A long story

Greetings once more to you my sisters in the struggle. It is good to be with you again. I don't know the reason why I feel so compelled to reach each of you with my story; I want to become a part of your stories I guess, and you to be a part of mine. So, I will tell you the story that led to this desire.

When I was a young girl, living with my father, we established a ritual. He would come home from his work which was next door to our house, knock on my bedroom door to let me know he was there, and we would meet in the kitchen and have hot tea and rolls. We would chat about our day and whatever else came to mind, say our good nights and retire.

One night during our tea time, he looked at me and said \"It dawned on me today that you are getting ready to graduate high school. These years have flown by so fast and I asked myself if I have given you anything that would help you in your journey through life. That leads me to ask you this question my girl. What does every person on the face of the earth want more than anything else in the world?\"

Being a very young woman, age 16, of course I believed I knew the answer to this question and everything else...I spat out \"MONEY!\" Oh my father was very disgusted with my answer. He said \"No, try again.\" I threw another silly answer at him...\"Power\". He gave me \"the eye\", which told me I needed to really think about my next guess. So I said \"Love\". He said \"No that is not it, but you are at least getting warmer with your answer...going in the right direction\". I said \"I give up daddy, I don't know the answer.\" Of course, after he told me that I give up too easily, he said \"What every person on earth wants more than anything else in the world is for JUST ONE OTHER PERSON TO LISTEN, REALLY LISTEN TO THEIR STORY, without judgement, without interruption, without words. If you can learn to do this, your life will be made rich.\" And now, at almost 64, I found that my father words did indeed, make my life very rich, and very full.

Not often though, do I share my story with others. Perhaps it is my age, but I find lately that I do want to share bits and pieces of myself with you, until finally, you can recognize those bits and pieces as bits and pieces of yourself. For I do knwo, and I do believe that \"We ARE all related\". and we do share a collective memory that goes back as far as tiem itself.

Below is part of my story that I shared with an e-mail friend who is helping to raise funds for our eco-dome project. She is also a sensitive; in \"dreamtime\" she recieves messages from departed loved ones and delivers them to who they were intended for. I was the recipient of one of those messages. It was from Ethel, a very dear relative who had crossed into the invisible world of Spirit several years ago. It was Ethel who was the inspiration for the eco-dome project that we are working on at Pine Ridge in Lakota territory in South Dakota.My friend said that she was visited by her and that she was to tell me that I was her friend; which led me to know that she watches over the work we are doing. Here is my response to that.

\"My dear friend...thank you so much for this. I can't begin to tell you how deeply moved I was by this message. I think of Ethel often and so frequently, I can feel her presence (or aura I guess)...and I am thrilled that she has acknowledged that. I know that she has been around and can see what great things her dreams have brought into being.

Ethel and I were great friends and what I liked most about her was that she knew the \"me\" that I sometimes have a hard time showing to others. But I will tell you who I am. I am a grandma who lives with her daughter and three of eleven grandchildren because I can't afford to live on my own. Living with my daughter has been sheer magic in that it has brought our generations together. It has also helped me to examine my relationship with my children and grandchildren... and I have grown because of the stability I have had for the last five years. I have never really had that before. I generally have moved every 3-31/2 years. My children are grown and have been my teachers and my guides as much as I am that for them.

I will now tell you a bit about who I was and why I understand the pain and suffering of my People; because I have lived through it; I have walked those paths. Abandonment over and over as a child, sexual abuse and exploitation, physical abuses, made to always feel \"less than\" for myriads of reasons. Feeling like I belonged nowhere and was accepted by noone because I am a mixed blood. As a young adult I exhibited every symptom of an unhealed survivor of abuse. I was totally promiscuous, I drank myself numb after two failed marriages and was raising four children as a single mother. I was a screaming mimi to them, I was disrespectful to them, I hit them. My self esteem was non-existent, and they have issues with that as well. My children and I have always lived far below the national poverty line; we've lived without electricity, had our water shut off; we've been evicted, and the list goes on.

In spite of this, or because of it, I feel that I have been blessed. I don't know how to explain it except the fires that I have walked through have forged my strength and burned away all of the false realities of this plane of existence so that my vision would be made clear for the path that lay ahead. I started my healing journey at age 25 and the healing continues to this day. It is not my journey alone. I have brought my children on this healing journey with me. I have asked for and they granted me forgiveness, that's what children do.

I believe that much of my life has been guided by some powerful entities that I met while having my own visit to the Invisible world that dwells beside us. I have learned that the Lakota ceremony of \"Give-Away\", always giving to others who have a greater need then Self, brings riches to the Spirit and Soul. It is for these reasons that building in an area where nothing but substandard, unhealthy housing exists is of utmost precedence in my heart...and my children are all a part of it. My life has been blessed with many lessons learned.\"

This is all for now. Be well sisters, stay strong on your individual life journeys, and Wicosani to you and your loved ones.