Original photo, LeMarsanico – collaboration w/ Roanna Jackson & The Lakota
Whispers of the Lakota = Voices from the American Past and Present
I support and receive mail from a number of Native American Tribes, like the Lakota.
Lately they have inundated me with requests for money and so I began to try to understand the motivation inspiring this. What I came to realize is that they are desperate for money.
In 2008 or so I had visited a reservation miles north of Sedona, Arizona with a group of women. We had lunch with Native American women after we visited their abodes. Especially, we viewed the wood artwork of Roanna Jackson in Sichomoy Village in her home.
Recently, one of the feathers from the hand of “Corn Maiden” fell from its perch (on top of my entertainment cabinet, which was purchased in my neighborhood from Milagro, a shop of artisanal Indian goods from India).
Each of us purchased an item to support Roanna who lived in what I would call poverty on a reservation not too far from Sedona…
One picture is worth a thousand words and so an extended stay (hours for me) displayed a culture where men cannot find work (lots of alcoholism) and women become mothers at 14 or so. Coca cola in cartons lay on the living room floor…for me, heartbreak in an afternoon. A lunch in a kind of local meeting room…revealed straightforward talk/ideas, a kind of freshness of outlook…
So, you can understand my being drawn to the booklet that was sent to me repeatedly in the beginning months of this year…
POEMS~
“Love is
the climax of my happiness,
and the pinnacle of my pain.
Love is
The fire in my heart with
an eternal flame.
MY DEFINITION”
Isabelle 10th grade
“My dreams are endless
My passion is relentless
A better life is not hopeless.
A BETTER LIFE”
Dillon 10th grade
From “Whispers of the Lakota”- a collection of poems (10th graders) from the
Red Cloud Indian School, which is the largest privately, funded Indian School in the United States, educating almost 600 students on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in a remote part of South Dakota since 1888.
I know they would welcome your financial support~
They’ll also send you a full copy of their amazing booklet of poems from which
the above-listed verse are taken…
Peace and Light,
Speak to you on October 9th
Linda
#TheLakota #NativeAmericanWomen #PoemsofLove #IndianReservations #alcoholism #heartbreak #WhispersofTheLakota
