From the home trenches: Seattle, March 19th, 2013:
Hello. Let me introduce myself. As one of the most unknown, most hard core Native American activists from the year of 1992, I have decided to come out from what has been a largely unhappy life for the past 20 years and to spiritually rediscover, and announce, and rededicate, recommit and celebrate who I really am. My Lakota name is Dancing Leaf, but some called me Little Elk. Most knew me as Dancing Leaf.
I am going to immerse myself in the spiritual books that once spoke to me and changed my life like "Black Elk Speaks" and Ed McGaa's "Mother Earth Spirituality". This is who I was, but when I came back from the Walk Across America, 1992, which I will be documenting and talking more about here, I sort of made an unconscious decision that I was not acceptable to the dysfunctional family that I so much wanted approval from as they called me "Pocahontas" and I was so upset from that. But I allowed them to control me.
I stood for Leonard Peltier. I slept outside of the Leavenworth Penitentiary with members of his family and other activists who were with us...not all of whom I had met. But they were with me. I was in my own world and was not documenting things the way a dedicated writer should have been. But I was trying to figure myself out.That is a long story. And yet, here I am, almost 39, finally comfortable to celebrate who I really am. And really, no more apologies for it.
Pol and Luc started it. But I cannot find them, I have no information on them anymore, and we all lost touch, mostly because I was mad at them and a lot of people when I left the walk and did not keep in touch with people, and lost my journal of phone numbers for everyone else. Maybe once I finish my book, I will find them again? Never was there a walk like ours and there will never be one like it again. We were a unique crew, coming from all over America and Europe, and Native American tribal members walked with us. Everyone had an assumed identity and nobody went by their regular names. That was almost like a part of an initation of the walk. The mission was united and firm and clear and passionate: Two Belgian guys decided to start a walk in Central Park, New York that went all the way to the Western Shoshone Reservation to lay down and get arrested for nuclear testing on that reservation and 500 years of genocide. However, in between, we walked 30 miles a day across from the East Coast through the Midwest and Southwest and talked to small town America about Native American rage, to create dialogues, awareness. On a deeper spiritual level, we sought to heal, to create spiritual awareness, to create dialogues, to start an American conversation about Indian Country. Boy, what the hell were we getting ourselves into? And yet, we really sought to do this! Every day, in every town, every school, every farmer, every Harley Bar or Indian Center we hit. And there was so much more...So much more we did...
I found my spiritual teacher in Red Blanket, who taught me so much, and I really miss him, and wish he was with me now. He left the walk on a false accusation and never came back. When this happened, it broke my heart. There was never a more pure spiritual heart or teacher than Red Blanket. I hope to find him one day in Pine Ridge.
God, we walked for Peltier, for all of the hundreds if not thousands of tribes that were once here. We walked for the pain they suffered. We walked to spread awareness about the nuclear testing by our government on sacred lands and reservations. We walked to talk about the high suicide rate on the reservations.
We walked for Peltier, we walked for ourselves, we walked for 500 years of genocide...we walked with Birkenstocks, we walked with or without vehicles, with or without water, with or without sanity at times. We walked together, we walked apart. We walked with walking staffs or without. When we talked with walking staffs, we had deer tails and rabbit tails and elk tails and bones and teeth, buffalo teeth, Native American emblems, metal pieces or charms from the road, piece signs, herbs, sweetgrass, sage, plants, dried beef jerky and lots of other things that may not have even been meant for a walking staff from our Mother Earth...
We walked for the pain of the Natives have never cried and in some ways, we cried for them in ways we could not yet do for ourselves. I know that was the case with me.
We walked to figure things out, to get out the kinks, except us peace loving, wanna be utopian idealists really made that difficult with unexpected, day long romances that fizzled out too fast. We hurt each other, harmed each other in ways I did not even deem possible, and loved each other in ways that were both tender, medicinal and healing at times. We also tore each other down, created divisions that should have never been there and would have made the purity of our original message so much better...We walked for Peltier and for the atrocities of the "Second Wounded Knee" of 1973, the year I was born. We walked to express ourselves, though for most of us, this was secondary to the cause, and unfortunately for some, this was primary to them.
We were The Walk Across American For Mother Earth, 1992. And we are me. And I am going to write about us. Stay tuned. And...Mitakuye Oyasin!
