Showing posts with label Native American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Native American. Show all posts

Saturday, November 11, 2017

REFLECTIONS OF MYSELF

My own reflections come from the sacred eyes of my sacred lodge belongs to Kish-Shamm Manitou (Our Creator), within this sacred lodge dwells the spirit of Monnzheeze (fawn), my wife.

We both feel in our own way someplace dwells perfection, it was once here long before the invasion of this white man...along with greed and lust.

We know the natural and original creation has all but been abandoned by the cultures of today.

We know there are many people around that still live that natural and original way created by Kish-Shamm Manitou.

And in my eyes, also come reflections that belong to you, Monnzheeze, my wife.
  
We are a oneness this way....
                                   
Long ago during a Peyote ceremony, legend has it how a man and a woman from the Potawatomi nation entered into this sacred ceremony and their spirit's met. They talked that way for a long while and decided not to return back down here.

They walked away laughing in that manner.

Many have gone that way and it was found that their own materialistic sacred lodges were empty of this life.
Their spirits had abandoned this sacred life. They walked in to a belief.

We hear those walked away from life that way.

When it rains, their laughter can be heard, or their soft pitter-patter of running feet while those many raindrops fall down on us.
Their laughter can be heard from swift rivlets, creeks, brooks, mighty falling rivers.

Theirs can be said of a happy life the way they walked away together.
                                   
So, it is not always that one that walks into spirituality alone, there are many want this way, just as I do.

Just as my Monnzheeze wants it.

We are filled with a fear of many things...even this life.

That is why many of us look at each other in apprehension towards all that swiftly and silently approaching all of life from a direction that all of life must inevitably enter.

I have always said, I will walk alone if need be. There is no fear, only what we carry deep to the bottom of our sacred lodges.

So, these are reflections of myself.


The Way Called Beautiful by Helen Bird

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

THE TURTLE


AVAILABLE NOW ON amazon.com & ebook on kindle

THE TURTLE

"Those elders came from over there where the winds are always warm and cool.

How they got here long, long ago is a mystery to this Chaa-Moaakonnish.
It was a time when all life was Gitchi-Manitou.
And all life lived upon the back of this huge turtle.

At that time, the turtle had lots of room, so Gitchi-Manitou told all his red children
to hurry up and make love on turtle's back and be as many as the beautiful stars in the skies up above.

Turtle asked Gitchi-Manitou if he would but have some rest for a spell.

Turtle fell asleep and every once in a while he moves closest to where the waters lap at his side.

Where the warm winds blow cool breezes upon him and when turtle moves in his sleep, the whole of California quakes.
Someday in a time when this Chaa-Moaakmonish treats turtle too harshly, the
turtle will move to a different place.

We, the red man, call this our turtle island for that reason.

We are as fleas on a dog's tail and like fleas, we can fall off for good.
So I move through this life like turtle, slow and careful and when the time comes for Gitchi-Manitou to talk with me, I will only say,

"My beloved Creator, You own everything all over."

And I will ask,
"How did the turtle finally move?"

The answer is easy.

Always treat turtle with respect, like you treat yourself...
Do not be greedy, lustful, hunger for too much.
Just be in a patient way with yourself.
Soon enough there will be that time when you will have many questions to answer.
A time to be strong and do not always look at the other person, for he will not be there to blame you or you to blame him.

So be good to him in this life.

Some of us understand this way, and

“We know why."

                                                 
                                                      'Full Of Life'
                                            ink drawing by Helen Bird 2017


Friday, September 29, 2017

AS WE GO ALONE

EXCERPT FROM THE WAY CALLED BEAUTIFUL BY HELEN BIRD 
Available on amazon/kindle thewaycalledbeautiful by Helen Bird

We are honored, Grandfather to be gathered here today, to be nearer with you and each other.

There is a time when we must be way down, in this place where you own all that you created. We humble ourselves here, Grandfather…

I open up my heart to all, that they too feel the free soaring spirit of the many vast creations. Your creations…

I have looked at you from many ways. I saw you looking at me too. I know this feeling that was here long before we came to be.
So long as we stand here in this life, we will talk about that thin mysterious veil that separates us from our own ancestors over there on the high banks of eternity in place where they call to us always.

A place where they give us a little strength…

We are inhabitants of these sacred lodges, look at them as your tipi…

What holds a tipi upright? Strong poles…

What holds up our sacred lodge? Our bones…

The doeskin/buckskin is an adornment on your beautiful tipi where we are inhabitants inside this short time down here in this life…

When we tire of this way of life, we will walk through the thin veil to our own silent judgment.

We go alone. We will be all alone.

No one can go with you. You will speak alone for yourself.
There you will not be able to accuse or be accused, for that is why we die alone.

For that is why we come in to the world….ALONE

We all have a task in this life…

So take good care of your doeskin/buckskin and…

Remember to keep it clean.




Wednesday, September 27, 2017


'Totem' mixed media by Helen Bird 2013

“The Great Spirit moves us and we never know what our next step is going to be."

NOW AVAILABLE ON amazon/kindle thewaycalledbeautiful by Helen Bird

#NativeAmerican #biography #poetry #illustration #art #helenbirdart #inspiration #thewaycalledbeautiful

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

The Centuries of Pain

THE CENTURIES OF PAIN

We see the native go his way
So listless, sad and poor.

A copper corpse that’s tumbled up
along a shrouded shore.

Too often as we watch him bend
beneath his piteous yoke,
we call him ‘Noble Red skin’
and mean it as a joke.

Too often we just see the crust
Of sickness, dirt and sin,
and never try to seek the soul
that flickers there within.

How can we know the tears that flood
the centuries of pain?

How can we know the awful loss
of mountain, wood and plain?

How can we know the losing fight
against foul greed and lust?

How can we know the pledge betrayed
the ever broken trust?

For locked up in the native mind,
behind his cryptic eyes
there lives the cold pained memory
of Mother Earth’s lost Paradise.

A Paradise of wood and hill,
Of river, lake and stone,
whose dwellers only asked they
be left at peace – alone.

The other younger races
who came from Europe’s shores
to ‘civilize the savages’,
Ah well, they did their chores.

With bullet, gun and bottle,
with slippery tongue and pen
they robbed him of his Heaven on Earth,
for they were civilized men.

Oh, someday when all ‘Rights and wrongs!’
are balanced on the beam
there may be judgement to repay,
the theft of natives’ dreams.

Meanwhile a sorry folk we are,
Who do not seem to care,
that our red brother prostrate lies
because we put him there….

From the book 'The Way Called Beautiful' by Helen Bird  - available on amazon.com thewaycalledbeautiful

                           'Tears of Yellow Cloud' mixed media on canvas by Helen Bird 
#NativeAmerican #poetry #helenbird #art #biography


Continued excerpt from 'The Way Called Beautiful' by Helen Bird

THE YOUNG WARRIOR - PART TWO


The man watched as they brought the sleeping warrior and then he disappeared.

He walked away, vanished just as quickly as he had appeared to the people...
It was a young red woman who ran after that man, only to return badly frightened as she pointed to over there upon Mother our beautiful earth's sacred and powerful white shawl...
                                   
The walking mans' tracks had become hoof prints, much as those of our four legged relatives, the deer...

This is a true happening that took place during the occupation of Wounded Knee, as the white man had chased the warrior deep in to a blizzard, deep in to the inescapable ravines of the Badlands...

The warrior returned home one year later with lungs infected from pneumonia and medicine men drew fluids from his chest ceremoniously with the eagle bone...

The young warrior knew life had come to him under that snow laden cedar tree...

In a dream a deer came to him, stood watching him and in his own tongue he beseeched the help from our four legged relative...
It was granted.

Today, he walks proudly in the knowledge that his ancestors' ways are true, and yet…

He is saddened that so many children are lost to these sacred ways.
The federal agents never recovered that young warriors sacred lodge and


...Yes, they still chase him....

                                                          Illustration by Zawanquit
BOOK/EBOOK NOW AVAILABLE ON amazon.com thewaycalledbeautiful by Helen Bird

#thewaycalledbeautiful #NativeAmericanLiterature #helenbirdart 

Monday, September 25, 2017

No One Knows

Excerpt from The Way Called Beautiful' by Helen Bird 

"Long before the coming of our revised history stood a unique red man of great mystery.

He stands patiently waiting by your tipi entrance.

He knows every beat of our red peoples' hearts.

His hair is braided long with care. The color of his skin is deep copper.

He is the first red man uniquely apart.

I call him 'Wau-See-Turr', for no one really knows his name.

He was the first red man to walk upon this sacred land.

How this red man died??? No one will ever know!

Wau-See-Turr entered in to sacred spirit sky world.

A sacred place for 'nishnaubeh' (red person), that Our 'Kish-Shamm-Manitou' (Creator)
had planned.

Wau-See-Turr was all alone over there and he was lonely being the very first!

He spoke to Kish-Shamm-Manitou and Kish-Shamm-Manitou answered his request...

That for all time, to the last red person's spirit, Wau-See-Turr would enter and depart
from the sacred spirit place in the sky, to guide all his people's from down here to up there.

They have gone, never, ever to depart from up high.

Wau-See-Turr...You have heard our cries of misery and you have answered from that
place over there in eternity.

Wau-See-Turr...

Your nishnaubeh path is deeply trodden by red man nations come from down here below.
You have answered our many calls of miseries, when we feared to be lost to some other eternity...

He stands waiting patiently by your tipi entrance, fanning Kish-Shamm-Manitou's
mighty spotted eagles' feathers.

His sacred song is final farewell to world down here, as you dance upon deeply trodden path, hand in hand together.

Over there, high upon the banks of eternity, Wau-See-Turr points to our beloved ancestors singing to us...

"Wau-See-Turr

Wau-See-Turr

Wau-See-Turr..."

They are calling all of...Us!!!"

Within this great mystery, this man was given many ways how it would be...

With warriors, childrens' that belong to these warriors, the once was warriors…
Our most respected elders, they all feel this sacred vision of our Spirit Guide Sky Walker

He will be the very last to enter in to our place given to us by Kish-Shamm-Manitou.

That sacred place we call spirit sky world where our ancestors call to us always.

Book/ebook available on amazon.com thewaycalledbeautiful by Helen Bird

    
                                              PENCIL DRAWING BY ZAWANQUIT

#THEWAYCALLEDBEAUTIFUL #HELENBIRDART




Excerpt from The Way called Beautiful by Helen Bird
AVAILABLE on amazon.com the way called beautiful

THE YOUNG WARRIOR


                                                        Pencil drawing by Zawanquit

The snows fell silently upon Mother our beautiful earth, as the young warrior stood viewing this long awaited white blanket that came to cover the land's nakedness...

She was warm beneath her pure, powerful white shawl and the snows fell as snows had never fallen upon this young strong traditional warrior...

The time was tragically history being repeated by the white man chasing the red man across Mother our beautiful earth...
The place was in the Badlands of South Dakota and deep within the black dark hills, where the red warrior struggled towards a group of stunted cedar trees...

Safely under the snow laden branches, the young warrior rested...

It was an inevitable death that approached the young warrior and the coldness came strongly with a sleep much too long to understand...

A young deer walked away from the sleep claimed warrior, walking softly in a direction towards Porcupine and as the warrior slept he dreamt of the young happy smiling faces that once belonged to the people, now his ancestors...

The young warrior knew the ancestors had come to save a life...
The young deer neared the town where people milled about at early dusk...

A man approached the people and spoke to them in the age old tongue belonging to the Sioux...
The people went in to the Badlands where they found the fallen warrior beneath the snow laden cedar branches...

They found him barely alive, if alive at all...

TO BE CONTINUED...

#thewaycalledbeautiful #helenbirdart 
Excerpt from 'The Way called Beautiful' by Helen Bird

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE DISPLACED, THE DISENFRANCHISED, THE INDIGENOUS OF THE WORLD…
ALL THOSE AFFECTED BY GREED AND OPPRESSION.


PROLOGUE

The truth…

It will always find you…
When you least expect it and more importantly when you need to hear it the most.
I had fallen off the mad hamster wheel of western thinking, materialism and illusions of wealth disguised as debt and addiction…and I fell hard, only to find myself facing a fork in the dusty road of life. Rabbit holes…
I had a choice…I could continue down the God forsaken path of self- destruction and circle the drain or I could veer sharply on to the freeway of selfless enlightenment, shedding old ways and old skin, abandoning the stinking thinking of capitalistic shackles and shattered dreams.
As I wandered cold and hungry through a damp mist turning quickly to heavy rain, I stumbled upon a box.

A non-descript box tossed carelessly near a dumpster.
It looked no more than the garbage it was destined for.

Yet, somehow I was moved…compelled to dig deep in to that box, under already soggy papers and elderly yellowed sheet music, only to find at the very bottom, a treasury of words.

Words of hope and inspiration…

Words I so desperately needed at this point in time….

I saw in front of my very eyes a sacred task, one that was willed to me on that dreary day…a unique task of rescue… to repair and preserve the words of those that should never be lost and forgotten.

Who or what guided me towards that abandoned box???
Unseen forces, the ancestors beyond the veil and the great spirit of a proud Native American warrior…

His name is Zawanquit

‘Yellow Cloud’

And this is his life….

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON.COM THE WAY CALLED BEAUTIFUL


Excerpt from 'The Way Called Beautiful' by Helen Bird Now available on amazon.com / Kindle version too....the way called beautiful

THE WAY CALLED BEAUTIFUL 

"They came from many directions....
  Legions upon legions of them....
  They danced, they sang, they fought....
  They finally left in total rejection....

  She stood silently reiterating....
  Her many facades she chose to act.....
  It was many years later when age had come
  To claim the beauty from her life....
 
  Again she heard them approaching from
  Far, far away in the distance.....
  Yes, they stopped and stood
  Before the entrance of her sacred lodge....
  How long they remained standing this way
  No one will ever know
 
  It was another day she heard
  the footsteps coming
  Nearer and nearer towards her....
  Yes, they walked right over her,
  And they kept on walking away from her.....
  In this life our ancestors walked
  also in that sacred manner....

  They considered Mother, Our beautiful
  Earth not as a means to lay abuse
  But as a means to love and understand life.....
  Your Rainbow ones up there blend together…..

   The Way called Beautiful.