As I sat out on the reservation, on the steps of some random trailer, in the middle of no where, South Dakota, deep in Pine Ridge; I thought about my life. I thought about the things I was fortunate for. I look around myself and realize the people I came to see, see me that way. Fortunate. Stupid. Arrogant. Gifted. But teachable. The wind kicked up sending dust and trash swirling about. I felt more like I was in a trailer park, except that my Jeep was worth more than the trailer I was at. My crappy income was more than the collective annual of the 4 people I'd come to see. I felt fortunate. But I felt like I worked for it. I watched a trash bag flutter, while the garbage littered everything else around the fence line. So close to its purpose, yet so far from being fulfilled. That as probably me blowing around out here. Trash on a fence line, so close to the bag, yet so far from being in it where I belong.
My friend, as I've come to think of him, was someone I met my first journey out the the "bush" as I call it. He's a 50ish, average, long haired Sioux, who has lived his whole life on the reservation. His hair is still long and jet black, often braided. I'll call him Eagle's Feather, to keep his identity vague. To be clear, outsiders like me are not really welcome. No one wants to associate with me. My money is welcome, but I'm not. But there isn't anything for me to spend it on. There aren't any casinos on the res, no hotels really, not even a half ass placed to eat other than in Kyle. Usually at the monuments near Porcupine, they still line up to sell me trinkets for 30 bucks off the highway. That's about what I'm worth to these people.
Its 49 miles, on my odometer, to drive out to his trailer. Its little more than a gravel road, with a gravel turn around in front. His old mini van parked out side, with his daughter's Metro parked near it. They have a small fenced section and a shed, that serves as protection for two old horses. No one rides them. They are too old. There's no saddle or tack anyhow. The one time I'd seen someone else ride out to their house was late at night, and the teenager used a rope bridal, without a saddle. It was an alarming sight in the dark. Something I wish I could have photographed in a studio; the only way I could have captured it!! But, hardly what you think of from the movies. Eagle's Feather welcomed me, as he always had. I hate to mention it, but I brought him a bottle of booze. Its typical. It a dry reservation. No one asks much though; obviously I'm just a lost white man out here, who made a wrong turn... look any closer at him and hes a photographer that was looking for a new canyon to shoot. Eagle's Feather always gives me an embrace somewhere between my elbow and my shoulder, and he always looks into my eyes asking me why I still come. I laugh and tell him because the price is right!
Eagle's Feather is a low level member in the tribal council, who often led prayer and spiritual gatherings. I had met him by accident as he was there to perform some funerary rites to an old grand mother that had died. I, as I do, had wandered out onto the wrong road a few years before to take pictures, and they came upon me. So that was the story of my first Sioux funeral. He took interest in me that day because i was open to it all. Because I didn't question anything and I asked to help and be a part, no just to observe. I was told that the great spirits of the wind had carried me here to him, and the mother earth wished to keep me tied to the ground until I understood more. His influence on my psyche was key at that point in time. I did need some sort of grounding that I lacked. I was exploring Buddhism. It works for somethings, many of which were inside of me. But it never gave me a place in the world at large. Eagle's Feather saw me for that immediately. So since then, I always stop by to see him. Its my way of thanking him and renewing myself several years later.
This time I sat out here, talking on the steps to him, about how disconnected I felt. He looks plainly past me to the canyon and the hills beyond me, as I begin to talk about the past year. I felt like I had started to understand things. That I was beginning to become comfortable with life and who I was. I knew I was alone. I knew the point of my life was never I told him that I had met someone that changed my life, mentally, she made things fun and interesting again. She was pretty. She was fun. Then she turned on me a few months later and left me to hang there for no reason. No explanations, just abruptly tossed me aside and left me to feel worthless. I told him about how much difference it made to feel a part of it all, and to feel connected. He asked me why I was here, now, knowing the answer. Because I wasn't connected. He turns to me, "Wacignuni..." he begins. Its a term to mean wandering. He uses that with me, and made me learn it from the dictionary I bought. He tells me a story about a day when the rabbit goes hunting as he always has and finds a family of bear and is ultimately eaten by the bears. Rabbit is a term for young person, but it makes the stories easier to relate to children. The point of the story was that rabbits wander into things not knowing where they go, most times it doesn't matter, but sometimes great things happen. Grave or awesome, the rabbit will only wander until that day or moment comes. I can't say much. I laugh and told him about the day he first met me. He smiles and laughs too. He tells me he wishes a bear would have eaten me that day to spare him all this.
Being out on the reservation is much simpler. Even though I see how squalid life is, its simpler. No one has money. No one, by and large,is really educated beyond 5th or 6th grade levels. Very few finish school, or end up at the Lakota tribe run college. Even fewer escape life on the reservation all together. Yet, here I am. I leave a new house I own, drive a nice car, away from a job I have, leaving my things behind as well as the people I felt blessed to have. I come out in the desert to sit on the steps of a mobile home, thinking about my place in the world. I don't understand it. I come here to find guidance. Simple guidance. There isn't much. He leads a prayer for me, and burns some sage in a bowl. He takes my hand and marks it with some of the ash, and makes the traditional medicine wheel. Eagle's Feather asks me what I really need in this world, and I think about that. He told me the answer shouldn't require any thought. The answer is, all that I need is provided for me by the 4 great directions of the earth. He tells me that if I really am to have a wife, the the great spirit will provide for me. A great spirit would bring her to me. Just as if I was hungry, so would I find food and water. If I needed shelter, trees and caves were already provided for me. He looks at me to remind me, my desires are not to be provided for, and that I know better.
As a friend, I think Eagle's Feather would rather see me happy and fulfilled; yet I think he still would like to see me out on the res each year to hear about my own growth. He often talks that I am ignorant of the will of the spirits of the earth. I am. I truly am. But he tells me there is no shame in wanting someone to share my journeys with. He goes on tell me that he thinks I'd make a fine son to him, that I have many great things to share, and many ways to be thankful to people in my life that many people wouldnt understand. But he tells me, the only way to see it, is to see if the spirits provide for me; that rain falls so crops would grow, and that the sun shines to warm the earth and to show us to show us the way around it. He understands how I feel. He told me to continue to walk, and wander.
I dont know that it makes much sense. Thats what I thought about sitting on the steps. After all that had happened, I was getting ready to leave as Eagle's Feather was inside talking with his daughter. I watched the trash billow. I thought back to all the dead cattle I had seen on the drive across the state. What purpose did they provide? What purpose do people on the reservation serve that dump garbage out on their own heritage area? What do I really offer sitting on the steps in the desert to anyone back home? I looked at the faint ash on my hand, and the circle of the medicine wheel. As it turns all is balanced, all is humble and sacred. Everything has a direction and a purpose, all is blessed in its simple existence and all is necessary. Even that time alone in the desert is necessary. As hard as it was to leave some of my creature comforts for a week, or hard to leave situations unresolved with people you feel committed to; it was harder to come back to it all after that. I spent the week camping in a canvas tent, hiking and backpacking in parks. I tried to forget people, or my feelings. I had no cell service, and even my short wave radio didn't catch anything. I was out wandering. I came back, because all was provided for. I sat on the steps thinking about that. That sometimes it doesn't make sense; what was provided for you.
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