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Following the footsteps of Black
Elk Wallace Black Elk is a teacher, healer, and shaman of the Lakota Sioux tradition. As a child he was educated in the sacred ways of his people by Nicholas Black Elk, whose story is told in John Neihardt’s book Black Elk Speaks. The following describes a weekend teaching conducted by ‘Grandfather’ Wallace Black Elk, and ‘Grandmother’ Emily Bornstein Avalon. It was hosted by their spiritual daughter Mary Thunder, who is the caretaker of 43 acres of sacred land called Thunder-Horse Ranch in West Point, Texas. This land is dedicated to the healing of the earth and the unity of all created things. When you drive through the gate, the first thing you see is a sign which reads: "Welcome to Thunder-Horse Ranch. This is Spiritual Land." To the right is a buffalo pen, where Starkeeper and StarShine carefully watch over the new calf Rosebud. You have left behind the conventions of mainstream America and entered the ceremonial order of the Native American way. In this world time has lost its everyday meaning and one becomes attentive to the passing instant. The teachings we find here tell of the unity of all creation. Mary Thunder is a teacher and healer of Cheyenne and Irish ancestry. She and her husband Jeffrey "White Horse" Hubbell founded the ranch. In her book Thunder’s Grace she describes a vision that was its inspiration. Ten years ago she was told to start developing Spiritual Universities around the country. "These places would be like oases in the desert where people could come and receive a drink of spirituality to help their lives work better.... [They] would be ... for the cultures of all four races, a home for the Spirit that walks with me, and sacred land on which to reconstruct the family of man." On any weekend at the ranch you may find a different tradition represented — a Tibetan monk, a Filipino healer, or a New Age teacher. During this weekend with Black Elk and Emily there were scheduled teaching seminars during the day and a sweat lodge ceremony on Saturday night. Wallace and Emily Wallace Black Elk calls himself an Earth Man and asks that his people, those of the native cultures in all lands, be called the Earth People. In everything he says, one realizes that he remembers from whence he came. Basic to our lives, he teaches, is the natural world, and underlying all of nature is Mother Earth. Deep in her womb stir the seeds of creation. Mankind itself is fashioned from her clay. From time to time as he sits and talks, he reaches down and sifts a handful of soil through his fingers. "This," he says, "is everything." Emily Bornstein Avalon is a PhD psychologist of Irish-Celtic descent. She was raised and educated on the East coast and had a clinical practice for many years. On meeting Black Elk she closed her practice to study Lakota shamanism. For three years she did not read a book. Her teaching now is often given through story telling and song. On this occasion she reads a Russian folk tale. It conveys vivid imagery of courageous acts which transform the face of malevolence. She accompanies Black Elk during the ceremonies with her powerful drumming and singing of the Lakota songs. Childhood with his Grandfathers When he was "just a little guy" Black Elk began his work. In his biography Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota, he claims that his birth and mission were predicted 19 generations ago. When he came "the old people were ready and waiting for me." At the age of five he received his first vision. He was given then "one drop of wisdom and one drop of knowledge ... something that I could hold onto for our little ones and the unborn behind me." Also he learned that he would not be elevated or promoted by his gifts but would instead be "under the feet of everything that exists." Instead of book learning he was taught by 11 ‘Grandfathers,’ or spiritual Elders. They taught him to invoke the powers of the six Grandfathers — the four cardinal directions, the heavens above, and earth below. He learned to speak to Tunkashila, the Father Creator, and Grandmother Earth, the Mother Creator — our true parents. Because we are fashioned from their elements we are physically as well as metaphorically brothers and sisters of one family. He learned the universal prayer of his people, Mitakuye oyasin, ‘all my relations.’ It is spoken in greeting and at the beginning and end of ritual observances to remind the people of their relatedness to everything that exists. Destruction of the Earth People In the 1920s and 30s life was hard for the Earth People in the US. The 1800s had witnessed their physical destruction and removal from vast areas of their ancestral lands. During Black Elk’s childhood a continuing, but more subtle, form of decimation — called Americanization — began. Native ceremonies were outlawed and the children of the tribes were forced into white-run, Christian-oriented schools. Many did not return to their families or customs for years. Their culture and sense of self-worth were brutally undermined by physical beatings and indoctrination into a religion often taught by self-righteous and racist teachers. On returning to their families many found themselves rootless, no longer at home in either culture. Because they understood his calling, Black Elk’s people hid him away from school authorities. Repeatedly they were imprisoned for their defiance, but Black Elk is always thankful for their great sacrifice. He knows the white man’s schooling would have ruined his special gifts. Over the years he learned the four lessons of the Earth Man — courage, patience, endurance, and alertness. With these he was able to carry through the promise of his childhood, and hold fast to Lakota ways, preserving them through their darkest night. He learned, as well, the lesson of forgiveness — when he prays, he prays for all living things and his healing is given to people of all cultures. "So when I say ‘my people,’ I’m not talking only about my Sioux tribe ... I don’t think that way. I am speaking about the whole universe ... all the two-leggeds, the four sacred colors ... that Tunkashila created ... the black, the red, the yellow, and the white." Chanunpa For Black Elk, the Sacred Pipe, or Chanunpa, is the center and heart of his ritual. It is his link to the spirit world. With the Chanunpa he begins and ends the ceremonies. With it he talks to Tunkashila, he calls on the spirits, he asks for help and health for himself and for his people. When he returned from serving in World War II, he decided that he would tell the world about the sacredness of the Chanunpa. For many decades such talk had been quickly silenced. But now he thought it was time. The first ones to protest were the priests. A court order was issued and the local police took him away in a straightjacket, kicked and beat him, and threw him into a cell in a mental institution. He was classified insane. But a strange thing happened in his cold and lonely cell — a spirit came and opened the door. His jailers, of course, could not believe it when he said it was a spirit, but it confused them so badly they set up hearings that led to his release. Such persecutions never stopped Black Elk. He has taught the sacred ways for five decades and persevered despite an often indifferent reception. He has invited scientists, psychologists, priests, and doctors to observe the rituals of Lakota life. He has spoken to audiences throughout the world, discussed his teachings with nuclear physicists, addressed the United Nations. He believes the Earth People have kept alive an essential knowledge that has been almost destroyed in a too-greedy world. He wryly suggests that "In Gold We Trust" should be the real motto on the American dollar. Yet he believes that the people of the world are turning back to the way of simplicity and listening again to the voice of the sacred because they know the planet is hovering on the edge of destruction. The teachings again are finding their way. Black Elk has a close connection with the spirit entities of the natural world. In the early 1950s, during a sweatlodge (called by Black Elk the stone-people-lodge), the fish-people came to voice a plea. Those in the lodge could actually feel the tails slapping across their bodies and hear water gurgling through the heated rocks. The fish spirits had come to say that the humans were misusing the power of the creator by making A-bombs and were dumping nuclear waste into the oceans. Eventually it would harm not only the fish-people, but all life in the chain of being. It wasn’t until 17 years later that news of this radioactive pollution reached the newsstands of the world. In a Denver hospital he once conducted a healing ceremony for a little boy who could neither speak, eat, nor walk. The spirit who came to diagnose the problem said that an unknown harmful power, a toka, had tied a spider web in a knot around one of the cranial nerves near the neck. This had completely paralyzed not only the neck muscles and vocal chords but had affected the whole system. When Black Elk called in the red spider spirit, Iktomi, father of all the spiders, it untangled the web in the throat. In that instant the boy was freed and in one day he began to eat, walk, and talk. So that the people might live There is a phrase that runs through Lakota prayer and song: "So that the people might live." The leaders and healers consider themselves as servants and intercessors between the people and the spirit powers of the universe. They have little confidence in the vicarious atonement of the Christian faith, but themselves willingly take on the role of suffering for their own group and for all living things. All seven of the original Lakota ceremonies and rites are again being practised today. The Sundance, the Vision Quest, and the Sweatlodge are the best known. Each involves the endurance of pain. Each attempts to transcend the ties of the body and find connection with the voice of the Sacred. Sundance At the age of 38, Mary Thunder had a heart attack. She ‘died’ on the operating table and entered the spirit world. She was taught its secrets and told to return to the earth to finish her work. She knew her life would never be the same, and one year later she became a Sundancer. "The Dance itself," she writes, "is the dance of death, transformation, and rebirth. It is done for the renewal of the Earth at the time of year when the Sun is highest, to ground the energies of Father Sun into Mother Earth." It is the most exacting of ceremonies. For four days and nights the dancers fast from both food and water. Under the summer sun, from sunrise to sunset they dance around the central tree of life, praying for a vision. Flesh offerings are made by piercing the skin and spilling blood. Thus the dancers demonstrate "their generosity, gratitude, courage, and fortitude by offering their flesh, the only thing they ... call their own." It was an enormous decision for Thunder to enter the Sundance. Because it is a ritual of initiation, its completion can push the dancer into a new position of power and responsibility in the community. This is what has happened to Thunder, whose work has intensified with every year. The stone-people-lodge On Saturday evening at Thunder Horse Ranch we gather at the stone-people-lodge. The central fire sends flames into the darkening night. Its sparks drift skyward and mingle with the stars. On hands and knees, in a humble way, we enter the shelter and crowd closely in the tiny enclosure. Glowing stones are brought and the door is closed. In four rounds of cleansing, Black Elk lifts his voice to Tunkashila, throwing water on the stonepit. The steam fills the room in vapors of heat that stop the breath and mind. As Emily chants and beats the drum, her voice enters the spaces of the soul and changes the suffering into another dimension. Each wave of pain becomes transformed, lifts from the body, and finds its way into the universe. All that is left are the faces — a million eyes of starvation that seize the heart — and the bodies of brothers and sisters so paralyzed with want they have forgotten how to cry. Then one understands, of course — that this is why we live, why we continue in this world amidst the pain, among a suffering too large for words, too vast for comprehension. It is for the people, the ones with the empty eyes and fleshless bodies. Something inside relaxes. Something within embraces life, this tiny existence in the great plan of things. This is why we breathe and why we carry on — "so that the people might live." More articles by Bette Stockbauer Who is Maitreya? Directory of articles by several authors Share International ShareAudio: Listen here! Be sure to visit: Share International, a non-profit, non-denominational organization documenting the emergence of Maitreya, the World Teacher.
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