Dancing With...

My favorite movie of all time is Dances With Wolves, and that's no secret. I'm watching it now. Kind of. I know how it goes, but the spirituality moves me like nothing else can.

I discovered many years after this movie became my favorite that Lakota meant Sioux. Once I discovered this, the language in the movie made so much more sense. Listen to it the next time you see it on cable...every time there is talk of the tribe, they speak of Lakota, not Sioux. That's special.

I am entranced with the Native American way of life simply because it would seem that they made no apologies for who they were. Not at any point in time. Who knows if "infertility" existed in this time or place. All I know is that women are respected in the tribe above and beyond what they are today. I don't know if it mattered whether or not they had a papoose strapped to their backs. What I know is that in many tribes, including Lakota, women are regarded as dominent and the men take the woman's name at marriage. How cool is that?

I often wonder if in this culture a woman would be outcast for her inability to bear children or if she would be worshipped. Often I feel it must be the latter, based on what I know of these people. I think that our existing culture is more tribal than it would like to admit. I feel often that I would be more welcomed as a Native American than I could ever be as a white woman. I feel that I would be more respected and cared for by the natives than I am by my surroundings. It is what it is.

The natives are beautiful and I want to be beautiful too. I want to rise and set with the sun and be praised for who I am, not condemned or judged for what I lack. My college geography instructor taught that the translation of "wachichu" is not "white" but "greedy". I never want to be so wachichu that it is obvious to my fellow men and women that my heart is not in the right place.

I always want it to be right; pure and true. To be there is to be special beyond expression in the terms of Christianity. It is bliss, and it is truly what I seek.