| The
Happening
oooo-oo and then it happened
(and then it happened)
oooo-oo and then it happened
(then it happened)
0000-oo and then it happened
The Happening
(the happening)
(happening)
One day you're lost
(one day you're lost)
Next day you're found
(next day you're found)
and then i have to make up some word cuz i don't know what goes
here
Dah-dah-dah-da
(dah-dah-dah-da)
It turns around
(it turns around)
It happened to me
and It can happen to you
(you, You, YOU!)
One day you're lost
(one day you're lost)
Next day you're found
(next day you're found)
and then i have to make up some word cuz i don't know what goes
here
Dah-dah-dah-da
(dah-dah-dah-da)
It turns around
(it turns around)
It happened to me
and It can happen to you
(you, You, YOU!)
The
Happening
oooo-oo and then it happened
(and then it happened)
oooo-oo and then it happened
(then it happened)
0000-oo and then it happened
The Happening
(the happening)
(happening)
One day you're lost
(one day you're lost)
Next day you're found
(next day you're found)
and then i have to make up some word cuz i don't know what goes
here
Dah-dah-dah-da
(dah-dah-dah-da)
It turns around
(it turns around)
It happened to me
and It can happen to you
(you, You, YOU!)
One day you're lost
(one day you're lost)
Next day you're found
(next day you're found)
and then i have to make up some word cuz i don't know what goes
here
Dah-dah-dah-da
(dah-dah-dah-da)
It turns around
(it turns around)
It happened to me
and It can happen to you
(you, You, YOU!)
|
ARE YOU AN INDIAN?
By Les Tate 11/18/96
How often have you heard or said "I'm part Indian"? If you have, then
some Native American elders have something to teach you. A very touching
example was told by a physician from Oregon who discovered as an adult
that he was Indian. This is his story. Listen well:
Some twenty or more years ago while serving the Mono and Chukchanse
and Chownumnee communities in the Sierra Nevada, I was asked to make a
housecall on a Mono elder. She was 81 years old and had developed pneumonia
after falling on frozen snow while bucking up some firewood.
I was surprised that she had asked for me to come since she had always
avoided anything to do with the services provided through the local agencies.
However it seemed that she had decided I might be alright because I had
helped her grandson through some difficult times earlier and had been studying
Mono language with the 2nd graders at North Fork School.
She greeted me from inside her house with a Mana' hu, directing me into
her bedroom with the sound of her voice. She was not willing to go to the
hospital like her family had pleaded, but was determined to stay in her
own place and wanted me to help her using herbs that she knew and trusted
but was too weak to do alone. I had learned to use about a dozen native
medicinal plants by that time, but was inexperienced in using herbs in
a life or death situation. She eased my fears with her kind eyes and gentle
voice. I stayed with her for the next two days, treating her with herbal
medicine (and some vitamin C that she agreed to accept).
She made it through and we became friends. One evening several years
later, she asked me if I knew my elders. I told her that I was half Canadian
and half Appalachian from Kentucky. I told her that my Appalachian grandfather
was raised by his Cherokee mother but nobody had ever talked much about
that and I didn't want anyone to think that I was pretending to be
an Indian. I was uncomfortable saying I was part Indian and never brought
it up in normal conversation.
"What! You're part Indian?" she said. "I wonder, would you point to
the part of yourself that's Indian. Show me what part you mean."
I felt quite foolish and troubled by what she said, so I stammered out
something to the effect that I didn't understand what she meant.
Thankfully the conversation stopped at that point. I finished bringing
in several days worth of firewood for her, finished the yerba santa tea
she had made for me and went home still thinking about her words.
Some weeks later we met in the grocery store in town and she looked
down at one of my feet and said, "I wonder if that foot is an Indian foot. Or maybe it's your left ear. Have you figured it out yet?"
I laughed out loud, blushing and stammering like a little kid. When I got
outside after shopping, she was standing beside my pick-up, smiling and
laughing. "You know" she said, "you either are or you aren't. No such thing as part Indian. It's how your heart lives
in the world, how you carry yourself. I knew before I asked you. Nobody
told me. Now don't let me hear you say you are part Indian anymore."
She died last year, but I would like her to know that I've heeded her
words. And I've come to think that what she did for me was a teaching that
the old ones tell people like me, because others have told me that a Native
American elder also said almost the same thing to them. I know her wisdom
helped me to learn who I was that day and her words have echoed in my memory
ever since. And because of her, I am no longer part Indian,
I
am
Indian``` |
Then with a laugh she told me that I was an Indian. . So I entered into
the circle, the circle of love and light and healing. . . Wow, to my amazement
I even met a Chief and his lovely wife Spirit!
And somewhere in the mist of this, my time became a bit confused.
There was this guy, Desert Thunder, and he sent in this picture of a lightning
strike. My heart jumped to see such beauty, revealed, captured in
a moment through the lens of his camera. And suddenly I was transported
back in time to the day I had gone out to face the Thunderstorm.
I had said my prayer in honor to the Thunder Beings, and shaking in my
booties, I had stood there and watched them march over my head. I
had seen so much more than I could ever express back then, but I knew they
walked over the land. . And Desert Thunders pictures revealed what I already
knew.
Then Desert Thunder sent in another picture of a lightning strike, and
OMG I thought I was going to have to jump up and sing! Such beauty,
such splendor, you light from above. O my friend, my friend, you’ve
captured my soul!
Still I tried to hold myself quiet and not break into psalms right then
and there. And again Desert Thunder sent in another picture of a
lightning strike. And this time, as I sat there in awe watching the
picture unfold before me, I saw the prettiest cloud dancing before me.
She was so pretty just sitting there with those dancing lights inside of
her body that I had to reach up and touch her.
Then Desert Thunder came back and explained how those dancing lights had
formed first, and then sought release through that lightning bolt, where
it kissed the Earth and then went back up into her body.
By now I am in love with “Welcome home, welcome home.” Her
laughter is running through me like music, and all of her words are filled
with love. Her advice comes from a well of knowledge. She knows
exactly what to say when a person needs it the most.
And then she comes on all hurt because a guy, where she had posted a note
for the rights of Indians, had sent her a letter and told her to ‘get over
it.’ . ‘Get over it,’ oh no I saw her pain. . and what was
worse was the fact that on my journey there I had seen a Native One on
TV, speaking for the cause of Indian rights, and I had thought the very
same thing. I only said it once to a guy on TV, but our thoughts
are powerful entities!
And now to know how much that hurt such a creature of love. . well I couldn’t
go back and apologize to him, so I had to go to her and apologize.
I had to show her my pain, where I had come from to have thought such a
thing!
I was shaking in my booties as I did it. She would have every right
to tell me to leave her sacred fire for me to have ever thought such a
thing, even once! It was the hardest thing, just to hit ‘send’ but
I knew I could not apologize to him and so I had to apologize to her and
I had to beg her to forgive me for ever thinking such a horrible thing!
Then like music in ears she came back and this is what she said:
|
it is exactly what you have done.....forgive you? my God, Maureen, i
want to embrace and carry you to the stars.....i want to open every sacred
door there is for you....so you can be....who you are....an Indian woman.....it
is what i live to do, bring my People home.....it is why i am here, on
this earth to do.......and with you i accomplished that.....can you feel
my joy.....? i give back to you these tears we shed sister.. |
“bring my People home” . . Home. . Home. . I was home.
. Home had been shown to me in this dream almost 2 years earlier:
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