How he and the children survived trying to avoid the soldiers, who were walking among the murdered bodies and shooting the surviving children as they went, only he knows. I am not going to alter anything he wrote nor anything she wrote. She and her father’s remains are buried at Wounded Knee. You will have to decide on your own what these words mean to you. My last walk here, my most detailed memory, was in the plains of the northwest with the People. I entered this world and experienced it with the Lakota-oyate. Words are unworthy of describing the love in me for these people with whom I shared such peace and oneness. All only to be swallowed by the darkness once again, ending in desperate anguish with defeat. This is very much a part of who I am, it is so real within me. This memory has carried me on a journey of piercing agony and ecstasy. It is burned deep within my soul. I do not feel like my heart shall ever cease crying out to those I share these memories with. It is very humbling for me, experiencing these emotions again. They come from my core. For my People—Because I loved you so. As I have always loved you. Hau My Father is with me and there is no one, nothing, no Father between me and my Father. As it was then it shall always be. I have prayed and prayed to my Father, to the Great Spirit, guide my hand, show me where to begin my Father. The answer I was given is “There is no beginning, there is no end. Only a whole, a total. All parts being one.” As the Great Father loves me I shall begin to tell you of my life, this life, all life, the life of my Father’s child. The story of my Father’s children. Father is life. The Sacred Hoop is no longer broken. Our bad hearts have remembered love, remembered our Father and the dream. I can tell you these things now, for with the love of my Father I have forgiven my self. Given up this hate, pain and loneliness to acknowledge that all powers flowing through me, from me, are those of the Father. I forgot that, I was ashamed and broken hearted as I watched my people fall. What my Father was telling me, teaching me, it was not a fall but a complete surrender. A trust, a faith of life and the Dream. I watched as I saw my people crying in pain, children, mothers, fathers, old ones, all my Father’s children. I would rather a knife had been taken to my heart. The pain would have been far less and bearable. Now I see in this pain my Father was granting mercy, taking his good children to be with him as He loves them so. I had forgotten in the blood, the hate, and the lies, the white man—no man rules this existence, only the Father, all is His will. The hardest lesson, the deepest pain, becomes a beautiful song, a joy of the truth. A surrender to the One who is All that Is. Allowing my self to once again feel and remember that, I also am a part of All that Is. This great journey is the meaning of existence. The path leading home. For too long I, as many are doing, deprived my self, denying my true existence. I looked and hated my self so. I hated being what I was told was beneath that which I had so long despised. I wanted to spit at my reflection. I hated these people, these white animals who hurt my people so. All I could remember was rivers of blood and burning flesh. Oh Father, I cannot write these terrible things I remember. It has made my heart ache so. Through the truth of my Father I realized I hated my self above all else. That part within me which held the power, yet, seemed to be rendered helpless. The physical pain of my people, words cannot express the spiritual pain, the great anguish it ripped through my spirit. I hated myself for not being able to rescue them. It was my duty, so I felt. I am a Defender of the Faithful. It was out of my hands here. Such torture my people, such pain in my heart. I was to you a fearless leader and I could not find anyway, anywhere to lead you to. I must make this perfectly clear to you and all generations which follow me, everything is turned around. We are living, seeing, feeling life downside up, outside in. We are remembered as war chiefs, all I wished for in my heart of hearts, in my dream of dreams was Peace. I do not wish to conquer as the white man’s ego is led to. I only wished and wish that my people, my Father’s children be left in Peace. Allowed to live our lives on this Mother Earth, walking our own paths Home. Living our truth. The truth our Father teaches us in living with our Great Mother. At the end before I saw it all dissolved into nothingness, before we went to Fort Robinson, I must tell you for I must admit it to my self, I had wished I held the power. I had so wished to wipe the white man out. Him and his people, his children, his brothers and sisters, his parents, his grandparents as he was doing mine. I wanted to kill them all with my own hands. That is when I knew I must leave, that is when I knew I could no longer help you my people. My heart was bad, my heart was bad and the pain. My Great Father loves me so, as He loves all His children. In my heart I could not ask Him for the power. He knows all hearts. I believe my Father would have given it to me but, I do not believe I would be able to tell you this, to know and have remembered and learned all this—the Dream, if He had granted me such powers. My Father is Great, He is Almighty. If I had asked for these powers, and they been granted, I cannot tell you how but with the Father all things are possible. I know the white man would have fallen to us. We would have rubbed him out. Now I understand, only to fight again another day. It is all my Father’s will. It is so hard my people, to live in this life. It is so hard for those of us who remember who it used to be. My Father has told me no longer look back, life is forward and the Great Valley (is in reference to eternity) is truly before us, not behind us. Thank you my Father. Where does the circle end, where does it begin, what is this endless search, this eternal quest? At times I feel so old, so old. I feel weary of searching, going round and round. Always circling back, back to self, I am then all there is? When will I be set free of this undeniable quest for Home? My dear Father, how does one reach up and grab a star? Always circling to end up back at the same spot, beginning again. What does this all mean Father? I realize it has great symbology, but Father, what does this mean? How may I completely step into this circle? How can I come into the circle and be a part of it instead of just seeming to go around and around it? Where is the path that leads us truly to the center, inward only inward, Home to the Great Valley? I have searched for such a very long time. Finding many truths, many pieces that fit. Understanding it feels more and more, yet it is still not enough. What must I do oh my Great Father? How may I find this road so that I may show it to Your children? How do we get on this good red road again? I know it is not forever lost. Where are these answers my Father? Where do they exist? It seems my mind, my perception, my image nation has expanded so much, yet I feel I cannot see the forest for the trees. I know you will help us dear Father. As You are speaking to me, guiding me to speak to your children. I know You will lead us, You are with us. Thank you Father. May we never allow our selves to forget that again. I have had to face the guilt of leaving, abandoning my people. All of the People who followed Big Foot at Wounded Knee were Ghost Dancers. The haunting pictures of the bodies being thrown into a common grave remain. The people were being rounded up and forced to go to Fort Robinson where attempts would be made to force them all to recant their beliefs. Many people are not aware that the Ghost Dance began because of a vision of Jesus Christ standing in the midst of the People instructing them to lay down their weapons, stop resisting the white man, and to worship in a specific way. The People were destitute and living in squalid conditions on the reservation. With no other avenue of hope and freedom they turned to the Creator, as most human beings do. The Ghost Dance became such a threat that General William Tecumseh Sherman was given license by Congress to suppress it at any cost. No one knows how many thousands of people were killed or incarcerated who were identified as Ghost Dancers. I have kept this message among my keepsakes since it arrived in June of 2000. Because of what is coming on the earth and what is going on even now, the Creator has let me know the time is right and hearts are ready to hear what this man wrote later in his life after remembering Wounded Knee. I believe his message contains instructions for us all. I’m including the poem he wrote here, in this post. There is more, but this is enough for now. The White Wolf is howling at the moon,
Grandmother welcomes his cry, his song. The stars, the fires in the sky shine, Spark and dance for him. He sings to Home, cries out to his nation. Always alone crying out in love, Crying out for mercy. Sensing, almost touching the spirits of The night which dance around him. How can I feel so strong and so Helpless both at the same time? How long must the White Wolf roam Pursued by his enemies, Unseen by his own kind? How long does the cold winter night last?
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