A soft summer drizzle misted my windscreen as I drove onto the remote Indian Reserve in Northern Canada. I was taking up an invitation I had received through my elderly Blackfoot teacher. I felt both nervous and excited at the prospect of new teachings and the mysterious medicine woman I was about to meet.
"You need her words because she's not long for this world," Medicine Bear, my teacher, had said. "She has wisdom she wants to pass on first."
"Are you sure she wants a complete stranger coming up to stay for a while?" I asked, feeling a little uncertain.
Medicine Bear ignored my question and continued to speak of the Cree Medicine Woman.
"Her name is Apehta Tipiskaw Kimiwan or Midnight Rain. We have communicated and she is expecting you," he said.
As I drove along the desolate northern roads towards the Yukon border, I thought about my relationship with Medicine Bear and how he always seemed to be one or two steps ahead of me.
We had met some years before at a Powwow* and he had since that time guided my spiritual growth in the Native American Indian way. I smiled as I remembered the strange way I had received those teachings from the old medicine man.
I worked for a small newspaper on the reserve and was the only non-Indian reporter. While much of my time was spent in the usual mundane activities of gathering stories and preparing the newspaper. I would at times find strange or obscure messages left on my desk, which usually led me to the Medicine Bear house.
As the months and years rolled by, Medicine Bear took great delight in concealing or covering his tracks. I would not hear anything from him or his family for months, then just when I began to think he had given up on me, I would find a scrawled note on my desk inviting me to a home on the reserve to do a "story."
So many times, I would arrive at my destination to find not a soul in sight. But just when I would be about to get back into my car and leave, Medicine Bear would appear.
The old man's strange approach to teaching frustrated me. We would often sit together for hours and hardly speak. When I opened my mouth to question him, he would ask for silence. At first these strange sessions unnerved me, but as I began to feel the tranquillity of reserve life, I would find myself looking forward to his next surprise.
Several times Medicine Bear had suggested I interview a friend in the interests of a good story for the newspaper. In most cases, the friend turned out to be a medicine person who had more wisdom and teachings for me, but very little I could publish.
"Yes," I said to myself as I peered at the pencilled map scrawled by the Old Man. "The Bear guides my path. Let's hope he can draw maps."
After a few false turns, I finally found myself bouncing down a very muddy dirt track. Just as I began to think the road had no end, I saw a small brown shack almost hidden in the soft cottonwood trees.
I pulled my car off the road and walked towards the house. On the porch in a cracked vinyl chair sat an elderly woman. Her steel gray hair was pulled back into two very tight braids. She was wearing a cotton dress draped with a faded tartan blanket around her shoulders.
She gazed into the distance and did not look my way as I trailed along the damp pathway to her home. I called a greeting and began to ask if I had found the home of Apehta Tipiskaw Kimiwan.
"Kimiwan is fine, just Kimiwan. You didn't say the rest right anyways," she croaked. The old woman turned and looked at me. Her stony face showed no emotion. I began to make apologies for lateness due to the conditions of the roads, but she seemed impatient with my trivial comments.
"Yes, yes. Come inside child. Let me see what the river has brought me."
I walked up the steps into her small home and found a large black coffee pot bubbling on the stove.
"Pour me some pehkatewapoy*, black medicine child and some for yourself. Let us sit a while," she said, pointing to the kitchen table and chairs.
I filled two tin mugs and sat down opposite Kimiwan. As we sipped the coffee in silence, I was able to observe her features. Her eyes were very dark and her face quite round. She almost looked oriental. As she relaxed in her chair she seemed to look younger. Her face softened and she smiled and nodded to herself for a while. Then I realised she had been observing me and I blushed and looked down into my coffee mug.
"Well, I guess you'll do," she smiled at me. I smiled back not sure if I had been insulted or complimented. Excitement and anticipation began to swell in the pit of my stomach and a new feeling I could not recognise at first fell across me like a warm blanket.
I puzzled over it for a while and then grinned at Kimiwan.
"Grandmother, I know I have never been here before, but it seems almost familiar," I said. Kimiwan nodded and then shook her head.
"You are here River Child, to meet your relations and to become the teacher of your people. It is a powerful time for you because you are being called here by spirit.
Old Man Medicine Bear has told me of you and his visions speak true. But remember, you are not here for yourself, but for service to others. If you remember this you will not be guided astray."
Kimiwan's words puzzled me and I opened my mouth to question her, but I couldn't seem to form the right questions.
"Kimiwan, Grandmother, please tell me about your name. It is so beautiful," I said.
"My child, Midnight Rain is one of my medicine names. Because you are not of my people I excuse your asking me about my medicine. But in my culture, we do not speak of our medicine. We say that those who speak cannot do. Those who do, have no need of talk.
Your people seem to have a great need of talk, so I will speak as required. Your name has been given as River Child. This too is water, as is my name. But this name is not a medicine name. You are yet to meet your medicine.
My medicine is the life giving rain that comes in the night and dampens the earth for the morning sun. The two energies create life. I blend and heal with the life-force energy* and so must you."
The old woman continued to speak of her childhood and how she received her medicine name. Her soft Native voice lulled and rocked me like a baby. The sun set behind the hills, and we ate some bannock bread and bacon. We sat by the fire, she smiling and recalling old times, and me enjoying one of the most peaceful and contented evenings of my life. Before I realised it, I lay inside my sleeping bag on the kitchen floor.
The following morning, after I had made a pot of strong coffee, Kimiwan called me from her bedroom.
As I entered the small room, I saw her pulling something down from the wall. She turned and offered me a large hand-drum. I gingerly held the drum and rubbed my hand across its face.
"It feels so special and so ancient," I said.
"No, I made it myself not too long ago. But the drum is an ancient instrument. It connects us to the energies or vibration of the Earth Mother," she smiled and looked thoughtful. "And child, that is exactly what you need."
She sat down on her iron bed and began to beat out a few basic rhythms, and then passed the drum to me, motioning me to repeat the beat.
I, of course, fluffed the first few beats, but after a while found the rhythm coming naturally.
"You see once you stopped concentrating and started blending with the feeling, the drum begins to teach you," said Kimiwan.
Over the next few days I spent hours sitting on her sunny porch trying to keep time with my own heart beat. I would stop and watch the birds chatter in the trees and the soft summer clouds sail across the sky, and then return to my drumming. A day or two later I seemed to be making progress and I showed my new found skills to my teacher.
Kimiwan nodded and said it was time for me to go out into the forest and introduce myself to my relations.
"When our children are born, we have a ceremony. We take them out to the forest and we introduce them to all our relations*. Your people do not do this. This is why so many of you do not feel related to the world. If you are to make progress with me, you must connect with all your relations."
"Grandmother, what do I actually say?" I asked already feeling a little uncertain.
She shrugged and looked at me sadly. "Let your heart tell you child," she said.
Shortly after breakfast I walked out into the dry forest and found a quiet spot in a small grove of trees far from the house. I began to play my drum with the heartbeat and nervously looking around to make sure no one saw me. I called out saying, just as Kimiwan had instructed: "Hello trees, it is me, I am your sister."
At first I kept giggling to myself feeling this was the silliest thing I'd ever done. But after an hour or so I found myself getting quite absorbed in the whole process. This went on for most of the morning and I found around mid-day that many birds and small animals had appeared as if to acknowledge me and my presence.
I continued beating the drum and singing little songs to myself. Then, late in the afternoon, an old woman, I had never seen before, came along the forest path. She was wearing a yellow blanket and slowly walked towards me, silently watching from a distance. I tried to smile and called a hello. I found her silence uncomfortable.
"Yes we know you," she called back. "We will be sending you something soon. Listen this time."
She turned on her heel and walked back into the forest. I tried to call out to her that she perhaps had mistaken me for someone else, but she kept on walking.
I shrugged my shoulders and promptly forgot about her as I again became involved in the drum, the forest and all my relations.
Hours slipped away and I realised I felt hungry and tired. I sent a final message of love, and then returned to the house.
Kimiwan was still sitting at the kitchen table sipping strong black coffee, exactly where I had left her that morning. She glanced at me then returned her gaze to her coffee cup and asked me what had happened.
I sat down opposite her and began to spill out my little adventure. I described how the several birds and animals had drawn close to me, and how even the breeze seemed to acknowledge my presence.
"It is a good sign. It means you are beginning to become human," she said.
I was to learn that Kimiwan would often refer to me and other "domesticated" people as non-humans. She felt we had sold our souls for material possessions and had become sheep-like. People needed to become "real humans" again by re-connecting with all our relations.
I almost forgot about the old woman, but when I mentioned the incident, Kimiwan sat bolt upright and glared at me.
"Why didn't you tell me about the grandmother?" she snapped, her black eyes flashing. "That is very important. They are getting you ready, and you have not been listening so they are ticked off at you. This time you better be ready."
Of course, as I was always to find with many of my Indian teachers, she would not explain or elaborate. "Just you wait and listen now, like you were told," was all she would say.
Days slipped by and I would often return to the forest with my drum, but I did not see the old woman again. As I returned each evening my teacher would look at me and then quickly shake her head.
"Nothing yet, I guess," she would say. I would shrug, not really understanding what she was expecting to see or hear from me.
Then, finally, a few days later I woke up in the middle of the night to find a song rippling through my head. Strange words were floating and drifting in the air. Without thinking why, I quickly left my bed and went out to the porch. I picked up the drum and began to sing with the voices in my head. I looked up at Grandmother Moon who was full in the dark sky and addressed the song to her.
Then a message came - "write it down, now!" The words seemed to have been pressed into my head.
I raced back into the house and rummaged through my bag for my note-pad and then returning to the bright moonlight, scribbled down the words as quickly as I could. Although I did not know their meaning, I sensed they were important.
As my pen scurried along the lined pages, I realised to my horror that as I could not write music, I would lose the melody. But again, I heard the voice say, "just the words, the sound is in your heart."
I listened to the song, and checked my notes. Then I again sang the song to Grandmother Moon. Time slipped by but I was unaware of anything but the sound floating through my head. Then, almost as suddenly as it came, the song ended and I was alone on the porch. A chill breeze whispered in the trees. I realised I was very cold and very tired. I quietly opened the door and within minutes rolled myself up in bed again.
What seemed like ten minutes slipped by before my teacher poked me awake with her foot. I squinted up at her, trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. Then I noticed the sunlight streaming through the greasy windows.
"What did they say. What have you got?" said Kimiwan impatiently prodding me with her toe.
I sat up and tried to explain the song and then, remembering my notes, pushed the writing pad in the old woman's face. She took the papers and sat down in her arm-chair, running her finger along the line of words. I watched as her lips moved and her head nodded.
"Do you understand it? Does it make sense?" I asked her "Wait," she snapped.
Much to my irritation she dropped the pad and went to the stove to heat up the coffee.
"Get dressed, you have work to do," she called over her shoulder.
I dressed and went out to the porch with a cup of steaming coffee. I picked up my drum and, reading my scribbled lines, began to sing the song to my teacher.
"Grandmother Kimiwan, these words.... you know them. Do they make sense?" I said, gulping hard.
"Yes, child, they are Nehiyawak*, my Cree language. Sing it again for me,"
I took a deep breath and tried to clear my now dry throat. I felt tears welling up in my eyes as the emotion of the night flooded through my body. Kimiwan leaned over and smiled. She patted my hand and nodded her head, urging me to sing the song for her. Again I felt the soft melody flow through my body and I began to sing the strange words that had floated through the stars the night before.
Every so often Kimiwan corrected my pronunciation of a certain phrase or word and encouraged me to complete the song. "I shall give you this in English," said my teacher.
Grandmother of the East, thank you for coming here, thank you for your energy, thank you for your love.
Grandmother of the South, thank you for coming here, thank you for your energy, thank you for your love.
Grandmother of the West, thank you for coming here, thank you for your energy, thank you for your love,
Grandmother of the North, thank you for coming here, thank you for your energy, thank you for your love and wisdom.
Put your arms around us, and hold the energy. Keep the love surrounding us until we meet again. We pray.
At the beginning of each age the great spirit beings Our gift is the Medicine Wheel* and the Sacred Pipe*. We are now sharing them because we have seen the signs that tell us we are near the end of the age. This is why I let you know these things so you can share them." Said my teacher.
We sat in silence watching the sun sinking in the west. A soft breeze blew across the river. I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the peace.
"What are the gifts the other people have to share?" I asked.
"I have thought about that and I asked my Grandfather that," she said. "He said Jesus teachings are love, and so is the Buddha and so is Mohammed and so is our way. We have forgotten that they all speak the same."
Read on to discover the whole medicine wheel, all the totem animal spirits, and the ceremonies. Discover the Vision Quest, the Sweat Lodge, and the final, surprising end of this incredible true story.
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