The Last Ghost Dance

In the celebrated Buffalo Woman Comes Singing, Brooke Medicine Eagle revealed her extraordinary spiritual odyssey from her first guided steps on the medicine path to her ongoing work as one of the most respected Native American teachers of the modern era. Now she shares a groundbreaking approach to spiritual transformation--by revitalizing the powerful ancient ritual The Ghost Dance. Four centuries ago, when European invaders were ruthlessly plundering indigenous cultures, a Paiute tribesman received a vision of hope and resurrection, given by Father Spirit, to help survivors of the onslaught create a beautiful new life in the face of defeat, broken dreams, and death. That vision was celebrated in an ecstatic ghost dance honoring those who had perished. Brooke Medicine Eagle explains how and why we are profoundly connected to The Ghost Dance. As she herself becomes initiated into the "illusion of death" and the wisdom of "heart-centered ascension," she teaches us how to confront our deepest fears, overcome our resistance to change, and renew our lives. Through prayer, music, and dance, Medicine Eagle provides us with the tools to bring about the final fulfillment of this profound ritual--by living in harmony with earth's rhythms, practicing sustainable living, honoring and sharing with all our relations, and freeing ourselves from the burden of possessions and possessiveness. Perceptive, practical, and luminous, The Last Ghost Dance is a call to action, a challenge to raise up from the ashes of our desecrated planet a world that welcomes the full flowering of the spirit--and a new age of abundance, love, and peace.

Auteur

Brooke Medicine Eagle

Échantillon de lecture
"We are in the time of the New Ghost Dance."

• A Message from an Old Woman of the Earth
  Brought through by Carol Aithison

All of us alive on Lady Gaia at this time have the opportunity to be an active part of the Rainbow of Light that creates the bridge into a new and Golden Time for All Our Relations and us.  At this point in human history, we have the opportunity to literally bring Heaven to Earth.  Our ability to visualize and believe that it is possible for us to lift ourselves up, to pick up the profound work of our Earthly ancestors and move responsibly into our own piece of the action, and to fully embody Spirit is what will make this ascension possible.  The exciting part is that we have the opportunity to complete something Mother Earth and humanity have been working on for aeons.

The Rainbow Bridge to a renewed Earth was first shown to me in a vision given me by White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, the mysterious holy woman who came many generations ago to a small group of Lakota people, bringing the Sacred Pipe that represents the Oneness and holiness of the Circle of Life.  She, whose name is often shortened to White Buffalo Woman, has been an inner guide and teacher to me and to many others of this generation, as her wisdom invites us to walk in a sacred manner on Earth, honoring All Things, not only as our family, but literally as part of our wholeness.

This particular time, she took me to stand at the edge of an enormous chasm made of black, shiny stone and asked me to look around.  Looking across the gap, I saw a sight that thrilled my heart.  On the other side was a radiantly golden world.  Everything had an iridescent aura, like we sometimes see on a spring morning after rain when the dew picks up the many-colored light.  There were a lot of people and animals there on a broad, flowering plain under crystal snowcapped peaks--with no sound but a soft breeze and happy laughter.  Out of the sacred groves of enormous trees on hillsides came rushing pure, clear water.  Children and young animals played there together, splashing and laughing and drinking the water without fear.  Two-leggeds went about peacefully and joyfully, developing and exchanging gifts and talents, taking in the radiant energy for nourishment and nibbling for their sweet taste the fruits and plants that grew about them in profusion.  Happy songs of birds and people and the calls of contented animals echoed across.  It was a glorious place--a golden dream for us and All Our Relations.  I yearned to go there.

Then I turned to look behind me and was aghast at what I saw.  There was smog on the horizon and acridness in the air, which I could see was harming all the living things upon which it settled, for everything had a dull, gray hue.  There was arguing and fighting and warring, repression and prejudice, with everyone grasping what they could for themselves while snarling at the others.  Noise-screeching and pounding and roaring-filled the air.  The scream of chain saws bespoke cutting the precious trees on the hills.  Everything possible was being eaten, which made the people heavy yet did not nourish them.  The lost, homeless, dispossessed, and sick lay all about, with many dying at the feet of those who hurried past.  People wandered about, seeming alone and frightened even among their own kind.  The deep hunger and need and grief of all filled the air.

I wanted desperately to get to the radiant life on the other side of the chasm.  Yet as I leaned cautiously to peer over the edge, I could not see the bottom: the dark, slick rock dropped out of sight in the mist on both sides.  The gap was much too wide to jump, and I had no other means to cross.  A wailing cry erupted from my throat as I realized I could not get there.

All the while, White Buffalo Woman had stood beside me.  Now she looked at me with compassion and said, "The bridge upon which you will cross into that beautiful life on a renewed and flowering Earth will be a bridge of light."  Then she sent from within herself a rainbow of light that jumped across the chasm to rest on the other side.  "To make a bridge, the light must become a rainbow.  It's the only way!"

I looked at her, still in desperation, because I did not know how to make a rainbow.

"To make a rainbow, all colors of light must be included.  None of them can be left out, or there will be no bridge."  And she went on to help me understand the deeper meaning of this symbol she had given me:  "When I say 'all colors,' I am referring to all things, all peoples, all beings.  None can be left out.  You must walk a sacred walk, acknowledging, honoring, respecting, communing, and cooperating with all things and beings in the Circle of Life.  No one, nothing, can be left behind.  You must life a life of inclusiveness, union, and sharing--letting the Light of Love flow freely among you.  When all are included in a good way, the discordant song will become harmony and the light will automatically become a rainbow.  Thus all of you who are alive become the rainbow upon which the generations cross into this new and Golden Time.  

"The rainbow also represents another aspect of our movement into this new time: lightening up!  It reminds you that you will find joy and happiness by creating them through singing, dancing, and celebrating together in gratefulness for the beauty Creator has given you.  You must release your heaviness and those things that burden you--lifting your attitude, practice, and vibration to a higher level.  You must let what you love and what brings you joy call you forward from moment to moment, for in no way can you bring this radiant time by doing things that displease or de-energize you.  Rather than working for it, you must dance your lives as the old ones did.  Nurt…