Wounded Knee, Johnny Depp and Ghost Dancers

I read an article today on how Johnny Depp is considering buying the land of Wounded Knee and returning the land to the Sioux people as caretakers. Wounded Knee was a pivotal part of American history. After our government started rounding up Native Americans and placing them on reservations, Wounded Knee became one such site. Sioux people would Ghost Dance in the hopes life could be returned to freedom of the land. Ghost dances became frequent at Wounded Knee and prompted the massacre by the Calvary of counts generally being in the range of 150 people of all ages, including Chief Sitting Bull. The massacre itself left this land as a spiritual ground of souls lost. We all know the story of our time of Wounded Knee and the standoff, which ultimately failed in recovering the land. My hopes for the land would be in returning the ground to nature, regardless of the caretaker and giving some sanctity for lives celebrated and lost throughout history.


I myself am of many bloodlines including the Sioux. In the time of Custer’s army, history now writes of his army being wiped out at Little Big Horn – almost. My great-great grandfather was in Custer’s army. Before the day of riding on Little Big Horn, he was already sickened and in bed with a stomach virus and could not ride. When Custer lost the batter at Little Big Horn, he was discharged quickly. Possibly, to seal the stories Custer lost is army that day. My great-great grandfather left the army to return home to his wife. In returning, he found his wife had died at the hands of his best friend – raped and murdered. He spent time looking for his friend to right the wrong and finally settled at a Fort, opening a trading post. During this time at the post, he met a young Indian Squaw as they were known and made her his wife and my great-great grandmother. Life was not easy even in the decision to marry across the lines of American and Indian bloodlines.

From my grandmother and her great-grandmother, my mom learned to read the moon like no one else I have ever met. She could look at the moon, giving a weather forecast more precise than any weather man/woman does on the television. I admired her for the ability to “listen” and learn from her heritage, which came before. I learned from her, to treat as sacred before unsacred when you view life. I learned our world was so much more expansive if we just listened and learned from all that surrounded us. To listen, feel and adapt. Judgment was not necessary, yet as human beings – we express ourselves in judgment many times from ignorance rather than conviction. At Wounded Knee long ago, they danced for change and return to a life of generations of continuity and yet in those dances were judged, sentenced and slaughtered in ignorance. When Sitting Bull was killed, he was mistaken as being a Ghost Dancer. If known, it was Sitting Bull the preference would have been to make him a trophy of capture for the Calvary.

Throughout history, Calvary more than once has became associated with power and the ability to overtake – rather than a symbol of peace and trust in a greater being of many names. Yet history will write the stories in bias and political correction then, now and in the future. As times ease memories of pain, history books are rewritten again demonstrating the ease in lieu of accuracy or being un-biased. Johnny Depp possibly chooses to live his diversity through the characters he becomes a part of, from one movie role to the next – but then so do we in a state of evolution of the soul which knows the truth, constantly filtering easements and change, obstructions or judgments. Until we find the flow like a river is the trust of the current. When presented with rocks of discontent and misunderstanding we can choose either to be the current or the rock of interruption, yet knowing a rock truly cannot make a river cease to flow. The river may back up in strength or find another path yet it will keep moving on. I would like to in my lifetime see many rocks removed from the path of a continued flow in this world. One certain change has been the current in this world is becoming more of one current with many paces to the flow.

We as a people of our world, our one of the same, with only our judgments and choice of standing firm in disbelief and distrust. Even when they only produce frustration in a diverse world – eventually the choice to flow around obstructions will become a force stronger than can be stopped. Bless the sacred as being sacred – yet bless the unsacred as well as being wanting in the harmony in life. When we can do this, all lands will be free as intended – rather than divided as they are. Celebrate your heritage, which you are where you come from with the remembrance – life is only an extension of your spiritual self. Only you can identify who that may be – by choice.