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| Photo capture of a post of mine on IG. Photo credit - Venaya Yazzie 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |
Welcome to Nilchits'osi' - this is called the month of the "small wind" in the Dine' way of seasons. This season concerns change and both the end of thing and new beginnings for the desert southwest Navajo people. To be sure, I am very grateful and, humbled to be a part of this change of seasons.
But, I am composing in a quiet state today, my soul is mourning and my thoughts are heavy. Yesterday I attended my uncles funeral. His name was Gary Tinhorn he was 75 years old, he died of cancer. Some may say he was old and lived a good life, but for me he was still young and so full of life, ready to continue loving life and living it to the fullest. My uncle Gary was my late father's step-brother, Gary was my 'connection' to the life and history of my father Herman. Now both have left this earth - and now I feel a bit more alone... As I write here, I share my life because I believe my experience can help someone who reads this. I believe Creator God sends people into our paths for a reason, so now my writing may helps someone in someway.
In my melancholy I understand and realize how my senses are heightened... they say its a good time to create - whether you paint or bead or write and play music, the state of high emotion can be turned to the positive and inspire your muse. I am blessed right now to watch my maternal grandmother weave, she is helping (unconsciously) heal my brokenheart. I sit with her in the early morning light and the evenings, and in silence I just observe her sacred act of creation.
Before my uncle passed I was able to sit with him and share presence and just simply tell him that I loved him - this left me with a heavy heart. But, what was also on my mind was the situation at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. Since the summer of 2016 my 'beautyful' Brothers and Sisters have been standing guard, PROTECTING the land and the precious water that is shared on their ancestral homelands.
My Indigenous people are literally under physical attacks from security hired by the big oil companies who are financially supporting the Dakota Access Pipeline project - it seems these billionaires will do anything to protect oil, no matter what. What I have seen and heard is that the so called security hired are very violent and outright racist in their actions toward the First People of the Americas who are simply acting as PROTECTORS of the water.
I pray daily. I pray hourly is seems for them. I ask CREATOR GOD to protect my Brothers and SISTERS at the NODAPL. I humbly ask Creator to keep them strong mentally, spiritually and physically as they stand on the "front lines" protecting the live-giving water on their homelands. The point of their encampment is to ensure and make the WORLD aware of the potential for oil contamination of the waters of the Missouri River if the pipeline is built so close to the river and water table.
The activity that the hired security is pure evil. They are using militarized weapons and vehicles on the WATER PROTECTORS as Standing Rock reservation. They are spraying elders and women with mace, and shooting bean bag bullets at the men. In their deplorable actions they have also desecrated SACRED SITES, including burials and ceremonial sweat lodges. I have seen how fully garbed National Guardsmen have unlawfully entered sweat lodge ceremonies and forcefully dragged out the Indigenous men... This is injustice. The human rights of my Indigenous people being ignored on a daily basis.
My stomach turns and twists when I think of the demise in North Dakota - my Indigenous people are suffering from direct acts of VIOLENCE all because they choose to PROTECT the WATER.
In this season I am grateful for my life and my family and too for my Brothers and Sisters at Standing Rock. As an act of tangible gratitude I am going to wear my moccasins for the duration of the month - as a reminder of them and also to stay in a type of mourning for my late uncle.
PRAY for each other, PRAY in the morning, in the night. PRAY.
