Dying (Windigo)
Windigo is a feared supernatural being. Fierce and frightening, the Windigo’s distinct culture of selfishness, money, power, and greed is nothing but a twisted reaction to hurt, pain, sadness, and insecurity. Trauma and hatred fan these flames but when you remove the noise and chaos masquerading as superiority and entitlement from Windigo’s grasp, you will find nothing. Just a frozen and dying heart.
Never feeling like you have enough when you have everything you need? It’s terrifying.
Tricking (Coyote)
Coyote tends to stay in his territory and give a wide berth to humans but I find that when I come into close contact with a coyote, that usually means that something in my life is about to change. That change tends to be paired with a good old-fashioned kick in the butt and a lighthearted but heavy-handed redirect on my path. Coyote is here to remind us that we’re all in kindergarten, none of us are in the driver’s seat, and that we should be humbled by the fact that we’re even in the car in the first place. Its pretty serious business to begin to understand the joke.
When was a time that you were tricked into a better path?
Following (Hawk)
Back in 2016, I met a Lakota/Peruvian man who lovingly (and I think sometimes begrudgingly) supported me in changing my DNA and subsequently the trajectory of my life. After I broke down in front of him, he handed me a medicine bag, saying “welcome home”. This exchange set off one of the most powerful and tumultuous journey I have ever taken. This same man offered me the sacred pipe a few years later, a silent invitation to fully trust and immerse in the ways of the Creator. I refused, thinking a joke was being played on me. Creator was kind, however, and supported me in taking the deal and hitching the ride despite my folly-the road was just a little longer and had a lot more twists, turns, and jokes along the way.
How does it feel when you follow your heart instead of your fear?
Healing (Snake)
I have struggled intensely with being a woman. With being vulnerable, with feeling in competition with other women, in competition with men because I am a woman. Struggles with the power exchange of sex, an exchange that has been mostly imbalanced for me-an imbalance made possible through many takeaways and giveaways of that power.
I had a dream in which a woman brought me up to a home that she wanted to sell to me, a home that was safe, clean, and comfortable. As she told me about this home and encouraged me to look around, was breathing deeply from an oxygen mask. This mask that she was breathing through was affixed to a suction device on her lower abdomen, the center of sexual and creative energy. I hated her in this dream, found her to be too open and vulnerable, stupid and so easy to take advantage of. I didn’t buy that house from her.
Years later, I found myself learning to breathe into my feminine energy, honor it, and forgive myself for all of those times that I gave up my power in the hopes that someone would love me. I put the mask on, breathed deep, and lovingly shed that old skin as snake would, slowly and not without pain. That house that she offered me was never for sale, it is and has always been a gift.
In what ways have you given your power away?
How can you lovingly reclaim it?
Grieving (Hummingbird)
My grandmother died suddenly and tragically in 2021, but she had been dying for two years. Fear of and resistance to change brought selflessness and selfishness into a twisted alchemy. She neglected to care for herself, she resented the person that she set herself aside for, and she pushed away the ones that grieved for them both. After she died, I was sorting through items in her home and I came across a little hummingbird, placed in a small bag by my grandmother as a way to protect it after it had died. I had been so angry with my grandmother for refusing help, resisting the inevitable, and pushing me away but in that moment, I fell apart. My grandma was this hummingbird-trapped in the end, but before it all fell apart in her attempt to hide from grief, she was nothing but joy and light.
Where is grief keeping you trapped?
How would making peace with this grief set you free?
Freeing (Horse)
I’ve been quite fortunate to avoid organized religion for most of my life, mostly serving as witness to others not so fortunate. Witnessing the guilt, the warped sexuality, the unreasonable expectations of perfection, confusion, and gaslighting, passed down from generation to generation. I did meet a priest once that I really connected with. He was a 21-year-old Tennessee Walker named Black. With the personality of a Southern dandy, he stood in a rain squall and bore witness to me falling apart in grief after my grandmother passed. That same week, I had a dream, and in that dream, Black told me stories from his previous life as a Priest and how honored he was to continue his work in his current, freer form.
How can you free yourself from someone else’s narrative about you?
Humbling (Deer)
It’s amazing how intertwined we all are, especially women, and especially mothers. Wearing my grandmother’s parky and with my swaddled bundle in the baby blanket given to me by my mother, all three of us laugh in humility and joy at how the existence of each of us, individually, and as a trinity, have changed the course of our own and each other’s lives over and over again.
Who are your most impactful teachers?
Playing (Rabbit)
The expression of play is within every culture, every gender, even in the animal kingdom. Play is critical to survival, to learning, and to our spirits. But play often gets boxed in, telling us that we can only play in a particular fashion, and with certain people, and look a certain way while doing it. None of this is true. The only wrong way to play is to not play at all.
How do you play?
Connecting (Eagle)
Connection, an act that has been skewed and confused in our modern age. We can connect in seconds around the world, but never look up to make eye contact. We share experiences, confess secrets, curate fantasies, and cancel real people on social media, but are these connections real? Real connection is simple, real connection is vulnerable, and real connection requires courage instead of hiding-from ourselves and others.
What connection are you missing the most right now?
Believing (Thunderbird)
Only the Thunderbird can create and destroy the entire Universe. You are part of that Universe, and an important one at that. I’m sure that at some point, the world told you that you had to grow up, do certain things, and be certain things and you, not knowing any better, thought that this harsh, ego-driven world was right. So you went after that job, sought out all of the trappings of success, didn’t tell that person that you loved them, forgot to tell yourself “I love you” as well. But what if you could, like the Thunderbird, change your path as swift as lightning?
What do you envision when you humbly and graciously believe that you can be happy?
Living (Heyoka)
And here we are at the end of this leg of the journey, with the Sacred Clown bearing witness. Fearless and stubborn, Heyoka refuses to accept defeat, even when faced with impossible odds. Acting as a mirror, the Heyoka can be a harsh teacher but trust-they have lived an even harsher life. Because of this reality and their contrarian nature, Heyoka then plays their backwards games, challenges reality as illusion, illusion as reality, and encourages the embrace of a new way of seeing.
Have you been tricked in a good way yet? It’s liberating.