at the exact instant that I finished the last line of the last song, a car pulls up to remind me that I am in the precise location necessary for my heart to have the biggest impact on humanity.
The driver’s window rolls down and she asks where I’m headed, was just praying about that one actually, but I keep it simple and tell her that I’m going only a few more miles up the road. “Oh, so you don’t need a ride then?” Well, I wouldn’t quite put it that way, I did just run out of songs to fuel my feet. I express my gratitude for her generosity and she immediately calls in the favor, “Actually, can you drive? I’m pretty drunk. And I’ve got my six year old with me.” Holy...
*******
Absolutely. Without hesitation. And that was even before I saw the terror in the little girl’s eyes. The fear for her own life, and that sadness she felt for her mom’s condition, a diseased depression that had her out there wasted by three on a tuesday afternoon. The quivering voice of innocence reports that, “She’s already run off the road twice, and almost hit a tree.” Thank God I randomly accepted a ride down a different road and just so happened to not get picked up for the longest stretch of inconvenience I’ve walked yet. Thank you Tunkasila.
I got behind the wheel, and the hitchhikers role was reversed as I asked where she was headed. “Oh, you can just take me as far as you were going, I can figure it out from there.” Um, no ma’am. I don’t quite think I’d get the most restful sleep - for the rest of my life - if I allowed you to drive off into the sunset of your darkening condition. She told me her destination, and now my itinerary made even more sense, they lived in the same tiny town that I had broken my ridesharing teeth in. I knew exactly how to get to the gravel road that she lived on, and I knew that it was walkable back to Sun Dance, I think it might even be closer than my current coordination.
She was flabbergasted that I was willing to drive out of my way and walk the backtrack alone, but at the insistence of no inconvenience, and the assurance that it was technically still saving me some steps, she conceded that it was probably a good idea. Plus, it would give us a few more moments to share in each others company.
I know that my role in this movement is not exclusively chauffeur to the intoxicated, though I would walk the edge of this road until the end of time if that’s where I’m needed. I am a counselor, a listener, an understander, a friend without judgement, and although I have much to learn on my own journey of connection, I also know that I already have the ability to help others along their own path of spiritual growth. Now, if I can just figure out how to put that into words.
We managed to share a bunch of words on the miles we put behind us, and the miles between us, “What is a country boy from north carolina doing all the way out here in the middle of Rosebud reservation?” I told her about my journey to Sun Dance, and Standing Rock, and sweat lodge, “and you didn’t melt in there?” This thirty-something Lakota woman, living just a few miles from the Sun Dance tree, had never been in an inipi. “And you believe in all that ‘God’ stuff?” I shared a bit of my coming to light story, assured her that she wouldn’t burn up for going in a lodge, and let her share with me some of her burden. Let me help you carry that while you get back on your feet sister.
She didn’t want to be an alcoholic anymore than her daughter wanted her to be, she knew she had a problem, she knew she shouldn’t drive drunk, she knew that she loved her daughter and would rather die than cause her any harm, but she had a chemical dependence on a drug legally sold in the refrigerated section. Predisposed from birth, by both genetics and a povertous lifetime of trying to escape, but with each sip of forgetting she falls farther away from the edge of the cage. Tough to see a way out of here, might as well sit back down for another.
I didn’t ask her to change, who am I to evaluate her path, but we did both express a deep desire for her to have the strength to not be in a compromised position when her daughter’s life was at stake. I get it, or I get that I can’t. I see the claws of alcoholism, I haven’t felt them in the same way, but I have been there for brothers who suffer. I understand that I can’t understand, I can only love, and listen. I can’t begin to feel the emptiness from a destructed way of life, rez life at every level, and to know that she didn’t have a drop of prayer, makes me grateful that I have enough to go around. I can’t imagine a life of lifted veil, where you are fully aware of the evils around you, and a target for many of them, to see all of the hidden truths of the material, but to not have this connection to spirit that comforts you with the knowledge of ‘one.’ Certainly possible to see the allure of the easy ways out of this impossible situation.
She wondered what was next for me. Good question. “You mean you’re leaving that soon, but you don’t even know where you’re going?” Pretty much. “And you’re not scared?” Not at all. I have this growing connection and I know that if I follow my heart, it will always take me to the right place. Kinda like how I accidentally hitchhiked a different path than normal, walked a few extra miles, and there I was as she passed by. I was doing what felt right and it all worked out. Click. It hit her, “I think God put you there on that road so that you could help me.” Me too.
We get to the end of her driveway and she hops out, gives me a chance to share a few words with the little one, “I love you. She loves you too, so much, she’s just sick right now. You keep being strong, ok, and pray, especially when you get scared. I’ll see you soon.”
Mom walks around to my side and we share a hug, a thank you, and a genuine “no problem.” All in a day’s work. I did hope for a spare cig, but she was fresh out, figures. I turned around and started towards camp, and when I looked back she was still standing by the car, looking in my direction. I made sure she didn’t need anything else, and “nope, I just want to stand here and watch you walk away for a minute.”
Woah dude. That just