Strength

I come from a family, and a place with strong medicine. We have strength in our blood. But that medicine is hard to remember through pain and tears and confusion. I am on this journey for a reason. I am cold, tired, hungry, scared, nervous, anxious, and willing. I don’t know if my heart is ready but I do know that the sicknesses in this world sometimes seem too great to overcome, as if there is no immunization because it lies in the hands of the powerful, buried behind lines of money and tears, struggle and fear, behind a stench of sadness as the lines of sweat that drip down the faces of the faithful yield no crops. they yield no crop not because there is drought, but because the tears are too salty and too numerous and a mother cannot bear to see her children crying. but what choice do we have when we have to battle with fish and wildlife for funding? i guess they took it too literally when we said we walk in harmony with the earth. but who do we walk with? each bash against each other leave us limp and our tracks look lame, bruised, and faded. we've forgotten to carry each other. walks around one people, that clan was meant to be a protector, to surround the house and keep all safe, to keep each other safe. But in this time, when the world is crying, I need to remember that I come from strong medicine. I remember running during the four days of my transition to womanhood. I ran to be strong for my family and my future. I ran across a land that sustained my family and my ancestors. That land is in me. I remember its touch, its smell, and the comfort it gives me as I walk across it. It’s strong medicine. Thank God I finally came home, because then each step on my land was like a prayer, asking for forgiveness, and for harmony, and for the earth not to cry any more because there are doctors on their way. there are people who are here to heal but they're stuck, they're filtered, they're bashed, they're arrested, they're muzzled, they're tired, and i consider myself lucky to be alive. looking so high at the people who pull chain gangs along pitiful railroads of destruction, who push money into pockets that are already busting at the seams, who pull up the undeserving, who push broken backs beyond their limits, who push and pull, push and pull, little do they know that someday it will break. but looking up at them, looking back and forth so as not to get runned over or tangled or strangled or lynched, it's easy to get tired and let your head hang, looking down and wishing that your feet weren't solidified in cement and praying that something doesn't push you over the edge. I have a healing hand because I need to heal and every time I look down its there, thank god. The sun melts away sadness in the morning and lifts prayers up high, it's a good thing too so I can walk again and let each footstep be a prayer as I walk along wrapped in the warmth of love and faith. I let the earth lick my wounds and remind me that I am a child of Changing Woman and of warriors and of survivors, and of my grandfather, and of my family. I rest my mind between the four sacred mountains and let my homeland cradle me in its love and its history. It needs to bathe its child in sweet, strong medicine and make me whole once again. even though the sicknesses in this world seem to great to overcome, there are those of us that are walking and keep hope alive. I am from strong medicine.