17 April 2006

To my Sun Dance family and friends,

I have been meaning to write this since I started thinking of the changes we are all facing this summer and beyond. In contemplating them, I realized that it would be best for me to share with you some of my changes as I am certain that it will affect some of you who came to the Hollow Bear Sun Dance because I was there. Beginning this summer, I will be present at the Hollow Horn Bear Sun Dance for two separate days only. On the healing day, I will come to present the medicines I have presented to the dance since the first year I came back to Hollow Horn Bear. Then I will be present for the give-aways on the last day as I promised some of those for their fourth year to be present at the completion of their vows. I will be doing this because of my other summer plans. I was asked by Homer White Lance to run his dance (which he will be conducting from 9-16 July 2006) at Bull Creek near St. Francis. I accepted his request, and so I will be at his dance until he asks otherwise into the future.

In January of this year, I decided to complete my vision of the sun dance which came to me in a dream several years ago, and was to begin this year. As I was sharing this dream with my brother, Ervin Keeswood from the Dine Nation, he offered to me the use of his land near Red Rock, AZ., to complete this dream of mine. I journeyed there in early March to do a blessing on the land, and to ask the Earth Mother for permission to pray there. The response from the Earth Mother was enthusiastic, and so I made the decision to start my sun dance there at Red Rock, AZ. from 4-11 June 2006. The dance is to be called The High Star Sun Eagle International Sun Dance for Peace. The dance itself will be international based and not tribal based. The Keeswood family has already committed itself to sing for the dance as well as prepare the site for the dance.

Tunkasila has shown me that this is the year to begin a dance strictly for peace, and not have a social or political motive to conduct the dance. It is open to anyone interested in peace, anyone who agrees to peace, and anyone who abides in peace.

I cannot do three complete sun dances in one year, so I’ve decided to focus most of my activity on the White Lance Sun Dance, and my own in AZ. I have been helping the Hollow Horn Bear Sun Dance since 1988, but actually have been going there since 1986. I went to help there because my Uncle Albert and my cousin, Duane, graciously offered their pipes to me to help them. I have honored their beings, their propriety, and their prayers by my presence there during all these years. I take leave of my main activities there with a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment of duty. Though I have heard rumblings of dissension and disagreement in my moving on from Hollow Horn Bear, rest assured that I have felt honored and respected there, and that I am moving on because of the spiritual expansion that I am in during this time in my life. I have loved and still do love my relations there, and believe that they too will move on with their spiritual expansion appropriately.

One thing that I have realized as I make these decisions is that some of you will be affected somehow. So, I want to minimize any potential negative impacts on you by stating that all of you are free to make any decisions you need to make regarding your social and spiritual lives that are beneficial to you and yours. Other than your agreements, commitments, and decisions made personally to help me and mine, you are not obligated to me in any binding way and shouldn’t have any feelings in that regard. I need to know however, if you are following in the paths that I am going. If you are, please let me know so that we are all on the same page as we pull all of our efforts together. There are great needs and demands arising from these decisions, and I need to know who is going to help me fulfill them. The decisions we are making right now are going to affect at the least four years of our lives into the future, and at the most 16 years of our lives. Shouldn’t we be cautious and help each other?

For those of you going to the White Lance Sun Dance, contact Homer White Lance in St. Francis, SD, or through Violet Little Elk in St Francis, SD. for Homer. Marjorie Kemp in Ft. Collins, CO, also has his and Violet’s phone number. Her phone number is 907-221-5964. Homer especially needs support at this time. He is sincere and dedicated in the fulfillment of his grandfather’s vision. His grandfather’s vision has led to doing this sun dance. His grandfather brought the sun dance to Rosebud in 1926. Homer has said that doing this sun dance will bring his grandfather’s vision full circle to completion.

For the High Star Sun Eagle International Sun Dance For Peace, contributions of money, materials for structures on site, and manpower will be needed as quickly as possible as the dance is nearly six weeks away. Ervin has told me that the need for paying for materials and getting materials is at the critical stage now, so anything that can be contributed now would be most welcome. The site is about 15 miles southwest of the Red Rock Trading Post, Dine Nation, AZ. One can fly into the airport at Farmington, New Mexico, roughly 50 miles from the dance site. Other locations to fly into are: Gallup, NM; maybe Cortez, CO; Flagstaff, AZ; or Albuquerque, NM. Anywhere that you fly into, prepare to drive at least 50 miles, and at the most, 250 miles from Albuquerque. I don’t suggest Phoenix as it is almost 5-7 hours of driving mostly through mountains and high desert.

For copies of the rules for the sun dance as to proper etiquette and behavior, and generally accepted rules of order for the camp and its security, e-mail me at HIGHSTARNM@msn.com and make a request to receive them. If you don’t have e-mail, I will provide copies to our information people and to Ervin’s family and group that you can ask for by phone or by mail.

You may have learned how sun dances are to be performed at other places, here I will adjust to what will work for us, and I will make the decisions consulting with Ervin as it is on his land that we are dancing. In this way, in dancing for peace, we certainly may not do it the way you have learned it at other places. Just come prepared to dance for peace. If you have racial issues of any kind, please find another place to dance, and save yourselves and I a lot of trouble and misunderstanding. The challenge here for us will be to arrive at a state of peace through our prayers and sacrifice celebrating life singing our songs and dancing our troubles away.

We have put the word out for our dance, and you are most welcome. Just be prepared to dance for peace. I can be reached at 505-758-8916,  HIGHSTARNM@msn.com,  highstar@newmexico.com, or finally through the link at our website, www.highstarproductions.com.

May peace and blessings rain upon you and those whom you love. MITAKUWE OYAS’IN.