Road Trip '07 - Day 9

Wall, SD - Two Emotions
Sublime Sadness
We stopped again in Wall, SD on the way home. The main reason was the small, but powerful museum they have located there in honor of those who died at the Massacre at Wounded Knee. This was a massacre that, for all intents and purposes ended the Indian Wars (or more to the point, the Wars Against the Indians) and settled once and for all the American West. In a series of moving displays they cover the lowlights of the relations between the Whites and specifically the Lakota. They showed the different ways that the settlers from the east slowly and surely changed the cultural landscape of a people.

Education was one of the ways that they were robbed of their own history, language, culture, and religion. It was a biased, warped education. It really didn't work as well as they hoped.


Selling the land was another way. Just take it and let someone else buy it. There were treaties and more treaties, all of which ended up being broken when the next money-making resource was found.


And if that doesn't work- starve them. Isn't it sad how far back in our American history we used food as a weapon much as we have done a number of times in recent history as well.


Many of the news reporters and papers weren't any better. In the last few years, especially, when the Ghost Dance was spreading throughout the Indian communities, a last desperate hope that the white man would be driven out by an Indian savior, the rhetoric got downright slanderous- not to mention untrue.


It came to an end in December, 1890. The atmosphere in the museum was deeply respectful, quiet, reflective. All the others who were there while we were there took their time and read carefully and even tearfully. It was one more reminder of how humans can be so inhuman, especially when greed and land and power is concerned.

How little things have changed!


Ridiculous Consumerism
Ah, yes. An American consumer paradigm. Wall Drug. It all began with free water and cheap coffee in a town on the wall of the Badlands. It has become infamous thanks to a relentless advertising campaign of contless billboards.

It is a bunch of different store areas selling everything from souvenirs to art work to western wear to books and on and on.


But just because it's cheesy and corny doesn't mean it is useless or worthless. I wandered into the bookstore (a very serious addiction of mine!) and found a very good section of regional books. Better than most big box book stores would have in a regional section. And, on sale, I found a truly moving book that I am just finishing. Where the Lightning Strikes by Peter Nabokov is an excellent introduction to Native American Spiritual Places in all four areas of the country.

See, even in the midst of a place like Wall Drug, you will find treasures.



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Ramblings
We went as far as just east of Sioux Falls today before we stopped for the night. We lost that hour we gained last Saturday going west. One more day on the road as we head back into Minnesota tomorrow.

But several ramblings from today come to mind.

Say That Again

Right across from Wall Drug was this bar/saloon or whatever with these signs going up. It was now a week before the start of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Official sponsors. Hmmm. They let themselves off the hook with the tag line- hidden at the bottom of the JD sign- "your friends at Jack Daniels remind you to drink responsibly."

[Get on soapbox]
If there is any kind of drinking and driving that is even more dangerous and just plain stupid than any other it would be drinking and then driving a motorcycle. Somehow this whole connection between driving and alcohol is almost laughable- if it weren't so dangerous and sad. I can't believe that these signs are truly responsible. No, I am not some moralistic nut or jealous recovering person or misguided do-gooder. Somewhere, somehow, we have to make it clear that drinking and driving are far, far more dangerous than we ever used to think. These do not help matters at all. [Get off soapbox.]


R - E - S - P - E - C - T
Then I was reminded of the great Otis Redding/Aretha Franklin hit, RESPECT, by this art work I had seen in various forms all around South Dakota.

I found it refreshing and filled with respect for both traditions that have been clashing in so many different ways for several centuries now. Out east where I grew up the Native influence was almost completely destroyed. Much of it will be lost forever. Here in the West there has been enough rescued that we can learn from each other and hopefully learn more about the depths of life and spirit we all can offer each other.

Regardless of what we may think or feel about what has happened in the past, perhaps we can take a moment to respect the different traditions. We are interwoven now as part of the United States and this picture may help remind us of that as our common heritage.

I have spent much of this week trying to be attentive to the Spirit wherever the Spirit may be speaking. This has been a holy week on sacred ground. I have never been good at sitting and listening for the Spirit. I need to be doing something "holy" or on a "pilgrimage" of some sort, even a postmodern Pilgrimage. Usually the Spirit sort of just happens when I put myself in sacred places or allow myself to be in a sacred mindset.

The Black Hills are filled with those possibilities, even with all the tourism. They still stick out like this piece of land from elsewhere in the midst of the Upper Plains. You come across them as you travel the prairie. Then you get into them and they kind of enfold around you. They are mountains where there are no other mountains of their type. They offer green and blue in ways that has not been seen for many miles to the east. Does that mean they feel safer- or just that you feel a presence that will protect you?

Around the entire Black Hills is a valley, a moat, a "racetrack" that legend says was where the winged animals raced the four-footed animals. Geologically it is part of the way the land was built up and torn down by the forces of nature. It is red and seems almost to have a protectiveness to it. It warns you that this is a special place. Be prepared if you go seeking the Spirit. Does that mean you shouldn't feel safer in the protection of the Hills - or that you should just stay away?

I don't know for sure. But I do know that if you go to a place like the Black Hills expecting to hear something, you better be ready to get in the right frame of mind. This can be dangerous, of course. We may hear what we don't want to hear. We may discover that we are not doing what we are called to do. Or we may find that we have been on the right track after all.

I am not a mountain person any longer. I was at one time (although that's a much longer story for much later and another time.) But it is still in my blood and soul. When we crossed the "racetrack" today heading east I found myself relaxed. Outside the mountains, where I can see the horizon, I have a place where the visions I discover in the mountains are to be lived. You can live all your life in the mountains and travel mountain roads surrounded and covered by trees. You can get tunnel vision that way. But it just may be that this is the way we get trained for vision anyway.


Yes, I know I can ramble about these things. After all these years I am still seeking answers. where there may only be more questions. But without the questions- well, the word quest comes from the same place- to look. I keep looking, finding, learning, and then looking some more.

Miles today: 371 (Total: 1645)