Good morning Relatives
I have had the worst headache all night. Saturday morning I drove over to mpls to meet up with Margaret and another friend who are driving to New York. Margaret and i are working on the book together and let me tell you relatives when a First Nation Grandmother gets ahold of your head and tries to make you see what it is that you are missing the point on she really does a number on you. she did on me. for the first time in my life I felt what others must have felt listening to me try to make a point that they could not see. first of all to all those I apologize for the pain but not for making the point.
remember in the bible (those who read it or heard it) the story of the man who wrestled the angel all night. well let me tell you I wrestled with Margaret's mind and her point and her heart all night and it made my brain hurt and made me angry angry angry which meant I had to use the discipline of yoga to step out of the turning of thought into being an observer. I had to trust me to not sell myself out to her or to cowtow to her and her authority age tribal indigenousness or agenda. I had to give in and drown in what she was saying and trust that the real me the right me the me that was always me and would never betray me would find my way back up to the light
and you know what
I did
lol I'd rather wrestle angels any day than a grandmother like her
so below is the reworked foreword of my book Holding The Fire At Lame Deer
thank you grandmother Margaret
Holding The Fire At Lame Deer
Foreward
This is a book about new beginnings. This book is written for the Children who live on the Reservation at Lame Deer Montana. It is also written for every other child who has or will or does live on this planet. I was a child, so were my parents, even those who are parents and grandparents now, were at one time, a child. The kings, queens, saviors, murderers, and monsters of our past, anyone who is a human being, at one time were children. When I was a child I watched my value diminish as my ability to have a voice and a coherent thought increased. I have always been, and will remain, a child that was different than what my parents, my society, my teachers, my friends, or my professional peers wanted. I'm ok with that now, but I wasn't always.
It was painful to be different, but there was no going back once I was born. When I was born, I had a place, a right, a seat at the table that could not be ignored. I was silent for the first two years of my life. Then I stood up, started to walk and talk at the same time. I knew who I was, and I believed from the beginning that I had a voice and a right to speak it. I believed from the beginning that I was equal with everything and every being that surrounded me. I think that for every child who has within them such a strong driving sense of existing out loud, as I was born with, life is painful. The biggest surprise in my life, was realizing later, when I was an adult, that I was not the cause of that pain after all.
Children have no idea that we are born to people who are so wracked with pain from their past that they cannot bear us or the future that looms ahead of them. Parents and families who are so overwhelmed with pain that one innocent cry is too much to bear. Children cry. They push at boundaries, they want what they shouldn't have and break things that at the time seem irreplaceable. It's what they do. But, when they do these normal things in a house, or a home, or a community, or a tribe, or a nation that is already on edge because of unresolved generational trauma; all of the sudden, that child, rather than being a source of joy, becomes a source of pain. One more pain, that is unbearable.
We don't mean to add to the pain of those we love when we are born. We really do show up as little bundles of joy. But when that bundle arrives in the midst of generations of trauma that has not been cleared from the hearts and minds of that family, the first cry of that child becomes a burden, rather than a sign of new life.
We have no idea that the birth canal was easy street compared to what is waiting for us in this world. It's not our fault. It's not the fault of our parents. I don't know and I am no longer sure if it matters whose fault it is. Things have gone way beyond fault. What matters most now, is getting rid of all that generational pain before one more child's life is lost because of it. Children are painful to us. They are beautiful innocent amazing opportunities that do not give one hootie about why things didn't work out in the past and therefore, they are the worst thing that can happen to all of that pain that we carry around inside of us because right away we can see that they don't own our pain.
All they can see is that life is here and it's f-ing amazing. I was such a child. I caused my parents more pain than they could bear. Not because I was bad, but because I refused to pick up the burden of the pain they thought they had to carry as if it was normal. I didn't believe in my parents pain. Not because I didn't care about them, I simply was born without it. Thus even though I knew I had a place, a right to sit at the table, it cost me to sit there as myself with them.
To make my place in the world with the voice I found as I grew older with out resorting to violence, lies, or compromise has been the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. Children that I see today not only remind me of my pain but they make it worse. Their lives make the pain of my past almost unbearable. Not because I carry it, but because I see them and where they live.
Because what I see when I look at them or brush up against their lives, is that they don’t have a chance. They have never been given a place at the table. Children are born with a voice but it carries no weight. Long ago someone believed that if they took a drink, bought a new TV, ate their favorite food over and over, closed their eyes and kept whatever pacifier worked in their mouth, shut their ears, ran away from their pain, ignored pain, it would go away. Then someone else came along and made that concept into a commodity. Then everyone started buying it. But to keep up with the overriding wave of pain that we all carry the price of buying oblivion became the chance of a child to sit at the table without having that pacifier shoved down its throat. The cry of a child that simply needs to be fed or changed, the screaming of a regular old tantrum that will burn itself out, the pain of falling down and scraping a knee, the awakening mind that pushes at the boundaries of life by asking why?, how come?, and what if?all became reminders of the unsurmountable pain of our past that we are all terrified of, rather than simply the normal growing pains of a child. So we took their place away from them. We made children our future but all we could see in the future was more pain so after having them, we stuffed them in a closet, threw them away, put them in front of the TV, or gave them alcohol and guns and sent them off to school.
It is no wonder that the suicide rate amongst children is growing. That voice, that cost me my life as I got older, they never even have a chance at having to begin with. Or, so it seems to me.
Now I see children with what I call the always voice. Always being asked or given what they want. Always screaming and pouting, and talking and pushing as if their voice is the only one that matters. Always the center of attention. Always wanting the next pacifier shoved in their mouth. But what I really see underneath all that me, me, me noise, it is that nobody is listening to them. Their pain isn’t like ours. It’s not about the past. It’s about a future that never arrived.
What I see is that children are not valued. They are placated and shoved aside. They are given something that will shut them up, entertain them, or get them out of sight so that everyone else can go on with what ever it is that the children really are not a part of. When I was at Lame deer I talked to two of the Northern Cheyenne mothers late at night about how their children are addicted to the hand game. They are afraid they said to tell their children to stop playing because they are afraid they will lose them if they tell them no. To this I can speak from experience. I lost the person most dear to me to a drunken suicide because I was afraid if I asked her to stop drinking I would lose her. To the mothers of those Northern Cheyenne children I say if you think that you will lose them if you stand for them because they are addicted to playing hand games, you have already lost them. What you have to figure out, what all of us have to figure out, what I did not realize until it was too late, and do is first to save your own life from the pain of your past. Throw out your own pacifiers, get help and stand against your own addictions, let go of the pain of the past. Let us all make our homes a place whose focus isn’t any more on avoiding pain. Then go and get those children, go and stand by them while they are playing, be strong tell them to come home. And when they get home, don’t stuff pacifiers in their mouths any more. Love them. Love yourselves. Do it or all will be lost, because the past just keeps on marching until we get up and change directions and leave it behind.
One of the worst signs of our times is the dvd players that are built into cars. Are we there yet? Has a whole new meaning when anyone drives across America, or even to the grocery store.
If I could do one thing for children, I would rip all those players out of the cars, then drive them across America from sea to shining sea. I would ask them to look, to see, to think, to imagine and then we could sit around a campfire and talk about what they saw. I would get them out side of themselves so that they could feel, could know that they do belong. I would tell them that most of us screwed up. But we are going to try again and we, as well as they are worth that effort. I would show them the earth and all its majesty so that they might see that they belong to something, someone, somewhere that is old and alive and very capable of holding their fire so that it doesn’t go out.
So I do think that children have a pretty raw deal. I think that instead of being careful with the world we make and control as adults, adults of my generation and those prior to, for many years have pretended that they worship children all the while destroying the world around them like embezzlers in a giant corporation. We as adult human beings have robbed them of the decency, grace, and honesty that would have made their lives richer. Not in things, power, and money but in the things that matter. Things like kindness, reason, cognitive ability to struggle without violence amongst and with their peers, satisfaction, clean air and water, a world without war, the futility of hate, and an eye for beauty.
I was raised a Texan and as a mixed heritage person am a storyteller by blood and culture. Books saved me from things in my life that were not so great. They also taught me that it matters to write things down because some day, somewhere, someone will pick up those words and change their life. Not in a way that the author directs, but in the way that the heart leads.
Everything in here is a memory or a conjecture that came from my mind and life. I will have remembered things that others do not. I will remember things differently than others who were at the same events. It was a teacher who taught me that more than one thing can be true at the same time. People who listened to me speak of holding the fire at Lame Deer during the Grandmothers gathering of July 2012 have asked for more information, more of the story. Here it is.
As with any story this one begins in the middle of my life. Therefore, it became necessary to write about the past. My life is built on a series of events, trial and error, success and failure. Like the Children of Lame Deer, or any other child, I had to make my way. I had to make decisions, choices, and try life over and over again. I encourage children to keep going. Don’t let what some other person has done, or might do keep you from having your life and learning above all to be free. Freedom is so much more than being able to read, to think and speak, and to eat what you want. Freedom is to live without the traces of your own or any others agenda tainting your thoughts, actions, or efforts. As human beings we are only as free as we are able to know ourselves in the mirror intimately and honestly without deceit. Deceit is a prison to which you, I myself for myself, are the only one who holds the key.
Grandmother Margaret says that we can begin again. Remember that, you have the right, no matter what was yesterday, to get up today and begin again. This is not about fooling someone, the only one you can ultimately fool or cheat is yourself, and that will take your life as sure as a knife through the heart. Every time it will take your life so I recommend not using beginnings to deceive your self. New beginnings are not magical and rarely change the consequences of our past actions. We bear the burden of the past, but we have the right to outgrow it, to turn it under like compost, and begin again. We have the right to replant the garden. It takes work, effort, time. Children of Lame Deer and everywhere else, there are no free rides, no harvest without working the garden. Believe it or not the satisfaction of a job well done is worth more than a new car, a diamond, fame, or a big TV. Yes the pain of the past is unbearable, but it is not resolved by pouring our lives into its abyss.
To me, as you can probably already tell, my life is one long incredible teaching moment. My mother said that my life was like a string of pearls. Some of those pearls are clear and shining, some are grey, and some are black. To me they are all priceless. Every time that I am in ceremony I thank the Spirits for my family. They taught me about love, about truth and honesty, about the application of the theory of Christianity, and about forgiveness. You will see in this story that some of those lessons are contrary. They are teachings of the opposite way. That does not make them any less valuable than teachings that are kind or gentle.
In this book I cut the string of pearls and am scattering them to see if you might find their value as well. Life is a giveaway and this is mine to you.
