Once Buffalo said, Because we are not changing, the climate is.
When he spoke I heard feathers brush against bells spiraled shells turn in the sloshing waves breaking around my ankles so small upon the earth.
Despite inherited and standardized norms insisting the world is made up of facts rather than metamorphoses I know that I do not exist in isolation from any form of intelligence or life in the universe.
Our routines can be containers for our healing and connection or our routines can be containers for our wounding and disconnect.
Within the integrity of a braid I wrap my visions for the world I imagine possible twisting them in with what is.
Because tress exhibit the kind of love that the arrogance of reason has separated us from I keep seeds in my hands to remember the role of personal healing in collective healing so I don’t forget diversity is a form of resilience and a refusal is also an affirmation.
A tree is not a tree a tree is a forest when in doubt consult the grandmothers.
My prayer is that we can become comfortable without taking and learn to be soothed by giving to replace the void of consumption with the fortitude of community to approach the dissonance with possibility rather than limitation.
I’ll never forget last time I saw Buffalo he was singing If you are proud of who you are you should be out here dancing around in the circle of life.
TiWakan performs this Friday April 7 at The Cedar Cultural Center with Roma di Luna and the Prairie Fire Lady Choir, a benefit for No DAPL. Here’s a video of my poem “Walking Down Franklin Avenue”, which we shot while I was walking down Franklin Avenue in south Minneapolis last fall. More videos at our Oyate Hotanin YouTube channel. Subscribe if you like!
Oyate Hotanin & Pangea World Theater present The Buffalo Show, hosted by myself, Strong Buffalo, Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, and my trusty sidekick, The Custard Kid – premieres Tuesday April 25 at The Bryant Lake Bowl Theater in Minneapolis. With special guest videos by Native comedian Tonia Jo Hall aka “Auntie Beachress”, puppeteer & Dakota language artist Redwing Thomas, and a live appearance by Lakota curator Heidi Inman, (Slideshow: In Progress Exhibit “Honoring the Protectors” – No DAPL) 7pm. Tickets $10/ $8 advance, available at Bryant Lake Bowl Theater. Buffalo Show episodes videotaped for later broadcast on our Oyate Hotanin YouTube Channel.