The toxins of hate, cross the ridges of pines,
The pains of defeat, in their beaten down eyes,
The people are wounded, down on their knees,
As the prayer warms the stones, with the healing they need.
*******
We settled in as camp was gearing up. Big weekend of action ahead. A gaggle of horse riders were headed in from afar, to stand in solidarity with the fight against the abuse of alcoholics. We’ll have a bunch of riders, and their families, and community members who support the cause, gonna need a big spread for sure, “Anybody know how to make frybread?”
And just like that, I became the official frybread chef of Camp Justice. Well, there was a brief trail period, very brief, I got this recipe pretty figured out. And it needed to be on point, it was accompanying some sacred spirit food, strong medicine, taniga, and I hope you got the stomach of a Buffalo.
No, I mean, it’s made with a Buffalo stomach. And an organ called the book, it’s got all these flaps inside it, and as you turn the pages, you see the metamorphosis from grass to goop, pretty neat really. The tripe is thoroughly soaked and cleaned, so it’s just the organs and the lining, kinda like chitterlings, and it doesn’t smell the greatest while it’s cooking either, but it tastes great while it’s healing you on the way down. And just like eating fish eyes helps you to more clearly see the future, this dish works wonders for your upset stomach. But even after all the creepy crawlers I ate, I bet this is still grossing a few of you out, but is it really any grosser than eating a burger that was drinking from a fountain of liquid feces? I guess that didn’t help either, huh?
We can take a break from the food stuff for a bit, and maybe spend some QT with Smokey around the horseshoe pit, he was the best at throwing the game that I’ve ever seen. It was so cool to get to spend time with him as a friend, and not in the face of the faceless enemy that had brought us together. He threw a few dozen ringers, and then we had to chill out in his tipi, first time we’d seen each other sweat this much, including that time at the frozen frontline of tyranny. And what I saw as I stepped inside made me quiver...
Smokey was a master craftsman. An artist. The place was overflowing with leatherwork, antler carvings, handmade knives and a plethora of assorted designs. I had no idea. I knew him as the tough guy who was the backbone of Rosebud, but now I saw the depth of his character, and his current project really was a leather quiver. He’s still a warrior, even if his weapon of choice is a sinew threaded needle.
And Will, the leader and spokesman for the camp, he was a phenomenal artist as well. A fortysomething skater-looking indian, and his water color imagery was profound. My favorite was a native in a feathered war bonnet, and the face was covered with an illegal gas mask, but the real kicker, was the ledger paper that he painted each piece on. He’d acquired these old ledger books, the written records of the earliest colonial transactions on the rez, the proofs of purchase as they were seizing control of indian country.
This medium was a revival of an old tradition, one that had begun as those who had previously only painted on Buffalo hides, now had access to these discarded records of the overlayment of capitalism. What was once a gifting economy with no written receipts, was becoming a tit-for-tat trade-off that etched their fate in stone. Now that land was allotted and animals were owned, somebody had to keep up with how indebted the indians were to the capital letters of their conquering government.
*******
Will was passionate about his art, and the impact of the inspiration that he knew he had a responsibility to share, kinda like me, except that he had actual talent. He was also passionate about this whole alcohol thing. He’d had his own downward spiral with the disease that his native blood made him prone to. Just like how a colonial diet of refined sugar isn’t good for anyone, and those least removed from a good way of life are the most susceptible to a diabetic coma, the predisposition of alcoholism and our country’s exploitation of those who it poisons, is sickening. We didn’t offer a toast of friendship, we offered the liquid dependence of a deadly detox. And personally, I think these ‘spirits,’ break your spirit, or your connection to it at least.
After not drinking all winter or spring, I had the tiniest taste of whiskey and I could feel it crawling down into my body, I could feel this negative energy trying to grab hold of my essence. I was as in-tune with myself as I had ever been, so I recognized this for what it was, a tearing apart of my soul. I only had a few drops though, and I Saged and prayed and recovered, so I wonder what it was like for those truly connected in the most sacred of manners.
In my previous colonized life, I had been slow to work my way up to whiskey, it was an acquired taste as I felt it burning my insides, but eventually it had burned enough of a hole that I could enjoy it. I never had anything like an addiction, I still cringed after most sips, and I would go months with only tipping peebers and IPAs.
I’d never really been much of a drinker before I started doing music for a job, and even then I kept it to the obligatory drink minimum of rock shows and barroom business meetings. I never drank alone. I didn’t drink to forget, I drank to let loose and hang out with friends. I only drove too drunk one time long ago, and swore never again. Then I moved to a walking neighborhood with five music venues and eight bars, all on one block, and I drank for free. It never interfered with work, it actually helped me network with new clients, so I didn’t have a problem, didn’t think so at least, not by any definition I’d ever known.
The neighborhood was full of functioning alcoholics, most holding down successful careers, or working down the street slinging drinks to one another. The alcoholism was glorified, the vibrant nightlife economy depended on it, and if anyone ever thought they had a problem, their entire community assured them that this was normal. Here, I’ll buy you a drink and you can forget all about your alcohol troubles. Crabs in a bucket.
They don’t want to drink alone, they just want you to be on their level, they want you to loosen up and have a good time, why can’t you just have one drink and forget about the troubles of the world for just one night? And the next night. And the next. Even the most functional of alcoholics know that they have a problem deep down, but as long as they have a drinking buddy, they don’t have to face that demon, they can justify their own downward spiral as just another night out with the boys. Just having a little fun. And then the sickness they feel with themselves the next day is equally glorified, “Man, I feel so bad today, I must have had a great time last night.” Proud of forgotten drink counts, and might as well pound another to get rid of this pounding headache.
But, as long as you can still drag yourself to work, to play your part in this system of mass destruction, well, that’s the only thing that matters, at all. You have the money to live, and to drink, and you’ve earned the right to forget about just how messed up our entire way of life has become. Just enough to unwind and take the edge off, but what if that ‘edge’ is your spirit screaming at you, telling you that something is terribly wrong?
I feel the edge of anxiety when I see the ways that society is destroying the world around me, and unless I’m putting my energy into working on the solution, I can hardly function. That energy is my spirit, the vibration of my being, and the ‘edge’ is a feeling of unease as my heart is trying to compel me to do something about it. I don’t think having a drink to numb my racing heartbeat is quite what it had in mind. It is exactly what those who don’t want us following our hearts want though.
As I was writing that last book, I felt anxiety any minute I wasn’t writing, except for the occasional side mission that my heart felt good about. Any idle time that I didn’t have my notebook by my side, would drive me crazy, because I knew deep down that I had important work to be doing. If I had just popped a top every time I felt the pressure of an overwhelming task like saving the world from an overarching government conspiracy, I’d have never finished anything but a six pack.
But I was at least aware of the problem, even if the solution was outside of my grasp. Most within the cage don’t see the fence line, so the ‘edge’ of it just seems like white noise that they want to drown out with a bottle, but even if your eyes can’t see the crumbling walls around you, your inspirited heart knows full well of your imprisoned status.
And those whose vibrational disharmony is so strong that they need a pill to function in society, maybe that’s because you are not meant to function in this dysfunctional society. I can’t function in society anymore either, but I don’t have an illness, I’m finally healthy enough to see that society is a disease. Why would I ever want to numb this feeling of connection, just so I could pay my debt to the destruction of the only thing real in this world?
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti
*******
But I don’t have any pain to numb. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood, or an abusive marriage, or an alcoholic parent to hand me down a bottle. Or a government invasion that ripped apart every shred of my heritage, murdered my grandfather, kidnapped my grandmother, illegalized my prayer, poisoned my water, destroyed my food supply, treated me like an animal, and poured alcohol down my throat. So what do I possibly have to numb?
How can I blame my native brothers, who aside from their biological tendency to get fall down drunk, have every reason in the world to want to forget their life of hard knocks. Those that still feel a connection to our dying planet, who know how we are supposed to be treating our mother, who feel as related to the trees and the Bees as their Unci’s, and they are forced to sit behind the bars of colonization and watch us destroy everything they hold the most sacred. Or they are forced to join in the demolition of the planet, so that they can afford to rent a caged piece of the planet that they know is meant to be free.
But that’s just the way it is. The tribe has given up, so why bother... anybody but the bartender? The only thing you’ve experienced in the outside world is hate and oppression, and in the prison camp, you only know defeat, poverty, and an escape through alcohol. I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t make the same choice too.
And it’s hardly a choice to many, I know so many natives who had their first drink before they were in their double digits, and full-blown alcoholics before they were teenagers. Many handed the family tradition by their broken parents, there’s no hope out there, so you might as well have a sip of this. And if I thought the peer pressure in my world was unnerving, it’s tenfold on the rez, as you’re pulled back down by genetics, oppression, the sheer overwhelming percentage of alcoholics, and a lack of anyone sober enough to hang out with.
*******
But Camp White Clay was a sober community. A safe space. We had coffee and cigarettes and frybread. And prayer. And it was working. The liquor stores in white clay were ordered to shut their doors. Hooray, victory, next camp. Not so fast. This was a while back, a victory none the less, but now they were appealing the court’s decision to essentially shut down an entire town’s economy. But what about american jobs? Isn’t it our right as US citizens to exploit a lower class for financial gain? It’s kinda what we do.
And the real tricky part about navigating the legal system, when you have an unappealing skin tone in the white eyes of the law, is not that you’re a second hand citizen in the land made of your ancestors, but it’s that this town of twelve votes that actually count, is a tenth of a mile across the state line. You can’t even call your representative, because even if he cared, it’s out of his jurisdiction. How can a fractured reservation community of recovering indians, possibly have any hope of bringing change to a town of intolerance without crossing a line? Well, there was always Lakota Hope.
Lakota Hope Ministry - a church of white missionaries that was actually in nebraska’s voting district, and they also had grown tired of scraping dead indians up out of the streets of white clay. Wait, missionaries? WTF? Don’t you remember what the last missionaries were all about.
Just in case you missed that sunday school lesson, let’s recap. The catholic missionaries kidnapped the tribal kids, boarded them into abusive schools, and catholically molested them as they brainwashed out any remembrance of living in a good way. Or you better at least pretend that you forgot, under penalty of God’s law. And this wasn’t just back in the good old days, even my contemporary Unci Carolyn was locked into a boarding school, but she of course staged several escape attempts and got as far as four miles away, with en entourage of peers who shared my desire to follow this woman, even back then.
She’s only in her seventies, and she was held prisoner by the church as they tried to squeeze the medicine out of her. They illegalized native spirituality, and forced christianity onto those who could see the destruction of life taking place in Jesus’s name. But even still, some parents willingly sent their kids along, because the alternative was growing up to be an indian, which was punishable by death.
I know that my spiritual connection through the Lakota Sun Dance way is not for everyone, especially some of the bits about sacrificing flesh or privilege, it may be a little too barbaric for your sunday school class, and I would never dream of pushing it on another against their will. But somehow, it seems way more christian to offer a piece of myself for the good of my people, than to spread further suffering into a war torn world of intolerance. Actually, on second thought...
But that was way long ago, it’s been legal to be Lakota since 1878, no, sorry, that was a typo, they’ve been able to pray openly since all the way back in 1978. We let Elvis perform his entire career of devil’s music before we let indians pray for the health of our planet. I guess he did have his own fancy dance moves though.
And today’s church doesn’t condone such violent tactics of increasing tithe paying membership, at least this one didn’t seem to. They had been working with Will, to provide healing for the broken community on the rez, maybe they carried a little ancestral guilt for the wrongs of their predecessors, and maybe there was hope for those Lakota heathens yet. And like I said earlier, lots of Lakotas are not connected to these old ways of praying, some are scared of the lodge because it was deadly to sweat until fifty years ago, so it was much safer to pass down a heritage of alcoholism. Or christianity.
There are plenty of christian indians. Forced out of their own way, they still managed to build a spiritual connection in the only way allowed. And it’s kept many out of the bottle, so how can I discount its legitimacy in their lives? So it does seem important to give those who resonate with christianity a place to pray, though they do have to leave the rez to do it, and it’s no Lakota christian running the show, in fact, when we congregated there with the parade of riders, it was only white people that stepped outside.
*******
Dear heavenly father, we are gathered here today... But I pray to Tunkasila, grandfather, though it sounds like the same sentiment. Or you say Mother Earth, while I say Unci Maka, Grandmother Earth. They’re all our ancestors, though it seems mine were here first. Certainly appears to be an inconsequential difference in what is a similar dichotomy, but is it?
I look to my elders for guidance on a good way to live, those with the most experience, those who’ve been around long enough to gain the wisdom of patience, understanding, and humility. Those who’ve had the time to move past their ego. Those who are living in the fourth stage of human life.
First you’re a baby, until you’re 18 or 21, depending on if you’re gonna die for your country or dive into a bottle. Still learning, still developing, and starting to pump up that ego a bit. Then you hit early adulthood where you know everything in the world, nothing can stop you, as long as you act like an adult and buy into a piece of the system. You got a job, you made money, you are one of the up and coming rulers of the world.
Keep it up just a bit longer and it’ll be your turn to call shots as you approach 40, or 35 if you only want to be president. Now you’re a proper adult, you made it, of course after all that paying into the system to get here, you’re a little too invested to try any other way. And yeah, a lot of stuff sucks for a lot of people, but you had to live through it all too, so now it’s your turn at the top. You only have a limited window of rule, but luckily you really do know everything there is to know, so you’ll be able to shape the world in your superior image.
Your dad still tries to give you advice, what a senile fool, he’s so lost in his old ways that he just doesn’t understand all this modern technology. He wants you to slow down and appreciate the world around you while you still can, but he has no idea about the kind of money that can be made out of this world, the one that he just let sit around and take up space. Get with the times dad, people don’t live a quiet life in the country anymore, we live in vibrant cities of cars and phones and factories and microwaves and murder and mayhem, why would we ever want to sit and relax in the woods? Or pray out there?
You know what, I think it’s time for you to check into the retirement home, you’re obviously too old to run the chaos out here any longer, and I bet you won’t even put up much of a fight, because you’ve gotten so old and weak that it seems you’ve lost every bit of that ego that used to make you a great man. You used to run an empire, commanded great armies, conquered foreign lands, drove trucks and ran machines and pumped oil as you built giant skyscrapers. You taught me how to be a man, how to be a boss, how to run the slaves of the lower class, and my wife. You used to be strong enough to cut down a whole forest single-handedly, while you built entire towns for our most noble quest of populating the Earth. You used to be so tough and confident and completely in charge, no one questioned your authority, you were king of the Earth.
And now look at what’s happened to you. You’ve lost your business savvy, you’ve lost the power to bend the world to your every whim, you just sit around and talk to animals and trees and the grandchildren who are almost as worthless as you are. You don’t cut or dig or explode anything anymore, plus it takes you forever to make a decision that I can figure out without even thinking about it.
But in all honesty, you’re even weaker than that, why you just sit back let mom call all the shots. What kind of a man have you become? The man I knew would never have listened to his wife, he’d have never let an enemy live, he’d have never left a dollar in the undeveloped world, he’d have continued to push the boundaries of the impossible, no matter how large the risk might be. You’ve gone soft in your old age, why would I ever consider listening to a piece of advice that you had to offer? You may be my elder, with far more experience as you’ve traveled your path and learned your lessons, but what does any of that have to do with ruling the world. And besides, God was a father, not a grandfather, and now even he’s retired. Man’s in charge now pops, so why don’t you just go back to whittling away, and we’ll let you know if we need your help.
*******
You follow all that? The colonized patriarchal power structure is built around the rule of middle aged man, and his ego, which is the mechanism that separates us from God, and permits our civilization to destroy the planet with a mid-life crisis. The matriarchal Lakota power structure is built around the wisdom of the elders, those who have shed their fading egos as they gained a lifetime of insight into what is truly important in this world. Which explains why colonizers were so adamant about murdering elders, as they were redefining the power dynamic of those who they could influence through temptations of the ego.
Just imagine a culture whose grandparents guided the tribe, they may not be hip to the latest fads, but they would have a far more complete understanding of what life is really about. They also would have the time to share wisdom with the young ones, while parents were out hunting and gathering, or whatever it is the indians did all day without jobs.
That’s another bit of the tribal structure, the kids, they were raised by the entire tribe, not a single parent. Nobody’s perfect, so nobody has all of the necessary components to raise a perfect child, but with a community full of aunties and leksis who all share their knowledge and life skills, and then the uncis and grampas to impart elements of the original instructions and their own understandings, it leaves little time in the life of a takoja to raise themselves on video crack and gang violence. Or alcohol.
In my own colonized life, I was extremely close to my grandfather, he influenced the man I became in great ways. My father did too, but in a much more practical sense, his ego attempted to shape me into a miniature version of himself, I even share his name. His legacy. His permanence in this world.
And from what I can tell, my grandfather had not been as kind and best-friendly to his own children, he had a responsibility to discipline, and had to spend sixty hours a week running the construction company that was building their future. But through the course of his journey, he reached a new understanding of what was important in life, I only know him to laugh and joke as he imparted his insights in a humble manner. A true friend, not an emperor.
On the flipside, my father’s ego also strived to raise me in a good way, to impart insights that would set me up for success, so that his success as a father would be apparent to all. How’m I doing dad? And I’m not knocking my pops at all, he did a much better job with me than a lot of fathers out there by far, at least he was around and not off saving the world somewhere. I’m criticizing the society that he had no choice but to raise me in, one where the ego is in charge, so he needed to build mine in order for me to survive.
And he even saw the importance of removing us from it as much as he could. I was less grateful at the time, but thank you dad for everything you taught me, and for insisting that we grow up with as much connection to nature as we could. I wouldn’t be who I am without it, or without you.
It also took a lot of shedding that colonized way of life to be able to say that. My ego would never have paid his a compliment. We’re not too close nowadays, hopefully closer soon, and I’d imagine that as he approaches the next milestone of personal growth, that his humility is starting to grow stronger as his ego fades out of the picture.
Now I imagine my own life without the wisdom of my grandfather, I’d be much different for sure, my entire understanding of being a man would be based on a man who was still figuring it out himself. So what about an entire way of life that was passed down for eternity, through generation after generation of accumulated understanding, eldest to elder to a complete community of those who held sacred this connection to the Earth, through the ancestors that compose her, what do you think your future looks like if someone rolls through and massacres all of your old folks? And kidnaps your children. And offers a drink to help you forget whatever they couldn’t manage to erase.
And then the kidnapping victims grow up and return to the rez, because society has no place for them, but the rez has only a defeated generation of alcoholics who have lost their way. And you have no way of helping them recover, because you have absolutely zero connection to the traditional Lakota way of life that would still resonate with the broken land, and the broken people, who still have a memory of living in a good way, but have been long removed from any understanding of native wisdom.
There are still a few that hold the connection, the understanding, the healing, the prayer, but the medicine families have all had to go into hiding, because they are the biggest targets of the genocidal government, the one that raised you to fit in with neither your own tribal roots, nor the colonization of the caucasians.
Might as well have a drink. Which created the next generation of elders with even less connection than the last, a downward spiral of destructive behavior, that just a few years ago held the entire catalog of universal secrets. You gotta give it up to america though, we really do know how to destroy every single thing that we touch, and we were just young men back then. Now that we’ve become fully ego-conscious, we’ve stepped it up from the white supreme firewater, to the white supreme firepower of an entire globe of cultural genocide, and just plain old normal genocide too. We have come into our own as we fulfill the destiny manifested by all four of our fathers, too bad they didn’t have Tunkasila on their side.
*******
But this is a house of God, and regardless of how they feel about it, I know that the God I pray to, is the same creator that they know. And he’s brought us together in this moment, to share in each other’s energy and prayer, to show us that our paths are aligned and that our differences make us stronger, to bring my native family healing of ancestral trauma, and perhaps to decolonize the Jesus man in the process. But one thing’s for sure, we’re here to celebrate. The verdict was in, no liquor in white clay.
For real this time, they lost their appeal in a colonized court of law, who determined it unlawful to exploit the diseased natives in such an overtly grotesque manner. The treaty that established the reservation had created buffer zones around the perimeter, even across the state line, and somehow by the grace of one of our Gods, the judge actually upheld the law. I’ve of course personally witnessed treaty rights trampled, but this time they weren’t, maybe there’s hope for the Lakota after all. There’s probably still some legal recourse to invalidate this judge’s obviously erroneous decision, and definitely some illegal recourse that’s far less appealing, and as lawless as TigerSwan had felt at camp, they still had to pretend to be good guys, the KKK doesn’t.
A stand-off against the national guard was one thing, facing arrest and prosecution, but white clay was empowered to oppress by the white supremacists, who were double dipping as they both persecuted and profiteered in one swift movement. They were pissed. Some inferior indians just bested them through their own white man’s way, what’s this corrupted world coming too? Time to take matters into our own hands. And the camp was right next to dead indian alley, the two lane road that connected the rez and white clay, anybody could drive-by at any moment. And then we heard them coming.
I had just laid down in the tipi as I heard the engines roaring like a big ol’ dinosaur, two of them, back and forth, up and down the stretch, who knows what’s next? I jumped up to meet Will and Smokey by the fire pit, glad to have Smokey at the helm, his commanding presence and fearless demeanor empowered me to stand strong, no matter what was coming. Could be nothing, just a big show of small mindedness. Or they could pull into camp and circle the wagons, as the rest of their posse showed up with the crosses to burn us at. Or they could just start shooting from the road. I wonder how my white privilege plays out when I’m a traitor to the race.
As they sped by, Smokey headed up to the road. Be careful brother, it’s legal to run over protesters now. And indians. He had the giant spotlight that we’d targeted the unlit plane with back at camp, blinding for sure, which is exactly what you want to do to a truck speeding in your direction. But we were in offensive defensive mode, and it wouldn’t take too many more to outnumber us, and there’s no way you’re gonn