Elder Vision

What if I told you there was a vision in America long before Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream. In no way am I trying to discredit or shy away from all the wonders and wisdom Martin Luther King Jr. brought into this world either. I want to use this platform as a way to inform those who read this a little bit about my own culture. That is the Indigenous Anishinaabe people of North America. I don’t want to get into the tragic events that took place because I like to look at the brighter sides of the picture, but if you haven’t learned about what really happened to my people to the core, I'd look into it. I don’t just mean the basic grade school history either because they sure do love to leave a lot of information out of those textbooks.

The vision I wish to tell you about is from the amazing Warrior Black Elk. In our culture it was common when being introduced into adulthood, they would go on a spiritual/vision quest, through the means of fasting, sweating, meditation, and prayer. Black Elk’s vision took place at the age of 9. It starts out by Black Elk hearing a voice while he is eating, telling him to hurry because his Grandfathers are waiting. He grows sick and can not walk. The people are moving camp, but he is so ill that he must be carried. While he is laid down to rest in his parents teepee, he sees four men in the sky through the hole. They call to him that his Grandfathers are waiting for him.

A cloud then takes Black Elk up into the sky, where he is greeted by a bay horse who tells him that he will tell the life history of himself and others. There are 12 horses in each of the four directions in matching colors. The bay tells him that the horses will lead him to his Grandfathers. The bay and Black Elk keep on walking and a cloud changes into a teepee with a rainbow door. Inside the door there is his Grandfather's waiting. The first tells him that his Grandfathers all over the world are having a council and that they will teach him.

Each of the six Grandfathers in turn tells Black Elk something about himself and his people's future while giving him a symbolic object. The first gives him a wooden cup of water that contains the sky, which is the power to live and a bow, which is the power to destroy. He tells Black Elk that his spirit is “Eagle Wing Stretches” then turns into a starving black horse. The Second gives him a herb that fattens the black horse, which becomes the first grandfather again. The second Grandfather tells Black Elk that he will make a nation live and that he will have the power of the white giant's wing and then the grandfather turns into a white goose. The third gives him a Sacred pipe with a spotted eagle and tells him he will make well whatever is sick. He points to a red man, who turns into a bison. The fourth gives him a red stick, sprouted with birds in its branches. He says “it is the living center of a nation” and that Black Elk will save many. Black Elk thinks he sees in the shades of the stick, a village of people lying like a hoop with the stick in the middle, blooming like a tree at an intersection of a red and black road. The fourth Grandfather tells him that the north-south road (red road) is good and the east-west road (black road) is trouble and war. He says that Black Elk will “walk with power on both” and will destroy a people’s enemies. He then turns into an Elk. The fifth Grandfather turns into a spotted eagle and tells Black Elk that he will have a special relationship with birds. The sixth Grandfather changes before his eyes, regressing in age until he is a boy, who is Black Elk himself. He tells him that he will have his Grandfather's powers and that his nation will know great trouble. He gives Black Elk the name “Eagle Wing Stretches”.

After being gifted all the objects by the Grandfathers, he leaves on the bay horse, riding until spotting a blue man in a flaming river. White, red, and yellow troops try to charge the blue man and are beaten. Black Elk succeeds in killing him and knows that he has taken the form of rain and killed the drought. Black Elk then sees a circled village and is told it is his. Everyone in his village seems to be dead or dying, but he rides through and they revive. A voice tells him that it is the center of the nation’s hoop that he has been given, that made the people live.

A voice tells Black Elk to give the people the flowering stick, sacred pipe, and the wing of the white giant. When he plants the stick in the center of the hoop, it grows instantly into a tree, under which all living things live happily. The sacred pipe flies in on the eagle's wings, bringing peace. The entire group, including the spirits of the dead from the past, walk with Black Elk and the bay down the red road. The voice says they are walking in a sacred manner, in a good land.

They must climb four ascents, each one getting progressively steeper and more difficult. After the first the people turn into animals and the second, the animals are restless and the leaves are falling from the tree. The voice says, from here on, Black Elk must remember what he was given because his people will be in difficulties. They begin to walk to black road and the nation’s hoop is broken. The fourth ascent is terrifying. The people and their horses are starving and the voice that has been guiding them seems to weep.

Black Elk then sees fighting, gunfire, and smoke with his people fleeing like swallows. His own horse is reduced to skin and bones, but he cures him with the herb he was given. Four virgins then enter the vision carrying some of the symbolic objects that Black Elk has been given. They dance and the horse dances. He looks up upon his people and Earth is restored and they are happy once again. Still on his horse, he sees the whole world as one. The hoops of many nations united in one hoop, with one mighty tree sheltering everyone, as the children of one Father and one Mother. He saw that it was holy.

This vision speaks to me very loudly with the times we are in right now and I feel as if it's part of my responsibility to do everything in my power to help bring this vision, as well as MLK’s dream, into fruition. So for the year 2022, my goals are to grow the business I just started in the middle of last year, while donating 10% of every purchase to a charity or non-profit organization, help bring together my community in any way possible, whether that be donating my time, resources, knowledge, etc… and networking, networking, with more networking. I’m only 24 years old so I'm still a youngin, but I feel like now more than ever, it is so important to reach out and find those with the same visions and goals in common to work towards the common interest.

Down the line when I get some years under my belt, I hope to be in the position to be able to put the resources in place on my reservation to help in every way possible with things like free daycare to working families, and treatments for drug and alcohol addiction, more jobs and education, and much more. The end goal I have in sight is for my culture to get back to the ways of living in a community where it's all about helping everyone. I see it like this, if I'm a hard worker with plenty of resources available to me yet I see a family struggling, it is my responsibility to A) either work harder and maybe a little longer to help them B) share some of the resources I already have. At the end of the day materialistic items (besides the items for my needs being met) don’t have any value or worth in my heart. It’s all about the connection with each other and helping build one another up.

One thing I have noticed about today's day and age is that there are a ton more followers than leaders. So I’m hoping if I can be a positive role model and example, other people are going to see it and join in as well. There is no better gift than giving in my opinion and in today’s day with all the technology we have at hand, there should be absolutely no reason why the rich get richer and the middle and lower class get less and less. It’s time to take a stand and do what’s right, even on the days when we don’t feel like it. I hear a lot of important people with speeches on how they are going to make a difference without actually doing much and the truth is change is never going to come from them. It comes from us.

I know my goals and dreams seem very large and some might say out of reach, but I am confident in my abilities and leadership qualities to be able to pull them off one day. I keep the faith strong and cling on to as much hope as possible. I love all my brothers and sisters across all nations and just want to say thank you all for everything you do and provide for this world. No matter how small or insignificant one might think of oneself, we all place a crucial role in the collective consciousness as a whole.

Miiwetch,

-Chief