In 1992, the family group that I had been living with in the ridges of Cazadero, CA. Which consisted of the woman who was my partner, her friend who was the single mother of my adopted son, his 2 half-sisters, 2 wolf/Akita hybrid dogs, and an unusual orange cat named Carlos Castaneda, decided that we would become nomads, It was a difficult decision, we were very attached to the rural place we lived, and had developed profoundly unique spiritual relationships with its plant and animal denizens, but the ‘property” had a number of, liabilities it was built by hippies on acid, who were proud that nothing had been permitted by the County, thus making it impossible to finance with conventional methods, thus when the women bought it before my arrival, it was with high interest private loans that were basically interest only payments, and had a balloon payment of $250kK. As the balloon payment began to loom, we tried , due to our profound attachment to it, to see if friends within our circle might be found to take it, we tried for several months with no luck, as we realized that we were not going to be able to keep it, so we decided we wanted to roam nomadically and offer prayer, song and witness to places around the western US. A well off friend of ours believed in our vision, and became a one-time patron, and with that money, plus our meager savings, we bought a used 23 foot Tioga RV, and just left, and let the property go into foreclosure, We had no itinerary, just an idea, but we thought that our first stop should be the Wounded Knee (WK) memorial in South Dakota, Students of history will remember this is the site of the 1890 US massacre of about 300 men Women and children of the Sioux band led by Chief Bigfoot, that were seeking safety after Sitting Bull had been assassinated at Standing Rock, After a couple weeks, and a series of adventures we arrived in Manderson, SD, which is right near WK, through a series of lucky events(or divine guidance), we got an offer from a traditional Lakota man, who said we could make camp at his place, it was a flat bench of land overlooking the WK valley and right downstream from the memorial, perfect for our purposes! where we stayed for our first weeks, and became objects of great local curiosity!
No one knew quite what to make of us, Usually if white people come to Pine Ridge they are on their way to somewhere else (Badlands, Black Hills, etc.) But here we were just staying there, locals would slowly drive past our camp just staring at us, if they were talking inside the car it was obviously about us… It was the same in town when we had to get supplies! No one was overtly hostile towards us and given the horrific history we certainly did not expect anyone to greet us with open arms, but we were in a quandary about how to relate to the community, whose curiosity was clearly affixed to us. This went on for several weeks, until, we would occasionally get to big towns to check in with a friend back home that was tracking out personal affairs (like mail, etc. (and just to enjoy the comforts of a motel room, use a payphone, and let the kids eat pizza etc.), well when the time came for that we took off for Rapid City, about a 2 hour drive away, we took the motorhome, so the deep cell battery could recharge, and packed the unnecessary gear in the truck, which we left at our camp, and spent several days in Rapid. After some adventures in civilization it was time to return. As we approached our camp, the first thing /I noticed was that the, the hatch on the shell of the cap has been popped open
And when I looked inside, the truck was empty, I also noticed several local people on the hill above us, some mounted on horseback, watching us, I looked about in wildly in disbelief, the kids were stepping out of the rv, and realizing that their bikes were gone too, began to cry, and I was filled with self-recrimination: "Well you left your gear unattended in perhaps the poorest place in North America, what did you THINK was gonna happen”, this self-criticism was only amplified by the children’s crying, as this process went on every time I looked up there were more people on the hill watching, and I thought “what are all those Indians doing up there?” As this event unfolded I continued to look around in wild disbelief, until my eyes fell upon one of the missing articles in the brush, I went over and looked and sure enough it was one of the missing things! I shouted out my find to my family( and all the while the number of local on that hill kept increasing, and the children looked around and started finding things, too! After a while we had found everything and piled them up in the center of our camp, when from up above the teen children of our host rode their horses down the hill, and with war whoops, and a great frenzy slapping their horses, rode around us in a circle, raising choking dust in the late afternoon sunlight, until they finally stopped and with horses heaving for breath asked “How was Rapid?”
We answered, Rapid was fine, and caught up in their obvious glee stated “but it looks like a big wind came while we were gone”
They giggled immensely and agreed “Oh yes, the wind was huge” and after a time, and obviously pleased with the coup they had counted, rode home. We stayed there several more weeks during which time the mood in the local community towards us was considerably more relaxed, and I will never forget the pure joy of those young people, they had, to their satisfaction, reminded us of whose land we were on, and their code of ethics was impeccable: “We could have stolen your stuff, but we didn’t!”
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