'I wear red leaves for mittens'

Good morning … I start each day from this corner of my small apartment. The shield holds the Wakinyan, the Thunder Beings that help guide this altar. In the distance is The Mother surrounded by hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are a helper of this altar and though so small represent the power of the Wakinyan … a song in the Lakota language came as a gift one day. I will share it with you in English.

Mother Hummingbird,

Father Hummingbird,

Floating there,

Please come,

And, take this from me

Allow me to share with you an old Lakota song in both English and Lakota … it is the Dragon Fly Song. Now think about the Climate Crisis and the Sixth Extinction as read the words to this song. Same with the song above. Just try it … don’t just read this blog in two minutes and click on …

Dragon Fly Song

Mnicaluzatanhan

Kinyan Wauwelo

From Fast moving water

Flying, I come

Tak ociciyakinkta

Ca he wauwelo

I have something to tell you

So I come

Ca Tanyan

Anamagoptan yo

So, listen to me well

Wanna

Wanmayanka yo

Now see me

Niyepi etkiya

Kinyan wauwelo

I come flying toward you

Wicake kin

Ociciyakinkta ca

He wauwelo

The truth

I will tell you

So I come

Ca tanyan

Anamagoptan yo

Wanna wanmayanka yo

So, listen to me well

Now see me

Wankatatanhan

Kinyan wauwelo

From above,

Flying, I come

Ake nin’ignayinkta sni

Ca he wauwelo

I come so you will not

Deceive yourself again

Ca tanyan

Anamagoptan yo

Wanna wanmayanka yo

So, listen to me well

Now see me

Akawinga, Akwinga

Kinyan wauwelo

Circling, circling

I fly toward you.

Otan’inyan

Yanajinkta ca he

Wauwelo

I come so that

You will stand with clarity

Ca tanyan

Anamagoptan yo

Wanna wanmayanka yo

So, listen to me well

Now see me

I recently found this old song in an ethnography from the early 1900’s. Maybe my Lakota teachers knew this song. Sometimes when I listen to these songs on old recordings or read the words my heart breaks. ‘I come so that you will not deceive yourself again’. Would the dragon fly come back into ceremony if we asked it? If we knew how to ask it? There are particular ties and colors that would need to be made. This song would need to be sung. A lowampi or yuwipi would need to be put up. And then the people would need to come, humbly sit and ask for the wisdom of the Dragon Fly.

I ask you … can you imagine doing that? Can you put your mind aside? Your technology aside? Your ego aside? Your agitation aside? Your doubt aside? Your dominant culture aside? Could you sit on the ground inside a lodge with hot rocks and steam and old songs and the possibility of an insect teaching you how to repair this earth? Could you sit for hours on a floor and listen to a bug or a little bird whisper to you how to fix what you, your culture, destroyed?

The following is a piece I have shared before but it is so important we read it again. It is important that we remember all these animals and plants and stones are our relatives and can speak to us. Are ready to speak to us and help us. I know that. But it is difficult to even gather enough people together to perform ceremony. To get enough people together to learn the songs. Anyway, anyway … this painfully beautiful story ….

The following piece is found in an old Lakota story, where it is told the Lakota people heard a beaver singing in the woods. They listened closely and heard this song;

"C iye o'wasteka … wic'a' kasotapi na miye' hi sica oma' kaptape ….. Wahpe sasa apkpa waye …. eya'ha ke' “

My elder brothers, the best of our family, they have annihilated; and only I, with my inferior hide am left. I wear red leaves for mittens.

Sometimes people don't understand that last line. You have to really think on it. You have to think differently. You have to feel sadness in your heart for the beaver. No, more than that, much more than that, you have to enter the wounded chaotic mind of the beaver. You see, 40-60 million beaver were killed for their pelts in the 1700 and 1800's. Nearly driven to extinction. Driven to extinction so that people could have warm hats. And warm gloves.

How utterly poetic, the beaver's response to all the death of his brethren is, " [but] I (only) wear red leaves for mittens [when my hands are cold]." Like I mentioned, that song, that verse, was created and given to the people by the Beaver Oyate. Imagine what we could learn if we viewed the beaver as more than just a dumb animal we kill for a pelt.

Tunkasila, have pity us. Help us. Please.

In my morning time I think about these things. That we have been given the ceremonies to communicate again with all our relatives. If we change our behaviors, fast, learn the songs, learn the ties, perform our morning prayers, perform ceremony regularly and make Sattva part of every life … not Sunday 9 to 10 AM. If every day we practiced this …if every day we communicated with these beings….

…. ‘Oh Tom …. you deluded old man.’

Today’s Headline: ‘Americans are fleeing the West because of extreme heat’

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