Dreaming in First Nations Country

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I wake from a dream of First Nations country,

of a beautiful people who loved the land,

who lived in connection

with Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit,

and with all that is.

I was dreaming of the land as it once was,

lush and bountiful,

dotted with buffalo and bison,

running with clear river water.

I dreamed a sea untainted,

thriving with fish,

whales leaping and plentiful,

a life full and joyous under the sun.

Voices on the wind chanted prayers

to the ancestors,

braves galloped across the mesa on dappled horses,

while below teepees clustered peacefully,

children played and the women ground corn,

gathering wood and water 

for the communal meal.

The scene shifted, upon waking.

The land turned red with spilled blood, 

of buffalo and braves,

as soldiers appeared, with muskets raised.

and people marching, famished and tearful,

across a winter landscape,

herded by soldiers away from all they held dear

into a world of suffering and privation.

Then came old stone residential schools,

haunted by the cries of forlorn children,

whose cries reverberate still

through all the generations.

But then I heard, with hope and relief, 

the beat of the tom tom,

calling fancy dancers to the powwow,

calling men and women warriors to arise

across the land.

The First People's strong and beautiful spirit 

is rising again,

the braves dancing strong for their people,

the elders, bent with age,

passing on all that they know

of times long past,

when they lived on and with the land.

They are bent with sorrow at how wantonly

humankind has taken from Mother Earth

without giving back.

They can see, as we do not, 

the Long March ahead

for the seventh generation,

and their hearts cannot contain

their tears.

But my heart rises with hope

to the beat of the drum,

to the spreading of the message

to all corners of the earth

that we are one,

interconnected with the web of all life,

and that what we do to one

of earth's creatures,

we do to all.

I wrote this this morning, on waking. I am reading The Wolf at Twilight, by Kent Nerburn, about a Lakota elder's painful history. But I have just read Aaron Paquette's statement: Women are Warriors, posted on Kay Davies' site this morning. It is a strong and hopeful message about the need for women to rise, all over the planet. He says "We are in a battle for the soul of the planet. And you are that soul." I do hope you will read this statement, for it resonates, and gives me  hope.