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They fixed seven roofs in seven days, and still managed to sweat a couple times. They were met with the deepest of gratitude, and fed the heartiest of rewards, but it wasn’t the buffalo stew that Miles could feel feeding his soul. The elders they were helping welcomed him into their families, treated him as one of their own, and shared personal insights into the perpetual enlightenment of his waking spirit.
It was suggested repeatedly to learn some Lakota, at least to pray in an indigenous language, and to sing it. Most Lakota don’t even speak Lakota, it was one of the first things to be stripped away and punished by death, and that’s because the invaders could see that there was some kind of power in the words of an Earthborn dialect.
The language connected them to the land and the stories held metaphors that guided them through living in a good way. None of that translates into the victory speech of colonial enterprise. Concepts like Mitakuye Oyasin don’t mean anything to the phonetic interpreter, just as property, mine, and a separation of humans, nature and spirit, didn’t make sense to those who could feel all three alive inside themselves. The Earth speaks to us through her web of life, and a language evolved within that web sings the same harmony, but a philosophy of superiority to all will never be able to resonate with the living world in the same way. God’s certainly multilingual, pray in whichever way your heart can express itself, but what could it hurt to put a little effort into learning the native language of your so-called homeland?
“Hihani wasté. Wakhalyapi na chanli, pilamaya yelo, atanikili.”
“Don’t worry about it champ,” welcomed Jordan. “You’ve earned it. Also been thinking you’re ready to tend the fire and carry the stones in, if you’re up for it.”
“I’d be honored man, thank you.”
“Good, cause I’m already worn out and those rocks get heavy. You’ll be fine.”
They had the wood split and fire set before Uncle Robert arrived, it would just be the three of them today, an intimate sweat with family was sure to dislodge the deepest of the dark from the furthest corners of their hearts. He’s learned to offer a gift of tobacco to whoever was pouring, an exchange of gratitude for holding ceremony, and of course another pinch for the Peta Wakan.
They’d been out digging echinacea root the day before, where they also gathered enough sage for the inipi, and for Miles to tie up his own bundle of prayers. They offered tobacco to the Earth before they collected the plants, and sang as they cut each stem a few inches above the ground, leaving any that had already gone to seed. The patch grew thicker every year through the mindful harvest of a living medicine.
They started each day in the tipi with a burning ball of sage leaves, smudging the energy cleansing smoke over their heads and bodies, it calmed the mind and tuned the heart, plus it smelled way better than a couple of sweaty ceiling protectors.
The fire released the energy of the pine, exploding into the universe as it carried the vibration of the prayer waves with it, and charging up some tobacco to sweeten the pot added another boost of intent to the whole deal.
They’re like actual waves, invisible waves flying around through the sky making magic happen, created by an energy of a particular wavelength and quite capable of affecting the world around them in unique ways. You know, like sound, and radio, and micro, and radioactive gamma, and heartwaves and brainwaves and how dare there be a more powerful wave than our infant species, of a medium-sized planet, around a small star, off to the side of the middle of nowhere, is capable of developing a device to measure and harness for profit. I mean, it’s not like it’s a frequency stronger than the very light we’re made of, or anything.
Every particle in the universe is vibrating at its tiniest core, science. Every drop of energy you release into the world goes somewhere, science, and the butterfly effect. Water conducts energy, science. Every organism on Earth is primarily water, including us and everything we eat, at the exact ratio as the planet we are obviously a component of, science. We are the conductors of the greatest symphony in existence, our energies create the world we live in, we may have fallen out of tune a bit, but if we just listen to the rest of the orchestra, we’ll slip back into harmony in no time.
Too heady for you? More science? How about the Schumann Resonance? That’s the Earthly vibration Spaz was talking about. It’s 7.83 hertz. 7.83 waveform cycles per second. That’s super slow and low, we can only hear down to 20Hz and up to 20,000Hz, and the spinning revolution of our massive planet creates 7.83Hz.
It’s the root note of the Earth. The basis for all scales of harmony with our creator. You can’t hear it directly, but it resonates your spirit. So much so, that astronauts get sick without it when they break off contact with the band, for real, they have to take along an oscillator that emits a steady 7.83Hz to survive in space. We are connected to the Earth, science.
And coincidentally, the frequency becomes immeasurable the deeper you travel into civilization. Cities built of energy dampening concrete, in grids that diffuse energy waves, congested by chaos, and overstimulated by the concentrated and out of tune energy of the human population.
In the lodge, the songs sync your heart to something bigger than yourself. The heat pushes your ego out of the way, it purifies your dissonance to the world, your prayers are combined as the glowing steam carries them beyond. And our ancestors like to sweat too, as their spirits are felt and heard around the circle. And sometimes seen.
Jordan and Uncle crawled in as Miles dug out the stones, or grandfathers, our oldest relatives, Mitakuye Oyasin. It was a little tricky balancing the red hot lava rocks on the pitchfork tines, don’t drop them, he was thoroughly humbled before he even got to his knees. He could mumble along to a few songs, like the one with all the heys and hos, but when it came time for him to pray, his tongue was untied.
The first lodge, he didn’t know how. The next few, he rehearsed something that sounded like the right thing to say. But by now, he had discovered that it’s not about any words you can practice, it’s about uncorking your heart and letting whatever’s in there come gushing out. The universe listens to the emotional content of your prayer, a silence of sincerity is far more powerful than some empty promise of scripted belief, no matter what language it’s in.
He shared prayers for his relatives, back home, and all the homes he’d made along the way. Prayers of gratitude for the abundance of life he’d experienced. Prayers of protection from hot pursuit and the elements of surprise. Prayers for patience, humility, and understanding, and prayers that the lessons to be learned are not met with struggle, but with grace.
Prayers for a great love, but also prayers to help him shed the colonial indoctrinations of how to view and treat women, how to be present in the most genuine way, without expectation, or hesitation, and prayers of healing for the trail of pain he’d left through the justification of casual heartlessness.
Prayers to help him walk in prayer, to help him be here in a good way, wherever here may be. Prayers to keep him in the moment, not caught up yearning for the greener grass.
Prayers for his brother beside him in the lodge, prayers for the man pouring the water, and for all those holding ceremony across the globe, restoring the energy balance as we wake from our spiritless nightmare.
Prayers for the water, all of the water, the one water. Prayers for the food, and prayers for the chef.
Prayers for guidance along the journey, prayers that the path unfolds before him, and that his heart recognizes the symbols of the map.
Prayers for his dreams, prayers for unlocked understanding, prayers that his vision of a better world continued to grow, prayers to bring that fruition to life.
Prayers for the words to share the contents of his heart in an impactful way, prayers for the ears of those ready to listen, prayers that he could make a difference.
“Até Wakan Tanka, wopila, onsimala yo, wani waciyelo, omakiyayo, makakijelo, aho, Mitakuye Oyasin.”
His face was in the dirt again, but not from the collapse of defeated ego. He lay with the Earth, empowered by the strength of connection. Tears melted into her flesh, his soul poured out to the stars, he returned to the lodge expecting to be lost in the heat of the darkness, but instead found the full moon illuminating the way.
He shouldn’t be able to see the moon, unless he wasn’t in the inipi. He looked around to realize that he wasn’t even in the plains, he was atop a mountain that lifted him above the fray and halfway to heaven. Was this a dream? Had he left the lodge with a night’s worth of messages to interpret? Was he still in the lodge? Had he never even been in the lodge? Had his prayers begun on the hill or taken him there? What was in that tea?
He was not perched under a midnight moon, he could feel the dawn approaching. As her light spilled over the ridge, he was overcome with life, the rays flowed through his body as his spirit was awakened. The entire hillside underwent the same transformation. In an instant, the silent shadows filled with the commotion of vibrant community.
He could hear it. He could hear the Earth. He could hear the tiniest details of intricate composition. He could feel the magic of the ensemble. As he shifted his focus, he found his intention affecting the world around him, he was an active participant in the song of Unci Maka.
He understood the frequency of the dawn, he understood it to be synonymous with the wake from winter, he understood the bigger picture as spirit reemerges to shake humanity from its slumber. No one can hold back the dawn, the overwhelming power of light is ferocious, the destiny of sunrise is inevitable.
Wide eyes watered from the intensity of momentum, his attention was lowered as tears returned to the Earth, he noticed a beaded leather medicine pouch dangling from his neck. It was packed with sage. A ball of the fragrant leaves ignited in his hand. Blue and white luminescent smoke brightly spiraled around his arm and spread into the atmosphere. He could feel it. He felt the smoke purify his energy. He felt it connect him to the spirit world. He felt the magic inside himself.
The epiphanous revelation didn’t exactly stall the momentum, he was once again overcome with life, and the deepest gratitude for another opened doorway. There was something in his other hand. Tobacco. He held it tight and felt his heart filling it with love. Mitakuye Oyasin. And as he made contact with the ground, the gift exploded with red sparks that climbed his arm and clouded his vision.
The energy pulsed through him. He felt the Earth grow stronger from the offering. He felt his spirit flash with illumination. He could feel his prayer as it bloomed into the world.
Sparks faded, glimmer melting into existence. The wave of emotion washed away the illusion of material, leaving only the realization of its own creative force.
Miles was no longer atop the mountain, the landscape had transformed, as he looked around he saw that he was in a vast forest. An orchard. A garden. Food hung from the trees and grew from the Earth, the deeper he focused, the more delicate he knew their relationships to be. As he thought of the feast, it blossomed before his eyes. The instant he forewent wonder and attempted to analyze the ration, its sparkle dulled and life grew stagnant, the magic faded as reason was introduced.
No, he needed to know that place, it didn’t matter how it worked, he believed. As he gave himself over to the vision, he was swept through a vibrant community amongst the harvest, the hustle and bustle of a million moments woven into a living breathing organism, the people were alive. He saw tipis on the horizon and hammocks in the trees, and as he turned to take it in, he caught a glimpse of a dirthouse neighborhood surrounded by piñons.
This was the place. The place he’d been dreaming of. Not nighttime fantasy, but the place he knew in his heart was possible, a better way to live, and he could feel himself manifesting it into existence. The people were a part of the world, and the world was a part of the people. Life was sacred and flourished around every bend. And then it was over.