KI Earth Blog - Day Two
After a good nights sleep in the back of my son’s 2004 Toyota SUV, my snug little mobile hobbit house, I woke refreshed. The high Montana mountain air was chilling, invigorating. Tall pines stood guard around me, shrubs reached out to me. Not one leaf moved. All was still under a rich blue cloudless July sky. I was surrounded by shades of green and brown, and as the sunlight filtered through, the leafy green and bark brown took on overtones of yellow. Mellow yellow. Birds chattered good morning to each other, and maybe to me. I finally got it. This is freedom.
There was no reason for me to leave this campsite. I could linger in this peaceful spot for a week, if I chose, but I don’t. The not lingering reminds me that so much of my life has been about getting up and get going. I always had so much to “do.” Of course I talked about “just being.” But I wasn’t just being. I was busy being. A busy bee.
I wish I could put everyone in the U.S. in my SUV as I drove down the high mountain highway - a CD of American Indian flute, drums and rattles setting the tone - the sound and rhythm of our stewards. This land was theirs to hold sacred, and although many of us know that, most forget we are just visitors on this magnificent earth. We want to own it, we think we own it, but as I floated past in my car bubble I was reminded of a dark history of imperialistic theft. Looking into the sky I surrendered my chest to the pull of the Sun Dance . . . pulling me higher into the healing of the past, and into the renewal of all that is pure and good.
Missoula is a beautiful city, filled with trees, a river running through it, and quaint old brick buildings. At a friendly downtown coffee shop I enjoyed the perfect cup. The lovely design was still sitting in the foam after my last gulp. Everything about Missoula is tastefully done, with very minimal consumer impact. Butte, by contrast is an ugly city, with consumer signage acne out of control, and a downtown overlooking half a mountain ripped apart with an open-pit mine. Definitely not a “home” contender. The rest of Montana is stunning. It’s huge, and took me all day to cross it. At a Borders in Billings, I’m contemplating where to park my SUV. After a long days drive, a few beers and the Walmart parking lot might just work.
Tomorrow I look forward to exploring the Crow Indian Reservation, and hopefully get new and refreshing information for my book.
Please feel free to pass on my Ki Earth blogs to whoever may be interested. I’d love to hear from you, hear your story. We are all so unique and wonderful in our own peculiar ways, and the lives we live are important, and definitely worth sharing.
For your enjoyment, here is the second chapter of “Two Crows.” If you decide to share my emails, please start from the beginning of my journey and my book.
Happy Trails and many blessings, Dakan
Crow Village f Montana 1876
2
f
On his way back Grandfather gathered scraps of scrub oak, which he threw into the nearly dead fire in the center of his tipi. He then sat in his spot opposite the entrance flap and waited. Normally the old man would be wrapped in layers of fur, but it was mid-summer and extremely humid inside his tipi, so he only wore his breech cloth. Many bone beads draped from his neck over his bare hairless chest, which now only hinted of a once muscular body. His deeply etched face was framed by four tails of long grey braided hair, accented on top with a crown bun, from which one eagle feather was wedged, pointing to the great spirit. He meditated on the scrub oak smoke as it lazily curled up from the slow burning fire, casting a dancing shadow on the yellow buffalo skin wall. Although there had been no communication between them, he knew that his grandson was on his way and would arrive at any moment.
As if on cue a handsome twenty-one year old Crow Indian warrior ducked under the flap and stood between the entrance, the fire and the old man.
“Sit, Grandson,” Grandfather pointed to the ground where the young man was standing. “Welcome. You have grown into a strong warrior.”
Two Crows nodded as he sat. “Thank you, Grandfather. It is good to be back in my village.” Although many years separated them, the family resemblance was obvious. Like his elder, he too was shirtless, and a similar array of beads covered his well-defined chest. He wore Army issued blue cotton pants with a satin strip down each side, rolled up to mid-calf; two well-used beaded moccasins covered his feet. His waist-length straight unbraided hair dropped like rivulets of black waterfall over his brown muscular body. Tied to the top of his hair were two dark-brown crow feathers, symbolizing his tribe, his totem and his name.
“Tell me, why have you returned, Two Crows?” the elder asked, even though he knew.
“You know that I have lived at the fort of the white chief,” the young man began, speaking with an attitude that immediately displayed his confidence and power as a leader. “I have learned their tongue and many of their ways since the Great Spirit took my parents when I was young. They have taught me their warfare and have used me as a scout. I have in many ways betrayed my people for a warm bed and plenty of food – and my 44 Winchester. I have not forgotten my people and our ways . . . and I regret not returning sooner.” Two Crows took a moment to reflect, and then, as if turning a switch from outward to inward, his entire composure changed. “Always my dreams were plenty. For many moons they have disturbed me more than any enemy I have encountered. The visions are becoming more real, like there is no difference between my walk and my dream. I thought they were a curse of the white man and his medicine. I prayed that if I return to my village the dreams would no longer be. But here under the Crow sky the dreams continue. They are now even clearer. It is as if I leave this place and walk into another as real as this.”
“All of us have dreams. But two walking warriors is the dream of a shaman, those whose eyes can see around corners, can see clearly in the seven directions. Your pony is now riding on the seventh path, the way of looks-within.”
“My pony has been covered with war paint. I don’t understand the seventh path.”
“I have seen you with different eyes since the day you were born. You were supposed to come to me, not the white man, but it is of no used to speak of the rain of a season past. Now you have returned. You must know and understand the seventh path in order for your dreams to make sense. You have come seeking my counsel. Are you ready to ride the high pony?”
“I guess I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t . . . and still I did ask for the high pony or have any desire to look within. I do not like what I am seeing.”
“This is true for all of us who see and taste the poison of our white brother. Tell me, do you go to the same place in your dreams, with the same people, the same situations . . . is it a continuing story?”
“Yes, Grandfather, and it is not a continuing story. Is that so unusual?”
Grandfather bent over to stoke the fire. He didn’t say a word for what seemed a long time.
“Can you do something to stop them?” Two Crows interrupted the silence.
“I don’t think anyone can stop your destiny, my son.”
“My destiny? Was it my destiny to be orphaned to the white scoundrels? To lead their soldiers to our brothers, be they Crow enemies or not. No, Grandfather, this is my destiny - to live here with my people, make a family and be a brave warrior of the Crow people. I hear what you are saying about the high pony, and that doesn’t mean I want to ride it. I am built to be a warrior riding a real horse, not a dreamer on a spirit pony.”
“We’ll see. Let us not waste energy. It is time to begin. You must tell me of your dreams, for it appears they stand in the way of the life you imagine as a Crow warrior.”
“This is so. OK, but it is not easy to speak my dreams,” Two Crows said in hesitation. “You are the only one I would even think of . . . you will not look upon me as a crazy man if I speak my truth?”
Grandfather frowned, appearing as serious as he possibly could, and motioned him to continue.
“Maybe you will not understand much of what I am saying . . .” He looked into the fire for a long minute before continuing. “My dreams are not of these suns. They are from days far away; days that have not yet come.” His eyes met Grandfathers, checking to see the level of shock. There was none. He proceeded with the direct eye contact. “I will do my best to translate what I am seeing, but I do not know how to describe what there are no words for. It is difficult for me to speak of metal birds and metal horses that carry people, boxes that talk and show visions as clear as you see me, and lakes that have no distant shore . . .” Two Crows paused and looked away, nervously poked a stick into the fire, threw his hair onto his back, and then scanned the tipi, focusing on nothing in particular, before speaking, “I will call what I see by the names I am hearing. You will not know what these words mean. Maybe it would be best if you could come into my head . . . for you to see what I am seeing, hear the words I am hearing, so it will have meaning to you.”
“That may be possible. Visions always come with a purpose, not to be hidden in a gopher hole,” Grandfather said with a grin, suddenly realizing how difficult and uncomfortable this must be for his grandson. The young man was obviously a respected warrior, and the admission of these dreams to an untrustworthy ear could ruin Two Crows’s reputation. He decided to change the subject, and approach it from another direction. “I never told you that when you were born I named you Two Moons.”
“Two Moons?” he repeated, caught off guard by the change in subject. “But that’s not my name.”
“You were born at night under a full moon. When I went out of the tipi, I looked up at the moon. There was a white ring around it. I announced to your mother and grandmother – this baby will be called Two Moons. But in the morning when your mother took you out to see your first light there were two crows making noise on a branch, both looking right at you. Your name was quickly changed to Two Crows. To me you were always Two Moons, and now I can see that it was your correct name. Like me, you see two moons, where others only see one. Give me some blood from your scalp,” Grandfather calmly asked.
Although surprised with the request, Two Crows did not question this simple command from his elder. He took out his knife and made a cut just under his hairline, and then collected his blood on the blade. He handed the knife to his grandfather, who immediately licked the blade clean and handed it back. “Now go. Dream the dream you have of this other life, and I will ask the Great Spirit for permission to enter in, to bare witness. I will honor your dream, as you must. I ask you to remember this . . . dreams have a beginning, middle and end. They tell a story. We have many nights to dream, so allow the story to unfold slowly. Live the dream the same as you live your walk. Make no separation that one is more important than the other. Come in the morning and we will talk about the beginning.”
That night Two Crows consciously asked for the dream to unfold as a story and for his Crow totem to fly the dream into the mind of his Grandfather. He brought two smooth stones, representing two moons, into his bed and placed them under his head – hoping they would become one – hoping that he would understand why he was having this dream.
his wife Eleanor left it as is, as a national treasure when she died in 1975.
