Category Archives: Native American Women

Contemplation, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, meditaton, Native American Women, Uncategorized, Writing

Thursday Thoughts

I keep thinking that I have something to say.  Then I sit down and my mind is blank.  I drive around the state all day long with so much going through my head.  I get all excited about sitting down and getting all those thoughts out….but I find now that I am too brain-dead to put too much together.

I find it frustating, to say the least.

So I guess tonight I will just ramble.  Maybe some of those wonderful things I was thinking about earlier will come back.  If not, then at least I have had some typing practice, and I get to spell things.  I am one of those people who, when you can’t figure out how to correctly spell the word you want to use, will just pick a different word.  Hopefully it will convey exactly what I want to say even if it isn’t the first word I wanted to use.

I was on a kick, once upon a time, to use different dictionaries and pick different words every day…that got old and I could never remember any of those really cool words I looked up.  I learned a few new words but overall, not worth my time.

Honestly, there is so much insanity going on in the world that I don’t even try to make sense of any of it.  All these years I thought people were changing, not just some but many people.  Turns out, I was wrong.  We are in such a sad state.

Protesting, fear, anger, I’m right there with everyone.

As a Native American woman I think I can say, for real, I’m scared.  I feel more endangered than ever before.  It’s an ancient feeling.  I am sure that my ancestors knew this feeling well.  Yet I go to work everyday.  Talking with and helping people with disabilities.  I write my reports, supervise the staff assigned to me, and collect my paycheck.

I read a meme on Facebook today referring to all of this insanity.  It was a Buddist monk sitting in a meditation pose and the meme said something like all the chaos being OK since it means that it is clearing out the bad and good is coming after it all.  It was supposed to make the reader feel better.  But all I could think was, how long?

I still wonder…how long?  Will I survive it?  Will any Native person survive a level of hate so high it hasn’t been seen since “manifest destination” ran rampant over us all?

We stay in faith.  We stay in prayer.  It will do.

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Contemplation, Life, Native American Women

Now that history is to repeat itself….

It’s been a very upsetting month.  I have been paying attention to Facebook closely for news happening in North Dakota and what is happening with the Standing Rock Nation of Souix people and their supporters.  I find it sad that I have to look to Facebook for the news that is not being reported on any of the national stations.  

I remember, as a teenager, being told that I would never see any news of what happens to the Native Peoples of this country because the government had decided that they would control what was reported and what wasn’t when it comes to Native Americans.  Back then it was Wounded Knee.  Do you remember where you were when that event started?

Now an oil company is  working very hard to plow through  Native burial lands and sacred sights (again) so that they can put in another  pipe line.  I saw a 30 second blip on the news once.  I read yesterday that the government is now air dropping mustard gas on the Native (and many non-native) people who are there to protest this action.  No media coverage by the news stations around here.  How about where you are?  Seems to me that the US government dropping chemical weapons on it’s own citizens would be news worthy.

I’ve read several posts from a few friends who actually made the trek out to North Dakota to see for themselves and to support the protest.  What I read is all about unity and non-violence.  I see now that several young friends have made that same journey.  I pray that they get to be part of the biggest peaceful protest of their lives and that someday they can tell their own grandchildren what peaceful people can accomplish.

I pray that the land wll stay intact and the water the Standing Rock people are trying to protect stays clean.  You and I need to pray this happens since we are going to be the people who benefit from the warriors who stand in peaceful protest to keep the water clean.  I pray that all of the people who stand with Standing Rock get to return home unharmed.  I pray for the men and women who have been ordered to this place and ordered to cause harm to peaceful protestors.   I suspect this is not what they signed up for.  If there is a bad side, a domestic terrorist side, it would be the oil company who thinks that poisoning the water that we are drink is acceptable to any of us just for more money in their pockets.

History repeating itself for Native American peoples has not been historically favorable.  I stay positive, reminding myself that a victory for Standing Rock is a victory for all of us, no matter where we live.

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Contemplation, Family, journaling, Life, Me, Native American Women, Uncategorized

Pressing Tears

My days had been busy with work projects which for me, generally means writing lots and lots of reports.  I can easily spend six hours a day trying to keep up with all the reports that I am behind in.  This is a heavy weight on my shoulders, being behind.  When I am not working to catch up with those reports, I am making and keeping a hectic driving schedule, meeting after meeting after meeting..

My husband has been off work for about six weeks now.  He was injured while on the job and workman’s comp pay has been trickling in.  He feels guilty.  Because my main concern was that he follow his therapist instructions and get better I had not been asking him to help more around the house during this time and so many of my home chores were also getting behind.  I did not feel guilty.  I rarely do.  There is only so much a human can do in a day and if work is taking up most of my time I can forgive me for not being the perfect housewife.

But this day he had been trying to do more around the house.  He had done the dishes and was busy working on the laundry.  He then passed through the kitchen and asked if we had a spray bottle.  I was just finishing up a batch of reports and asked him why?  He said he had some shirts to iron and needed to spray them down with water.  I reminded him that our iron had spray capability, all he had to do was fill the water reservoir.  He thanked me and wandered on his way to set up the ironing board.

For the first time in weeks I felt a little guilty about not getting to all my chores and I remembered how well he did not iron shirts.  Oh he was able to get the big wrinkles out but his attention to  detail around the collar and sleeves was a bit lacking.  I smiled and announced that I had finished report writing for the day and told him that I would get his shirts done.

There were three shirts laying across the back of a chair and three hangers thrown on the bed.  I laid the first shirt out across the board and started.  The first shirt was tedious.  I was thinking “why did I say I would iron?  I hate to iron”, and I do.  It is my least favorite chore.  Those permanent press inventors are real hero’s of mine.  The second shirt began and my shoulders and stance next to the board relaxed and I started to smile.  I was remembering that this was one of the chores I learned at my mother’s side.

There are so many things that our mother’s work hard to teach us when we are young.  Sometimes those mother’s get to know if they were able to pass on all the knowledge and wisdom they accumulate to their children and sometimes they don’t get to know if they were successful.  I am not sure if my mother knew that I had mastered the collared-shirt.  It was not one of those things where she said “here, do it like this”.  No, this was one of those “osmosis” teachings.  She would iron shirts and pants for my step-dad and I would sit or stand next to her and talk.  She would talk too but she never stopped ironing.  I learned by watching.

The longer I stood there that day and the more shirts he “found” in the closet that needed to be pressed (there were five by the time I actually got done), the more I enjoyed my task.  I took the time to remember her standing there with her ironing and I learned to enjoy my ironing.  I know that my step-dad appreciated looking nice when he got dressed for work and I know that my husband really appreciates putting on a crisp looking shirt.  I smiled more and more as I turned the shirt to the angles on the board.  I took a certain amount of pride as I hung each shirt when I finished it, making sure that each collar was in proper position and that the sleeves were aligned on the hanger.

I wasn’t so much proud of me.  I was proud of what my mother accomplished as she ironed and talked and of what I learned as I talked and watched.  I was happy that she had been able to pass on so much to me, things she did everyday as mother and wife that she passed to me to use as I became mother and wife.  By the time I had finished ironing my eyes were glassy with early tears that I didn’t let fall.  He would not have understood at that moment how very close I was to my mother.  I could feel her smile as she finally knew that she did, indeed, succeed.

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, Me, meditaton, Native American Women, Writing

A Little Wine, A Little Sadness

I have to admit to being a little sad these days.  You might think that sometimes winter does that to some people  but winter does not make me sad.  As a matter of fact, the first day of winter is often the happiest day of the year for me.  It means that the days will no longer be getting shorter.  The days do, in fact, start getting longer and this is quite awesome.  Conversely, as you might imagine, the first day of summer is one of the sadest days of the year for me.

You might think that the end of greatly anticipated holiday cheer would make me sad.  It does not.  I am relieved,  as most mothers are, once the crazy season is over.

No, not any of the things that you might think….my computer died and now I am sad.  Sad enough it seems to drink wine and attempt to blog from my tablet.  Oh, some folks might just laugh but I am a very tactile person.  This flat screen is not my thing.  I bought a blue tooth keyboard for my tablet way back when.  I used it so much that I had to use white fingernail polish to repaint the keys, twice.  Then it died…I was sad that day also.

I think I have things to say.  I feel words making my figertips itch for keyboard action.  This is difficult.  Failed hard drive, devastating news.  No tax return…yet, no new computer. 

That’s it.  That’s all I wanted to say.  To let cyberspace know why I am absent.  Thinking about another glass of wine…cause you know, what else can I do if I can’t write?  Ahh well, breaking into my stash of cool pens, running two journals at once, I will get through this, I hope. 

Maybe this is the universe telling me to read more. 

And now that I have said all of this, I am not so sad…either that or I have definitely had enough wine for the night!

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Contemplation, Family, Life, lifecoaching, Native American Women, Sundance

To Whom Much is Given…

I tend to measure my relationship with my Creator against my relationship with my children.  We say in our prayers “Heavenly Father” or “Grandfather” and that is how I look at my personal relationship.  When I come to a bump or have a query I think about how I respond to my children as a mother and I imagine that this is the way my Father responds to me.

I have a really hard time not yelling at people who mean well but who give others who are standing in pain what sounds like sage advice when they say to them “God is just testing you”.  Folks, I have never once tested my children.  I do not recall ever being tested by my own mother.  I did not have to prove that I loved my mom or dad.  I do not test my own children to see if they really love me.  I think…why would anyone say something so cruel to a child (of God) who is in pain or confused about a situation?

I have said many times “to whom much is given, much is expected”.  I said it again last night.  I stand watching a loved one bear what looks to others like a huge burden and this is the reminder that was whispered into my ear.  As I wrote those words out I knew that if he was not “given much” he would not have any real understanding of what I was saying to him.  But I also knew in my heart that these were the words he needed to hear.

All is not lost.  He is not being tested to see how strong he is.  If he were not given much to begin with, none of this would be happening near him.  He would not be expected to know what to do, he would not be able to continue to praise God for all of his blessings.  He would not already have the answer to his prayers.  The Tree would not be calling him into the circle.  The heartbeat of the people would not be calling him to sing again.

I started thinking, even last night before I went to bed, about the number of people I know who have been “given much”.  I was really amazed.  There are a bunch.  It turns out, at least in my life, that it is not rare for me to see amongst my family and friends many who have been “given much”.  There are some who have much love, much intelligence, much wisdom, much beauty, much charisma, much of so many abilities.  I smiled because I realized that it was no wonder that my own life ran so smoothly and evenly keeled, I mean, look at all these wonderful people I know who have been given so much and whether they know it or not; giving back what they have freely, as was given to them.

I was still thinking about this morning.  This past 30 days has been rough on my family.  But this is a family that was given much and we know that much is expected from us in return.  We get tired, we get weepy, we get sad but we are never without hope, truth or love.

No, my beautiful family, we are not being tested.  We are being given the opportunity to show the world where our strength comes from and Whose children we really are!

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, Me, Native American Women, Writing

Piano Fingers

I was perusing Facebook the other day and watched a video of four people playing the same piano.  They all took turns turning the pages and smiling, eight hands roaming up and down the keys as they pounded out the piece they were playing.  I liked the music and pictured the same piece being played on four different pianos by the same four people.  It would have sounded the same but would not have been as fun to watch.

What I noticed more than everything else I was watching was that they all did that thing piano players do, you know…rocking back and forth to the music as they changed tempo and raised and lowered sound of the keys from soft to loud and back to soft.  All piano players do it…as I have observed.  I am not a player so I can’t say that I do it but I notice things like that.

It started me thinking.  I could start imagining myself sitting at the keyboard of my laptop rocking back and forth as I pounded out my blog or a story or a chapter in a book.  I could imagine writing faster and slower, changing tempo as the thoughts rolled out of my head and to my hands; pounding now and lightly tapping then.  I wondered how that would look to the casual observer.  I wondered if getting so into my writing would cause me to do the same so I sat down and started writing.  My first words were tentative and as the thoughts began to flow my typing got faster and faster and mistakes were backspaced and corrected quickly then the thought would end and everything would slow until the next thought was born.  Two hundred words, three hundred words…five hundred words and so on until the piece was completed.

Funny thing is, I never once swayed forward or backward.  I didn’t lower my head and listen the tapping as I created each sentence.  The speed varied on the thought but that was about it.  My typing as always been a bit like listening to a DI walk across the room…rather loud as each heel strikes the ground as the DI pounds each step into the floor.  Yes, I walk the same way as I type…just a bit intense.  I have had to paint the letters back on the keyboard I use for my tablet twice now.  Still, no swaying to the words the same way that a pianist sways to the music that is being played.

I would stop every now and again to look back over my work. Piano players, I noticed, don’t do that.  When I didn’t like the way a sentence ended or didn’t like the way one thought flowed into the next I took the time to fix it.  Again, piano players don’t get that luxury.  Once the music is sounded it is out there and once a mistake is made the best you can do is try to cover it up with the next note or change the piece altogether and then let everyone think that you meant for it to sound that way.

These are just the things I was thinking today.  All I can say about that is piano players are not typist when they are playing and typist are not piano players when they are typing.  I think that even if I did play the piano I would not sway to they typing like I would sway to the music….

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Family, journaling, Life, Me, meditaton, Native American Women

Dig Deep, Look High, Be Thankful

Rough week.  Lots to think about.  Decisions to be made.  I was very happy for the last of the warm weather to be able to sit outside with my coffee and do some praying while I thought…

I am a protector, this I know and understand.  I protect those I love and I protect them well.  But what happens when those I love walk out from under the protection?  I begin to understand a little bit about how the Creator feels when we walk away from his protection.

I was reminded of a story…my childhood was not smooth but honestly, for the most part I remember being happy.  There were seven of us…mostly girls.  I am the oldest of the brood.  When I was 18 and my next two sisters in age were 16 and 15, one of them took me aside and told me that my job was done.  They didn’t need me anymore.  They were grown and they had me to thank for getting them this far but I was no longer needed to protect or guide them.  For real, she said it just like that.  I remember standing there with my mouth hanging open in disbelief.  I remember being hurt, in my heart. 

This hurt lasted several days.  I didn’t know what to think.  I wasn’t sure of what my place was supposed to be anymore.  I know that she did not tell these things to our Mother.  I know I didn’t tell her, either.  These were things that were shared just between the sisters, as some things just are. 

I had been praying, for the past year, to be free, to grow up, to not be responsible any more.  I had been the big sister since I was 18 months old and it had been a tough 18 years.  Those siblings were a lot of work.  Still, once she had said those things to me I just couldn’t be anything but hurt.  It took several days for me to realize that all of my prayers had been answered.  It was a sudden realization. 

Then I started smiling again.  Then I started planning!  Within two years I was gone.  I had started my independence in college but then joined the Air Force and was off to basic training and I never looked back.  MY life had begun. 

Several years later I was home for a visit and the very same sister who had so happily dismissed me made sure to tell me that our whole family had fallen apart and it was all my fault for leaving.  This time I just smiled.  I knew who was responsible for my life and who was responsible for hers (or the “families’ life” as she put it).  I returned to my own life intact.

That story came to mind as I pondered this week.  It is my life again.  There are steps I need to take to make sure that I am healthy in spirit.  My loved ones will stay under my protection or not…I don’t make that choice.  I will remain strong as my protection does not end and my family is worth the effort.

My world changes from time to time with my age and experience.  There are things that need to be done now that I have crossed this line and become the grandmother.  Ceremonies that need to be completed so that the journey can continue.  I am looking forward again as the week ends and I sit here, I realize, happy for my rough start.  It makes me dig deep into my soul and look high to the Creator and to be thankful for everything.

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Girlfriends, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, meditaton, Native American Women, Retreat, Writing

My Sacred Journey

I have such wonderful friends.  But even as strong as we would like to be there are times that even the strongest of us hits the wall and dang, does that hurt.  We all decided long ago (everyone in my tiny circle is not as young as we used to be) that we were not going to allow that wall to stop us even if it slowed us down a minute.  So we decided to get together and have a weekend retreat.

The crew, like any crew, as specialties.  My specialty is being a life coach so I took the lead.  I named the retreat, set the agenda, made the to-do list and lined up the teachers.

We learned some mediation do’s and don’ts.  We learned some easy-peasy journaling techniques and we studied-just briefly-the how’s and why’s of “chemical reactions to emotional inputs”.  We built a “God box” to work on faith building and….we talked!

We talked and we cried and we laughed.  We acknowledged that we are strong and that we are fragile, that we are young at heart and as old as the hills.  We heard, from our own mouths, some real wisdom and some really silly notions.

It was a good weekend!

Winter is coming and this is where we needed to be….looking at ourselves, getting ready to get into hibernation mode.  We are not bears so we cannot sleep the winter months away but we are women and we can take this time to slow down and look deeply into our mirrors.  We can use this time to really think about everything we went through this weekend….to think about our Sacred Journey, about the women we walk with, about those we have left behind, about what we learned and what we want to learn next.

We will open our “God boxes” next spring after we have filled them with our prayers to see what has transpired in our prayer lives and see our how our faith as grown.  We will have laughed and cried even more when the winter is done and the spring has started again.  We have so much to look forward too.

Now I am sitting here thinking about everything that happened this weekend and find that rather than be physically, emotionally and spiritually drained I am excited and energetic.  It is so wonderful to be with such wonderful women all weekend and to know that we have fueled each other, built each other up and took the time to remind each other how much we really mean to each other and to ourselves.  I am filled with gratitude.

My sacred journey continues….

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Contemplation, Life, Native American Women

No Show

To the rest of the Friday afternoon Starbucks crowd I realize that I look just like another yuppish hippy girl ticking away at a teeny tiny keyboard enjoying a vente mocha but I  am not.  I am, in fact, a frustrated supervisor who had an interview scheduled to start half an hour ago.

I want to say that I am angry but I really am not.  I just wonder, you know?  I wonder about the people I hear who sit around complaining about their lives and who don’t do anything to actually change their circumstances.

She has a job.  I know she has a job because I read her application.  When I set the time for the interview she specifically asked for a time after her shift at her current job.  I think…wait, I thought it was admirable.  So many people just walk off the job leaving current employers hanging that it is actually refreshing to speak with someone who appeared to have some work ethic.  I suppose that this has not changed, work ethic she has….courtesy she does not, and here I sit.

There are a lot of people who say they want better jobs or better lives that can be attained by better jobs but I am just not so sure anymore.  Perhaps there are some people who really do need work and would like to have anyone meet them for an interview but not here, not today.

The coffee/frappuccino crowd wains and wanes, the professionals, the students, the expected and the “never thought he/she would enter this place” kinds of people purposefully and aimlessly order drinks as I sit here watching.  If I had any guts I would ask a few if they need jobs.  Afterall, I did come her to conduct an interview.

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Contemplation, getting in shape, Life, Me, Native American Women, Writing

Lost and Found Again

I work very hard at knowing myself.  Looking into all the nooks and crannies can be tedious at best and scary most of the time.  But there are times when I let myself get worn down and suddenly I find that I am empty.

It’s not the good empty when you release all your stress and can sleep soundly again.  It’s the empty that you feel right before you realize that depression is the next stage of your digression.  It’s not a comfortable feeling.  I don’t like it.

Then, as it has happened so many times before, the miracle to wake me up and help me focus again.

I was talking to my nephew on the phone last night.  He and I have stressful jobs in social services.  We compare our days and make our jokes and dream of winning the lottery so we can leave our stressful jobs behind.  I confessed that I have not written anything in months, no blogs, no stories, nothing.  Then the magical words, the miracle…”Auntie, you have to recommit”…simple, easy.  He excitedly told me of his newest writing project and let me know how much I would love to meet the elder he is working with and added that he had to do the same thing…recommit.  He sits down every day to write…even if  he only gets in 10 minutes a day.  Our normal hour and a half conversation was cut short as it was getting very late and he still needed to get his writing done.

I was exhausted last night when we spoke so I didn’t write then.  Today I wrote some reports and sent some faxes and made some phone calls.  These things are never done.  There will always be reports to write but this is not the style of writing that I like to do.  So tonight before I go to bed, as tomorrow promises to be as crazy busy as the days of the past couple of months, I will write.   I will be happy that I took the time to sit and let the words flow even if it was just for a little while.

I took the 21 in 21 Challenge this month, to walk 21 miles in 21 days.  A nice way to help rebuild that walking habit.  I wrote at least one report I was behind in each day.  I cleaned a spot in my house that I haven’t cleaned as faithfully as I should.  This ‘recommit’ theme seems more of a command than a suggestion for me.  I’m a life coach, I notice those kinds of patterns.

I am less frustrated with me now.  I am beginning to feel purpose again.  I will probably still only blog a couple of times each month but my stories will start making progress again.  Even as I write tonight, new aspects of the stories coalesce where only fog was present before.  Artwork that I need begins to seem ‘not impossible’.  The emptiness is filling up.

Thanks nephew for saying the things you are supposed to say!

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