Put your hand on your heart. Let your palm connect with the thump of your heart’s beat. Close your eyes and open your ears. Do you hear it?
Your inner drum is inviting you to stand. Do it. Stand. If you can’t stand – begin tapping your foot to the beat. The drum of the pow wow in Dunseith, ND called me. I stood against a pole on the outside circle of the arbor expecting just to watch. The Indigenous drummers drummed as the grand entry began. I was simply there to watch and to take a video for my friends who have never experienced this energy.
Without warning – I began to cry a throaty cry which felt like it began at my ankles and came out my mouth. I first noticed I was crying because my face was dripping wetness on the drought-stricken ground. As the collective group of humans congregated adorned in their regalias fine, – I noticed my cry had turned into the heaving kind. I was in the front of all the people. A white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes having some kind of a reaction I wasn’t planning on having.
When I cry – like most people – I don’t want to be near anyone. I want to cry alone-hidden-free to be ugly as whatever it is that is coming out of me escapes through my contorting face. This cry was different.
Through the heaving, I felt like the regurgitating of years of trauma was being filtered and flushed. I stood in front of the masses unloading yuckiness from my soul. The singers sang and though I have no idea what the words were – my soul knew.
I kept to myself just observing the culture, the tradition – the fellowship. I knew this place was as holy as any church I’d ever been to. In fact – in my Christian walk – the Holy Spirit, for me, is most present at pow wows. For me. It may be different for you. I walked back outside of the circle.
Something happened. Anyone who knows me knows I speak my prayers out loud and more importantly, I speak to strangers. Strangers to me are opportunities for both parties to leave loved. I left the pow wow loved and healed gigantically if there is such a thing! All of this and only because my spoken prayer was heard by a stranger. She’s an Ojibwe elder. I didn’t ask permission to use her name and out of honor and respect – until I get it – I won’t. I agape love her. I’ve watched her for years at pow wows – mesmerized by the wise elegance in her dance movements. She appears led by the Holy Spirit – her Creator – through the drumming. She appeared before me outside of the pow wow circle yet still on the land.
She handed me a scarf of fine fabric. To me, it felt like she handed me a whole mine of diamonds. Truly! I asked if I could hug her. We embraced. She feels to me like a woman who uses nurturing, wisdom and love to both teach and correct people when they need a dose of either. She spoke. She said, “No, please listen. I’m giving you your first pow wow gift. In this fabric are many colors. These should be the colors of your regalia when you dance. Hold it so tightly against your hip as you dance.”
My God – the Creator – made me a highly sensitive feeler and connected my heart to my tear ducts. My breath got stolen from this moment. “Lord, please let someone invite me to dance in a pow wow if it’s Your will. Amen.”
If all of humankind could set aside skin color, eye color, hair color, and hate like they do in the pow wow circle – the greatest gift of all could and would flourish. Love. I felt accepted and the purest spirit of love engulfed all of me from my toes to my hair on the top of my head. I consider myself healed from a whole bunch of stuff I forgot I needed healing from. I need to find a regalia dress and learn how to put it all together. I’ve prayed to be taught and so I wait. I could just say, “Thank you” for all I got to experience at the pow wow. Somehow though, “thank you” isn’t strong enough so “Miigwetch” for everything! Oh, MIIGWETCH!
There’s a Labor day pow wow coming up in Belcourt, ND. If you are led – please join me there! Until then – place your hand on your heart from time to time to reconnect with the force that created you to live alive, to dance and to feel the connecting of the pow wow circle.
The Blonde on the Prairie is a lover of ND. She is an author and motivational speaker, owner of “Monkey Balls” food truck and Joyologist to the elderly and disabled.
