Center of the East and West Gate: Call To Prayer

Grandmothers Relatives good morning thank you for your time

I am writing on behalf of My GMa Margaret Behan this morning we have been visiting on the phone and this morning she asked for prayers for Diane Spotted Elk

Diane's son Alex [Whom I met on the ride home (the journey back to Lame Deer) and again at the Gathering at Lame Deer], Alex was killed a few weeks ago

he was 18 years old

he was drunk which is a crappy and unfortunate reality in many lives, Cheyenne, American, European, Asian etc.... many of us are addicted to things that take hold of us even though we are not always caught in that grip of being something other than connected to our sacred selves it happens to us all so I ask compassion for him and his family in holding the reality of this event and what is coming from it, I ask for compassion for him, his mother, and Margaret and all each of us in our own addictions or fears that get ahold of us and we lose our way he lost his way and while he was drunk he was killed it is a terrible testimony to both the fragility, the preciousness, and the horror of life in todays world. he was a good boy, I remember him and his loss is a devastating thing.

They think his death was caused by a man who is a drug dealer he may have ran him over in the night while Alex was walking on the road and left him for dead and he died now the daughter his mother Margaret's relative is trying to find out about what happened they are trying to see if there is enough evidence for the tribal leaders, the law enforcement entities to hold this man and make him accountable for this death But it is messy

it is very difficult as we all know to stand up against a system that is profiting more from drugs, alcohol, money and integrity abuse than from the beautiful lives of our children, our sisters and brothers, our Aunties, Uncles and our Elders

all of our cultures suffer from addictions and those who profit from addictions existing in our lives ( addiction to money, power, technology, clothes, drugs, food, alcohol, sex, perfection, exercise, work) whatever the addiction we all have to face it in ourselves and in our own cultures and homes it is this that helps us to see that we are one people we are all together needing to support the standign up against this social pattern in our own and for others lives

GMa Margaret asked for prayer for Diane Spotted Elk and her family as they speak out against this in thier lives and community I ask you please to prayer for them and also for yourselves and each of us for each other we connect not with judgment but with strength and firmness

one of the things that makes GMa Margaret so precious to me is that she has never asked me to think of her as perfect, or as someone who has not struggled with addiction. With trying to figure out how to let go of the past, how to have a presence in the present. A living life that will make a future that is sustainable. she like me and I am sure other humans, has suffered from addiction, from fear, from lack of leadership in her community, from anguish and helplessness over the reality of the historical tragedies of the past in her culture, and the overwhelmingness of what to do now today on the reservation, in her own life, her family and when possible in the public arena. she has never been perfect or asked me to think that she is or was but she has not let this dissuade her or count her out she does not buy into the idea that she has or had to be perfect or know everything to matter and Grandmothers neither do we have to be. she keeps on getting up and learning both from her mistakes and her successes and she keeps going. She goes for all of us not only for herself but she also taught me that she had to first learn to pray for herself before she learned to pray for others.

Relatives I have spent time with you and we have learned together and prayed together and worked and fallen down and gotten back up now I am wanting us to act as a unit for this woman for her family for all of our families

we just have to stand up today and do today we have to live and pray and speak and let our self know first and then those in our immediate space know no matter what yesterday was,

today I matter, today living with sacred respect for me and my time and my love and my heart and my life matters it matters today and it matters that Diane Spotted Elk fight for justice for her son, that she honor his being, his life and that she ask those in authority to respect integrity and honesty rather than profit or convenience Being drunk may have taken his life, but it should not also take his death or the integrity and love of his mother, his family or from us for him.

Margaret lives this with her life, she examples it let us do this as well let us simply and strongly live as an example with our lives today, today, today of our sacred respect for our own life, no matter what and those lives in our reach

even as the moon shows us every month in the night sky that when this world blocks out the light if we persist and we hold on to the light and we push away that which tries to take our sacredness from us and those lives whom we share either at work, at home, in our neighborhood or simply standing on the earth at this time we can hold on to our sacredness and say no in our prayer in our intention and we can ask the Spirits to come and to hold this sacredness for Diane and her family and all our families

I am writing to you to ask for this to ask you to hold this prayer in your day in the night and as many days as you can for this woman and her heart and her family to show her that we are her family as well that the loss of one more child is too many

thank you for your time

please if you accept pass this prayer on to others I have not put every email address I have on here because it gets too much and some people feel it is not personal if it is sent enmass I respect this and so am asking you if you accept please discuss and connect this prayer to the other grandmothers that you know (and grandfathers!) and connect with this effort

you may email Margaret if you like margaret Behan <gettay55@yahoo.com> to show her your support and to offer her your prayer for her family and our family

this is something that we can do to change our world I believe

thank you

love love love

mary