THE SACRED HILL WITHIN - A DAKOTA/LAKOTA WORLD VIEW by LITTLE CROW

THE SACRED HILL WITHIN
A DAKOTA/LAKOTA WORLD VIEW
BY LITTLE CROW
The Sacred Hill Within

Edited by C.F. Clark
One World Publishing
Fountain Valley, Ca.

By the same author:
From The Gathering: The Wisdom of Little Crow
A Telling of Hope
Last Message From A Distant Star
Traveling With the Circus and Other Sacred Things
Dancing With Illusions and Other Stories About Human Beings
The Sacred Hill Within

One World Publishing
Book Copyright © 1999 by C.F. Clark
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-68788
ISBN: 0-9635440-5-5
First edition published 1999
Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 Creation

2 God and Faith

3 Spirit/Soul

4 Living and Dying

5 Relations

6 Power

7 Prayer

8 Place

9 Accountability

10 Religion and Spirituality

11 Balance/Masculine-Feminine Energy

12 Red and Blue Days

13 Symbolism and the World

Your vision quest is every morning when
you open your eyes and climb out of bed
Let your dream be your vision quest and
get out and live your dream.

Little Crow

Preface

This book is an introduction to concepts from the Dakota/Lakota world view
about which little is commonly written. There are books about culture, ritual and
ceremony, history and so forth, but little has been written about the universality of the
world view and its applicability in contemporary society. This is not intended to be a
scholarly work nor by any means is it intended to be an outline of Dakota/Lakota
cosmology. It is simply one individual's interpretation of his indigenous world view.
I have known Little Crow for ten years and have never met a person with more personal
integrity or a stronger faith. He is a true revolutionary who has, for the past twentyfive
years, been creating an Oral Tradition based on the sacredness of all things.

His world view is filled with tools that can be used in everyday life and his vision has
helped countless people change their lives. His thoughts and acts are in complete
congruency and he has found a way to live his life in harmony with his traditional
heritage, even in the midst of urban Southern California, holding out the promise that his
is a faith that can be practiced anywhere by anyone, thereby making it relevant,
applicable and accessible to people of all ethnicities and backgrounds.

By focusing on the deceptively simple message that everything is sacred,
everything is connected and everything is accountable, he has demystified Indian
spirituality, making theory and philosophy concrete and available to anyone who
cares to look beneath the surface while, at the same time, demonstrating how it can be
applied breath to breath and moment to moment. His is a world of tolerance, inclusion,
acceptance and the parity of everyone and everything. His ideas are tremendously
freeing and refreshingly simple, but that does not in any way mean simple-minded or as

lacking depth or complexity. On the contrary, these ideas reflect a very complex and
complete cosmology which has specifically not been covered here. And although the
ideas may initially seem simple, living them can be a very different matter. It is a journey
without end, with a new discovery, recognition and realization around every corner.
The Gathering, which meets every Sunday morning in the humble surroundings of a
Southern California grade school multi-purpose room, is a community of individuals
who come together because they are drawn by Little Crow's message of hope, faith and
accountability. The people who come to the Gathering are as diverse as any I have been
associated with. At first glance, one may feel little in common with many who
come but over the years, one comes to realize that we are connected in far more
ways than we can imagine and one is infinitely enriched for being part of it. As we realize
we have lived many lifetimes and we are in this one as a result of our choice, we learn true
compassion, tolerance and acceptance of those around us and come to see the
commonality, connectedness and humanity in all those with whom we come in contact.
I wish to thank all those who have given so generously of their time and their
comments, in particular Lorraine Carpinelli, Dr. Troy Johnson, Dr. Lester Brown,
Doug Casgraux, Dr. Paul Apodaca and Dr. C.B. Clark. And most especially my daughter,
Guenevere, and granddaughter, Cheyenne, who have been so patient.

I started this book for a friend but in the end, it turns out that I am the true beneficiary.
And, as Little Crow is so fond of pointing out, that's how it goes.

Mitakuye oyasin, for all my relations.

The Editor

Introduction

My name is Little Crow, Taoyateduta, His Red People. I am of Dakota/Lakota birth
and for the last twenty-five years I have been involved in adapting a lifestyle based on
the Oral Traditions of those same Dakota/Lakota people, an Oral Tradition that I
refer to as B.C. — Before Christians. I have embarked upon a journey dedicated to
sharing an alternative world view which has been the foundation of my culture for
eons, even before my people were flesh. In 200,000 B.C., 2,000 B.C., 89 B.C., 123
B.C., zero B.C., before any other conceptualization, we believed in a higher source.
God, Tunkashila, the Mother-Father Creator wrote in the heavens the way for
us to live our lives in harmony with all things above and all things below. As it is
below, it is above and as it is above, it is below. In 2,000 B.A., Before
Anyone, we believed this because it was shown to us. Our holy people began to
interpret that message, by vision and dream, and created ceremony as it was
displayed and shown to us in the heavens. It's in my cosmology. It's in the story of
our creation and it was in my instruction.

Four or five years ago there was a book that needed to be written called The
Sacred Hill Within. I wrote on it a bit here and there, and then kept it in the file
cabinet. However, with the purification and everything that is going on; the
sadness, the lack of hope and joy in the world, the killing and all of the disasters
which are occurring, flood, draught — all of those things which have been
prophesied — it is time to speak about our relationship to those issues.

There are basic differences in how the world, the universe, is seen by indigenous
people. It is through these differences that we, as a people, have been able to
survive and I, as a connected entity, also survived my self-destructive
adventures into an alien culture built on the mythical theories of the need for

sameness in all things. This sameness is being used as the educational tools of
the corporate and religious structures of this civilization, tools that are used to
separate everything from everything else. This creation of sameness establishes a
class system that we are told doesn't exist. It is a sameness that elevates the nonethical
to positions of power and ultimate control of the masses./ Living in vulgar
and unrestricted opulence, these powers flaunt their ostentatiousness upon their
brothers and sisters. If you, the reader, has the courage to be open to alternative
thought about how the world and its every aspect might look to other people, then
by all means read on. By any literary standards, this book will fall short, but it will
be easy reading and best of all, it will be a very short book — a blessing, I'm sure.
This book should not be considered as a "how to" for those readers who have an
interest in American Indians and their diverse world views. It will make no
attempt at teaching the reader anything, nor will it seek to convert the reader to an
indigenous mind set. However, this book does hold a message for all who read
it, a simple message based on the ageless oral traditions of the Dakota/Lakota
people. You will find the message universal, crossing all cultural lines; a message
similar and yet different in its alternative perspectives to the millions of
thoughts and concerns that evolve through all of us. There will be no Indian words
to learn or remember, nor will you be required to take part in any Indian rituals,
made up or otherwise. There will be no songs to sing or sacred ceremonies to
learn. You'll have no Pipes or other sacred objects to buy and, best of all, you
won't be required to get naked and sweat in the sweat lodge. And one last thing,
for sure you won't be invited to take part in vision quests or sacred sundances.

If, while reading this book, you come across something that sounds familiar, chances are
that it is. The reasons for this happening are simple. There are no new thoughts, just
different ways of seeing the same thing. In other words, everything is part of the
universal consciousness, including you and me.

I wish to thank everyone and everything that has ever touched my life, for I know
at this writing that we are all truly related. Specifically, I wish to acknowledge
my children from both of my families and hope for you what each of you has given
me in your very own way. May you always know who you are and that your validation
comes from within.

Oh, I almost forgot, there are a couple of other things I have to share with you. As you
read this book and you happen to come across your own thoughts about spirituality,
don't yell, scream or do back flips. Just put this book down, get up off your spiritual
ass (slowly, of course) and get to work living your life. Now, for the last thing. I have
not sought, nor do I seek, the approval or permission of any group, tribe, band,
family, government, or individual(s) in writing this book. I am simply living out my
dream. I hope that you might do the same.

Little Crow

This book is dedicated to all of those indigenous peoples who have gone on before me —
not only from the Dakota/Lakota nations of my birthright but to all those of all nations,
Indian and non-Indian, whose world views, rituals, ceremonies, sacred objects, songs and
the like have been abused and prostituted by the countless "snake oil" sellers who have
always found a way to profit from the needs of their relatives. It is unfortunate that this
group of human beings includes those who call themselves shamans, healers, medicine
men, medicine women, road men, road women, Pipe carriers, sweat leaders,
dreamers and warriors. It is hoped that this book will help in removing the shame that
is felt by the spirits of all our relatives.

The most frustrating reality of the creation, as we have been conditioned to accept it, is our
humanality. To accept this state of existence is to go directly against what our intuition
tells us. It is through this life-long intuitive battle between what we know within ourselves to
be true and what is told to us about ourselves from the outside that we embark upon our
life's journey — a journey which, by its very nature, has already been completed,
completed by the simple act of our original creation.

-1-

CREATION

What is creation all about? We have tried to create a mystery as to how life began,
why it began, where it is going and what it is about but in my world view, it is quite
simple. Everything is of the Mother-Father Creator. We are part of the Creator and,
being part of it, we are it. If we are of God, then are we not God and if we are God, did
we not create ourselves? We are the Creators and the only thing that remains is for us to
find a way to live with that responsibility.

We begin our lives by being told what is important and what is meaningless, what is
connected and what is not, what is powerful and what is weak, what is good and what is
evil. We are taught early in life that everything was created as part of a hierarchy with
some things taking priority over others — as opposed to the idea that everything was
created in harmony, balance and equality — and so t h o s e i d e a s become basic to the
way we think. We make assumptions and judgments throughout our lives based on
those implanted concepts and we find it difficult to recognize and accept that everything is
the same and is equal in its priority.

At one time in my life, I had a willingness to accept the creation stories from
outside my culture. Later, I was able to read and interpret those stories
according to my own needs. Each of us does that, you know, regardless of what it
is. We interpret things based upon our own experiences and our own needs. The
result is that the idea of creation narrows itself down to the most acceptable

storyteller. One storyteller says that we originated from Adam and Eve. In that
version of creation man and woman are not equal, not in parity, because the
woman was created after and from the man. That story goes on to say that we
were conceived because Adam and Eve broke the law, they ignored the rules.
From the beginning, in that conception process, we become part of the sinfulness
of man. Since we were a result of that initial transaction — the exchange of energy I
think they call it today — we are automatically "bad." We are part of that
original sin, something that we have to make up for all our lives, a process made
even more difficult for women when original sin was interpreted by Paul as
implying that women created our fall from grace. We are told that the only thing
we needed was for someone to die — not a woman, of course, but a man — and
those sins would be eradicated, so we called someone the son of God, sacrificed him
and he erased our sins — for the men. As for the women, they are to be constantly
reminded of their role in man's downfall and be continually punished.

Because we are born in sin, that creation story leads us right out of the chute and down
the street into the big parade not feeling good about ourselves. We do not feel
good about ourselves from the very beginning of our remembered experiences
and we spend a lifetime trying to eradicate that original sin and find salvation or some
way to be forgiven. The amazing thing is, in that particular story, the only
people who can forgive us are the very people who created the problem, the
situation, in the first place. It becomes a paradox for those of us with different
creation stories. How can we be forgiven for something that never existed, at least in
the context in which it has been presented to us? Nevertheless, as we read it,
as it is interpreted for us and as we begin to believe it, we become part of that
creation narrative. It is a narrative that keeps reinforcing our failure. We are always
just short of the mark, never quite able to measure up. Even if we do reach
certain plateaus of forgiveness or salvation, there is always further to go, more for

us to do. When we start asking for verification, for solid scientific data, scientific
proof, we are told to rely upon faith. We are told to accept everything in blind
faith and that, in doing so, we will be rewarded — certainly not in this lifetime, but
somehow, in some other place.

The stories in my Oral Tradition that teach us about creation and which are
shared in the proper time and the proper place say that things were created in
similarity, at the same time, looking alike but different and that everything in creation is
connected and related. Everything is made up of the same creative energy. We are all
the same, on the same path going to the same place. Each of us, regardless of color or
gender, is equally endowed with the energy of God, the Mother-Father Creator. Male
and female were created at the same time, having the same power, neither being
greater or more important than the other, both spiritual, both sacred, both
empowered, each being a house, if you will, for the creative energy of the Mother-Father
Creator.

Five hundred years ago, this country was overwhelmed by people seeking freedom and
equality after living with the tyranny of monarchies and serfdom, religious oppression,
poverty and slavery. They could not believe there were people who had no
conception of those things and so they set about recreating that place from which they
had tried to escape. Indigenous people had no connection to Adam and the idea of
original sin. There is nothing in our Oral Tradition that tells us we were shallow,
evil or sinful. We were just mischievous. In other words, much like now, we were
not satisfied or content with simply being sacred, we wished to be something more. We
call that impatience and it is the same impatience that we suffer today. We may be
workaholics, worryaholics, alcoholics, drugaholics, or abuseaholics. Any behavior
that keeps us from resting our minds without worrying or tossing and turning qualifies.
Each of us is sacred, as are the plants, the animals, the insects and all things. We

are all part of the creation; therefore, being of, we are. True, there is a certain amount
of attrition, but that is simply symbolic and physical. The body is flesh and bone
which decays and becomes food for worms so they will prosper and, in their turn, be
eaten and create other things so all things might continue to grow and so the earth can
continue to manufacture raw materials. The body is put back into the earth to give back
what has been taken, but the body is not the spirit. The body is only the process by which
the spirit moved, the vehicle in which the spirit traveled. The spirit goes on. The
creative energy, the God energy, is infinite and lives on regardless of what happens
to the body.

Many people have trouble accepting Native American religious ideas — and they
are not religious ideas, they are world views — that say everything is connected,
everything is related, everything is sacred, because believing that implies an
awesome responsibility that would require them to change their entire lives. We have
been taught to separate ourselves from creation and to consider ourselves, as human
beings, superior to everything else. We have the idea that some things were created
better or are more important than others. That idea was developed to create divisions and
separations so that some of us might feel more powerful, more in control; but control
and authority over our lives have always been based within us. We just need to take the
responsibility and accountability.

When we see creation as the result of something outside of ourselves, as coming from
a separate entity, we tend to believe that we have no responsibility, no
accountability, that we only need to recognize we are deeply imbedded in sin and we
will be saved. We have been encouraged not to take responsibility for our lives but,
instead, to believe everything that happens to us is at the dictate of some higher power,
somebody that's higher up, somebody that should know better.

I often hear from organizations that refer to information received from some other

place on earth, or not on earth from places and people in some other part of the universe.
There are people all over the country claiming they have messages from some other
place or entity. These ideas encourage us to not take responsibility for our own
actions but instead to claim we were only following instructions from somebody
else or a higher source. We, as human beings, don't know anything. We have no
idea what the world holds for us or what we are supposed to do so we have to get
our information from some other source. Why? Because we are simply too stupid
and lazy to take responsibility for our actions, so we blame them on
somebody else. We blame them on God, on the government, on our family, on
somebody we don't like. We hold anyone or anything accountable but ourselves. Let
me ask you this, if I was truly talking to someone who knows more than I do, why
would they give me this stupid situation to embark upon in the first place? Is it a joke?
Are we being tricked into doing things out of consideration to what we call a higher
energy or higher power?

You are your higher power, just take responsibility for it. You were created, and I don't
want to say in the image of God because that makes us think that God might look like
us, but in the image of yourself, whatever that is. I am referring to the spiritual
image, the spiritual energy. We are simply a physical symbolic representation of God
moving around in our bodies because that is how two-legged people move. Even though
some of us may need a certain amount of physical assistance, our spirits do not.

When we see people flat on their backs in bed, hooked up to tubes or in wheelchairs, we
have a tendency to feel sorry for them, but another way of looking at it is to realize that is
what they are here to do this time around. Creation requires accountability. If we
are to feel any peace of mind, any balance whatsoever, we must take
accountability.

Thinking about creation leads us to the consideration of the theory of
evolution, the idea of evolving from apes or amphibians, standing, walking upright,

going from four-legged to two-legged and so on. What an amazingly complex
process. We are absorbed with ideas of who and what we are and were, and what
awaits us on the other side, but simplifying the creation eliminates the multitude of
questions which consume an enormous amount of energy in
our lives. When and how creation began is not important nor is figuring out who
began it. Those questions simply lead to esoteric discussions and debates and we sit
around thinking we are intellectual rather than facing the fact that there isn't time for
that any more. We need to put that aside and get to the point of recognizing we were
all created equally, we are all sacred, we are all spiritual and then do what we can
for the children who follow so they'll have clean air to breathe and clean water to
drink, so the world does not end in our time.

Our creation, whenever it was and in whatever form each of us believes it to be, was
sacred. It occurred. What was it all about? The answer to that question has always
been determined by our state of being. The belief in a higher power is only
acceptable through unyielding faith. There is no proof of any of it except that which
we harbor in our heart and mind. All we have is a series of examples and symbolic
representations to look at and interpret based on our own needs. You, as the individual
are creation. The idea, then, is to look in the mirror and see creation, see evolution,
see how far you've come. You are sacred, you are spiritual, you are all that you seek to
be. The question is how to live your life in accordance with that.

We are the creation and it is up to us to direct the energy of that creation in a loving and
harmonious way, even with all of our idiosyncrasies, our diversities, our animosities, even
with all of our anger and hatred. Like us, those things are sacred because they are also of
the creative energy. Hate, war, destruction, animosity, doubt and confusion, all of
those things are related and connected to us. It is simply up to each one of us to determine
which acts we are going to commit, which words we are going to utter, what energy we

are going to release into the universe.

All things of the creation are indeed the creation/Creators itself We are the creation. We
are the sacredness. We are the God self We were created and put here, like the birds,
to carry waste and broadcast seeds to other places so that plants, trees and food might
grow. We have a part in that responsibility and we must let our voices be heard. We are
responsible for insuring that those who come after us have a place to come to, for
creating a place in which our children can continue to exist.

Rescue the children so that this creation that you continue to be a part of will not be for
yourselves but for all of your relations.

You are of God and God is of you. The existence of God is only possible by your
existence. The maximum power of God at any one time is in direct ratio to the
number who have accepted the responsibility of living within this concept. There was no
beginning and there is no end. We (God) have always been and will be forever.

-2-

GOD AND FAITH

When we consider human history, we often hear and read stories about how we
were created, about the fact that we were created as opposed to having evolved. If,
indeed, there is anything to the theory of evolution, when did man become
separated from that process? What made us special? Perhaps we were needy and,
being needy, we had to create some story, some myth that would set us apart from
the plants and animals, separate us from the evolutionary process. In that need,
we created an idea of God. We created a God out of our own need.

The Lakota people, in some of their stories, tell of a time before we were flesh. One
doesn't often read or hear that in other places. There is an account which tells of
angels being cast out of heaven and of human beings cast out of a garden, but
my Oral Tradition talks about a time before we were flesh, when we were spirit and
had the ability to do all things — to change our shapes, communicate, go and come
as we pleased. We had all the abilities which we now attribute to God.

Perhaps we had a need then, as those people below the earth before we were flesh,
to develop the idea that we were what God is perceived to be. We were energy and
that energy had the capacity to be anything it chose. It was all things, so we were
all things. It didn't require a building or a monument. It didn't require layers of
bureaucracy, hierarchies or a class structure. It didn't need to be induced through
the use of mind-altering, spirit-pounding drugs. It simply required faith. God is a
matter of faith, dependent upon your need as a human being. Whatever you need it to be

is how God becomes determinant in your life. If you don't believe in God then that is
honorable too, because you are sacred. You are what your faith determines, not
faith as construed by others, but the faith constructed within you.

It is doubtful that we can come together as a group of more than two and agree on what
God is. We become very unimaginative. We are undisciplined and we lose faith
because we want guidelines and formulations. We are looking for guarantees that
my God is better than yours or my God is the right God and yours is wrong. Whatever
God is to you is right. Whatever you perceive God or a higher power to be is right, it is
correct, it is yours. It isn't necessarily mine or the person's on the other side of the street,
but that is okay. It isn't necessary for all of us to see God in the same way. When we
think we must all see God in the same way, we have religious wars and ethnic cleansing.
Eliminating the questions about God alleviates the arguments over who is correct and
who is not, who is superior and who is inferior, about what is right and wrong.

The question is not whether there is a God or whose God is the right God, the question is
whether or not each of us is willing to take the responsibility of believing there is a God
and then have the faith to live our lives according to how we believe God would live.
We need to live how we believe God would live, not how we think God wants us to live.
Contrary to popular opinion, God is not concerned with whether we live or not. That is up
to us. Breathing is our responsibility, not God's. The minute we stop breathing, we are on
our way out of here.

God is a matter of faith, dependent upon our need. Psychologists today tell us
not to be needy. They say it's okay to want or desire something, but not to need
something. Our faith is predicated on our need so are the psychologists in league with
the devil, trying to disavow us of our need, our only connecting link to the Mother-
Father Creator? Perhaps they are trying to eliminate our need by putting it on a "higher
level" such as I "want" God in my life. If you really want God in your life, stand in front

of the mirror and take a deep breath and you can see God at work. The only thing that
we lack is the accountability and responsibility of accepting God and having faith in it.
There is a passage in the red book* that says, "There is going to be no supreme race, no
supreme people, no supreme beings. Everybody is going to have to take the responsibility
and seven generations from now we'll say to God, Tunkashila, Umdogee, Wakan Tanka,
'Here's what you dreamt of. This is a dream you gave us as human beings when you
created us in this universe. Here it is, right here where you put us to fulfill it. Here's our
dream to you. Happy Birthday.' And God will say, 'Why did you do all this?' And we'll
say, 'For all our relations.' "

*C. F. Clark, ed., From The Gathering: The Wisdom of Little Crow (Fountain Valley,
One World Publishing; 1993)

There are no supreme beings, no supreme races, there is nothing superior to you
nor are you superior to anything else because everything is sacred, everything
is part of creation. There is no object, thing, act, person, or religion that is better
than any other. No one is more spiritual, more religious, more saved, less saved, more
sinful, less sinful than anyone else. No one can buy God. No one can buy
indulgences or salvation, nor can anyone take retribution or revenge because each of us
is God. We are God according to our need. We just have to be accountable to live
as we believe God would live.

Have you ever wondered why there are fleas? Someone asked me that the other
day and I decided that person didn't have enough to do if they had time to sit
around and wonder why fleas exist. But think about it, if everything is sacred and
we are not to kill indiscriminately, why do we have fleas? They exist to keep
dogs busy so they don't chew the furniture or wear a path in the yard, so they will bite
themselves, chase their tails, scratch and kick, roll in the dirt, jump in the water or do

whatever else it takes to find relief If we watch the dogs, the four legged, we
see ourselves doing exactly the same thing. Fleas might represent an
unwanted relationship and we scratch, kick, and bite trying to get rid of it like a
dog trying to get rid of fleas. Like the fleas, everyone in our lives is there to give us
something to do. If they are sick, down and out, depressed, hungry or sad, it gives
us something to do trying to help them. Otherwise, we might not be doing
anything except sitting around on our butts. By the same token, we are
wherever we are, doing whatever we are doing so someone else will have something
to do. Someone else can love us or hate us. Someone else can love and hate us at the
same time. Someone else can ridicule or hurt us. Someone else can help us. Each
of us is on this earth, part of the puzzle, so that we will have something to do — to
consider helping our relatives and to think about those who will come after us. I do
not know for certain if there is a heaven or hell, but I do know that I don't believe in
them nor am I concerned about them. What I am concerned with is whether or not
I have the faith to do for you what you need me to do, if I can, and to be
accountable for it, to be accountable for the God self that dwells within.

Separation from the concept of God has become the reality of the human condition. We
think of God as separate, outside of ourselves in some other universe or dimension. We
have removed ourselves from the source of all things and, as a consequence, we are
left struggling and blinded. We can see daily examples of our separation from God
in the newspaper accounts of child abuse, rape, murder and other terrible things
that people do to one another. Many of us want to know why things like that
happen and we often hear people wonder how God can let those things occur. We live in
a world of balance and duality so the question is, why wouldn't they happen? Someone
made a decision to do those terrible things and why they do them is irrelevant. The fact
is, they happen. It isn't God that makes or lets them happen. It isn't some outside force that
creates those events. God, Allah, Buddha, has nothing to do with it. A human being

makes the decision to do those things to another human being. It is a matter of choice.
It doesn't matter how badly those people might have been abused in their lives or what
has been done to them, the still have a choice. Ea ch and every one of us has a choice
and that choice isn't predicated on what has happened to us in the past. There are no
excuses, there is no one to blame but ourselves. We, and only we, are responsible and
accountable for the choices we make. We are all accountable for recognizing the God
within each of us and living our lives according.

When I grew up — I was born in 1933 — my role models didn't look like me. There
were posters of successful people, role models, on the walls of my school and none of
them looked like I did. I saw those images as representing what America was about,
what goodness and happiness was about, what life was supposed to be. When I went
into the military and traveled to different countries, I saw life wasn't like what I had
been taught to believe it was back in grade school. In truth, I had realized that earlier
when, as a senior in high school, I was verbally, psychologically, and emotionally
abused by several of my teachers for being racially and ethnically different. Later
in life, after getting out of the service and doing other things, I saw that the people
who were committing the crimes, particularly the white collar crimes — the
people who did the inside trading, the thieving and the fraudulent rip-offs — looked
like the people in those posters on the walls of my grade school. They represented
America and those things that I held to be sacred and dear, my dream. I had tried
looking like them, even to the point of wearing a suit and becoming part of the status
quo, the mainstream, but I became disillusioned. I decided they were criminals
and I went about trying to destroy them by putting them in jail. I thought they
deserved to do time for their crimes against my dream, the crimes that destroyed the
dreams that I'd had as a young man about what a beautiful, wonderful, hopeful world it
would be. Then I sobered up and discovered that sobriety equated to just one thing, self
love. If I could love myself unconditionally, I could muster the faith to believe that

God created me in fairness and equality, not with two strikes against me but to be who
and what I was and am. If we can love ourselves unconditionally, we can have the faith to
believe that God dwells within us and all we have to do is be accountable for it. Take
the accountability and maintain the faith.

Remember the old slogan from the 60's? "Keep the faith, baby." Keep the faith. Faith
is power in its simplest form. Faith holds the universe together. God isn't about
redemption and salvation or damnation, it's about faith. It's about you, your need, what
you need God to be. In that need then, your actions and responses to the needs of
your fellow human beings will not be based on their color, size, weight, or their
economic or social status, but on the fact of their relationship to you as a human being.
According to my stories, the Mother-Father Creator is simply everything and
everywhere. We are all from the same source. We are that source. We are of God and
God is of us. Everything that exists outside of us exists within us. We seek outside of
ourselves that which has always been within. We are the God we seek. We are
responsible, we are connected, we are accountable. And when the Creator asks at that
time why we did this, we will answer, "Not for ourselves but for all our relations."

We come from the same place and to that place we will return, but only after we have met our
commitments and responsibilities and not before. We started together and together we will
end. No one will finish before the other, so let's get off our dead asses and get to work.

-3-

SPIRIT/SOUL

Our soul, our spirit, is connected to each and everything that exists. It is us
and we are it. Since everything is the same, only in a different form, there is no way to
separate ourselves from anything. We cannot separate ourselves from the trees, the
rocks, the mountains, the grains of sand, the mist of the ocean or the droppings of the
birds and animals. There is no way to separate ourselves from the seeds, the plants, roots,
stems, leaves, or the fruit. We cannot separate ourselves from the garbage, the paper,
the plastic, the metal, the radiation. We are not separate from those things which are
disruptive or that kill us silently as we breathe the air. We say "kill," yet there is no
death. We are infinite. There is no beginning and no end, we simply have always
been and will always be. The soul and the spirit lives on. It goes out, moves along the
spirit road and comes back again at the time and place of its choosing. It selects its
parent or parents and the time and circumstances in which it comes back, timing it
in conjunction with the constellations, choosing when it gives life to the fetus carried
within the female form, the vehicle by which things arrive here on this earth. Our soul
simply rejuvenates to return again so it can continue to meet its responsibility and
accountability — that obligation which allows us to do the things we need to do for those
generations that follow.

The next generation is made up of the children of today's young women who are growing
up under the influence of drugs and alcohol with the idea that they must be beautiful and
find some role to fulfill in the life of another, often going into a life of servitude. That

is not the lesson they need to learn. Instead, we need to share with them that all things are
sacred, as their spirit, their soul is sacred and that they are the living representation of the
sacred energy which created all things. Everything is of the Creator. We come from the
same place and everything is one. In the multiplicity of spirits who are reading this
book, there is only one spirit. That is Tunkashila, Wakan Tanka, God, Allah, Buddha,
whatever you wish to call it or have it be and it is only one. It is that way above and it is
that way below. There is no other way, for that is how it has been told and shown to us.
This time of year, the autumn, was when the buffalo moved southward and we followed.
The buffalo here on earth is manifested as the power of the sun and that manifestation is also
in the constellations. In the truths that were given to us, we were told that if we were to
honor the Creator we would follow those things which were shown to us in the stars.

The lessons that we were given then are the same lessons that sustain us today. As the
buffalo moves south, the sun moves south and we follow the sun. We follow the power of
God on earth in our ceremonies and in our minds, as we have for centuries. It is our soul,
our spirit, it is God itself that is working through us, for we represent that energy.
In a later chapter we will talk about the red and blue days. The blue represents the sky and
the red is the earth. Our souls are embodied in the blue and red. We are encircled by and
combined with the sky and the earth and we are one. What more could we want? What
more can anyone promise us? Some abstract redemption that releases us of accountability
and responsibility? If that is what we want, it is easily acquired. All we need to do is turn
from the face of the Creator. All we need to do is turn our back on the lessons and
instructions which we were given at the beginning time and we can easily acquire those
things which are upon the black road.

The red road was laid out for us in the heavens. We were placed here as a people by the
Creator and we have lived here ever since, watching the sky. As the heavens move, we
move, thus our movements are designated by the movement of the universe itself Our

ceremonies are directly connected and related to the universe, as it is directly connected
and related to specific places on the earth. Those ceremonies were given to us in the sky
by the Creator with instructions which, to this day, are followed and done in the proper
place and the proper time by the proper people In our ceremonies and rituals and in the
idea of our infinity and our oneness with the Creator, we recognize and honor these
things and carry them on. Our Sacred Pipe is a celestial Pipe that was shown to us in the
sky and at this time of year we move toward the Pipe Ceremony in the
constellations. We have been given that Pipe to pray with as we watch the sky and
we are obligated to pray for all people and all things to which we are connected.
The Pipe is sacred and we are part of that sacredness. The earth is red, the pine is red,
the people are red. It is a oneness. All things that grow upon the earth are represented by
the wood. All things that fly and walk, the winged and four legged, are
represented. All things to which we are connected and of which we are a part are
represented by us, the two legged. We honor and respect that Pipe. It is not to be bought
or sold and there is no need or cause for anyone else to duplicate or replicate those
ceremonies or to use those objects in any way.

We remember the spirit and soul, as it has come back many times and will return many times
from this point on. We remember for those who have gone on, for those who we keep in
our hearts, and for those ideas which we hold dear. Having faith in our spirit and soul
alleviates the concern as to when or how we will leave this earth. Rather, the issue is
how much can we do for all of our relations in the time that is remaining to us. How
much can we do for the children who will come after us. How much can we do for the
sick, the ill, the dying and the infirm, for the elders who are shut away, for those who are
not physically whole, for those who are repugnant, for those we shun and push away,
and for those who have lost sight of their spirituality. As human beings, we spend
our lives reacting to other people when what we need to do is remember who and what
we are. We are infinite, we are spiritual, we are connected, we are related, we are

accountable, and we are the same. We need to remember the spirit and the soul, to
reflect upon when our lives began and take accountability for that. We were the ones
who made the choice to return in this physical form, selecting a parent or parents, and
the time and circumstances by which we would reenter.

We are all the same thing, only in a different form. Humanity and creation are one and the same.
Animate, inanimate, still, frozen, hard, soft, liquid — all the same. You, like me, are one.
You are one as you sit wherever you are. If you never went to a church, if you never
heard a sacred word, you would still be holy and sacred, just as God is holy and
sacred. You are encouraged to remember that God touches you every time you breathe.
Every time you breathe, God fills your body and flows through you. What
greater blessing, what greater sacredness is there? Why spend time on the
petty little things that concern us about our lives? They mean nothing more than that we
are human beings with little faith.

The spirit, the soul, is as powerful as whatever we perceive God to be. All we
need to do is act in a way that demonstrates our faith. To act is a decision
which requires our responsibility. How we act isn't the result of the time or
circumstance. It isn't because of a place or person. It is our responsibility. We are
accountable whether we believe in a higher power or not. Even if we all believed that
God dwells within, we would still act differently than the person next to us because
we are an individual representation of God, as complex and diverse as the
pebbles that fall from the mountain top and lay at its base or as the grains of sand
that are washed upon the beach in a far-off land.

As I write this, we are moving toward that time of the year when the sun, which is
the coal, the fire, moves toward the Pipe to ignite the tobacco in the sky. We
were given that way to follow. We were shown that constellation and that star
map and our holy men and women interpret it as soul. We represent the One. We

are connected to what is above and what is above is connected to what is below.
It isn't folklore, it isn't a folk tale, it is a fact. Evidence exists that it is so. We
follow the instruction of God, Tunkashila, Wakan Tanka, the good holy energy
we have followed all of our days. We continue to look at the sky with reverence
and marvel at it as it moves. In it we see our reflection and like a mirror, it is a
constant reminder of the duality of all things. What is above is below and what is
below is above. We move past the Bear Lodge in the sky and the sun moves down
the stem towards the bowl of the Pipe to light it at the time of the dry willow which
is our tobacco. It is there on the other side of Pleiades and it waits for the sun.
We, as children of creation following our instructions, will also carry that out
before the first Thunder Beings speak to us in the spring. We have done so for
thousands of years as Dakota/Lakota people and we will continue to do so.
Your soul, your spirit, is all that you desire. It is all that you search for. It is the
God within. The next time you shoot up, hit someone, take a drink, or think or say
unkind words, remember that you are representing the Creator, whatever you
believe it to be. Denying it will not change it. Believing that God is outside of you
in some far-off place will not change it. Nothing can change the responsibility
and accountability of your soul and spirit.

We are all the same, only in a different form. We are all one and in that oneness, we
need to recognize that each and everything we do is never for ourselves but
always for all our relations.

Everything, including you and I, comes from the Mother-Father Creator and since they are
infinite, that means we are too. All it takes for us to trust this thought is a tad of faith — about
the size of let's say, ahhh, something like a mustard seed. Okay, okay, so you've heard it before.

So what? This time, listen.

-4-

LIVING AND DYING

he red book* says, "Alleviate the fear within you. Know that you are infinite.

Know that you are infinity in this form and that though you make transition, this energy
will return again and again and again and again because life itself is unending. Energy is
unending. Let go of the fear of materialism, let go of the fear of non-materialism. Let go of
the fear of dying, let go of the fear of living. Let go of the fear of breathing, looking, smelling,
tasting, feeling let go of the fear and just be. Be who are you are, for it is in that wisdom that
you then demonstrate the wisdom of the Creator, the Mother-Father Creator, the Mother-
Father God"

Many of us go through life in fear both of living and of dying. We are born, we
laboriously trudge through life and we hope that we eventually get to another place. We
can either make a hasty or a long-drawn-out-machine-plugged-in transition. At times we
are plugged into those machines against our will but since we haven't said or done
anything to preclude that, it is assumed that we want to live as long
as possible. In our fear of dying we have our kidneys, our hearts, our livers and our lungs
replaced and we die anyway. The problem is, those that survive are broke and have no
money to carry on a life of their own. We have taken from those who stay after us in
pursuit of something for ourselves. Our ego has become invested in itself and we are
greedy for this aspect called life.

For many, the idea of punishment makes dying fearful. Transition becomes a

fearful thing because we are afraid, not of the transition itself— dying is something
we've done a million times — but of the punishment that comes as a result of
leaving ourselves vulnerable to the "judgment." Many of us judge ourselves more
harshly here on earth than anybody we could think of In spirit we may not feel
anything, but in this life we feel guilt and shame and the pain of things we do as human
beings that are contrary to our faith. Dying is not something to be feared. Death is
simply a transition and we will be back. We will return again to bring memory into
someone's life, to bring laughter, purity, honesty and trust into someone's life. That's what
happens. We come back again and again, not because we were bad and are being
punished but because we have the love of god that dwells within us and it is our purpose
to perpetuate that love for all things. Let go of the fear of living, let go of the fear of
dying and make that transition in a sacred way and in a sacred manner, as the sacred
being that you are. When you let go of that fear, you demonstrate the wisdom from
which you were created.

Since energy is infinite, energy is forever, how could we ever die? My daughters, who
are now in their twenties, still see their grandmother who passed away in 1980. She still
comes to them. A figment of their imagination? It makes no difference, she is there.

Perhaps she has reincarnated and is now someplace upon this earth. Still, they see her as
they remember her, as she appeared to them. She is still here. Everything is forever in the
spirit, which we recreate in the now. In the physical world, the material world, nothing is
forever because it makes transition and the forms change even though, because of our
own selfishness and ego, we want things to last forever. Somebody once said we
reincarnate only after everybody we know has died. For many of us, the opposite is true.
The reason for reincarnation is to get away from the people we know. People are dying to
get away from us and yet we hang onto them — plug 'em in, sew 'em up, turn 'em on. We
beg and plead, "Please don't die, I need you. I don't want you to die." Who cares what
you want? Your wants and needs are not relevant in that situation. The questions is,

what does that departing person want and need? If their body is suffering and
wracked with pain and they don't believe in medication or pain killers, they want to go
on. Those who leave us leave us in love, even if they weren't able to tell us. Their love is
there for us and they are always with us and we are with them, they are part of us and
we are part of them. They don't go anywhere that is so far away we can't touch or be
touched by them. We touch them with our mind and our heart, our love and our memory.
Earlier, we referred to the read and blue days, that the red was the earth and the blue was
the sky and water. It goes a little bit beyond that though for me, as a Dakota/Lakota. It
encompasses the aspect of life and death. It refers to the time when the moon will turn
red and the sun will turn blue, just the opposite of what appears today. Those
events signify the ending times, when the end has come. It also refers to duality,
the recognition that what is above is below, the macrocosm and the microcosm.

If there is something in one place, it is also someplace else. Everything there is exists in
some other place and in some other form. There is nothing that is not without its
counterpart in the universe. We have been told that it is the ending time for anything that
views the red and blue days but because everything has its opposite, has duality, then if
you die, surely you live. So, in the realization of living and dying we come to this
issue of breath. In this micro-macrocosm of the Dakota/Lakota cosmic connection we are
taught that with each breath we are a new human being. Each breath is a new life, an
infinite possibility, a new beginning. W e a r e spiritual beings that have gained
wisdom from the last breath, from the last realization of the red and blue days,
from the ending time. We have seen something in that breath that has reduced our
ego and we continue to live as spirit, as a spiritual being. As we exhale and leave the old
breath, we inhale and take new life and are again infinite, immortal, and sacred in the
exact form of that idea within our own mind, according to our need.

These ideas are not something from pagans and savages. They come from God, from
the heavens, from the stars. The story of life is 'written in the stars, in the constellations

and the universe. Perhaps that is why so many of us are interested in astrology, in
finding out about our relationship to the stars. Information about the heavens has long
been guarded among indigenous people. We were warned not to talk about the stars
because some people would want to rip them out of the sky to gain power. In
addition, the information was suppressed by the government because it did not
want these ideas shared with other people, particularly non-indigenous people,
fearing the whole aspect of their lives would change. People would lose the fear of
dying because they would realize that life begins and ends with each breath. They
would realize that they are indeed infinite, sacred and spiritual.

We are the embodiment of the Mother-Father Creator, the aspect of what God is about.
The only requirement is that we live our lives accordingly, realizing that with each
breath we are a new person. The ending time, death and life, occurs at the end of
each breath and at the beginning of the next. It seems simple yet it is connected to a
cosmic reality which has led us for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. We
were talking about this in 200,000 B.C. Those constellations were in the sky,
recognized and followed in 2,000 B.C. It has only been in the last five hundred
years that the new ones have suppressed and attempted to destroy that knowledge.
When Mexico was destroyed by the Spanish, part of the story says the people
looked for the return of their sun. They believed that one day their sun would
return and, at that time, they would again be as strong as they once were. The
temples, universities and libraries were destroyed and the people went indoors and
underground waiting for the time when their sun would return. Likewise, we have
waited for generations until our sun has returned in the form of the four legged which is
reflected in the cosmos. It is there in the constellation and it is reflected here on the
earth. I wrote in chapter three about the power of the sun, how the sun gives life and
moves through the heavens and the buffalo was its representation on earth. For us,
as indigenous people, the buffalo became the power of the sun as it moved from north

to south. As we followed the buffalo as a source of food, we followed the sun in the sky.
Then along came someone who was determined to kill the sun and who destroyed the
buffalo by the millions and millions, someone who destroyed the light by which we
moved. Our symbolic sun was destroyed by the invader in order to throw us into darkness
so we might look to some other light. has brought us nothing but more darkness —
until this seventh generation when we have relit our fires and the buffalo have
been reborn and we will again follow the power of the sun across the earth.

I recently took part in a sobriety pow wow and I had an opportunity to do the invocation
and speak for my adopted daughter who was the head girl dancer. She is of the seventh
generation who, it was said in our prophecies, will begin to return, make that
turnaround and go in the other direction, move away from the destructive nature that has
been so much a part of us. I danced with her as she danced around the arena to the song
that was sung to honor her. She danced for all those who had gone before her. She
wasn't dancing for herself, but afterward some people came up to congratulate her when
what they should have done was thank her. That is one of the differences between our
cultures. When something like that occurs, people are often anxious to say
congratulations thinking the person has achieved recognition or accomplished
some great task when, in the Indian world, one says thank you. A thank you would have
been more appropriate than congratulations because she was dancing for all the
people who didn't dance, for all those who had danced before her and for the
generations that come after her.

We are in that time of regeneration, the seventh generation It's going to require that
young people have mentors. Young people need older people in their lives. Young
men need elder men to talk to. They need examples of the life experience of elder
men. The same is true for young women. If you are a young woman, find an elder
woman that you respect and hook up because you need somebody to talk to besides
your husband and sons, sisters, daughters, nieces and nephews. You need somebody

to talk to besides your rabbis, priests and ministers, particularly if those folks don't
know about red and blue days, about breathing and life beginning and ending.
The seventh generation means new ideas, rejuvenation, rebirthing. If you are using the
old ideas, shape up, take a breath, retain that which you consider to be wisdom and
let the rest fall away. We are all spiritual, infinite and sacred. We are worthy,
honorable and heroic. We are related. You are my relatives and I am yours. Our spirit
is infinite, there is no end. Living and dying occurs with every breath. We die, we
experience death with every breath, every time we breathe. What's the goal? The idea is
that we have obtained some information from that last breath, we see something in
someone else that removes our ignorance and we recognize something about ourselves
that lessens that part of the ego that is self-destructive, so that in the next breath we have
become a new person.

Life and death, living and dying is to know that everything we do is not for ourselves
but for all of our relations.

Everything is your relative and your responsibility.
That's all. There is nothing more.

-5-

RELATIONS

Many of you have probably heard the prayer, "For all my relations." Indian people
have been saying that for such a long time no one knows exactly when we were
instructed to pray that way. There are three stages of our development and we are in the
third stage now, but that instruction probably came in the second stage. There was a time
before we were flesh and then we came onto the mother earth and began to initiate
a process by which we could connect again, as a reminder. We began to use that phrase
somewhere along there — "for all of my relations." That prayer expresses and
encompasses the accountability that exists in recognizing and honoring our relationship
and connection with all things.

As I write this, it is the second week in October and in celebrating this week and
Columbus Day, many of us think history took a great leap forward when some guy got
lost and landed down in the West Indies. He was- called Columbus and he
brought technology yet even back then, we prayed for all of our relations. As
technology began to advance our people began to die in the hundreds of thousands. It
has been estimated that there were two or three million people on this continent or in
this part of it at that time. How about fifteen to twenty-five million people? By 1952
we were down to less than 250,000 Indians —from fifteen to twenty-five million
down to 250,000. By any standard, that's a pretty clear example of genocide. It
certainly was not accidental. Still we were praying for all of our relations.

At some point during that time, because we were moving along with technology so
fast, the Pipe was brought to us so that we might remember. We were starting to get
lazy in the mind and overwhelmed with our own personal problems. We began
complaining about the poor treatment we were receiving at the hands of people we had
trusted and those with whom we had made treaties. We complained about how poorly
we had been treated as children here on earth, as two legged who were put here by the
Creator. So the Creator sent us a messenger, an angel, a prophet who brought us
something and said, "This is representative of what is in the sky, what is printed
there in the stars. If you will do these things that I tell you, it will carry you from this
point to that point. As the sun, the stars and the constellations move back and
forth in the sky, you too shall move back and forth on the earth. We will give you
something to follow that will provide you with food and light, harmony and balance."
When the Creator asked the four-legged beings who would take responsibility, who
would be accountable for the two leggeds, the buffalo stepped forward and said they
would be responsible for their relatives' well-being. The Creator, the Mother-Father, said,
"Good, then you shall be like the sun. You shall guide the people across the land. You
shall take accountability for your relationship." And so, we followed the buffalo. It
became the symbol of our sun, the power of life. The sun moved across the sky, the
buffalo moved across the ground, and we followed. The buffalo provided the food and
spiritual strength that we needed as a people to survive. So it was told to us and so it was
shown to us in the sky. The constellations that told the story were over the place where
we lived, so our whole lesson was right there above us and all we had to do was look at
the sky to remember. All we had to do was live by the rules that we were given by the
Creator — what is above is below and what is below is above. It has always been said
that way, even in the time before we were flesh. We took our relationship to all things
very seriously, it was the basis of our beliefs. Our relationship was our connection
to all things and to our sacredness.

Meanwhile, technology continued to move on and we saw the destruction of our great
nations by force, assimilation, starvation, disease, war, politics, red tape, and
bureaucracy; by forgetfulness, isolation and removal; by lying, cheating and stealing,
and yet we prayed for all our relations. We had been told that dancing was a form of
prayer, a form of faith, that we dance who we are and there came a time of great hope
when we believed that if we danced and prayed as we were instructed, we would bring
back our relatives who had long been gone, we would bring back our sun the buffalo.
We were told that if we danced, the earth would build up and swallow those things
which were dangerous to us and were trying to destroy us; the earth would cover
those things which threatened our existence. We asked how we would know the time
when these things would happen and we were told there would be an event but that we
must keep dancing. So, for the hundreds of years since technology has been among us,
we have been dancing for the return of our relatives. Even when our dances were
out-lawed, we continued to dance.

Then came a time when we were divided up among a people whose new light was
brought to us, the light of a new way. Still, we danced, some of us now dancing with
a foot in both worlds — some days Christian and some days Indian — and feeling
guilty about being either one. Many of us turned away from our own world views
and grabbed onto the new light and in doing so, fell into despair. We fell into despair
not because we were lazy or slovenly, or because we couldn't handle alcohol; not
because we didn't have a will to work or because we wouldn't give up the ethic of the
hunter and gatherer; we fell into despair because of the suppression and oppression,
our imprisonment and the breaking of our spirit by the removal of our children, the
light of our lives here on the earth, as was the buffalo. Our children were taken from us
and sent away to school or adopted out by the thousands to families who wanted a little
Indian child. They were forced to lose their identity over the years until they no longer
looked like our children, they looked like technology. And yet we kept dancing. We

kept dancing — continuing to pray for all our relations —because we were
instructed to dance in the stars, in the heavens.

Today, we are still dancing and the significant event we were told to look for has
happened. The white buffalo was reborn in the late 1800s, in 1933, and again in 1994. It
has come to say to us, "Remember to pray for all of your relations." We have
danced back the buffalo and now one might ask about the return of our relatives and the
earth building up and swallowing technology. Our instructions didn't say how that
would happen or what our relations would look like. We had an accountability, a
responsibility, to recognize those events as they happened and to recognize our
relatives when they returned. Now that time has come. The earth has risen up and
our relatives have come back. I am of the earth, my people are of the earth and we of the
earth have risen up and covered, in less than six hundred years, the technology which
has sought to destroy us and our children. You are my relatives that were gone and
have come home. We've danced you back. All of you here now are from this earth.
You have had generations here, you are buried here and you have been reconstructed
from this earth. You have intermingled with the earth and with the first people of this
land. You are of this earth and we are related and connected.

More and more people are wondering why they are so interested in Indian
spirituality; why they are drawn to the drum and feel such a pull to get out there in the
circle and dance; why they want to know about Indian people. Why indeed? The idea of
why your hearts long for all of that is not new to us. It is because you remember a
lifetime when you were a person who knew their relationship to the earth. Perhaps you
have not been respectful because you have not realized who you are. You have come
home, we have danced you home. Now it's time to recognize you as our relatives —
regardless of your color, your politics, your ethics or your social and economic
standing — and to work with you in a way that helps you remember who and what you
are. We are all related, we are all the same thing in just a different form. Recognizing

our relationship and accepting who we are allows us to have a sensitivity to our
diversity and the differences of our being in a respectful way. We have all been
every color and have the ability, should we choose to use it, to communicate with all
people — any color, any nationality, any culture. Now, what many people need to learn
is patience. For many of you that seems to be a foreign word. You are impatient and
in your impatience, you become improprietious and invasive. A long time ago,
Columbus was impatient and in looking for a faster trade route to India, stumbled upon
our people. He resolved "the problem" in less than ten years by wiping out an entire
civilization. Many of you are looking for shortcuts to spirituality and come from cultures
which encourage adopting bits and pieces of other world views to try and fill a void in
your own lives. Like Columbus, this approach can be extremely destructive.

Unfortunately, many of those "shortcuts" tend to revolve around ritual and ceremony, but
those things are only reminders for a culture which, by the repetition of ritual and
ceremony, help us remember who we are — not what we are, but who we are. If you
are not of that culture, you don't need to participate in any of those ceremonies or rituals.
They are designed for the people of the culture to which they were given. You don't
need to learn the language, be made a blood brother, cut any skin, wear special clothes,
or live with me to fill that spiritual void in your life. All you need to do is realize that
you are sacred and in that sacredness, you draw a direct connection with God. You are
directly related and connected to God. You are infinite. Your life ends in one breath and
begins in the next and when you pass from this world, it is the same.

We are all related and we are all sacred. There is nothing more we need to know. We
are sacred by the very act of our creation by the Mother-Father Creator. It hasn't got a
thing to do with anything else. Accept your sacredness, that's all you need to do.
That's why you've made these journeys, that's the reason you've gone lifetime to
lifetime. The instructions are written in the heavens, in the constellations. They
were not just haphazardly put there. Beyond that sky is another sky, there is another

universe beyond this one. There are a trillion galaxies and there are a trillion places yet
that you are to be.

You are sacred, you are wakan. You are the infinite energy of whatever form of God
you wish to see or believe in. We are all one. We are that One. We are relatives,
we are connected, we are accountable. All you need to do is accept that and you have
accepted the God within you. What have you got to lose? The realization of the spiritual
power that exists within us and our connection and accountability to all things is what
makes us mindful of our sacredness. Everything is related and connected to
everything else, all things are part of the One Source, and whatever we do is not for
ourselves but for all our relations.

Ceremonies were given to and designed by members within the tribal groups themselves for
the explicit use of those tribal members only. They were never meant to be taken outside
of the tribal context and traded, shared, or bargained with. Anyone who says differently is just
looking for work out among the spiritually starved.

-6-

POWER

I was tempted to call this chapter Red Power or Indian Power because that seems to
be the focus of anything relating to indigenous people. There are numerous books and
seminars that claim Indians know things no one else does, that they have some secret
knowledge by which one can gain access to power and receive instant benefits. There
seems to be an association in popular thought between Indian spirituality and shamanism
and some people are willing to spend significant amounts of money trying to gain some
sort of mystical power. Well here's a news bulletin, the joke's on you, it's power you
already have. You've wasted your money attending all those seminars and buying all
those books.

Some time ago I went to a gathering of Indian elders and shared with the people there
that the time we have looked forward to, the time we have spoken about and hoped for,
has come; that, indeed, our relatives have returned and now we simply have to recognize
them as such. Instead of seeing them as foreigners, we need to treat them and interact
with them as we would new children into our family, new
relatives that have come from a far place to be with us to eat at the table of wisdom.
There was a lot of talk, also, about language and how we must maintain our languages,
our rituals and our ceremonies. We must do that, that's true. That is for the preservation
of the culture, but we don't have to sell or prostitute those things. What we need to do is
share the power of how we have survived.

The power of how we have survived is in two phases. The first part is an awareness that
everything is sacred, period. Everything we can imagine, everything we have ever
thought of, everything we have ever been told exists or even the possibility that it exists,
is sacred. Everything, every conceivable object, act, or thought has a purpose and a
reason for being in the circle of creation and is connected and related. Until we can
accept that, we will continue to be separated, alienated and unwitting participants in the
destruction of the earth. Power isn't a matter of wearing certain clothes or participating in
certain ceremonies, those are cultural things. Power is about recognizing our sacredness
and the sacredness of everything within the universe, as far out as we can remember.
Everything is sacred. Everything is part of the creation. That concept seems to be difficult
for many people to grasp, and based on how they act and what they say, not many people
believe it.

The second thing about power is related to the first. As I mentioned, I was at a traditional
gathering of elders and they had what many of you are sitting on now, chairs. In a
traditional way, we should have been sitting in a big circle on the ground because our
power comes from the earth. The mother earth is where we, as Indian people, have
gotten our power. It is no wonder, then, that we are concerned about the earth,
that we died heartbroken because our land was taken and that we still die today when our
sacred places are covered by the wheels of progress and the needs of the few.

All things come from the mother earth. Everything we eat and wear, our homes, steel for
our automobiles, ore, our raw materials, all come from the mother earth. Everything we
send into space — and that eventually falls back onto the ground — comes from the
mother earth. All the volcanic ash that blows up comes from the core of the mother earth.
The water comes from beneath the ground —the mother earth. The mother earth is what
gives life to us all. If we do not respect the earth, if we do not see ways in which to have
modernization and technology without destroying the earth, then we will not have much
left and things such as water, clean air and food will become scarce. In its cycle of

purification the mother earth will extract it's power, pulling from it those things which we
need to exist. At that time, power will become real to us because it will be your power
and my power that is extracted. Everything is connected and related and the earth's power
is our power. We are killing ourselves by allowing things to continue as they are.

We need to listen, our children need to listen, that's what power is about. Mothers need to
retake control of the family, to take control of what is taught and shared. The best
lesson we can teach our children is that their power comes from the earth. We who
are life givers — which is all of us — need to reflect upon our willingness to accept our
connection to the earth. If we cannot believe in our connection to the earth, what
is left? We who are as sacred as the earth, the stars, the moon, the Creator, the Mother-
Father, we who are the beings here on earth representing the two legged, if we cannot
see our sacredness and our connectedness to the earth, what hope is there? It won't do
any good to be in church on Sunday, Saturday, or Friday. It won't do any good to be at
some seminar, sitting in front of the TV or reading some book intellectualizing the
possibility of our spirituality. We are already as spiritual as we are going to get.

What we seek, we already are, we just need to recognize our connection to the earth and
the sacredness of all things.

Power is established and based upon our needs, just as God, or whatever God represents
to us, is based upon our needs as human beings, as two legged. When you read
about Indian power, forget the magical mystical things that have been written, the
romanticized things that have been said. It really just boils down to this, everything is
related, everything is connected, everything is sacred. It has been said over and over
again but nobody pays any attention to it. Instead, people are looking for some
magical ceremony, some mystical stuff to wear, something to hang around their necks
or put on their backs. You don't need any of that, those things are for the people of
that culture. All you need to know is that you are sacred and that you are connected and
related to all things, and then act accordingly.

I am frequently asked by people how they can find out about their Indian ancestry. Why
do people need to believe that someone in their past may have had Indian blood?
Why aren't we satisfied with simply being human beings? One day it will not
matter if we are 1/72nd, 1/82nd, 1/13th, 1/12th, 1/2, 3/4ths or a full blood. It will not
matter because we are, have always been, and will be for infinity, human beings. We
will be man-woman, woman-man, sometimes both at the same time. We will be
black, white, yellow and red, poor and rich, happy and sad. We will be all of those
things. We have been in the past and we will be again.

You may have heard it said that the sacred hoop is being repaired, that the people are
coming back to put it together again. It can't be done without each of us. If you have
seen the hoop, you know it is formed by the colors black, red, yellow and white. To
complete the hoop, it is necessary to include people of all colors. If anyone is left out, we
have no hoop and if we try to stretch it around to where it is all red, the ends won't even
touch. Our power comes from realizing we are only one small part of creation and we are
connected to all things. Native people, when telling their stories, say, "We know who we
are and we know where we come from. We know what our responsibilities are. We know
we are connected to the earth and we know we get our power from our mother." We have
been able to survive for five hundred years or more by holding onto that realization even
though people have sought to destroy us and our belief in that power.

You can have all the power you want, all the power you have ever dreamed of, all you
need to do is realize your sacredness and find your connection and relationship to the earth.
It doesn't take a ceremony or a ritual or anything else to do that. All you need to do is say,
"The mother earth and I are connected," and remember that everything you do, you do not
for yourself but for all your relations.

If people will stop praying for themselves and their own needs and start praying for the needs
of others, everyone will get what they need — because the person next to you is praying
for you and the person next to that person is praying for them.

-7-

PRAYER

As I mentioned earlier, it is hard to recall just when the instructions were given to
us to pray for all of our relations and not for ourselves. It became an act of simplicity to
just say the words mitakuye oyasin — for all my relations. Now, no matter where we go,
we hear it. Everyone is speaking Lakota. But do we remember what it means?
Prayer is a form of communication. There are books of prayer, pages of prayer,
litanies of prayer, rituals of prayer. In fact, prayer is involved in just about everything
we do. Breathing is something we take for granted but breathing is a prayer, a prayer
of thanksgiving. To breathe is to give thanks for the gift of life. We know how to
breathe because we have such a strong attachment to living and we think if we stop
breathing, we die. But we were told that life goes on, that life continues, so when
indigenous people pray, we try to remember the continuance of life and the infinite spirit
that dwells within all things, to recognize that spirit in those things around us and to pray
for everything but ourselves. It reminds us of who and what we are.

In an earlier chapter, I said that dancing is a form of prayer. It has always been
prayerful, even contest dancing. We say things like, "Lord, let me win. Let me look
good, let me have that right step, that right move." It is a prayer for ourselves,
right? Why else do we compete? What is competition? Competition is about
winning, about getting the prize. We compete about being spiritual, about being
holy, about being good. "Lord, let me be pretty, let me be rich, let me retire, let me die.

Let me get rid of all the unpleasantness in my life. Let me be the best. Let me be all that I
can be. Hallelujah. Let me be unbiased." That's the way we pray. We plead, beg and
bargain with God. "Lord, let this happen and I'll never do that again." What the Mother-
Father Creator has been forced to do — and what we believe is their concern — is to
listen to our prayers for ourselves. How egotistical and self-centered we are to
believe that God should be concerned with our prayers for ourselves.

For years I prayed for myself because that's the way I was taught as a child. The first
prayers I ever learned were for myself Even during the times I was inside the sweat
lodge in my recovery and early instruction, I heard people praying for themselves. I
listened and decided if that was how it was done, I could pray for myself outside the
sweat lodge just as well as inside. At some point, I began to use symbols that would let
me think about the concept of praying for everything but myself. I drew a line
down the middle of a piece of paper, then I drew a small circle on one side and another
circle on the other side. One circle represented me praying for myself, praying to
something or other for something to occur in my life, and the other circle
represented me praying for all of my relations. Then I covered that half of the paper
with more little circles. Those circles represented all of you. It made sense to me that if I
could convince you to pray for all of your relations, I would be included in your prayers.
So, on one side was me alone praying for me and on the other side was all of you praying
for me. I kind of weighed the odds. What if some higher power is unhappy with me?
What if, as some people believe, God gets angry and is going to punish me and
wouldn't answer my prayers? Hey, he might answer yours. Not being angry at you for
anything in particular on any given day, God might say, "Praying for Little Crow,
huh? Yeah, okay, I'll answer that prayer." And so it gets done, one way or another.
When we pray for ourselves and nothing happens, we feel abandoned, forlorn and
forgotten, but when we take the time to pray for other people, we reduce the amount of
time that we worry about our own problems and our own illnesses and we are busy

doing what we want God to do —thinking about us. What I mean by that is when
someone is praying for you, God is thinking about you. Think of prayer as a test of faith
and practice it in such a way that your faith is restored — stop praying for yourself and
pray for others.

Someone who doesn't even know you is praying for you at this very moment. Right
now, your needs are being prayed for. Somewhere in the universe, someone woke
up this morning and said a prayer for you. Somewhere someone is doing a ceremony
that, in its language and its content, in its ritual and its ceremony, provides for you, it
mentions you. Think about that! People are praying for me out there so I'll take some of
that energy and I can use some of this energy over here, too. What an act of faith. If
we can just get people to stop praying for their own needs and to pray instead for
the needs of others, everyone will get what they need. Weigh the odds, take the ego out of
it, pray for other people. It kind of works itself around and in working itself around, what
you need is provided.

Many of us seemingly realize the power of prayer because we often ask others to pray
for us. At least that indicates we know that someone else can pray for us besides
ourselves. Nowadays, even medical science is starting to talk about the healing power of
prayer — that when people get together and pray for someone other than themselves, a
healing takes place. How about that? Boy, science is really on the cutting edge. That's the
power of God, the power of the individual creative energy that dwells within us.

That's the power within each of us for which we are so reluctant to accept
accountability. We have the power to help in the healing of other people through our
faith, not by directing energy to the person's kidneys or their hearts or their livers, but
by asking in our prayer for that person to use their own wisdom, faith, and strength
to draw from the energy that surrounds them, to be brave enough to open themselves to
the universe and to those things that are there to strengthen them. When we pray for
people to have the courage to take from the energy that is presented to them and use it in

the way their wisdom dictates, everything is left up to them. We are not intruding or
invading as we do when we ask God to give someone direction, to heal them or
change them in some way.

Prayer is about connection, realizing the connection that we share with all things in the
universe. Not just the things we can see, touch, hear, taste, or feel, but all things. Your
job is to pray for other people, for other things in the world to which you are connected.
Take your mind off yourself and pray for others. Some people say, "It's really hard
because my name keeps slipping in there, I keep saying I or me." That's just being a
human being. You can't be perfect so every now and then your name will slip in there,
but you can be aware of it. Others say, "My prayers are short. After a few minutes
I've prayed for everyone I care about." Then pray for people you don't care about, pray
for everything in the universe, for all things to which you are connected.

"For all my relations" includes everyone and everything. It is pointless to ask God to bless
everyone except a certain person, to bless everything except certain things. We can't
separate ourselves from anything else. We are all the same thing, only in a different
form. We breath the same air, we live in the same universe and we are connected.
Earlier, I shared that the power of indigenous people comes from their relationship to
the earth, the recognition that in the earth and all things of the earth there is the
creative energy and by standing on the earth we have an obligation and a
responsibility to honor that and to do it in a prayerful way, to pray for everyone but
ourselves, pray for all of our relatives, regardless of color, political party, social status or
gender. In our prayers we remember the first people on whose land we stand. This
land we stand on belongs to the people who the Creator put here to take care of it. We
don't own it. We're passersby, we're renters. We're here for a brief period of time
and eventually those things we built will be covered. They will go their way and
those who come after us will rebuild.

When I feel the most disagreeable part of my personality surfacing, I work in the earth. I
dig and smell the dirt, get it in my nose, on my hands, under my fingernails. I get
back to where I came from. My body was given to me from the earth. I'm in California
and the energy of all the people who ever lived here is in this earth. When I dig into it, I
get that release. I feel that energy coming over me and I'm thankful. Pretty soon I'll hear
the crows cawing and the dogs barking and I'll hear somebody's music way off
someplace. Then I'll hear trucks and cars driving by and I'll look up and an airplane or a
helicopter will fly over and it's all connected, it's all sacred, it's all related.

Even though it is not politically correct any longer, I would like to hear some of our
politicians pray. I would like to hear them pray for the people, for all their relations. I
would like to hear them pray about the environment, about the gang problems and the
crime problems, about how we are going to solve those things, and then see them take
action, take some accountability. It seems to be easy for many people to ignore
their connectedness and accountability. Some people believe they have achieved
salvation and don't need to do anything else. They don't care what the rest of the
world goes through or what happens to anyone else. They are selfish and greedy and
only care about themselves. I would like to say that's terrific, that's one less person I
have to pray for, but in reality, I can't do that. Lying in bed at night I pray for all
people and as I finally fall asleep, hoping I've prayed for everybody, I just say mitak,
mitak — for all my relations.

We pray for all of our relations, as we have been instructed. When it began is not
important. What is important is whether or not we adhere to it. Do we remember it?
Do we believe it? Do we have faith? Do we practice it? Do we practice it to the
extent that when we are done praying we can close our eyes without the fear of a job
left undone? Have you ever heard Indians pray? We pray a long time because we are
trying to remember and include everything in our prayer. That's not an accident,
that's because we have been told and we remember that a lot of things get

overlooked and we want to make sure we include everything. It is part of
our tradition, it is part of our heritage, it is part of our faith.

Each and every one of us has the same power and the same energy. We are all sacred. We
are all spiritual. We are the embodiment of whatever we believe God to be and we have
an accountability to remember that. Pray for everything but yourself and always
remember that everything you do is not for yourself but for all of your relations.

We have separated ourselves from the creation, putting ourselves outside of it, replacing
known reality with complicated and distressed notions of man's place and ranking in the
universe. We see ourselves as masters of our surroundings rather than as relatives and partners
with our surroundings, placing the physical world and ourselves in a state of disharmony
and sorely missing natural balance.

-8-

PLACE

Place has a lot to do with accountability and responsibility. We are in and on a
place within the universe that we refer to as the mother earth, and upon the mother earth
are placed all things of creation. All things of creation are in place and wherever they are,
wherever they sit, stand, fall, or are buried is the place they are supposed to be. This idea
eliminates the need of asking ourselves what we should be doing today. We have already
answered that question. We are in our place, doing whatever we are supposed to be
doing. That is where we choose to be, for whatever purpose or reason.

This place where we find ourselves, here on this sacred ground, is important to us as
Indian people. We were brought here and given this place, this mother earth, to care
for before anyone else was here. We came here in a responsible and accountable
way to take care of the earth and to do it in a way that is as much in balance with our
surroundings as possible, remembering that we are human beings who, even then,
became distracted by possession of territory, land, horses, people, places and things, in
accordance with our needs — no more and no less.

In the caretaking of the place where we found ourselves, we were instructed that there are
certain ceremonies and rituals that we are to perform which are exclusive to our culture.
Each culture has something exclusive to it and a way in which it is to accomplish the
same accountable, responsible acts in caring for the land. Every nationality, in
its traditional oral history, myths, folktales, legends, whatever you wish to call them,

has had an accountability for the earth. Whether that accountability is practiced by
druids, witches or warlocks, shamans, goddesses, priestesses or priests, it is the
same. We were all put in this place to take care of the land and we are accountable
to pray and to conduct our ceremonies and rituals, to practice our world views, for the
benefit of the earth, the universe and everything that has been created. It is our
responsibility, as indigenous people to do that. We have been given those things so
we might remember who we are, where we came from, what we are related to and who
our relatives are.

When we asked the Creator how we would remember what we were to do, we were
told that we would be given instruction in the sky so we could see it and not forget
in case our thinking got a little feeble; we were told that our elders and holy people
would instruct us, based on what was in the sky. We were told that we are to
do our ceremonies at specific places and times, so as those constellations move across
the sky, we follow and do our ceremonies in certain places because we were
instructed that is where they are to be done. The reason tribal people have always been
so determined to retain a particular place, a particular land base, is because that land base
is directly related to the constellations that appear in the sky above it. Whatever the
season, whatever the time of year, the corresponding constellations are there above
that land.

You can see why the issue of land is so important to indigenous people. We were
put here so that we could fulfill our obligation, meet our contract, so to speak, but we
have been denied access to the places on which to do that. The land has been stolen,
taken by force and by genocide. In taking the land, the place where we are to
practice our world view is eliminated. If you eliminate that, you eliminate the hope of
the world. Thirty million Indian people were killed so that the land could be taken and
our obligation go unfulfilled. Now I ask you, who is Satan? To me, Satan is the one
who denies you your language, your ceremony and your ritual; the one who says you

cannot fulfill your obligation and your responsibility because you are a sinner or
because that isn't the way that it should be done. The country has fallen into ruin,
nations have fallen, governments have fallen, currencies have fallen, societies
have fallen, morals have fallen, integrity has fallen, all because we have not been
able to pray in the way we were given. Many of our people turned to another way in
confusion, still hoping to fulfill their obligation by praying to another form of God
which was brought to us. We have been assimilated and acculturated and have put
our ceremonies and rituals aside for this new teaching which does not recognize an
accountability for the earth but says, rather, that the earth was put here for the whims
of man, that man has dominion over the earth and we can do whatever we want to it.
We have the idea that after the earth becomes unlivable, we'll just create a stargate and
go someplace else, but let me tell you, there is no place left for us to go and there is no
one who is going to come and rescue us. It is up to us to clean up the mess we have
created.

Indigenous people in this country have been forbidden to practice our "religion," to
practice our ceremonies and dances by law, by acts of Congress, by the signing
of legislation. People have asked why we don't fight for religious freedom legally
by using the constitution. The constitution has never, nor will it ever, apply to us
because, as sovereign people, sovereign nations, we are outside of it, even though it is
the one that we have defended with our lives, as many of you and your sons and
daughters have done and will do in pursuit of the idea of democracy. We don't need
the constitution to protect our religious freedoms, which is a good thing, since
it never has. We were here long before the constitution existed and we'll be here long
after it's gone. What we need to protect our religious freedom is to be able to say to
ourselves, in faith, that we are following what we truly believe and let it go at that.
Still, one has to wonder what it is about our world view that is such a threat. It must be
threatening, otherwise how can one explain why there was such a campaign to crush it

out, to destroy it. Perhaps those in power didn't want people to know the truth, that the
earth is alive and that it is from the earth that we gain our strength and our power, our
God-ness, our goodness, whatever it is we seek, whatever we think we need. Our
power derives from our admitted addictive connection to the earth. We are
children of the earth, products of the earth. The earth is our mother. We are
connected to all things of the earth and all things of the earth are sacred. Everything is
sacred, the four legged, the winged, the ocean, the breeze, the grass, the dirt and the
garbage. Even the piles on the ground left by our four-legged brothers, what's left
on our cars and our hats by the birds, what's in diapers — it's all sacred and comes
from sacred, pure beings. God is in all things and all things are God. Everything has
spirit and is alive. God is the trees and the grass. God is the sun that gives us light and yet
creates bumps on our skin, puts cataracts on our eyes and burns us up with cancer.
Everything is endowed with the holiness, the sacredness, of the Almighty God
which we worship deep within our heart, in that place where God dwells.

Given the importance of the land to the survival of indigenous people, it
becomes clearer as to why the treaties with the Indian tribes in California were never
ratified. It was so the land could be taken and the people could be displaced. Many
people have expressed admiration for Ted Turner's TBS epic about Native Americans. It
included the Northwest, the Southwest, the Northeast, the Southeast and, of course,
the mighty plains, but it did not give a proportionately balanced representation of
California Indian people. Nothing was said about the area which contained the
largest concentration of Indians in this country. In California there are people
fighting for recognition, still struggling to survive, but they weren't mentioned. That's
because most of us don't know anything about t

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THE SACRED HILL WITHIN - A DAKOTA/LAKOTA WORLD VIEW by LITTLE CROW

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