In
the scheme of things, I believe we each get ‘nudges’ from our muse, angel, our
higher consciousness, or you even might call them our guides or our ancestors.
I don’t judge how you call the source of that little push that directs you to
do something beyond what you usually do or believe you are unable to do. The fact
is, we all get them. Some of us don’t sense these nudges. Others of us rely on
them for life management.
For
instance, Emandal’s choir director, Don Willits, felt a nudge when he decided
to attend a fund raiser for the legal fund for those arrested at Standing Rock.
He invited each of us to consider donating our time for this event. Many of us
joined him. Many of the choir then were also educated regarding what this
movement represented: the unity of tribes and indigenous peoples all over the world
for their treaty rights, clean water, the health of Mother Earth, and the
commitment to make this stand a prayerful one.
One
of our group was nudged after the November election results to become more
active in government affairs. Her first step was to begin educating herself on
the issues. She subscribed to the New York Times Newsletter and then found an
article about the inception of the Standing Rock movement.
The
article is titled, “The Youth Group that Launched a Movement at Standing Rock”
by Saul Elbein, January 31, 2017. It details the work of a 19-year-old who for
reasons of her own (and that infamous nudge) decided to help her tribe and
especially the suicidal teens on the Cheyenne River Reservation in Eagle Butte,
South Dakota. The article gives voice to the many people who responded to their
own nudges and stood in prayer for clean water and to block the contamination
of the Missouri River by DAPL.
Bear
with me now as I tell you a little bit about the only true story (as I was told
it) recounted in my new book, The Spirit
Bundle. The abbreviated version of this story is of Martin Charger, a Lakota,
who in 1862 gave everything he owned to ransom 2 white women and 6 children
from the Santee tribe and return them to the army. He was labeled a fool by his
own tribe but stood his ground saying he would do anything he could to preserve
peace.
I
removed this story after the first draft, but, three months before publication
of The Spirit Bundle, I was nudged to
place it again in the book. I had been concerned I was breaking confidentiality
because I had heard it first as a family story. Then I realized the story was
on the internet by both the Charger family and by a descendant of one of the
women who had been captured and ransomed. The renditions of the details are
different, but the basic story is there.
Can
you imagine my surprise when I learned that the young woman who followed her
own ‘nudge’ to stand for lost youth and Mother Earth was Jasilyn Charger, a
direct descendant of Martin Charger, the man whose warrior society of the
Dependables was renamed to the Fool Soldiers? Without the actions of either of
these people, in the first place, women and children may never have been returned
to their families. In the second place, a group of teenagers might not have had
the foresight to stand peacefully for the goals of treaty rights, clean water,
and Mother Earth.
All
the individuals in this round-about telling of mine moved forward because of a
calling or a push. I’m proud to have returned the story to its place in The Spirit Bundle and am humbled by the
synchronicity. Each of us has the opportunity to follow a ‘nudge’ that might
build a web of compassion and community and possibly carry us through these
difficult times.
