SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN SWEET SIXTEEN THIS YEAR

      I went to the farm in Wisconsin where She was born to celebrate Her birthday.  I’ve been going there for over 15 years and it still amazes me that no matter what is going on in my life, I feel great peace when I go to the place She lived.

            In the early years of Her birth dozens of folks showed up to celebrate.  This year there were just a handful of familiar faces.  I imagine what brings them is the same sense of gratitude that draws me back as often as I can get there to pay my respects.

            Having been raised in the white world causes me to question my commitment to my annual pilgrimage.  How sane is this inexplicable connection I feel to a big brown beast that passed on over five years ago?  These days I’m able to dismiss that question and others like it that rise to stir my self-doubt with a smile.  No claim to sanity here; only allegiance to the Great Mystery of it all.

            I sat again on the farm where She lived and stared at bison in a pasture while the sun beat down on me and the flies swarmed around me.  What is it about their magic that brings meaning and insight into otherwise ordinary sights and sounds around me?  I stood in the field She once walked and drew strength to face the challenges before me.

            Ancient stories from the mouths of Elders weren’t told to me in my youth.  In my late middle age I read about Primitive Mythology, the Masks of God and thank Joseph Campbell for his masterpiece that teaches me.  I learn about elementary ideas and ethnic ideas and innate influences and take hold of beliefs I can embrace as truths, they too bring me comfort.  And I know I will return again and again to the place where my inner world began to open to me.