So how does one become a Medicine Person? Some would say that you have to be a young person chosen to apprentice with a Medicine Person and spend years learning how to be one. There is a lot to be said for that and traditionally this seemingly was the method was used by many Medicine People. But the thing you have to understand here is that this is an outside view of the process and when I started walking along this path I too would have told you the same. From this point in time (now) it is very different.

I guess here I have to tell you a little more of my path. I had neither idea of nor desire to become a Medicine Man. Years ago I read about Carlos and his teacher Don Juan and their journey together and Carlos’s walk to become a Medicine Man and no way did I want, suspect or see myself in that role. Then in fact, it all seemed like a very cool fairy tale. Little did I know that I was already on the journey. Even after I began in earnest to look into my heritage I still did not have a clue.

One of the first events in my memory is at sixteen; I discovered hypnotism and the awesome power of the mind! In my mid twenties I married a woman and helped her through hypnotic session work to develop her talent as a trance medium. At the same time I discovered taro cards and became a reader. I moved to Denver and dabbled in Druidism, New Age and Eastern philosophies for a while. Understand that within all of this time I held a "normal" professional computer job and lived what seemed a "normal" life. It was during the early 70’s with Viet Nam and all the upheaval at that time that I got "burnt out" on it all and moved to Idaho to escape and to later meet Bill My first Native teacher. Another pivotal event was that I then divorced and met and married my wife Lorraine and we moved to the small Victorian resort town of Eureka Spring AR; that I had fallen in love with as a child during a vacation visit.

Eureka had an "air" of healing Spirit about it and here my Spirit walk began to bloom.

I joined a group of people working on their emotional beings as a structured group. Through this group I again began to "read" people and gain some the "healing tools" for working with others. I then joined with a group of men who wanted to work on men’s issues and to talk about how it is to be a man. This proved to be a major turning point in my life and the beginning of a powerful reconnection to Spirit. During this time I gained the biggest part of my tools for doing Medicine work. Even so I still didn’t have a clue this was what was going on. A Lahkota trained man taught us men how to run a Sweat Lodge. Over a couple of years we had several Lodges and after one Lodge while I was standing outside looking up at the stars The hand of the Great Spirit came and hit me right between the eyes and knocked me to the Earth. Though startled and dazed I began to remember that a man that I turned down had ask if I had wanted to go to a Sacred Mountain in South Dakota and do a Vision Quest.

Within a week I was on the on the road with this other man heading to S. Dakota. When I arrived on the mountain I met and spent time with several Medicine Men all of which had unbelievable teachings for me and then there was the mountain itself, the biggest teacher of all.

We arrived about 1am in the morning and I, still being "wired" from an eighteen hour drive cautiously walked around the sleeping encampment and found a small out of the way knoll and began an instinctive walk Sun Wise (clockwise) in mediation. As a late partial moon began to rise and light up the camp an empty area next to the camp and a just a little distance from me took on an unusual attractive light about it. Even the dew on the grass was a different color. I had this strong compelling urge to walk over and take a look. After a while I did just that and as I was slowly walking over I felt an unbelievable pull to walk into that area and also a great fear of it. So I am standing there on the edge of this area looking and having this conversation in my head. "Should I or shouldn’t I". I finally just said "to hell with it" and stepped in…………..Pow!…..It was as if a bolt of lighting went through my body! I let out a yelp and ran back to my safe knoll and began my Sun Wise walk. After some time of walking I sort of woke up out of a daze and realized I was walking the opposite direction that I should, counterclockwise. I said no!..no!..no! To myself and began to walk clockwise again. Well as it turned out this happened twice again and I was so shocked that I finally said to myself "It’s time to go to bed I am just too tired". Next morning I met The Medicine Man I was suppose to work with and he being a man of few words said after to me after a few greeting words "Go and be with him" and pointed to a half breed young man near me. We sat and talked around the fire for along time and with several other Natives. After becoming comfortable I told my story the night before. All of the Indians began bust-a-gut laughing some even rolling on the ground laughing so hard. I felt foolish and wanted to run away. When the young man I was setting with regained his composer he said, "Its all right we were not laughing at you". "You know that place you stepped into….that was the camping place of the Coyote’s The Heyokas they do "everything" backwards". "They tricked you and invited you in". The medicine Man told me I was to Vision on the Heyoka part of the mountain.

My Coyote adventure didn’t end there. I had in preparation for this Vision Quest tied the required Prayer ties (prayer ties are little 2 inch squares of specific colors of cloth with a pinch of tobacco and a little prayer in each and tied along a long string about 3 inches apart) I had tied 606 ties of six different colors which amount to a lot of work and prayers. These ties are when unwound are used to form the 12 feet square boundary of the space up on the mountain within which you are to spend four days and nights seeking your Vision. So of course I had my Vision in broad daylight on the edge of the "Indian parking lot" looking down into a small ravine. Since the beginning of that day I had felt an intensity building and I was seeing lights and things whizzing just beyond my vision past me and I began to shake uncontrollable and suddenly all became quiet and suddenly there at the edge of that parking lot My Great Grandfather stood before me and in a very stern voice told me that I didn’t respect my ancestors and that I didn’t belong there and I must come back to Oklahoma and show them respect and just as suddenly he was gone. I stood there dazed and shaken to the core knowing I had to go back then. I did go back to Oklahoma to a beautiful native sandstone enclosed family cemetery; the locals call the Indian burial grounds. During the time I spent there I made a connection to my ancestors that was far beyond time and space for me. Each of them came to me and spoke with me and I’ll never forget my time there. I found there with an unbroken ness that goes back to the beginning. I felt during that time many of my ancestral Medicine people put their hands on my shoulder and whisper in my ears telling me this is my walk. Even though at the time I could not see myself in that role I left there with the understanding of "I may at times be lonely but NEVER ALONE".

I, through these experiences and teachings from other teachers began running my men’s group lodges and started running my own lodge. I began to feel people treating me differently and in one moment of absolute shock I knew that they were treating me as a Medicine Man! All of the words of the other Medicine People I had learned from suddenly hit me between the eyes and I understood that they been telling me this since I was a young man. Because of some of the events I spoke about above and many more little events throughout my life I knew that Coyote was my walk. Over the time of walking the Coyote Medicine Walk I have come to know that I didn’t learn to be a Medicine Man I was born to it! I had been told by other Medicine People and now know this myself that we see others born to The Medicine Walk and teach them to recognize this is their walk and to show them some of the tools they will need for their journey. So in closing I must say you are not "chosen" or you don’t go to "Medicine school" but it is just your walk!!!

Jim TwoFeathers