SENTIENT TIMES Feb/Mar 2002

Man of Occasional Two Braids

Antoinette Nora Claypoole

A flowering meadow holds beauty. Everyone knows that. And in these dangerous times, traveling a crossroad on a horse, in winter, means remembering the blooms is welcome pleasure. Especially in winter, in what the English call “New England,” especially when an eccentric circle of dreamers have trekked through the new militarization of America to meet that rare Spiritual leader, an Indian man, who is stepping into the world to begin a dialogue about what it is we all face since the tragic events of 9/11. On the edge of a forest he stands. A Lakota man of some strange notoriety, quiet as the aspen leaf dropping at his feet he speaks to a small gathering in Mohawk Country, in what the colonizers call Massachusetts. This Indian, this Looking Horse Man, with six foot stature delivers a message of love and compassion.

At a time when flower power is graffitied ancient history, Horse Man dares to speak of Peace and Love while some of us shiver in the shadow of homeless Vietnam vets lined up along a highway exit, cardboards begging food. We are dreamers longing again to drop a daisy into the barrel of a gun, trying to make sense of yet another round of planes exploding in countrysides most of us have never seen, nearly weeping we are threaded through the texture of a PBS film crew, a Medicine Man from Peru, and old hippies from an herb farm down the road. We sense the rain wants to blanket our could be bare backs and cold air bites at our feet like the trap of an old white fur trader, yet we remain with this 47 year old Horse Man, Sun-kan Wan-kan Wi-c’as’ta, also known as Chief Arvol Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota nation, from C’anupa O-ya-te, the People of the Pipe.

 The prayers and visions of his nation live painfully inside his words and make Pendletons of sound: “This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end of life as we know it. Starvation, war and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the Great Myth of Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium. To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction, through the practice of love and compassion.”
 Seeking comfort, walking to the center of each the other, we hear Horse Man. Quietly wearing two long braids over his shoulders, decorated by a few stray strands of gray hair which catch forest light and seem to hold the songs of a Lakota lodge, his words as regalia fall over strong arms. Gathered with a chilled winter sky at this place now called World Peace Park, just west of the Mohawk Trail, we are destined to be huddling around the words and visions of a man brave enough to say what must be said. “In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the Crossroads, either unite Spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases and tears from our relatives eyes.” And like river water rushing at the edge of this grove, as the memory of Mohawk wars wash over us, we remember we are all visitors here, carried to a meadow and delivered to some refuge through the telling of yet another Horse Man story.
 
“My grandpa told me once about the flowers. About how all of us are like that. We can bloom with beauty if we are treated gently.” Captured by these images, like watching meteors which shower later in the week, this man of two braids is speaking of love and compassion, of releasing criticism and judgment, of his children who are Mohawk and their mother who he will visit as soon as his week of traveling “New England” is complete. Humbling even the lookey-loos who aren’t sure what the Indians are doing in their state park, there is truth and beauty which Horse Man speaks and walks, there is a medicine inside this ride. “We have come to a time of great urgency. The fate of future generations rests in our hands. We must understand the two ways we are free to follow, as we choose the positive way or the negative way—the spiritual way or the material way. It’s our own choice—each of ours and all of ours.” He speaks quietly, sincerely, a mother lode of hope in his large hands, a warm heart in the center of his words which bring rivers to my eyes, for I remember well the nature of these times.

Horse Man, called a Spiritual Leader of the Lakota nation, has worn the wounds of many falls. Having lived inside Indian Country for many years, there is a knowing within some of us that stories in our homeland go both ways about Horse Man. Bad talked or honored, his name is dropped and polished, mined and tumbled, like an agate set in silver from a western desert stronghold. With all his efforts, Horse Man is both criticized and over-iconized, and there is a longing inside of me to understand the wandering boy inside this man.

Still called “that young Indian guy” by some of his Lakota elders, Horse Man seems to carry all the years and struggles of his ancestors in his heart. “My Grandmother had a dream when I was a little boy. When I was twelve. She was told that I was to help my People, to be the next keeper of the Sacred Bundle.” And so after all these years he wears his work with reverence. Recently he returned from The Big Foote Ride which he began at Sitting Bulls Camp on December 15, just as he has done every December since 1987. Horse Man traveled on horse-back, a two week Spiritual trek, carrying a staff of Peace with nearly one hundred young people riding with him. A journey which always takes him from Sitting Bulls Camp near Grand River, South Dakota to Wounded Knee, the homeland of the American Indian Movement and site of the 1890’s massacre, a place where his great grandfather met his death.

Besides winter frozen toes from long days on horseback, Horse Man fights other battles. Public opinion and legal struggles to protect and preserve such places as the sacred site of Grey Horn Butte, also called “Devil’s Tower” are his concern. He has taken criticism for this kind of effort and received little recognition for successfully protecting that place important to his people. Still, in the recent wave of selling medicine and Indian appropriating, Chief Arvol Looking Horse travels and prays with people of all nations and receives giveaways only in the Traditional sense, he does not charge money for anything he offers. And with all of this he has begun a global movement of Peace, World Peace and Prayer Day (see www.worldpeaceday.com).

But still some question: why travel around the world, to Long Island and New York, to a village in Africa, or to the heart of witch burning country? Because as Arvol Looking Horse explains, “Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? … You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something else?” And so he travels internationally, bringing people of all nations together, talking the message of peace and survival, in his larger than mountain heart is carried these words “I honor your sacredness, your humanness, I ask you to honor mine. It’s good that we meet at this crucial time, this Sacred time—this Crossroads in human and Earth Mother’s history. Yes, it’s good.”
 
As Horse Man can deliver the warm message of Peace so can I find the courage to say that Spiritual leaders of this caliber today are as rare as Mohawk camps thriving in the colonizer Berkshires. Chief Arvol Looking Horse clearly carries a vision, he rides the dream which will keep us all alive. And in his voice there is created a wondering. Of another time and place. A hillside which looks on a blue sky day all the way to places we have never seen. Longing for spring meadow to soothe our shivering limbs it is with Horse Man we find the strength to rekindle Peacenik chants and prayers of chance.

“You yourself are the one who must decide. You alone—and only you—can make this crucial choice. Whatever you decide is what you’ll be, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. You can’t escape the consequences of your own decision. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World. You must decide.”

Horse Man helps us realize the us we long to be and how it is we can travel home. To a time and place some of us still remember. Peace. Love and compassion. For a world in confusion, Horse Man lays out pathways to the daisies.
 
Antoinette Claypoole is a freelance writer who lives between Ashland, Oregon and Taos, New Mexico. Her first book, Who Would Unbraid Her Hair, the legend of annie mae, concerning American Indian Move-ment warrior Anna Mae Pictou Aquash is available through the publisher at www.dickshovel.com/clay8.html or at your local bookstore through Ingram Books. Chief Arvol Looking Horse’s new book, White Buffalo Teachings, edited by Harvey Arden, is available through www.dreamkeepers.net.

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A Hopi Elder Speaks

"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour,now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered ...
Where are you living? What are you doing?
What are your relationships? Are you in right relation?
Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,
“This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona.

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