Native road trip journal II

            River and I are in a motel on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation, and this is like nothing you've ever seen. The motel almost looks abandoned for one thing, and the rooms are Spartan. Not even a phone. A Folger's can collecting water dripping from the toilet tank. No channels on the TV. A few other details I won't get into.             This has been a full day. We traveled to Bear Butte, the holiest of all sites to the Plains Indians. On the north face of the hill, the northern Cheyenne maintain a permanent encampment of sweat lodges for their people to purify within before ascending the hill for four days of solitary fasting and prayer. Of course, this must be done without any intrusion from hiking tourists, so the tribe has a standing guard of Dog Soldiers, the renowned band of warriors who keep watch over the sacred sites and block entry by outsiders. This is a state park, but its primary significance is as a holy site to over 60 tribes, so there is extraordinary accommodation for the tribes' use of the site for ceremonies. This site is far to the west of the Ojibways, but there is even evidence of Ojibway observance of ceremonies at Bear Butte.             River and I were privileged to view the sun dance ceremonial items and eagle feathers which had belonged to Frank Fools Crow, the premier holy man/healer of the Lakota who is regarded as "the Indian pope." Fools Crow passed on in 1989 at the age of 99. Fools Crow taught the people to be open-hearted to all races and to share with them, yet he was also vigilant about the misuse of Indian spirituality by non-Indians, and once said that "those who talk the most about Indian religions know the least about our healing secrets." Fools Crow, who had but a third-grade education, delivered a prayer before the United Nations and became known as a primary representative for Native peoples' sovereignty issues in politics, advocating for the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota according to the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. It was he who uttered the now-famous slogan, "The Black Hills are not for sale!"             Fools Crow refused to accept credit for his powerful healing abilities. This man was gifted with miraculous powers, and one of my close friends witnessed Fools crow perform miracles (described in the non-fiction book, "Green Grass Pipe Dancers," which I illustrated for the publisher). But Fools Crow admonished those who have him gratitude, advising them not to bestow glory upon him for his life's work: "I am but a vessel for the Creator to work, and so are you", he said. "I am like a hollow bone tube through which the Creator's mercy and love can flow into others. I am not the thing that flows through the tube, I am but the tube. Praise the thing which flows through, for it is God. I am a hollow bone tube, and so are you, and so is every two-legged on this mother earth." In this, he taught us to respect the gift of healing by praising God, and not to see ourselves as the source of these miracles. We are called to be merciful and loving to all others, but we must remember that healing comes from God, not ourselves. Nobody becomes a healer because they crave glory or esteem. Fools Crow lived in a tiny shack with no running water, and chopped his own wood until he was too crippled. He had no wealth, just horses, jeans, cowboy boots, and flannel shirts. But when he died, people came from around the world to commemorate him and the line of cars was over one mile. Fools Crow's sculpted bust is mounted at the visitor's center of Bear Butte. I am humbled by his example, and reminded that although I possess very little and have scarce income, I am a very rich man in the truest ways.              The path up Bear Butte is two miles long, very steep, and not designed for tourism hiking. It is a thin ledge of rock shards creeping along steep drops and winding up the butte in switchbacks through the thin air. Every single tree is adorned with prayer flags of colored cloth and offerings of sacred tobacco wrapped in cloth and tied into branches. There is a standing request that visitors not disturb, touch, or photograph these things, but there is also an understanding that even scenic photography will inevitably capture prayer flags and tobacco ties in any picture, so it is not blasphemous that my photographs of River have such things apparent in the background.             As we trekked upward I became very afraid for River. He is not well coordinated, and his awkward movements often result in clumsy slips and falls. To see him scrambling along edges walking over thousands of loose shards was breathtaking because the hill's sides slope down steeply with no lining rails. But I also discerned a teaching in this, too, as my mind connected the physical risks of these steep trails with the admonition to avoid "slippery slopes." I came to a realization on Bear Butte that these trails are symbolic to my own life, as they wind and reverse course and lead in directions that seem incongruent with the visible goal of the mountaintop. At times a trail would appear to lead in a logical approach to the summit, only to abruptly stop and reverse to a new direction. It seemed like an endless trek to find the resting place at the mountaintop, one thousand feet up and at the end of two miles of uphill climbing. It taught me to apply these symbols to my own life, moving forward in faith that these confusing trails would indeed lead to some eventual ultimate summit, a place where clarity and vision finally appear. And the treacherous slopes bring out a symbolism too: walk in truth, plant my footsteps with deliberation, and avoid pressing forward beyond my own abilities. The lesson to me was that I need to be more humble, to see the summit as a gift of insight and wisdom from painful paths rather than seeing it as a personal accomplishment that testifies to my own skills or greatness. If I see these paths as the courses of my own greatness, I will misstep and fall. I will bring injury. And if I try to lead with those misguided ethics, it would bring jeopardy to my family, symbolized by River's endangerment if he were to try to keep pace with my bold and prideful ascent. To achieve enlightenment, I must slow down, accept changes in life's course, become honest to the point of pain, and not succumb to the slippery slopes of hectic desire for accomplishment. I suppose there are many ways for Bear Butte to bring a vision to a man, and perhaps fasting in solitude is but one. Seeing teachings in every speck of nature is another.             As we descended the hill, I saw a golden eagle begin to whirl around the peak and corkscrew higher through the rushing winds. It did the most astonishing thing: it opened its wings and, without moving, let the current lift it straight up over the hilltop where it froze in place, stationary in the wind like a kite. The wind rushed and screamed down the hillside like a gathering storm, yet the eagle remained perfectly still in the sky, not circling or drifting. I remembered Bill Miller's teaching that the eagle faces storms by opening and locking its wings, rising above, rather than cowering. For an hour River and I watched the eagle, which was almost eerie in its statue-like levitation, as if it were a sticker placed on a television screen which does not move while the scene beneath it busies with activity.             River was really affected by Bear Butte, and asked questions like "How old do I have to be to go on a vision quest?"                River has been a lot of fun on this trip so far. It's hard at times to appear constantly fascinated by his chatter, but we're getting along very well. He loves the Black Hills and hopes we'll move there. When he enters a souvenir rock, gem, mineral, and fossil store, his whole body reacts with a sudden spasm of overwhelm: his limbs twitch and he shudders like someone walking into a force field wall as the deepest loves of his soul bubble up all at once: shiny treasures!               Here is a new teaching to consider. Imagine if I set out a table of dishes for you, each containing a different food: flour in one, molasses in another, a few raw eggs, some salt, some sugar, some lard, baking soda, a stick of butter. Now imagine that I asked you to eat them! I cajole you to be brave, and not to fear something as harmless as a bad taste. Would you be able to eat them? Could you fill your mouth with flour? Bite off a chunk of butter and swallow it? Crack open the eggs and gulp them down?             Now imagine that I gave you a freshly-baked cake and asked you to eat it. Would you? How would it taste?             It is made from the same ingredients. Which ingredient would you ask me to leave out? Would it still be a delicious cake if I did exclude any ingredient, even though it would seem "gross" to you by itself?             The cake is wonderful, even if the ingredients that make it are distasteful. We can't leave anything out of the recipe and still hope for the same positive result. This is a simple teaching about your life: there are ingredients that, by themselves, are distasteful and even "gross." You would never willingly select those things from being included in your personhood. But nothing about the final product is worthless, and you become far more than the sum of the ingredient experiences that have comprised you. Do not reject the ingredients of your life, but seek to understand what place they might have in a more complete and whole you.               As if to exemplify this teaching, just moments ago River bounced on the bed behind me and said, "You know, this motel is better than I first realized. I didn't expect them to have a TV, even if it has no channels. I didn't expect it to have a lamp like that one. I didn't expect it to make me feel comfortable. It's better than I first thought."