My Walk With In "The Medicine Way Part #3

After a straight eighteen-hour drive a friend and I arrived at Bear Butte a little after midnight for my much anticipated Vision Quest. The energy and expectation had been progressively building during the drive and by the time we arrived I was wired. But as we pulled up into the "Indian parking lot" at the foot of the Mountain, I felt let down. The Butte, silhouetted against the night sky was, smaller than I had imaged, wasn’t really what I considered to be a butte and seemingly unimpressive.

From the parking lot we had to cross a narrow footbridge over a deep gully on to a plateau at the foot of the Mountain. Here all of the Medicine People and the people, who came to Vision, camped. Scattered around the edge of the area were several Sweat Lodges. Most of the people were already asleep when we arrived except for a few shadowy figures of people around a couple of fires. The man I came with wanted to sleep so I ventured off by myself. I walked carefully and respectfully around the area as not to disturb any one or any energies there because though unimpressed with the Mountain I felt quite a bit of anxiety and knew for sure I didn’t want to do anything wrong. I stayed away from the people at the fires as I walked up to the path at the foot of the Mountain. This is where I felt the first of many fears and strong energies. At the foot of the path I felt a strong barrier and knew to go no farther. There, off to the left and a little above me I found a little knoll with prayer ties and circular path. This little Knoll overlooked the encampment slightly below I began to feel…feel something just outside of my awareness. Later I heard that this little knoll was where Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull addressed the amassed Tribes before moving to the fateful Little Big Horn. As I walked that path I very much became aware that this place was not as it seemed and my time here was going to be much more than my first impressions.

Most of that next day we were getting adjusted to our new surroundings by finding a place in the encampment of Napoleon (Nappy) our Medicine Man to set up our tent. As I looked over this plateau I could see there were several other encampments of other Medicine People. Just beyond the edge of the encampments were four Sweat Lodges each with their own fire pit. I want to tell you a little about these fire pits. These fire pits were impressive, they were about twenty-five feet in diameter and the actual pit itself was about ten feet below ground level, the need of which will become apparent later. The first level of the pit was a sunken sitting ledge and then below that the actual fire pit. When you sat there you felt how ancient and powerful this spot was. At the end of each fire pit, most facing the East, you exited out a cutout in the end of fire pit to the lodge itself. While sitting there I knew that Crazy Horse or Setting Bull or Fools Crow themselves had once sat there.

While we were finishing our camp setup this half naked man came walking away from one of the Sweat Lodges (You have to always Sweat after you come down from the Mountain) we later learned he was coming down from four days on the Mountain. He walked near to where we were and got into his tent to change. When he came out he came over and introduced himself. He told us his name was William and he was a Dakota from Vancouver and one of the most humble men I have ever met and the depths of his eyes were incredible. He asked us if there was any thing he could do to help us get setup. We spoke for a while and we learned he was a policeman from Alberta and that he came here almost every year to "Hear the message from the Mountain". Later while talking with some other Natives we heard his story about his time on the Mountain. He had spent four days standing with an Eagle talon buried in his back, tied to a tree and a thirty-pound buffalo robe around his shoulders. I know this sounds extreme, but the Spirit of this man was powerful and totally un-macho. Without sleeping or resting from his ordeal he spent the rest of the day helping others. This Man and his story jarred me deeply. I had always seen or read about what I considered overzealous regiligious people enduring great pain because God or Church somehow required it of them. I ask him about this and he told me that for him it was not a requirement but that everyday he experienced and took on so much pain and suffering that he needed experence it to understand it himself. And that by doing what he did it somehow made him feel at peace. I understood that he was walking his path in his way and that he was a Holy man.

In contradiction to William I met this man later that day who had moved from Switzerland to Vancouver and had gravitated to and made if you can call it that friends with some young Dakota men. He had lots of money and had brought all of these young men there all expenses paid to have a Vision for them and himself. Every time I saw him he was arguing with most of the people and the Medicine Men there. He didn’t do any of the cooking or fire wood carrying or anything but complain about why should he have to do any of the work because he just wanted to do a Vision. A few days later I heard all this shouting and arguing. He was toe-to-toe with Nappy yelling about "Your good for-nothing dirty Indians have stolen my expensive rabbit coat". And Nappy standing there showing no anger or emotion would answer him each time with "The Mountain took it" "But" he said, "Those boys I brought, left and ripped-off my coat" "The Mountain took it," says Nappy. This went on for some time until finally this man stormed away, left camping gear and all, got in his car and drove away. All because he didn’t get it! He Showed "No Respect" and got none! You might think that those boys did indeed steal his coat and left but when you hear the story at the end maybe you may just know that the Mountain did indeed take it. The Mountain always had its WAY.

A few days later this white woman whose tent was near ours came angrily rushing, crying and cursing off the cliffs on a side ridge of the Mountain (The place where the Hayoka’s Vision) and started to throw her stuff into bags and take her tent down. Every now and again she would stop and shake her fist at the Mountain and curse and then continue with her hasty packing. Later in the parking lot after she had calmed down a bit I approached her and asked her what had happened. She told me that she had been coming here for four years supporting others, praying and preparing for finally going up the Mountain to Vision and Nappy had put her up on the Mountain between two Heyokas and they had made rude jesters to her, shouted obscenities and was thoroughly Spiritually bankrupt. She told me she hadn’t come there to have her Vision disrupted by such disrespectful clowns and she couldn’t take it any longer. After she left I had a clear understanding about the whole thing. Hayokas do everything backward, are seeming Spiritually disrespectful, contradict everything and are truly in the fullest sense Coyote Clowns and are one of the most powerful Medicine People around. From her and those "Clowns" I learned a powerful lesson about expectations and acceptance. Even though she didn’t get it, I felt that that whole thing was for me.

On the same day the woman left I met a young man Alex, a Lahkota boy from the Pine Ridge reservation. Everything about him was beautiful. He had long black hair down to his waist; an almost feminine yet masculinely chiseled face and a way about him that I can only describe as Humble Power. He had come there with his Grandmother (A Medicine Woman in her own right) to go up on the Mountain every night for four nights because the Mountain had come to him in a dream and asked for him to come. I became friends with them both. I spent quite a bit of time with his Grandmother hearing her stories. She told me Alex was a Yuwippi Medicine Man and that she was a silver smith and showed me this incredibly beautiful bracelet she had made especially for her Grandson to take up on the Mountain his last night. During the day Alex spent his time carrying firewood and helping others in anyway he could. He also spent a lot of time talking with all of the Medicine Men. Each night he first Sweated then went up on the Mountain and Prayed all night and came down next morning never sleeping.

On the day of his last night Alex came to me and asked if I would be his fire tender for his last Sweat Lodge (someone always tended the fire to keep the Stones hot until needed while someone was in the Lodge). I was completely blown away by his invitation and felt very honored to do this. A big storm with very high winds gusts was blowing in from the North West for most of the day. By late afternoon the wind gusts had to be forty or fifty miles an hour. I had some difficulty but managed to prepare the fire and Stones as I had been taught for a dusk Sweat. Alex, a member of the Turtle Clan arrived and began preparing for the Sweat. He walked over to the alter mound and lovingly placed his "Turtle Pipe" and his Grandmother’s bracelet on the mound in front of the Lodge to be later taken up the Mountain. He and Nappy went into the Lodge to begin the singing, drumming and praying to prepare for Alex’s last night.

During the time he and Nappy were in the Lodge the storm became full blown and a wind driven rain began (Remember that I said it would be evident the reason for the deep fire pits). Well this was it!!! Even with the depth of the pit I could hardly keep the fire alive during the strong gusts and could hardly stand up on the now slick Earth. Every once in a while between quick breaks in the wind I could hear the muffled songs and drumming coming from the Lodge. When the Lodge was over and Nappy and Alex came out into the Teeth-of-the-Gail! They rushed hunched-over to get their clothes back on, stuff together and took off up the trail. In the late dusk and darkness of the Storm I stood outside of the Lodge for some time watching the lights of their flashlights bobbing up and down as they trudged up the hill. I was about to go over to our makeshift kitchen to see if there was some coffee left when I happened to look down at the alter mound and noticed the bracelet still lying there. I also knew that there was no-way I could reach them because their bobbing lights had disappeared into "The Storm" and I felt bad for both his Grandmother and Alex. I didn’t disturb the bracelet because I knew that it was defiantly not my place so I left it there. I went to see if there was any thing hot in the kitchen and on finding none I trudged off into the storm to spend that awesome night in my car thinking about this young boy on that Mountaintop. Later before I went to sleep I saw the bobbing light again coming off the Mountain and Nappy quickly rushing to his van and driving away before I could even try to tell him about the bracelet. So I tried to get comfortable in my too small-for-comfort car that was shuddering with great blasts of wind and water and finally found sleep.

Next morning I was the first one up of the few left (most had gone in to town for the night) and it was a glorious clear blue morning. I walked up to the base of the Mountain wondering about Alex. I saw him coming down the Mountain and he waved and stopped to talk for a while. He told me about how his night had been and how there were about two inches of sleet on his blanket and that that the Great Wind Voices of Mountain had come and told him why it had asked for him. I didn’t ask what its Voices had to say nor did he tell me. He said he was exhusted and need to go to sleep and began to walk off. After he had walked about ten feet he suddenly stopped, turned around and came back to me and said that he had a message for me from the Mountain" he raised his arm and showed me THE BRACELET and said "Thanks for caring" and "that it had fallen on his blanket last night". He turned and left me standing there with my mouth wide open because only he and I knew about it. I then and there knew a little what this Mountain was capable of and I knew it could take the disrespectful man’s coat if it wanted to. I understood a lot more of the Lahkota saying "All My Relations" and that this seemingly uninteresting place was having a big chuckle on me.

There were many other stories of my journey there but this will show you part of my understanding and why I Walk the Walk I do.

Mado

Jim TwoFeathers