I don’t know when it was I ran out of space for outrage. I can’t remember if there was a singular sudden clap of thunder-like something or whether love just seeped in through all the cracks. I do remember thinking that, when I finally noticed, my brain went to “Something is wrong with me. Maybe I’m just numbed to it all.” We do that, don’t we? To try to make newness make sense? Our go-to isn’t that it must be ‘so right’ but that there must be something so wrong. I remember th

Today is the anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s death. I was 14, getting ready for school and heard the news on my radio. And I lost my shit. It wasn’t that he ‘just died’, I didn’t have that kind of attachment. It was that his father killed him. It was the immediate knowledge that parents killed their kids. When in the middle of my mother’s physical rages, I often thought she would kill me. To hear that someone older than me, famous even, could be killed by their dad made it obvio

I have never born false witness. My relationships with those things that others cannot see are my devotion and I can’t lie to them or about them. And where they weave me into the physical world–either through the power of prayer or an ‘accidental’ meeting–it is always outside the boundaries of ‘our way’ but directly connected to it. A beautiful soul said to me early this week: “Well, that doesn’t happen in our tradition.” To which I replied, “There’s much that many traditions

The international reach of The Fuckery’s movement of disappeared indigenous women from North America goes beyond gaming institutions. It involves the diplomatic corps of the United States, Russia, Japan, China and Kyrgyzstan in the United States, Russia, Japan, China, Morocco, Germany and more.  It involves multinational resort and hotel brands that span the globe and include companies that range from the three-star Radisson Blu to the luxury Jumeirah brands. The partnerships

There are so many who just want to come home. They are alive. There are so many mothers and brothers who think they’re dead. They’re not. They are alive. There are so many that have given up the hope of wrapping their arms around daughters and nieces and granddaughters. There are so many who just want to come home. They are alive. And they want to come home. They are invisible to so many yet in full view. There are those that are dead and their voices carry beyond their bones

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” ― Audre Lorde In My Secret is Safe with Your Secret, I wrote this: We cannot talk about the disappearances of indigenous children and women without honestly addressin

You have no idea You have no idea your desire to retreat is merely your fear of meeting yourself in another. You have no idea that your fear of another is merely your fear of intimacy with the one you’ve separated yourself from. Your avoidance of the stimuli that feeds your soul has led you to substitutions that are no substitution at all. You feel because there is no separation. There is no separation. You want there to be, though. You feel the reality will split you open an

I’ve shared before the confusion and despair felt when ignored by tribal leadership I’ve reached out to across the continent. Whether the attempted connection is with Osage, Crow, or Anishinaabe (or Blackfoot or Cree or Shoshone or Cheyenne or Pima or….), the silence I’ve been met with has been as deafening and deadening as the ‘keep your mouth shut’ repeatedly heard from the Cree contingent. I’ve wondered out loud more than once if there is a M. Night Shyamalan-esque agreeme

Does it feel foolish to you, impossible even, that your ‘feeling too much’ isn’t that at all? Can you, even the tiniest of moments between the fear, understand that when you truly recognize what it is you’re feeling and from whence it comes, you’ll know it is the highest expression of love there is? That is what being an empath is–the highest expression of love there is. The capacity, without a word being said, to say, “I feel your pain”. Can you wrap your head, maybe even yo

I’m reading a book called Benediction by Kent Haruf. It’s one of those that I’m forcing myself to finish for reasons I can’t comprehend. It’s annoying. Damn-near all dialogue and not a single quotation mark. There’s a scene in which a preacher pisses off his congregation by suggesting that loving thine enemy and turning the cheek might be literal expressions of Jesus’ teaching and not a mere metaphorical for living peaceably. He preaches, many congregants walk out, cursing hi

The weight of this sad time we must obey Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most, we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. ~ King Lear Scene 5, Act 3 Oh, my love. In the midst of despair I only heard “Don’t say anything to anyone. I cannot tell anyone who you are or why you are here. You must keep you mouth shut, not even share your prayers with anyone. When you give your prints in a sweat, hold your tongue. Do not say what

To  cry “Save our Mother” while prying open the thighs of her daughters, slashing and burning through souls… To dance for Durga and honor the cow while murdering their  brothers in skin and sinew incensing  streets with iron-clad odor…. To dutifully bow to the East with desire to bend little boys over at the waist… To lay flowers at the feet of the Virgin while planting Los Desaparecidos and mulching them with lies…. To pray in my name for  bounty and well-being while blasphe