into the hills

Out the backdoor of the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation office, where I am currently residing as a guest, volunteer and house-sitter; a long row of sprouting spring onions has risen through the ground of a newly planted garden. Manure is in small piles waiting in the late afternoon sun to be worked into the earth. I spring over the barbed wire fence, catch on my jeans. No tear. Yet. Pine Ridge sheds many. Thunder Valley is shaking things up. Feeding sprits, harnessing tears to grow gardens of hope.

I follow a shallow gulch hosting thick old oaks with newly budding spring leaves, little green jewels treasured by an orchestra of song birds in full force. The hardened ground is dented and battered by the hooves of cattle. The shade and small bushes of the gully starkly state distinction from the surrounding hills of open pasture.

I run up a steep climb that levels into an open clearing and grades gradually to the top of the highest nearby hill. I run with a sail through a sea of golden knee-high grass, beneath the tall stalks come smaller green blades and clumps of yellow and white wildflowers. Patches of white sage. The occasional cow patty.

From here, open pasture stretches in all directions for as far as the eye can see. The horizon houses low bluffs that drop sharply into the cradle of these endless prairie hills. The buffalo nation and home of the Sioux tribes. The site of the Wounded Knee Massacre is somewhere on the horizon, and still the the hearts of these people - a topic of conversation in fact during this morning's pickup truck ride to get some fencing. A people hunted and slain, great grandmothers with scars, hatred of the white man. The sky opens and collapses on my rear to a clump of trailer homes and a convenience store. One legitimate grocery store on a reservation the size of Connecticut.

Gravity carries me back down the hill at full speed. Somehow my legs fall to the ground before my body can and I stay afloat in rough waters, still sailing in fierce winds towards the next hill and back into the ravine of oaks. The colors are distinct here, vibrant greens glowing beside the dark dampness of thin shadows. Cedar and sage, sacred and ceremonial plants of the Lakota people, grow abundantly here. Horse mint as well, once used to help preserve wasna: buffalo meat mixed with berries and wild rice.

A grand trunk has sent out a thick branch hovering close to the earth. I walk towards this one and get stuck in the mud on my way. Sticky steps stumble upon an outlaying bramble thinly shrouding a collection of bones protruding from the moist earth. Possibly fallen, possibly slaughtered. Vertebrae the size of my coupled fists. Gargantuan femurs a dull dry white, ribs as domes imitating the sky above. Withered and worn, isolated and forgotten. I am reminded of the people here, nearly forgotten in the immense shadows of America's skyscrapers of imperialism. Once a speck on the sea's distant horizon, each modern man's breath sucks the life force from this continent mutilated by centuries of reproachable conquest. Unsettling settlement.

"Mainstream America has forgotten these survivors of government trusteeship, who face nearly insurmountable odds from decades of cultural oppression and material deprivation. Hollywood stereotypes of Indians and the Wild West still persist as ghosts of a dark past. Painful realities of life in neglected, rural reservations have become entrenched. Most of what is known of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation today, found in publications that circulate among nonprofit groups and academic researchers, highlights only the severe distress of structural causes across the economic and structural spectrum... Historical systematic cultural destruction (genocide, outlawing of cultural practices like dance and religious ceremony until as recently as the 1970s, abduction of children to boarding schools to 'kill the Indian and save the child') paint the backdrop for the current reality. Poor diet, lack of access to fresh produce, healthy food choices, and preventative healthcare programs. "Other than Haiti, life expectancy (50 years) is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Incidences of poor health and disease like diabetes are many times greater that the general public, poverty is at developing world levels, formal education is weak, unemployment hovers around 75-85%, alcoholism is rampant, public services are minimal, youth arrest and suicide rates are high. And the list goes on, and from the outside it almost seems like a veritable mountain of staggering odds. Out of context, the census data and sociological reports suggest a lost cause, a people adrift, a dramatic shortage of necessary resources and a sad ending for the once brilliant warriors of the upper Plains of North America."

"But the urgent needs frequently cited do little to tell the entire story of the people that continue today. From the depths of human suffering, the light of hope has been rekindled by the youth, who are living into their vision of the future right now. The strength and tenacity of the Lakota still lives. Public depictions of the Oglala Lakota rarely capture the vitality and determinism of this new generation of young leaders hard at work transforming their world. Embodied in the grassroots community development, capacity building, spiritual healing, deep cultural revival and education that the Thunder Valley Community Develop Corporation (TVCDC) supports, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of today is ripe with youthful energy and new opportunities." (source: TVCDC documents)

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The cattle path continues along the gentle ravine towards a small pond a hundred yards away. Sage and dandelion carpet cradle creation. The shadows of a gnarled yet majestic oak cast themselves shamelessly on a pile of rusted and contorted aluminum - possibly an old water tank of sorts. There is an old wind mill at the foot of an adjacent hill, a few of its vanes fallen, freed from force centrifugal. Those dandelions no longer yellow are translucent fuzz-balls of glowing silver. Winds' wishes blow them into the sky and land as sprouts green to yellow to silver spinning in a daze of time their center.

Picking dandelion greens to be coupled with buffalo steak for tonight's dinner, I catch the shrill squawk of a hawk launching itself from the high branches of a nearby oak. Another swoops in, a deadly duo dances and glides through skies of the gulch's grove. Golden brown wings of majesty parade the sky, their rule no secret to dwellers of the grasses. More scattered bones. Bovine skull.

Turning to face the setting sun there are no clouds on the horizon, only sheer brightness. For a moment my eyes are stolen from me as they leap to my left, swinging my body and arm into their control to find a feather. Brilliant brown and white stripes stacked to the tip, nearly the size of my torso. Pride and Joy.