Skunk Warriors

Minding the Indigenous Mind

                                                                    Skunk Warriors

Greetings Mindful Friends and Relatives,

Ecclesiastes 11:9 says “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes.” This passage about celebrating one’s youth reminds me of the boyhood days that I shared with several young friends and relatives when I was growing up in White Shield, ND. In this column I share a two-part short story about how I and a number of other young boys rejoiced in our youth and became warriors on a hot July afternoon in 1964.

The Vision

As young boys in our reservation community in White Shield, ND, we spent much of our summers searching for ways to initiate ourselves into warriorhood. We knew that becoming a warrior was a very difficult undertaking, especially since our role models were our “old Indian” warrior ancestors, whom we had heard were the toughest, bravest, and most daring guys in the world. As far as we knew, there were no people on earth as courageous and daring as these Indians.

In our secret boy circles we gathered together to discuss how the old Indians could go for days without food and water; how they could run for hundreds of miles over the roughest terrain without stopping – sometimes barefoot. We spoke of how they didn’t need a saddle or bridle when they rode their horses, and how some of them could run faster and further than any horse. We talked about how they could swim across the widest part of the Missouri river and back again and then do victory dances all night, without getting tired; We talked of how when an enemy cut them with a knife or shot them with an arrow they could tough it out and keep on fighting while singing their death song. Man, they were they tough.

We admired the old warriors because they got to camp out wherever they wanted to, and as far as we knew, they didn’t have to eat slimy canned USDA commodity spinach or other nasty canned vegetables that we were forced to eat in school. Instead, they lived off “the fat of the land.” They drank fresh river water whenever they were thirsty, and dined on wild berries, turnips, and onions, and ate huge chunks of fire-roasted buffalo or deer meat. They sat around a fire under the sacred stars recounting the origins of our people, and as far as we knew, they didn’t have to clean up after themselves or be in bed by nine o’ clock.  And because they were so brave and respected, they didn’t get yelled at by their mothers to fix their beds, clean up their mess, or take out the garbage.

In all honesty we didn’t know much about our warrior ancestors since many of our parents would only occasionally mention a few things to us about them, while the books we read at the BIA government school we attended never mentioned them at all.  But it didn’t matter to us what they said or didn’t say since most any group of prepubescent boys is the same: what they believe is what matters. And, what was fact to us was that our warriors were the toughest, bravest humans on earth and it was our responsibility to carry on their legacy.

The Preparation

The night before several of my friends, an older and younger brother, and I became warriors, my mother said I had to take out and burn the trash. This duty turned into a special time because many of the neighborhood boys would come to our house in the evening and gather around to watch the fire and trade stories about how the old warriors had lived.  That evening was particularly meaningful because we decided that the next morning we would gather together and go out to face the enemy. We had made new bows and arrows, tested them, and decided they were ready for battle.

The trash was reduced to ashes in a large, fifty gallon steel drum barrel that was given to us by the Bureau of Indian Affairs; all the families in our community had one of the containers for burning their garbage. Every week, the green BIA truck would come by and pick up everyone’s burned garbage and haul it to the local dump grounds where it would be deposited into the trash pit. This place was a boy’s dream come true since it was patrolled by strange rez dogs that could be brought home and made into pets, and filled with rats that could be either captured or used to perfect one’s practice of counting coup. 

Amongst the burned remains lay broken toys, bikes, wine and beer bottles, old washing machines, and tattered clothes.  The earth in the pit was blackened and scorched by the fires that continually burned the waste. Sprinkled about like snow was white, USDA commodity powdered milk that seeped out of broken box containers; millions of flies buzzed in and out of the shiny empty cans of USDA chopped meat as they glistened in the sun. Every once in a while a rez dog would get its nose stuck in a can of opened chopped meat and we would have to chase it down to remove the can.

This evening of trash burning was special, because for the first time I was allowed to light and burn the garbage without supervision from one of my older siblings or parents. I had planned most of the day what I would do to make sure the fire burned a long time since I knew more tales could be told if the fire had a long life. I had quietly and secretly collected and added several medium and large pieces of wood to the garbage to make sure the fire would last longer than usual. As the fire burned down, and it got later, my friends said goodnight and headed home. I remained alone at the fire watching until the last of it had smoldered out and then went inside to bed.

When I got up in the morning I could smell the odor of smoke and burned trash on my skin and in my clothes. I went downstairs and could hear my older brother saying to our mother that when he was sleeping he was dreaming that our house was on fire. My mother answered, “Well, your brother Michael built a big fire last night when was burning the trash. I don’t know what he was burning.” I smiled to myself as I went downstairs and sat down at the kitchen table to have a bowl of hot oatmeal and fresh baked bread. As I quietly ate, I remembered most of my dreams had been about me running side by side with all kinds of animals who trying to escape a huge never-ending prairie fire that I had started when I was burning the trash. Some of them had chopped meat cans stuck on their noses. I think these were the holy ones.

The Mission

I stepped outside and was greeted by a hot, windless July morning. The heat waves were shimmering in the distance to the east as the boys begin arriving at our house for our sacred mission to find our bravery and manhood. Our band of brothers were a ragged bunch of earthy, brown boys with lean bodies and crew cut hair styles. We wore no war paint on this day because there were no veteran’s in the community to paint us and send us off. Most of us wore dusty, worn out Levi jeans and white tee shirts that we pulled over our heads like hoods to protect us from the summer sun.

We begin heading to the east towards several groves of trees, streams, and high grasses. As the sun rose and we begin to swelter, wanting the feeling of coolness upon our heads, we dipped our shirts into stagnate pools of water that has collected for weeks in the ditches along the roads we were traveling. Even though the water smelled of decaying vegetation and was filled with all kinds of water beetles and snakes, we dove in for a swim and didn’t let it bother us, because we believed it wouldn’t bother the old Indian warriors.

Footgear is one of the most important items for a warrior since it helps him move without delay to the field of battle. Some of the members of our war party wore old basketball shoes, sometimes mismatched in size and color, and laced up with twine from an old white farmer’s hay bale. It didn’t bother us that we had to take twine from the hay bale for our shoes and the bales fell apart and became useless to the farmer. Because, in our minds, we reasoned that our warrior ancestors would have counted coup on the white man’s hay bales in the same way if they were wearing basketball shoes. Others in our squad wore the cowboy boots of an older brother or father that were too large and gave them blisters. But still, they looked cool and the person wearing them could always be put on point whenever we suspected that we were in rattlesnake territory.

Despite our ragtag look, we were well armed with straight, long, strong bows we had made from carefully selected branches of willow trees that we had found near small bodies of water and springs that flowed near the community. Our arrows were made from last year’s tall, straight hollowed weeds or from perfectly round, small, long branches that we had hardened over the trash fires. Each was tipped with metal pop bottle cap that was bent in half and pounded together to make a very sharp, sturdy point. When we shot them from our bows we could flatten a tire or neutralize a fearless, charging warrior rat at the dump grounds.   (To be continued…)

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education  in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, decolonizing social work, neurodecolonization, neuroscience and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He can be reached by email at:  mjy9@humboldt.edu 

Minding the Indigenous Mind

Rehearsing for Death

Greetings Mindful Relatives and Friends,

The Buddha said, “"Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely." In agreement, the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh declared “Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home."

In this column I wish to share a story as a way to help us reflect on, and develop, a more intimate and healthy understanding of how death is always with us. And, how rehearsing for death through appropriate stories, teachings, and different mindfulness practices can help us to accept death and motivate us to live our lives in a way that demonstrates that we have much to live for.   

The teachings of the Buddha, Tecumseh, and many other spiritual leaders remind us that we will eventually die as a part of the natural process of life, but long before we do, we should rehearse for death by living a noble, mindful, righteous, and long and healthy life.   

Very few of us know how long we will live or how we will die. But when we are asked, we certainly have a lot of preferences and fears concerning death. For instance, a 1997 Gallup survey found that most of us want to die at home and don’t want to die a painful death; most of us are worried that we may spend some period before our death in a vegetative or incapacitated state; and most of us do not believe we will end up suffering eternally in a place such as Hell.

The poll also found that "Most Americans believe they will exist in some form after death and that the experience is positive; that they will be on a journey of some kind; will experience spiritual growth; and that the quality of existence will depend on things done in one's life and one's spiritual state at the time of death." In India death preferences are similar. A 2011 national survey of entitled, Death and Attitudes to Dying found that most people in India “Want to die in their sleep, in peace, of old age, without pain and surrounded by their family and loved ones after achieving success and after having done something worthwhile for the country.” I’m sure that most of us would want to die in ways similar to folks in India.

The fear of death is strong and many of us try not to spend too much time thinking about it. However, avoidance is not wise, given the regularity of mass murders, war, nuclear weapons and nuclear accidents, the rise of extremely drug resistant infectious diseases, rising levels of stress and environmental toxins, and unpredictable accidents and natural disasters. To calm the fear of death it is important that we spend some quality time reflecting on it; not in an anxious, fearful way, but in an open and thoughtful manner. For as the Buddha has reminded us, the lives (0urs and our loved ones) that we cherish and strive to hold on to are impermanent, fragile, and fleeting.

Sometime ago I recall hearing of how long ago our tribes engaged in a symbolic enactment of the coming of death to the villages. This death rehearsal was rather brilliant since it reminded the people that they would have a temporary existence in the world. It helped to shape the humanity of the people since it inspired greater generosity, acts of kindness and compassion, less attachment to material possessions, and wiser use of one’s limited time.  There is no doubt that this practice changed the brains of the people for the better. When one does not fear death, but instead has a thoughtful, healthy understanding of it, the neural networks of self awareness and compassion, located in a newer part of the brain are activated. However, when one fears death and avoids talking about it, neural networks in the deep limbic system are turned on. This part of the brain is an older, more primitive area that is associated with fear, fight, and flight. 

As I write this column, news stories across the country, and around the word, continue to report the disturbing and heartbreaking details of the massacre of children, teachers, and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary school in New Town, Connecticut. In total, Adam Lanza, shot and killed 28 people: 20 school children, six adults, his mother, and himself. While most say they never expected this awful event to happen, death by way of mass murder, as disturbing as it is, should come as no surprise since it’s been happening for quite some time.  

For instance, on December 17, 2012, Mother Jones magazine published an article entitled, A Guide to Mass Shootings in America which revealed that there have been at least 62 mass murders (four or more victims) in the last 30 years. What may be most troubling is that most of the killers got their guns legally. The timeline for all mass murder deaths is from 1982 to 2012. The online story doesn’t mention how many mass murders were prevented and just short of being carried out.

There are a lot of theories why mass murders happen but truth is we don’t really know. In fact, a December 14, 2012 story in the Washington Post says “A great deal of research, however, suggests that behavioral scientists just don’t have a strong grasp on what drives mass shootings and violent rampages, or why they’ve increased in recent decades.”

After the initial shock some people are asking why such senseless acts occur. Others have already have concluded they happen because we live in a culture of violence with easy access to automatic weapons that can take many lives in an instant. However, automatic weapons have been around since the 1862 when Dr. Richard J. Gatling invented the Gatling gun. The weapon was deadly and was “successfully” used in the American Civil War, Spanish American War, and in the Plains Wars against Indigenous Peoples. The gun fired up to 200 rounds per minute and tore folks to shreds. Imagine several of these automatic weapons firing upon people. It’s ironic that Gatling said that “he created it to reduce the size of armies and so reduce the number of deaths by combat and disease, and to show how futile war is.”

In response to the New Town murders NBCNews.com reported that many parents are now buying armored backpacks for their kids to keep them safe and gun sales in some states are at record levels. My heart and prayers go out to the families and their community.

Rehearsing for Death

Indigenous Peoples intimately understood death as a constant in their lives and needed to be respected in times of wellness; even during the ceremonies of life. Death is as important as life and, therefore, must be integrated in all aspects of our daily lives. There is no escaping death. However, there is a way to live with it and develop a healthy understanding of it.

There is a story that certain members of the tribe were delegated to represent death. They would dress up and paint their bodies black, red, and white, which signaled to the people whom they were. At different periods throughout the year (maybe only once a year or maybe more) the priest in charge of this death ceremony would decide it was time for death to visit the people. He would instruct the individual that symbolically represented death to leave the village and go to a place of isolation and paint himself as death and return. It was not long before the village sentries, would spot him coming and announce that death was on his way to the people. The announcement would immediately trigger deep emotional responses and the people would begin crying, worrying, and getting angry.

As Death approached the warriors would symbolically shoot arrows at him, not the kind that could pierce him but those that were blunt. But, the warriors only shot in his direction and not deliberately at him since they knew they could not kill Death. Death continued to make his way towards the village unencumbered, while the people prayed, cried, begged the elements to intercede on their behalf, and sent mental thoughts toward him to send him away. Yet, they knew that in most instances it was difficult to turn back Death.

As Death entered the village the sounds of dogs barking, horses whinnying, and people wailing and yelling filled the air. People ran away from him; sometimes he chased them, sometimes he did not. Some of the people sat or stood unfazed by his presence and what he represented. They smiled and laughed at him and those that ran away from him. Those with incurable disease, disfigurement, and disabilities,  hoping to be liberated from their suffering in this world willingly, as if meeting and old, dear friend, approached and embraced him; they themselves might be dressed and painted for their journey to the spirit world.

As death would make his way through the village he would touched those that were the most likely to die: the warriors, elders, and sickly. He finally would come upon lodges that were filled with babies and children, those least likely to die. The mothers, grandmothers, and aunties would do all in their power using prayers, smudge, and calling to their ancestors, to prevent him from entering into their lodges and touching their children.

After enough chaos had ensued, Death would leave the village and disappear into the hills and trees, and the people would gradually cease their lamentations of grief. Wise elderly men and women would go about the village to check in with others to hear how they had responded to Death’s visit. After a period of time when the villagers reached a level of calm, the rehearsal of Death would be discussed. Spiritual leaders and those that had experienced losses of family members and relatives would help others to evaluate and understand what happened. What was learned was that Death is ever-present, none are exempt from this common destiny, and the people should use the little time they had on earth in the best ways possible.

In closing, none of us really knows when Death will come and we must rehearse for it using thoughtful, mindful practices. I believe that the example above is a brilliant and important way to help ourselves, our children, and our communities gain a healthy understanding of Death.

As I finish this column on December 21, 2012, I am reminded that many people are quite anxious since they believe that the Mayans have prophesized that the world is going to end today.  I am not one of these people. I do not live in fear of the world or my life ending. If I do have a fear today it is that I might not do a good enough job teaching my children about the value of reflecting on Death so that they might live their lives in the most honorable, intelligent, mindful, and courageous manner; so that they will have compassion, love, and respect for themselves, others, and all living things.

  

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education  in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, Neurodecolonization, neuroscience and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He can be reached by email at:  mjy9@humboldt.edu 

Minding the Indigenous Mind - Winds at Sundance

Mindful Greetings Friends and Relatives,

In this column I share a personal story about my first trip to a Sun Dance ceremony that was held on Fort Berthold in the summer of 1991 (twenty years ago). I provide a sampling of how the mind and brain were involved in this experience.

June 3, 1991

I awoke this morning to the sounds of rain covers rhythmically slapping the front of my tent. North Dakota is nearly always windy; and when you’re camped on top of a large clay Butte for several days of ceremony, the winds continually remind you that you have entered their world of movement, violence, and calm.

Underneath me the earth is hard and uneven. It has not had a drink in a long time. I open my eyes and my brain waves begin climbing towards a low Beta state as I become conscious of my surroundings. I adjust my body position slightly in my sleeping bag and feel several small pointed rocks imprinting my body, despite the generous thick carpet of buffalo grass underneath the tent. All night my brain rested in a calm theta sleep and I dreamed of the wind. I stare at the side of the tent and watch as the light from the sun grows brighter and brighter. In perfect sync with the brightness of the sun, my brain’s visual cortex, my occipital lobe located in the back of my brain, activates with a harmonic electrical response. It’s as if my brain and the rising Sun have become one.

Outside seagulls dive bomb into the camp at first light and begin fighting over the sacred garbage and used pampers on the ground. I lift my arm out of my sleeping bag and look at my Timex Ironman sports wrist watch. It’s 5:30 a.m. Time to run or meditate.

June 1, 1991

I left Madison, Wisconsin at 3:09 p.m. on Saturday. My three youngest sons, Michael Jr., Peter, and Matthew, and I are going to the Sun Dance that is being held on a Butte overlooking the Missouri river on our reservation, just outside of New Town, North Dakota. My oldest son, Jason, my Adventurer, did not come this time and is hanging with his friend Ethan. Maybe next time.

I have never been to this ceremony and do not know what to expect or if I am prepared for what’s coming. As I experience both excitement and fear, regions in my brain’s deep limbic system activate and then calm. As we drive west on Interstate highway 94 from Madison, the loud, constant vibrating, clunking sounds from somewhere underneath our 1985 mini-van unnerves my sons and me. I experience bouts of anxiety knowing we could breakdown long before we reach our destination.

As we rattle along, Peter, asks, “Do you think we’ll make it Dad?” Matt, my Philosopher, looks up quickly from his theories of human nature book to gauge the expression on my face as I respond. Michael, my Warrior, quickly intervenes in the conversation to avoid having it get out control. He responds by saying, “Man, Peter. You worry too much. Dad’s got it under control!” I smile and look at Peter and say, “No Buddy. We’ll make it. We’re doing something holy.”
He smiles and looks away. Still, after having paid a few hundred bucks to the Firestone automotive shop, earlier that day, to get us road worthy for this trip I am hoping that all will go well.

The sounds of vibration are soon overridden by the myriad of questions from the boys about the Sun Dance, the reservation, our relatives, and where a good place will be to take our first break. Our active conversation has boosted our brain waves to a mid-high Beta range as we listen and respond energetically to all that is being said. We have a couple of loaves of sliced white bread, two packages of the good kind of baloney, a couple boxes of ding dongs, a big bag of barbeque chips, two six-packs generic soda, a gallon of water, and a thermos of coffee: road food fit for a Chief!

Our first break comes not long after the boys finish their first can of soda. I pull over and get out and stretch as they hustle out of the van into the restroom to flush their small, soda-pop sugar coated kidneys. As we drive off I notice how the dome of the sky, the green trees and grasses, and the interspersed browns in the toiled earth shimmer beautifully in the setting sun.

At 7:00 p.m. we cross the line between Wisconsin and Minnesota which brings cheers from the boys who excitedly look to see if they can determine any subtle differences in the landscape.
After a stop in Rogers, Minnesota, about 40 miles north of Minneapolis, we cruise nonstop into Fargo, arriving at 11:30 p.m. The boys are sleeping and I glance at them and smile, wondering what they may be dreaming about. I watch several cars speed by us as we pass through Fargo; I wonder if any of these folks are headed to our Sun Dance destination.

Midway between Fargo and Bismarck I am drawn from the darkness of the road to the flashes of lightning in the dark heavy clouds in front of us. I’ve always loved lightning at night. One of my nieces, when she was a little girl, used to tell me that the lightening was caused by God lighting matches in heaven. I would tell her that, “God is too old to mess around with matches. I think it’s probably some naughty Angel kids trying to start a fire. When they play with matches they pee in their beds up in heaven.” With a puzzled but serious look on her face she would ask, “is that where rain comes from?”

June 2, 1991

Nearly three hours later we arrive in Bismarck. It’s early Sunday morning. I exit onto highway 83 north towards home. The shift in speed wakes Peter, my Sensitive one. He climbs upfront and asks where we are. "Buckle your seatbelt,” I tell him. “Did you have good dreams?” “I was dreaming about being chased by bees,” he replies. It’s time for gas and I turn into a station to fill up, noticing that the sounds of our van’s bumble-bee vibrations are much quieter.

We drive off from the station; another eighty or ninety more miles till White Shield. Peter remains awake watching the road before us. We begin a conversation about the night and the creatures that depend on the dark for life. He tells me about bats, nighthawks, skunks, and deer and their preference and suitability for darkness. I listen intently to his gentle, well-informed descriptions.

All of a sudden our headlights reflect two shining eyes in front of us, at about the height of the windows of our van. Peter sees them first and says, “watch out Dad!” I’m already slowing down, “I see them.” We slow into a calm, quiet rolling stop and stare at the deer as she walks onto the road. She moves to the middle of the highway and pauses. Although, our encounter lasts only seconds we take in the shape of her large beautiful ears as they shift back and forth, listening, trying to determine what or whom is behind the bright, blinding light on her right side. She faces us for a moment and then gracefully turns her long beautiful neck and body away from us and walks elegantly back down into the ditch.

At 3:35 a.m. we turn off highway 83 and head west on highway 23, the old Lewis and Clark trail road. We are about 30 miles from home. At 4:07 a.m. we cross the line that separates the State of North Dakota from our reservation and turn right onto the dusty gravel road going north to my mom and dad’s place, which is about a mile away from the paved highway. There are several cars in the yard, no dogs barking, and no lights on in the yard or the house.

I pull over the car, park, and turn off the motor. I get out and walk up to the door and turn the doorknob, which is locked. I turn around and return to the car, deciding not to disturb whoever is home. I tell Peter that we will sleep in the car for a few hours and then head inside when it gets light outside. We settle back and I drift between awareness and sleep as Peter pulls guard duty.

June 3, 1991

I sit up in my sleeping bag and zip it open as I listen to the seagulls crying and the rain covers gently tapping outside. The boys are asleep. I can feel the heat of the summer morning building as I slip on my running shoes, tee shirt, and shorts. I brush the bits of grass out of my hair and put it in a ponytail. I fold my red bandana into a headband and wrap it on. I set the timer on my watch and zip open the front of the tent and step out. I stretch lightly and begin running to the North East, the semi-cardinal direction of the winds and all life in the air. As I pick up speed my body relaxes into my run; the wind greets me. I begin my prayer: “Winds be with me. Carry me. Protect me. Winds bless us all.” My right temporal brain lobe (the God spot in my brain) begins to activate.

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, neurodecolonization, neuroscience and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He can be reached by email at: mjy9@humboldt.edu

Minding the Indigenous Mind - Brain Spirits

Mindful greetings friends and relatives,

In this entry I share a short personal narrative called, “Brain Spirits,” that I wrote some time ago that features some fiction and real life experiences. I’ve added material that shows how the mind and brain are involved in the story. I hope you enjoy it.

Brain Spirits

As a teenager I often felt compelling urges to isolate myself so I could deeply contemplate the world, the cosmos, and the varied challenges that life and death presented before me. My meditation of choice was a journey through the rolling hills, lonely buttes, and lush valleys in our part of the reservation. In seeking my place of solitude and insight, I would mindfully move through these landscapes, sitting down from time to time, immersing myself in the sounds, smells, and sights to find an acceptable pitch of spiritual resonation.

As I soaked in the sensations of each place, I imagined who or what had been there before me or what or who was there now, that I was not aware of. I closed my eyes and allowed the sun and wind to touch my face. My mind and body relaxed, enjoying these sensations, and my reward-seeking dopamine (brain neurotransmitter) levels began a steady unimpeded rise. The right side of my brain, the creative side, opened up and my imagination became a conduit for communicating with those spirits that had passed this way long, long ago. Entelechy (perfect realization), however, remained elusive.

On one particular calm summer morning, feeling the call of the wild, I packed for a journey. My pilgrimage was no doubt driven by the late night conversations that I had had with my mother about the direction of my life, the meaning of God, the force of the Devil, and good and evil; nothing too heavy. My mother is such a serene, philosophical spirit that harbors gentle doctrines of truth that she imparts with the love and generosity of a warm, summer rain. Her placid dogma, however, can be overridden by her intuitive intelligence and cognitive flexibility when she is offered meaningful insights.

Following our long talk that evening I went to bed, my brain circuits noisy with the aftermath of our conversation. Through the open window near my bed a gentle breeze entered, bringing the sweet, earthy scent of an approaching summer rainstorm. As I listened to its low rumbles and watched the accompanying flashes of lighting far off in the distance, I begin to feel warm and drowsy. My brain waves soon began descending from the high beta waves I was using to converse with my mother, to a lower relaxed alpha, then to a very relaxed, calm theta, and finally into a deep, cosmic, no dreaming delta sleep.

I was suddenly awakened by a loud crash of thunder. The rain was falling heavy and I could hear the crack of the water as it fell from the roof onto the hard, black earth. The lightning flashed constantly. In my sleepy, dreamy theta state I saw the saintly spirit that visited our house during those nightly, crashing and flashing summer thunderstorms. She floated through the house sprinkling holy water in each room, stopping to whisper a prayer, before moving on.

I awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee brewing and the gentle murmurs of my mom and dad visiting about the day that lay before them. At daybreak my three youngest brothers and sister were still in bed, leaving me the first servings of a breakfast of fried potatoes, deer meat, toast, and canned USDA orange juice. If I ate too much of this feast my little sibs would be forced to savor the taste of hot USDA cornmeal mush with powdered milk, sweetened with white commodity corn syrup; I paced myself taking only a single serving.

As my mother moved away from the stove and sat down at the table to butter more toast, I saw the first streaks of white in her thick, wavy, coal-black hair that was tightly held together underneath a white doo rag style cotton diaper that she wore on her head. Without looking at me she asked me how I slept and if I remembered to say my prayers before going to bed. Between bites and drinks I answered “good” and “yes.” Remembering my dream I said, “Mom. I dreamed about that spirit lady again last night when it was storming out. I could see her moving around the house each time there was a flash of lightning. Before she could respond, my right temporal brain lobe (the God spot in the brain) mildly seizured and found myself sitting on a high hill, at night, watching as lightening cast jagged spears into the horizon and the thunders rumbled toward me from the southwest. I could smell the fragrances of sage, purple cone flower, little blue stem grass, and earth as I sat in my silent world. As my parietal brain lobe quieted down the separation between the plants and I faded. I became the flowers, the stems, the leaves, and fragrances. As I looked about I felt the warm night winds suddenly replaced by a cool airstream as the storm moved closer. A bright flash of lightening suddenly transported me from this place back to the breakfast table.

My Dad looked at me, quietly sipping his coffee; his brain’s mirror neurons were well aware of what had gone on in my mind and that I had visited this place. My mom didn’t notice and continued talking: “it’s good you prayed last night; maybe your prayers helped bring that spirit lady here to help watch over us.” My dad smiled ever so slightly, knowing she was the secret spirit lady. Something caught his hunter’s eye and he looked away from us out the window. My mirror neurons picked up on his shift in emotion and body tension. I followed his gaze just in time to see a large white dog cautiously trotting across the road in front of our house carrying a box of USDA commodity powered milk. My mother who was also watching said, “Now, there’s a good mom; taking extra milk to her babies.” My dad relaxed his gaze, sipped his coffee, and then replied, “Yeah, and it looks like she shops at all the right places.”

The dog slowed and stopped. Looking to the side it suddenly loped over the road out of sight. Moments later car lights appeared, speeding toward our house. It was my older brother coming home after a long night out. We watched as he braked hard and slid in the graveled driveway, creating his own little pig pen cloud of dust. In silence we wondered if he was drunk and incoherently obnoxious or half-shot and full of drunkard jokes.

My mom stood up and tensed like a mother lion watching a cape buffalo. She looked out the window at him for any sign of stumble or weakness. He smoothly exited his car, closed the door, looked up and saw her. He made a funny face, waved and smiled, and then walked up to the front door. Her body relaxed and she smiled saying, “He’s sober. I think.”

As he sat down at the table my mother poured him a cup of coffee and fixed him a plate of food and then asked him where he had been. Before he could answer, she said, “I suppose you were out drinking last night.” She waited for his answer; again watching for any signs of weakness or stumble.

A trickle of blood ran out of the deer meat as my brother cut into it. “I was with Willie and Sam,” he answered. “We were down by the river last night, just talking; they were drinking. I wasn’t. I told them that I quit. I’m giving it up; at least the hard stuff,” he laughed. “Both of them say they’re going to enlist in the army and go to Vietnam. Neither want go to college so they’re pretty sure they’re going to get drafted.”

Now my dad tenses. My mother stares at my brother watching him salt his food. With a faraway look she answers saying, “I hope they don’t go. They’re both their mother’s oldest children. The first born are always the hardest for a mother to let go. They’re the ones that open the way for the other brothers and sisters to come from the spirit world to this world.”

Upon hearing the word spirit, my brother suddenly looked up and said, “Mom. As I was driving up to the house just now I saw a white figure crossing the road. I saw its glowing eyes but couldn’t make out its shape. I thought it was a deer but as I got closer it disappeared. I think it was a spirit.” By now my little sister and three little brothers had entered the room, eyes open wide saying, “We could hear you talking about spirits.” My mom smiled as they sat down at the table. My dad, listening to all of the commotion, took his last drink of coffee, set down his cup, and stood up. He walked to the front door and grabbed his car keys and leather work gloves that were sitting on the TV. As he walked out the door he said, “I’m going to work before you ghost busters have me seeing spirits.”

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, neurodecolonization, neurosci-ence and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He can be reached by email at: mjy9@humboldt.edu

Minding the Indigenous Mind

The Buddha once said, “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much, not even your father or your mother.” Although I dearly love my mother and father, what Buddha said more than 2,500 years ago is correct. In fact, the role that our minds have in our well being has become common knowledge in some branches of present day neuroscience. In my work to improve the health of Indigenous Peoples, I understand the importance of a healthy, well balanced mind and brain, and the activities that are necessary to achieve such a state. I refer to this as minding the Indigenous mind.

Mindful greetings, my relatives, my name is Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, Sr. I am an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations and a professor in the department of social work at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. I am also the director of graduate studies in our department. On my academic side I have a Bachelor of Social Work degree from the University of North Dakota; a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; and a Ph.D. in social welfare from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I was trained in quantitative research methods and have focused on the health of Native peoples for my entire academic career. I am presently living on the territory of the Wiyot peoples in northern California, so I want to respectfully acknowledge them and the fact that I am visitor on their homelands.

I have been invited by the MHA Times to contribute a column that spotlights my academic interests, teaching, writing, experiences, and research. I will be submitting this column every two weeks and I will occasionally have guest columnists. Since this is my introductory column it is longer than the ones I will write in the future. The topics I plan to focus on include health, Mind Body Medicine (MBM), mindfulness, neuroscience, social work, and nutrition. Occasionally, using the lens of neuroscience, I will discuss my views on subjects such as religion, war, politics, oppression, trauma, God, education, music, and contact sports (like boxing, mixed martial arts, and football). I am especially excited to share the research that describes what happens to our brains during and following different experiences (some of it good and some of it not so good). I will also share what I know is being done to help improve the function of the brain. I am hoping the information that I share in my column will be helpful on a practical level. Moreover, I hope it will inspire two things: (1) the implementation of a Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara mind/brain policy to protect and enhance the minds and brains of our people for the purposes of greater well being, creativity and intelligence; and (2) the formal implementation of mindfulness practices in our education, health, and social service systems.

In this piece I want to introduce myself and talk a bit about my interest in Mind Body Medicine, especially how “mindfulness” fits into what is known as “Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). I define these two topics later in this column. I would love to hear from readers about what you are getting out of my column and other topics that you want me cover. You can either contact me through letters to the MHA Times, friend me on Facebook, or email me at mjy9@humboldt.edu.

To begin with, I was raised in White Shield and lived there for most of my early to middle teen years, although I have always made time to come home for regular visits with family and friends. I return once or twice a year, generally during the summer months, although I do come home in January for my mother’s birthday. Like many others who no longer reside at home, I keep up with what is going on through Facebook, online newspapers, various tribal webpages, email, and telephone calls with family and friends.

My parents are Magdalene (Young Bird) Yellow Bird and Willard Yellow Bird, Sr., (deceased). My grandparents on my mother’s side are Benjamin Young Bird and Jessie (Everett) Young Bird (both deceased); on my father’s side are Charles Yellow Bird and Nellie (Red Fox) Yellow Bird (both deceased). I have 15 siblings (four sisters and ten brothers) and I am right smack in the middle of the birth order. I have loads of nephews and nieces and a growing number of grandkids, and many, many Arikara and Hidatsa relatives. I have four grown sons from my first marriage: Jason, Michael Jr., Peter, and Matthew; and two daughters from my second: Arundhati (4 ½ years) and Solana (2 ½ years). My partner is Erin C. Stanley. She is a member of the Quinault nation in Washington State and has a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Washington, but is mostly, by choice, a stay-at-home mom.

My scholarly and community work centers on helping folks understand the connections between the mind and brain and mindfulness (meditation) practices, and how mindfulness can be used to heal mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual traumas, addictions, and disease. I write on this topic, do presentations, and have an active research agenda. I have taught undergraduate and graduate social work and mindfulness classes at my present university. As far my personal health life is concerned, I am a born-again Indigenous person, which means I eat healthy meals, with mostly whole, organic foods, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, whole raw nuts, and I take probiotics and other key supplements. I refrain from sugar, as well as gluten and dairy, and have a low or no intake of meat; for weeks (sometimes months) at a time I practice a vegan lifestyle. My family also eats this way and we maintain an active lifestyle, swimming, hiking, walking, and playing outside.

Like our ancestors, I strongly endorse the detoxification of the mind, body, and spirit by doing ten day or two week water-only fasts at least twice a year. I practice yoga, tai chi, and walk and run and do weight-bearing exercises every day. I don’t smoke or abuse alcohol. I am certified as an advanced level practitioner of meridian tapping (or what is called emotional freedom technique) and have been practicing mindfulness meditation since the mid 1970s when I was in college. Although our family uses mainstream medicine, we use it sparely and wisely, and it often takes a backseat to our use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I have many stories about how some main- stream doctors have mindlessly prescribed drugs to my family members when not needed, and how we successfully addressed the condition using complementary medicines and therapies.

At home we engage in formal daily family mindfulness sitting meditation practice. Erin and I sit nearly every morning with our daughters. Our oldest girl, Arundhati (4 ½ years), is becoming very accomplished at meditation and can sit, quietly with her eyes closed, in a semi-lotus position, on her cushion, without distraction, for up to 30 minutes at a time. She has been practicing since she was about a year and a half old. Her little sister Solana, on the other hand, tries but at 2 ½ years she is still a work in progress. We embrace mindfulness meditation for our children and have normalized it as something we regularly do in our home since the research shows it will help them build important neural connections and functions in their developing brains. There is an excellent neuroscience literature that discusses how (helpful) brain circuits are engaged and (unhelpful) ones are quieted down when one practices mindfulness. This literature is referred to as the neurobiology of mindfulness, which roughly means, “This is your brain on mindfulness.” I’ve posted pictures of my daughters meditating on my Facebook and use their experience to discuss why mindfulness practices are important for children.

So what is mindfulness? In short, mindfulness refers to being deeply aware of what is happening from moment to moment outside and inside us without judging or attaching to the content, feelings, and emotions that arise. It refers to living deeply and richly in the present moment and not responding to life in a distracted and mechanical manner. For instance, when we mindfully eat we slow down the pace of our eating and become deeply aware of the taste, texture, smell, and hot or cold sensation of the food, and when we are full. When we mindlessly eat we miss most of these rich experiences with our food; many times we do not taste it and often end up overeating or maybe eating something that is bad for us. After mindless eating we often end up not feeling well. Mindless eating is one of the major reasons why there has been such meteoric rise in food-related obesity, hypertension, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

Developing mindfulness involves systematic training and practice and is a process that takes place over time. However, it is a journey that is well worth it because when we enter into states of deep mindfulness and awareness our world, experiences, and lives become much richer, less fearful and angry, more vivid, creative, peaceful, and healed. As I’ve said, much of what I do involves teaching about the scientific evidence-base of how and why mindfulness works and its connection to the mind and brain. What is most exciting about this work is that research shows that particular mindfulness practices can significantly help improve a person’s health and well being by reshaping important neural circuits in the brain.

Mindfulness is incorporated under Mind Body Medicine which focuses on the connections between the mind, brain, and body, and behavior, and how this knowledge is used to engage the mind to improve physical functioning and well being. It is important to remember that Mind Body Medicine is a “complementary medicine" that is used together with conventional medicine. For instance, mindfulness meditation (a mind body medicine approach) is being successfully used to help individuals recover from (radiation and chemotherapy) cancer treatments. A number of studies show that mindfulness meditation can greatly reduce the side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, and fatigue.

The rise in the use of complementary medicine is almost all patient-driven; and for good reason. Many people choose complementary medicine because it has fewer or no side effects, is safe, and it works. While conventional medicine can be very effective in some circumstances, in others it can be debilitating, dangerous, and even cause death. Conventional medicine is largely about treating symptoms and diseases with drugs, radiation, and surgery. It has little to do with preventing disease, addressing the emotional and spiritual needs of the person, or using mind body approaches for healing. Don’t expect your conventional physician to know much about complementary medicine or take it too seriously. Most, but not all, have been narrowly trained and have very cozy relationships with the pharmaceutical industry, which would prefer we buy and use their drugs instead of our own healing powers to attain better health.

The number of recalls, safety alerts, warnings, and side effects of many of today’s drugs is disturbing to say the least. In fact, in the book, Our Daily Meds, written by Melody Peterson, one study found that 100,000 people die each year from the side effects of the prescription drugs they take. Peterson says that this doesn’t take into account the number of folks who get deathly ill or suffer a disability, or die because the doctor made a mistake and prescribed the wrong drug, or the pharmacist made a mistake in filling the prescription, or the patient accidentally took too much.

Mind Body Medicine (MBM) is one of five systems in what is known as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). CAM is recognized and supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. It is a rapidly expanding field that includes the use of “non-conventional” approaches to aid in the promotion of health and healing of individuals, families, groups, and communities. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine lists five major CAM systems: Whole Medical Systems (Indigenous/ Native American, naturopathic, homeopathic, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Ayurvedic medicine); Mind-Body Medicine (mindfulness, transcendental medita- tion, guided imagery, hypnotherapy, deep breathing, and the relaxation response); Biologically Based Practices (the use of herbs, foods, and supplements); Manipulative and Body-Based practices (osteopathic medicine, physical therapy, and yoga); and Energy Medicine (qi gong, emotional freedom technique, therapeutic touch, and the use of electromagnetic fields).

A national study from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine shows that nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults use some form of Complementary and Alternative Medicine; and that number continues to rise. Although, complementary medicine is marginalized by conventional medicine in the U.S., outside this nation as much as eighty-percent of the world’s population engages in the use of various alternative forms of medicine and healing. It is clearly up us consumers to continue to increase the role that complementary medicine plays in our health care system.

Over the past year I’ve been following the building and completion of the new Three Affiliated Tribes Elbowoods Memorial Health Center. It is impressive and I am grateful to all of those individuals and groups, past and present, who dedicated their energies to making this Center a reality. I believe it would be a wonderful tribute to our ancestors that resided in, and before the time of Elbowoods, to include a Complementary and Alternative Medicine department in the new health center. The Center could develop collaborations with the Fort Berthold Community College and create an academic curriculum for individuals that want to learn how to use or practice one of the many forms of complementary medicine.

When I reflect back on what our ancestors knew about health and healing, I am reminded that they knew much more about alternative therapies then we do today – because they lived them and they were not “alternative,” they were mainstream. Some of the strongest medicines they had included (natural) biologically, mind body, and energy-based approaches.

The Buddha, who was Indigenous, once said that, “What you think you become.” That said, when we deliberately train ourselves to mindfully engage our brains in positive words, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, incredible possibilities perennially bloom in our lives.