Editor's Note: This is the eighth of a projected series of 26 articles in which Allen Aslan Heart will pass along the spiritual wisdom found in the stories behind his dream catchers. Like many others, Mr. Heart feels that the time has come when we must get our spiritual and ecological acts together if we are to survive and evolve.

Little Dreamer and the Grandmother and Grandfathers

by Allen Aslan Heart / White Eagle Soaring

Country air soft with sunset
and new-mown hay
makes each breath delicious
and life more awesome.
The world always held great wonder
when seen from treetops,
hilltops,
or rooftops.
Barn roof were a favorite aerie.
To sit in the cupola I could see for miles
across the miles of farmscapes of the county
until the outlines blurred in the soft haze of summer.
I could look down through the roof from the perch of pigeons and sparrows
on my hay and straw playground of the loft.
Beams and ropes offered the chance to swing
and fly
and jump
and to teeter on the precipice of thick wood beams
smoothed by years of cradling hay.
Under the soft, green surface were secret rooms
and tunnels I had formed of hay bale building blocks.

And tonight the roof of choice was the outdoor toilet.
Not a lofty throne or royal perch,
it would serve for a new experiment of imagination.
Cars whooshing by on the gravel road on the other side of the house
would disappear and then reappear in a swirl of dust.
Could I change reality by reducing their time of eclipse behind the house?
Would I be able to change the world by moving with the cars?
Straddling the peak of the roof I would start at the edge nearest to the oncoming car.
On the eight-foot length of the roof I would scamper backwards rapidly
and the cars would receive an extra second of my reality.

One car-reality required one too many scampers.
NINE feet backwards and nine feet DOWN!!!
Thud!!  A flash of blue-white light! Breathless!!!
I mean breath-less!!!
Had life stopped?
There was heartbeat.
And dull pain.
Wandering around the farmyard
gasping for breath
the cows would not give advice or counsel.
Finally, breath...and life!

The spirals giggled.

"Usually, but we are hoping he can grow into manhood without completing losing his awareness of his child-powers. Grandmother and grandfather spirits are determined to help him remember. He is going to have quite a few surprises."

My public school teaching career came to an unexpected end over my reluctance to teach only the white man's story in the history book. Bob was upset that I was "tearing down our heroes," Columbus, for example, and teaching about racism, sexism, discrimination, and propaganda in American history. The students loved it. They wanted to know more. Upset and angry that they had never been taught what really happened, they later told me that they had discovered that history was interesting now and that they could see its value. One of my students told me that he was half "Indian" and that now he had a new respect for that part of himself. It was a long, hard year. I was accused of incompetence and insubordination and I was required to use only the textbook provided by the school district that was filled with inaccuracies, misleading information, and the mythology of Euro-america. The office staff was instructed to search the wastebaskets near the copy machine for evidence of my noncompliance, and I had to submit detailed lesson plans to use anything that was not in the approved textbook.

One day as I was backing my car into a small space in Minneapolis, I became aware that several cars ahead there was ample space. Instantly, I knew that I was being told to notice that I was trying to squeeze my spirit into a small space at school when ahead of me was a great vastness. The next day, as I entered school, I was asked to come into the principal's office for a moment. I had used day-old doughnuts for prizes in a current events game we had played in class a few weeks earlier. I had been asked to not bring such things to my homeroom group and they were upset that I had used them with a class. They were also unhappy with the alternative lessons I had written to teach about Vietnam.

I was planning to use a video that had been shown on public television and at the Walker Art Institute, Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, and to play Bruce Springsteen's song, "Born in the U.S.A." Students were going to interview members of their family, or neighbors, who had experienced Vietnam as an oral history project. I had located a Navy recruiter who had been involved in river pacification in the coastal waters of Vietnam. Since he was still in the military, I assumed he would take a cautious position that would balance the position of my friend who was a former marine in Vietnam Vets for Peace. The administration had decided against allowing me to use these alternative sources.

That was my last day as a full-time public school teacher. It had been a very small space. There was to be something more ahead.

The spirals danced. "Soon," they sang, "soon he will dance the new dream."

Finding the "something more" required much sorting, discarding, and relearning. When life seemed precarious and unclear, I would pray to the Four Directions of the Grandmothers and Grandfathers, and to Mother Earth, Father Sky, and to the Great Mystery. One day as I prayed on a mound in a field in near downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, a man in a blue station wagon drove up and asked if I was okay. I was. He asked if I was "Indian."

"Well, no, actually - but in a way, yes," I replied.

"Is this a sacred place?"

"Well, probably not," I said, "but all places are sacred."

"If you wanted to pray at a sacred place, you could go up to the Mounds," he offered.

I asked for directions.

"Over there," he pointed. "See the cliffs? Up on top. You'll see as you get closer."

I thanked him and started walking toward the cliffs. I had no tobacco to use as an offering before entering a sacred site and I had no gift to leave in thanks. I wanted to do this as respectfully and honorably as I could. As I walked along I discovered an orange golf ball in the grass. Picking it up to examine it, I knew that I was supposed to take it with me, perhaps as an offering or gift. Then I found another, then another, and another. Within fifty feet I had found six bright orange golf balls and put them into my pocket. I could see three mounds on the distant cliffs. Perhaps two golf balls were to be left at each mound after prayers?

Beginning to get thirsty, I realized that I had not brought along anything to drink and I could see no way to get a drink near the railroad track that was to be my route. Several hundred feet along the railroad track I came to a plastic bag between the railroad ties. Picking it up I discovered two sealed bottles of drinking water - one to quench my thirst, one for later. A few hundred feet further I found a 25-cent coin among the rocks of the rail bed. It, too, must have some significance, I thought. Getting closer to the bluffs I saw several teenagers climbing on them. They showed me the path that leads up the face of the bluffs toward Mounds Park. As I turned to ascend the path I realized that they would probably have tobacco. I turned back and asked if they had a cigarette.

"Sure, man!" one of them offered.

I thanked him and started up the path - and stopped. That was the purpose of the quarter! I could pay for the tobacco offering. I returned to the climbers and gave the young man a quarter. At first he refused it, but I insisted and I returned to the path to the top of the bluff. As I approached the mounds area I stopped at the edge and prayed, offering the tobacco in the cigarette. Suddenly a gust of wind pushed me onto the sacred area. Climbing to the top of the first mound, I completed prayers and left two of the golf balls. This was repeated at the top of the second mound. Reaching the top of the third mound I was amazed to discover that there were actually six mounds! I went back to the first and second mound to retrieve the extra balls I had left there and after I completed prayers on each mound I left one ball at the top. I was filled with joy! I knew that the Grandfathers and the Grandmothers were with me, guiding and helping me, protecting. I knew that somehow I was walking the good red road - even though I thought I was white.

The Four Directions are among the most important facets of the spirituality of most Native American people. In each direction resides a Spiritkeeper and those who have gone before us, who have walked their Earth Journey in truth and beauty and have followed the Path of Souls to the Star Web. These are the Grandfathers and Grandmothers of all of us who can return to guide us and help us feel the awesome and immense power of Love that is available at all times and in all places. They are very near to us just on the other side of the veil that separates their world from the world of illusion.

Four Directions - The Grandmothers and Grandfathers of the North send dreams to cleanse and purify. From the East they send light and wisdom. The Grandmothers and Grandfathers of the South send their love and abundance. From the West comes insight and intuition. Their wisdom and strength are available to us without measure whenever we ask with power, passion, and intention with love and honor in our heart.

The spirals sang old songs in a new way.

So...be light.

©Copyright 2002 Allen Aslan Heart