What I write will contrast what many have been taught or assumed as mantels of Truth or The Truth and therefore be considered untrue. However, beyond small details that have been told to me, the truths of what I will share are known to select others in tribal and federal law enforcement, Indian casino employees, counter-threat finance investigation groups and international intelligence organizations.
Before I begin sharing this information I need to be clear on a few things:
I'm not trying to anger anyone. It's merely a natural outcome of inconvenient truth-telling, especially when it challenges sacred cows of 'spirituality' and potentially endangers personal and institutional economies. More than one federal investigator will have an 'oh, shit' moment as what follows is read; not because they don't know what I know but because I'll be sharing what I'm not supposed to know and certainly, in their estimation, not supposed to be sharing. I am not coming at this through anger. I tried that and learned I cannot; it shuts down opportunity for a future that I pray for and hope to be part of creating. There is grief, deep grief, tied to unnecessary death, the 'lostness' I feel from the bones that want to come home, families who live in limbo as well as fear, and the unrealized love that the dead and alive seek.
The only things I intend to inflame are hope for the future and opportunities for change
that support individuals and multiple communities.
The lenses through which I operate and articulate what I know include:
the understanding that I live with a sizeable price on my head. It was initiated by a criminal organization on the Gila River rez and subsequently escalated by someone working with the Sinaloa cartel in Scottsdale. My tone and measured language will reflect how I dance somewhat ungracefully with them as 'partners' in this unfolding. I am guided by Ancestors through "Danger, Will Robinson" encounters and potentialities of the same. When I choose to ignore those warnings, the messages go to other people who have the courage to express them. Though I am no one's martyr these days, I'm aware how fear can temper expression and, in full transparency, hope that what I share brings unusual partners into discussion. This is about changing the world for women and girls, not seeking an idea of 'justice' as most think of it. My background in the criminal justice system, especially my unique interpretations of community and restorative justice, play a key role in how I move and attempt to create different outcomes.
working hard, daily, sometimes multiple times a day, to hold myself steady in Her/His grace. It is a monumental struggle on hard days. Included in that work is the creating and maintaining space for the steadfastness of love of myself, finding ways to meet my basic needs, and the capacity to hold multiple paradoxes (paradoxi?) in the heart.
I use my words, not language to appease others who believe I should appear in a particular way or not appear in another. I am a unique individual with distinct and purposeful (though rather conventional, in my view) relationships with the 'invisible' world. I have permission to name the deceased and openly describe the relationships that span multiple cultural and religious contexts. This aspect of the work is also driven very purposefully by the Divine. Very few people on the planet understand these kinds of relationships and I'll not expend energy defending them though I'm very glad to explain and teach them. There is a resurgence, across the globe, of 'estranged Beings' seeking reconnection and human interest in doing so.
I am profoundly aware how White folk have distorted truths of Indigenous peoples and the nature of Nature Herself in storytelling. You'll read more about that later when I share an encounter I had in 2018 with an elected official from the Blackfeet Nation. There is no distortion here. I recognize, in more ways than one, the challenges that arise when an idealized past meets the truth and the modernity that contrasts it. However, this is my story, my lived experience and it impacts and intersects with many others. The intersections include people, places, crimes, and universal energies that are often seen as independent, siloed from history, other people, places, crimes and universal energies. I'll do my best to weave these things together in a way that is clear and understandable.
Before I dive into speaking about my role in #MMIW, you will need to know the backstory. You need that to learn how and why I trust (mostly), when and why I doubt (often), and how the foundation of this journey was created. That's where I'll begin.
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