Oh Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds,
and whose breath gives life to all the world - hear
me. I come before you, one of your children. I am
small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect
the things you have made, my ears sharp to hear
your voice. Make me wise, so that I may know the
things you have taught my people, the lesson you
have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength
not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able to
fight my greatest enemy, *MYSELF*. Make me ever
ready to come to you, with clean hands and straight
eyes, so when life fades as a fading sunset, my spirit
may come you without shame.

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."

...You have stories to tell and that is what will keep the memory of a great people alive. Pass the stories to your children. Teach them who, where and what their people were. Take time to search your ancestry. Remember the past they took and have patience. Stay in tune with your feelings and be strong in your search.

Trace your walk, feel satisfaction in knowing the end of the rainbow you have looked for can be found at the toe of your moccacin after realizing who we are and what we have.

Learn how to withhold judgment
Learn to listen
Get in touch with your own inner self
Look at life with joy
Don't ever cry over something that cannot cry over you.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, —you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

You have noticed that everything an Indian does in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.

In the old days all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.

Everything the power of the world does is done in a circle. The sky is round and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were.

The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.

Mile after mile and day after day
Our people are fewer with each rising sun
Disease and starvation they take their terrible toll
And though we suffer still we march on…
On the Trail of Tears

I watch my beloved weaken and fall
Upon the road like so many before…
With tears in my eyes I hold my wife to my breast
And in my arms she breathes her last…
On the Trail of Tears

Mile after mile and day after day
We march to a land promised us for all time
But I know that I can no longer go on
I know that is a land that I shall never see…
On the Trail of Tears

As my body - it falls to embrace the earth
My spirit - it soars to greet the sky
With my dying breath am I finally set free
To begin the very long journey towards home
On the Trail of Tears

I am he
that cares too much
and allows this world to penetrate.
I am the man
that loves too deeply,
while others merely perpetrate.
Do you see this man
or the boy inside,
with emotions to great
and plentiful to hide?
They've shorn my hair
and crushed my pride.
Taken my land
and my wife from my side.
A man of honor,
whose spirit remains free
with love to give,
but finding none that need.
So take the hand
of a distant Crow child
and with the Spirit of my fathers,
the wolf will run wild.

Shimmering color arched against grey sky,
Painted by dancing light on air-borne mist.
Wide flung by a sacred hand...
The Hand that formed of dust nothingness
The solid Earth below.
Beauty and promise together blended,
Beauty ethereal, promise divine.
Given to grace the clouds and the rain,
Given to bless the world-weary heart...
Shimmers... fades... brightens...
To vanish in brilliance...
Shines through the dark in my soul.

The fire is dancing tonight and the winds are talking
Dancers from past lives enter the circle
Leading me back and forth through the history of myself
The mind searches as the spirit dances

The drums...dancing to the heartbeat
Memories of long ago insights to the future
I hear the winds whispering my sweat lodge dreams
I see Sungmanitu tanka (the wolf) my guide

He shows me the ancestors, not mine
They are not Lakota, or Tsalagi, or Iroquois
But they are all Nations, one Nation
Speaking with wisdom to share with each other

Yesterdays create todays and promises of tomorrow
The lies will die with the smoke
And the whispers of the winds are clear and loud
And we shall all see the return of the buffalo
AHO

Father Sky is gray
As the new light appears
And the laughter of the birds is still
the clouds shed their tears
and the land drinks of this heavenly dew
puddles replace the dust
irresistible temptations for little feet
Turning my face to the sky
and feeling the gentleness of the mist
washing away my cares
filling my heart with happiness
Lifting my spirits
like the quenching of the crops
Raising my arms
I turn to the four winds
and give thanks for this
gentle…Summer Rain.

I call to the East, where the Father ascends
to all Mother Earth where life begins.
I fly through the cedars, pines, willows, and birch
as animals below me wander and search.

I call to the South, to the land down below.
Turtle stands silent, as man strings his bow
to hunt food and fur for his kin before snow.
A life will end so others will grow.

I call to the North, that yansa once knew.
I follow their path til it disappears from view.
Once vast in number, there stand but a few.
I hear only ghost thunder of millions of hooves.

I call to the West, to the ends of the lands,
to the Tsalagi, Kiowa, Comanche ... all bands.
Unite for the strength. Teach the young and demand
that you are Native Americans. Learn your tongue and stand.

My name is Freedom... I fly through this land.
I call to the Four Sacred Winds of Turtle Island.