Dedication
Creator of Us
All,
Great Spirit
that flows through all things,
**** that
part of Spirit You permit to flow through me,
Cynthia
Manyfeathers Eagle Answers Woman,
I use it to
send You a voice, of prayer and thanksgiving.
Please guide
my heart, mind and hands as I seek words to describe experiences You have given
me.
Help me leave
a good account that can serve others when I am gone on to the Spirit World.
Please guide
the hearts and minds of all who choose to read this book.
Let them be
blessed by the Sun Dance stories and come closer to Your Wisdom.
Help me to
offend no one, but rather to honor All That Is good and true.
I thank You
and All My Relations.
M'set nogomag
This
book is dedicated to the Sun, the beautiful Earth, and the Universe we share, and
to all Sun Dancers, their families, friends and supporters, past, present and
future.
I
wish to salute those I have had the great honor of joining in the Arbor for
these last ten years in Elsipogtog. This book is dedicated, in particular, to our Mi’kmaq (Micmac) Sun Dance
Women’s Leader, Evangeline Mary Sock Francis (1950-2009). She
has gone on ahead to be
an ancestor to us all.
These pages are my humble attempt to honor her last wish, for more
‘documentation’ of the Sun Dance. My
prayers go out to her
extended family, her biological children, her godchildren, her grandchildren and great
grandchildren,her siblings and blood relatives as well as her
many Sun Dance brothers and sisters.
Equally
great gratitude is due to our White Eagle Sun Dance Chief, William Nevin and
his wife Connie, without whom these Sun Dances would never have happened. We
owe them more than can ever be repaid in this world. My prayers will continue
to go out for their entire family, especially Kayla, Tony and Thunder. These children have shared their parents, and the very beds in their home, with so many
people over the decades. Their personal sacrifices have helped to ensure that
the Sun Dance ceremonies were done in a
good way each year on the Elsipogtog reserve. May Creator continue to reward the Nevin
family, and their loved ones, for their great generosity and continuing
kindness to us all.
Tremendous
gratitude must also be extended to our irreplaceable Blackfoot Elders from
Alberta, Canada; Keith Chief Moon & Karen Russell. They have given so much
of themselves, and traveled so far each year, to assist at the Big Cove Sun
Dance, as well as others. May Creator continue to bless them, and their
families, and to continue to help them, as they help others. My prayers will be with them too.
And
a very special thank you must go to my dear husband, Malcolm Fergusson
Davidson, my Fire Keeper, who is also our Sun Dance Fire Keeper for these many
years. He has shown me love in a form I can understand. Without his support, my
participation in these ceremonies would not have been possible. May Creator
continue to bless and protect him, and everyone in my extended family, especially
my children Mira, Naomi & Michael who have had to accept my many absences over these years of fasts and ceremonies, to my sister Karen, my brother Craig, my
mother Lynn and my father Andy, who has passed on.
Special
appreciation is also due to my fellow Wisdom Wheel CircleKeepers, who have kept the
Faith; praying, eating and sipping water for me, and so many other fasters and
dancers, over the years. My debt to them, and all they've taught me, is also incalculable.
Last
but not least, this book also needs to be dedicated to the great Lakota visionary, holy
man and healer, Black Elk. Although he passed without seeing it happen, his
vision, at age nine, of a Flowering Tree, with all the races dancing in peace
around it, is alive and well in this world, thanks to each and every Sun Dancer.
We will continue to do our part, to keep this dream alive. Each time the Trees
of Life are covered anew, with our prayer ties and prayer flags, the Tree is
flowering.
The Tree that was to bloom…the roots
will stay alive, and we are here to make that Tree bloom. ..The people will
know the true facts. We want this Tree to bloom again in the
world of truth that doesn’t judge.
Black
Elk (1863-1950)
Upon suffering beyond suffering: the
Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A
world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing
for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of
mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will
become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who
will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the
young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I
salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you
are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one.
Crazy Horse,
Oglala Sioux Chief (Crazy Horse said this as he sat smoking the Sacred Pipe
with Sitting Bull for the last time, four days before he was assassinated.)
If the white man wants to live in
peace with the Indian, he can live in peace.....Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them
all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit
Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the Mother of all people, and all
people should have equal rights upon it.......Let me be a free man, free to
travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade....where I choose my own
teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and
act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.
Chief
Joseph, Nez Perce
I do not see a delegation for the Four
Footed. I see no seat for the Eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves
superior. But we are after all a mere part of Creation. And we must consider to
understand where we are. And we stand somewhere between the mountain and the
Ant. Somewhere and only there as part and parcel of the Creation.
Chief
Oren Lyons, Oneida in an address to the Non-Governmental Organizations of the
United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 1977
