Going to Water

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 10

A Teaching by Ghost Dancer

In the old days and even back to the ancient times of the mounds, our ancestors had a Sunrise Ceremony. This was our traditional way of renewing our birth connection to our Mother Earth and Grandmother Sun. When we are in our mother’s womb, floating in water, we feel this eternal connection to our birth mother and now even more to our Earth Mother and Grandmother Sun. This connection recycles for all eternity with all of us if we just listen. Even as babies when we are put in water, our memories flash us back to that connection – one heart, one beat, one with all and everything. What mother feels the infant absorbs and feels as well. This connection is the reason all infant’s umbilical cords were saved and dried hanging in the tree of life to dry to become part of the child’s medicine bag.

Now knowing all this you will better understand what Going to Water actually means. Going to water is more than a bathing ritual. It is a religious act to submit ourselves to returning to our Mother’s womb and cleanse ourselves in her life blood (water). This ritual is our reconnection to being born each day as a new born babe to start the day. We greet Grandmother Sun as she rises and blesses us as we stand in the water and sing the greeting song to her and for our Mother. The women have their own place to go and they take the small babes with them, young toddler boys too. Boys old enough to walk on their own go to the men’s place.

Now to truly understand the ritual and the practice, put yourself in this mode. It is early before the break of dawn. The women gather up their personal scents, and cleaning things. They awaken all the children, babies too, and take them to the path that the Beloved Women, Keethlas, Medicine Women, and Clan Mothers are already walking, saying prayers as they go. The men are doing the same, being led by the Beloved Men (elders who are very wise and gifted), Keethlas, Medicine People, and Miccos, to a different path that leads them to water out of sight of the women.

Each group will wait until the Grandmother Sun is fixing to rise and then everyone goes in the water. They submerge themselves fully; the women holding the babies submerge them as well. They feel the Mother’s heart beat while they are in her living womb. They honor the life gifts of air, water, earth, and with the rising of Grandmother Sun, fire is now also completing the four elements of life. We all reconnected to life as a baby, new and fresh, cleansed, not only of filth, but of corruption of the mind, spirit, and body. We sing songs of joy, songs of thanks and then we go about washing ourselves. It makes no difference what the weather is – hot, cold, rain – we still do this everyday. It is our way of life and our life is our religion!

  
Mvskokee Water Song   

mvskokee uewv yvhiketv


seceyetv  seceyetv  celayetv wace vnokeckv seceyetv 
seceyetv mocv-nettv mekusvpetv momen ometv ohmerretv 
em wace ohnenne nak-vcakv
enka enka  peme opvnetv vpeyetv wace enka enka peme e-
hvsvthicetv hiyomecetv seceyetv seceyetv hahvketv hvmken 
hvtvm seceyetv  seceyetv ofv nak-avcakv ohnene enka enka 
peme e vnokeckv mocv -nettv enka enka peme emetv e 
wace estofis 


Ghost’s translation:

Going into the water, going into the water, 
Touching Mother’s Love, going into the water.

Going into the water today, praying and receiving 
Mother’s precious blessings.

Yes, yes, we dance as we go to Mother. 
Yes, yes, we go to be cleansed. 

Going to water, going to water we become one again.
Going into the water, going into the water, we walk around. 

Yes, yes we give our love today. 
Yes, yes, we give to Mother always.

Going into the water, going into the water to feel mothers love
Going into the water, going into the water to pray and be blessed,
Mother’s sacred way.
 
Yes, yes, we dance to go to Mother
Yes, yes, we clean ourselves this way 

Going into the water, going into the water, become one again.
Going into the water, going into water in a sacred way.

Yes, yes, we love ourselves today
Yes, yes, we give to our Mother always.

Now, to keep the balance, we also have a sunset ceremony. As we tell Grandmother goodnight and we welcome Grandfather Moon who shines his light upon all of us and all life. We all know how the Grandfather affects all life and even the waters. Remember we are a people of balance; we walk and live in balance. Going to the water and submerging ourselves as before; women to one area and men to another, we cleanse our bodies, say goodnight to our Grandmother and greet our Grandfather who loves our Grandmother and our Mother. He spends his time chasing them both.

Singing our prayer songs and feeling the love from our Grandparents and our Mother too, we all knew we have this special connection to all life in these sacred ways. As we walk back to the town or village, we begin to come back together as a people, all loving and happy. Now it’s time to enjoy stories, dances, and good food; a people all as one, and one with everything as our Grandfather Moon smiles down on us. Sometimes he shows only part of his face; sometimes only the other side. Sometimes he is so big and so close and sometimes he looks new and young. Sometimes he has friends there with him; a council going on. Sometimes he is gold and sometimes blood red. He shows his many emotions and faces to us and we all know he loves us too.

So, I ask you: How well do you know Grandfather Moon and our Grandmother Sun and our Mother Earth? Will you think of these things when you see them? I hope this helps you better understand our ways, Ghost.

Ghost Dancer’s Page

LONG ROAD HOME (19)

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 19

Wash the Pain From My Soul

A week, 10 days, 15 days, then 17 days go by and I’m thinking these staples sure hurt and I’m noticing a green discharge through the bandages. I never got a call out to come to medical to remove them so I went to the clinic at a lunch meal. I told the nurse on duty that I clearly heard the surgeon tell me the staples were to be removed in a week or ten days and here we are at 17 days, so she would either take the staples out right now or I would pay someone to do it in the unit. So they take me in the back and the P.A. decides to use this as a teaching moment to show another P.A. how they remove the staples. The flesh has already begun to grow over the staples so he has to nick the flesh to get to them. This was painful, but they grudgingly took them out and washed the wound with peroxide for the first time since the surgery.

By this time I was back to work but had been given a “sit down” job where I am still to this day. I went on about my daily life, working in the day, building jewelry at night, and trying to plan for my future. The weeks went by and the incision still wouldn’t close. Green pus kept coming out and it just plain hurt, so I went back to medical and the nurse practitioner took a culture of the discharge. Turned out I had a staph infection in my spine. It was pretty deep, so they immediately put me on some super antibiotics.

The first course didn’t work so they rushed me out to the neurosurgeon to look at it. When I told him I had gotten absolutely no wound care or dressing changes he was visibly shaken. I believe his exact words were, “What the hell is wrong with those people?” He tells me the situation isn’t good and said he would try 5 more days of the oral antibiotic and if that doesn’t work he will have to admit me to the hospital to fight the infection as it could be doing irreparable nerve damage. So we do the next five days of these super antibiotics and they seem to work. The wound starts closing up and not leaking the green nasty anymore.

Then several months down the line from the surgery, like November, I started having another problem. My legs would just go numb for no reason and I would fall. Sometimes a pain shot thru me that even forced a release of urine, not a lot, but enough that I knew this was not right. At first I figured it was just part of the healing, but finally I went to the doctor through sick call again to ask about it. He first said it could just be healing and that can take months.

When the doctor heard this I suppose he immediately scheduled me for a return visit to the surgeon. A week or so later we’re at the sweat lodge and the chaplain comes out calling my name. They want me at the lieutenant’s office, so I go up there and they inform me I’m going on a medical trip. By this point my trust level is nil; I’m sick of the bad treatment, I’m sick of the lack of after care, and I sure don’t want any more medical mistreatment. I’m just not willing to go through whatever they have in mind and get another infection.

So I refused the medical trip, signed the refusal and went back to the sweat lodge just in time for G. to conduct the ceremony and to partake in it. After all the hassle they had been putting me thru I needed the cleansing and the healing in the one place I knew to get it – in the sweat lodge, praying to the Creator for others and letting the raw and pure power of prayer soothe and wash the pain and anguish and negativity from my soul and being.

Yes, I badly needed the old ceremonies and connection to Creator at that point in time. I knew I wasn’t fixed, my back wasn’t right and the deterioration in my spine was getting worse, not better. Eventually the numbness did get better, but I was just not strong enough to face what it might take in here and at this place to fix it. Since I had been here at Talladega, several people had died due to misdiagnosis or lack of proper treatment in a timely manner, and I didn’t want to die. I had too many unfinished plans.

THEN CHANGE IT

Verse 1.
 If you don’t like the way the world is,
 Then change it, just change it, 
 But do it one act at a time...

Verse 2. 
Don’t be afraid of the way you feel,
You’re the one at the potter’s wheel,
So mold it how you want.

Chorus:
And it won’t hurt,
And you won’t feel pain,
And in the end it could change the game...

Verse 3.
Let’s start with a random act of kindness,
Send hate and anger into blindness,
Sacrifice for the betterment of others ,
Remembering every homeless person has a mother. 

Bridge...
Stop what you’re doing,
And lend a hand,
Pitch in and clean up,
For your fellow man.

Outro: 
So if you don’t like the way the world is, 
Then change it, just change it,
But do it one act at a time...
Yea, if you don’t like the way the world is,

Then change it, just change it, but do it one step at a time....


Then Change It lyrics © Steven Maisenbacher (Walks on the Grass)

Walks’ Page

LONG ROAD HOME (18)

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 18

Gonna Be Days Like This

If it wasn’t for Mike Lunsford who gave me the “smuggle buggy” as we named the walker he gave me – and that medical eventually authorized me to have – I would have had a lot more problems, even more pain than I was already coping with. So I’m on Tylenol 3 pain meds for 5 days and that didn’t even come close to covering the pain from the quarter-mile walk to get them. I’m paying someone in the unit on a daily basis to change the dressing and rinse the surgical incision and staples in my back. When I asked medical about my wound care, I was told, “Oh, you will have to go to sick call.” Nope, we’re not going thru that, it isn’t worth another long trip with the buggy to get it done, so I will just keep doing what I need to do.

It is now day 3 after my surgery. After having slept off and on during the night, I woke a bit later than normal because the sound of the key unlocking my cell door at 6 AM is the alarm for me if I miss getting up earlier for my dawn prayers. So I wake up at 7:20 AM and hear people out and about. I try to open my cell door and find it is still locked. I figured someone must have forgotten my door so I ask one of the inmates in the block to go get the cop. Fifteen minutes go by, no cop to let me out. Then I see everyone going out the door so I know they called breakfast, still no cop.

So I wait and finally the cop comes and opens the door. I ask what’s going on, I have missed pill line now and breakfast. He said there was a note in the log book from the night officer telling him to keep my cell door locked because he smelled smoke last night down here in this area. What? Now I got upset. I’m in pain and have missed the chance to get my medicine so I tell him I want to see the lieutenant over this.

He said the lieutenant would be here before long and I can see him then. So I go about my business, eat a pop tart and take a few Tylenol, knowing they are not going to cut it. Now it’s 9:30 AM and they scream lockdown for count, so I go in my cell knowing that when I do get out to eat after count I can go to pill line then and get the next dose of pain meds. I really needed something keep me from being in so much pain.

So count comes and goes. It’s a holiday and we wait, and wait, seems like forever to go eat. By now it’s 12:30 PM and I’m starving when they call CHOW! Finally I’m off so I eat and then push the walker over to medical. As I do, I see the nurse heading down the walk. She pauses to say she has been called to the SHU for an emergency.

I say, “But please, I haven’t had pain meds since last night”

She said she didn’t have time but I could just wait and come back later.

“No, I can’t” I say. I know I will never make it back across the compound after this. My pain is excruciating and I’m exhausted after the trip to the chow hall then medical, so I park the walker, and sit down. Isn’t long before the compound roving officer comes to see why I’m sitting there when the compound has been closed and movement is over.

I explain that I’m waiting for the nurse because I need my meds but she had been called to the SHU and I can’t go then come back because I won’t make it and I’m in agony.

He says OK and to just stay there, out of the way and don’t go out on the compound. So I sit, 1:30 PM, and I sit 2:30 PM, and I sit 3 PM. All of a sudden here comes the nurse up the walk. I’m glad to see her.

She says, “I can’t see you now, I have to take care of this.”

I’m now hyper mad, I go straight to the lieutenant’s office about 20 yards away and explain everything that has happened, what I have been going thru and that I have now missed 2 doses of my pain medicine and hadn’t had any relief since the night before. So he gets on the radio and calls her, then he goes into the office gets on the phone to her. He comes out and says she is coming. Soon thereafter she comes out and asks me about my problem. Once again I go thru the spiel about no meds, the locked door, the late chow and the 2-hour wait sitting in the hot sun, hurting and waiting. Now here we are and I still haven’t had any pain meds and this isn’t right!

She tells me if she gives me a dose then I won’t get any in the evening after supper because it will be too soon to get another dose. Ugh! So weighing the situation, I say I will come back after count and dinner. She returns to medical, closes and locks the door. I wheel back to the unit after not having any pain meds for almost 24 hours and fall exhausted into the bed, where I stayed till after count, then it’s back across the compound again to finally get my meds.

Now there’s a post script to this. After many months, at a time when her quick action saved my life, Nurse Thomas and I had an opportunity to talk about that day. Many things came to light, the most important being this nurse has proven herself to be a professional and capable nurse with excellent skills and patience.

I learned in our discussion that while I was waiting, she had been in the SHU trying to deal with a medical emergency after an inmate had been pepper sprayed. Some of the spray had made its way onto her which caused her great distress and this is what she was feeling when she walked past me back into the medical unit and locked the door behind her. Now I see her in a different light. She was there trying to help an inmate’s medical distress only to be made to suffer for her efforts. Furthermore, she was the only professional on duty in medical that day! They even had the nerve to ask her to stay and work overtime because another medical staff member wanted to stay home.

Fact is by ignoring their own stated policies, the BOP not only medically neglects and abuses inmates, but they also abuse and exploit their professional medical staff. During my years in federal prison, I have seen so many instances where things went wrong that could have been avoided had adequate basic care been provided.

As for me, the bottom line is, thru the strength of the Creator and my understanding that nothing will be placed on my shoulders that I can’t handle, I have managed to keep my sanity, or at least some semblance of sanity. I believe that all the trials and aggravations of daily life in here are the crucible that has forged my spiritual strength and my ability to become a functioning member of society in the world as it is today. It’s going to take the same tolerance and patience as I mustered that day of no meds, but it will be well and truly worth it. I just need to stay in my walk on the red road and be willing to humble myself to situations I can’t control rather than blow a fuse. It ain’t easy being me, but someone’s gotta do it….

SHAME

Before the question I knew the answer,
You went thru me just like cancer,                    
I think you know you drove me crazy,
When it comes to love, my mind gets hazy.

Checked the radar, coming up clear,
Void the horizon nothing left to fear, 
The litmus test was too good to be true,
I was wrong, but that’s nothing new.

Shame on me for not seeing it…
Shame on me for not believing it...

Fool me once, screw with my head,
Things you did, better left unsaid,
You plead your case on bended knee, 
But fool me twice, shame on me...

Shame on me for not seeing it…
Shame on me for not believing it...
shame.....


Shame © 2009 Steven Maisenbacher (Walks On The Grass)

Walks’ Page

Women’s Role, Women’s Power

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 9

A Teaching by Ghost Dancer

Women today have lost or forgotten their true roles and purposes that used to be. In the old days, everything revolved by and through the women. A child was a member of the mother’s clan. Her blood was all that mattered, not the father’s. In every town, all the land and buildings, everything was the property of the women. The women held the power to make decisions in the best interest of the clan and for the people in general.

They are the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins of the men and boys. Naturally, they want only what is best for everyone. Men seek to be their best by doing good things, honorable things, helping the clan, family, tribe be its best. Each has its own role. I speak of this first so you can get a better mindset of what each person’s role in the old times were.

Every decision, of everyone’s life was conducted through your mother’s clan and the Clan Mothers – who taught you, which society (war clan for men) you would join, only the women had the power to direct your life. No war, no hunts, no chunkey games, or stickball, fishing, gathering anything, unless the women declared that it would be. You could not even court or date or romance a girl without the women’s approval. Your marriages were arranged by the women. The headmen, council, and warriors all lived by the laws and decisions made by the women.

You ask why. Well why would we question the wisdom of the Creator in giving the women, the power to create life, and give birth to that life, from her womb, because no man has the love, the honor, the respect, humbleness, and generosity that a woman has? No man could withstand the pain and suffering that a woman goes through in labor and during the pregnancy that women must go through to bring new life into this world. Do you know any man in his right mind who would ever willingly take on that burden? Women have so much courage. The Creator knew that for there to be balance and love for all life, that the true power had to be the rightful gift of all women.

Now many women still don’t understand the true aspect of women’s powers. Every woman is so connected to Mother Earth that she is given a Moon Time (a menstrual cycle) just to help her always to be pure and clean, just as Mother Earth does in her winter season. Just as she does in her thunderstorms, floods, or earthquakes! Every woman knows how to conserve and think about others before herself. Women are stronger than men in their minds and their hearts, their courage, their ability to change themselves at a moment’s notice while most men are seen to be stubborn, arrogant, selfish, and egotistic. Pride/ego is the downfall of almost all males.

The gifts of love were bestowed upon the women to teach all men how to truly love. As mothers they nurture us, protect us, feed us, take care of us when we are sick, clean us when we mess ourselves, cleanup after us, because men often never think to do these things. The Women’s role was that of power. The tribe was only as good, strong, or successful as the women were in the tribe. If a male leader failed to do as he was directed, he would immediately be replaced by the choice of the women, because the women thought always about what was best for the entire tribe, and the generations of the tribe yet to come. All the tribes’ belongings were owned by the women only. No male owned anything except his weapons. All males did everything they could to earn the respect, love and generosity of the women, because it was the greatest thing a male could do: to provide, protect, pleasure, and procreate for the women.

All the Plant people talked to the women, to teach them the powers of the Plant people, so did the Stone people, because all these relatives could feel the love in the hearts of the women. It is hard for many women today to see themselves as this beautiful, powerful, loving being. But they truly are! If only they would pick their hearts up off the ground, and see everything in beauty and love, the world could change overnight.

A woman is not ugly, selfish, egotistic, lazy, or dumb! Why, because no woman has ever been created that way! The only way that ever happens is if the woman herself changes herself to be that way or is abused and never ever tapped into her true power to take charge of herself. Because there isn’t a woman alive today that could not use her true power and claim her rightful place in control of the world around her and create herself as totally beautiful and loving in every way. But it begins with the woman herself. She must choose this and claim it in her heart. Once she does then she will begin seeing herself as beautiful, and as wonderful as she truly is. Others will see this too.

When a woman recognizes that she is able to make changes around her, by opening her heart, to Mother Earth, to the Moon, to the Waters, to the Plant people, to the Stone people, she will know how special she truly is.

The reason why women on their Moon, were not allowed around the men, boys, or anything that was used by men (weapons, medicine bundles, medicine bags, hunting and fishing equipment, etc.) or around any areas where men conducted rituals, was because during her Moon cycle her power would cancel out and overwhelm anything of the males. Her Moon cycle was so powerful that men would be violating Mother’s gift to the women to ever question it.

A woman’s Moon cycle is a purification that no man is ever blessed with. Most women hate the cycle now days, because they were brought up to believe it was dirty and nasty, but in truth it is a time of the Creator’s gift that all women can purify themselves from within themselves with their passions, emotions and their entire beings. Most women won’t admit their lustful desires now because of the programmed belief that it was wrong, dirty, or sinful for her to be like that or want that desire filled. Any woman who is true to herself will admit those feelings and longings, and in truth women can more easily get pregnant right before her cycle begins, while spotting or cramping, or at the end to their Moon cycle.

Only through the false fear or beliefs of some religions were these truths hidden and put down by these religious dogmas attempting to silence the women and their roles in life. It was these same religious people who feared the women’s power that they systematically attacked women in their beliefs and taught them that they were a curse and they came from a man and that they are the cursed of the people. Why would women put up with it and deny themselves their true powers in this world, and in all the universes? Balance has been lost and will return when women claim it and choose to be the Love, Light, and Power that you truly are!

The Women’s Moon Lodge

In the old days, clan mothers and women were responsible for teaching the young girls the secret ways of women, not only in duties to the clan, but in everyday life. The women’s lodge, or menstrual house (eposkv-hute) was a place of power. It was not, as some people suppose, a place where women were banished because they were unclean. No men or boys dared go anywhere near this place because of the feminine power.

Not only was the women’s lodge the place women rest while in their moon flow, but it’s a place where girls are taught by older women everything they need to know about being women, how to attract a good mate and how to deal with the men they would soon be having intimate relationships with. When the time was right, young expectant mothers would have full support from the women of her clan to teach them all they needed to know about pregnancy, childbirth and caring for herself and for a new life. The beauty is that no young woman needed to ever feel alone or confused, wondering what was happening to her. So you see, the women’s lodge was a place where women found harmony with Mother Earth and the universe and the girls of each clan learned the mysteries of making secret potions and charms to attract the man they want.

Now a lot of people may not believe in this kind of thing, but judge not, for it isn’t for you to believe. It is for you to know and learn why this was done in the old times. Understand the clans had strict rules on marriage. To marry any relative, even a distant relation was strictly forbidden, so to assure finding an appropriate mate could be especially difficult. The responsibility fell on the clan mothers to keep track of all the members of each clan, the marriages and such. Each child is known by all clans and it is important that each person, even children know and introduce themselves as belonging to their own clan.

Often Muskogee, Ani-yun-wiya and most eastern tribal women are named after flowers or birds and such that bring beauty, love and strength to the people. When a woman is named little oak she is being called that because she is strong and has her roots sunk in deep. She may bend but she won’t break. If she is named honeysuckle woman she is being named for her beauty and her fragrant scent that blesses all that see her or come in her presence. If she is named little fox she is known for her beauty and cunning. Turtle woman is so named for her steady pace in life and always being protective and never rushing into anything without thinking first. So, yes all these things must be paid attention to.

Envisioning the Women’s Lodge

The house dwelling is built using 8 red oak posts (representing the tree of life of the people). Around the sides, 20 red cedar poles and covering with the red cedar boughs and red clay used as cement with designs of the moon and corn maiden, winged serpent, turtle, and all the clans are represented. The number 28 is sacred because it represents the number of days in a moon cycle. This protects the people all around and keeps this power inside.

The roof is made of red cedar poles and boughs laid on top. Red cedar leaves are scattered over the floor. 28 white water willow poles (representing purity and peace) are laid out and tied together using their own stripped bark soaked in water to make the door with intricate designs of each moon phase and stars aligned to the seven sisters (Pleiades). The door faces the south.

Circles of branches of holly are hung and attached to each direction. A special area is made to collect the absorbent pads, most commonly cat tail tops or washed moss, with the blood flow from the women. Just as mother earth has a cleansing so do the mothers and daughters. They were then burned with cedar and juniper boughs and the ashes later added to the burnt ashes from all the fires in every lodge of the tribe, council house fire, and most important, the tribal sacred fire to be mixed in with all the compost made from the blood and waste of fish, animals, and birds and spread upon the tribal fields to grow crops. This completes the circle or cycle of life.

A sacred smudge bowl is set by the door and a turkey hen wing fan is used to smudge all who come or go to bring food and water, to teach and to assist can be smudged and washed with a cedar and or juniper tea. A water bag made from the stomach of a deer and a gourd dipper, hang on one wall. A turtle shell rattle hangs from the poles on the roof.

In the center, a hearth fire is kept burning all year. Fire-hardened clay pots and baskets filled with herbs and powdered roots sit nearby along with a set of deer antlers and deer toes.

The baskets, woven from grasses and bark are dyed with many geometric designs. One of the baskets holds corn meal, another, bean husks with dried beans. Another holds tobacco leaves and corn husks and a stone pipe or deer antler pipe. Many dried roots hang all around, each one of them has medicine and power as does every herb, every object, every symbolic design.

Spider woman is very powerful for dreams and weaving webs to capture things. Her webs have been gathered and stored for medicine. A pile of dried and tanned fur pelts stored out of the way ready to bring warmth and comfort. These, along with a number of skulls and bones containing the spirits of animals, birds or reptiles that may be asked for help, protection, or strength. Many a young woman has used these to help herself in difficult times. Even having to use the toilet is done in the lodge and the waste removed by the ones assisting or visiting. Sometimes during her moon time a woman may suffer cramps or mood swings so special teas were made to ease the discomfort.

Hope this gives you a better understanding of the full meaning and purpose of the women’s lodge as a place of rest and support during the moon time and for young women, a place where they truly learn the traditions and knowledge of our culture. The elder women taught the young women of each village as they came to their first Moon times about the purpose of a retreat during these cycles every month – to reconnect to the Earth Mother and receive her nurturing again every month for those days of her flow. For adult women with children especially, it was a time to get some much-needed rest from the work of everyday life. Sisters, aunties, grandmas etc. would do the household chores for her.

Considered a secret of longevity, when women are filled with the Earth Mother’s love for us, as her daughters, we can make sacrifices for others. But we do not sacrifice ourselves or our health because we take the time each month to be filled with our Earth Mother’s love. With Earth Mother’s love, we can do our work and care for our families and not be used up or weakened.

Today we do not have Moon Lodges in our society, but we can remember who we are and that our Earth Mother is still there for us. We are the human reflections of our Earth Mother, caring for our families and ourselves always. Remember to take some time out for yourself every month or even every day. If you are not healthy and rested, you cannot take care of those you love.

Respectfully, Ghost

Ghost Dancer’s Page

LONG ROAD HOME (17)

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 17

Didn’t See It Coming

As the days go on I become familiar with the prison and doing all the things I need to do, but first and foremost in my mind is going to medical to work on getting my back and spine issues resolved and surgery scheduled. So I go to sick call and explain my issues; I’m referred to the physician at the institution at this time. He recommends that another MRI be done and that I will then be scheduled for a consult with a neurosurgeon. I try to explain my history and tell him I’ve already had several MRI’s done and suggest he can pull this up in my medical record. So then he looks and says he can’t get them from Yazoo. Now I have been thru this for more than 2 years, so I know the dance, but what can I do? So it’s, “OK, thanks for your time, do what you can please.”

Meanwhile I’m plotting on what to do next to get these people to fix my back. A few days go by; I walk into the chow hall and who do I see but the warden; the very same warden who made the medical department in Yazoo upgrade my medical status and put me in for a medical transfer to a Care Level 2 facility. She says hello and right there in front of all the staff and inmates in the chow hall, extends her hand to me as if to shake it. This felt really, really strange, but what the heck, I shook her hand and the first words out of her mouth were, “How are you doing? Are you getting the medical care you need?”

I say, “Well, in fact no, Warden, I’m not,” then proceed to tell her about the song and dance they are sending me through over the medical records, the MRI so they can finally get me to a neurosurgeon for a consult, and then sometime down the road, the actual surgery. She asks me to wait and calls over the health services director. The warden tells her she wants me seen by a neurologist within the next 30 days and his surgery within the next 60 days, “Make it happen.”

Now to say I’m floored is putting it lightly; I have never seen a medical administrator put on notice so plainly and with such authority ever before. All the medical services director could do was say, “Yes Warden.”

Then the warden turns and says to me right then, “I want you to come to me when you have seen a specialist, and if you have any problems at all with medical…and Mr. Maisenbacher, I mean any problems, by all means come let me know and we will get them resolved promptly.”

Wow! That’s so cool, now I’m thinking, OK, this warden is going to straighten this place up.

Two weeks later I go to lunch from Unicor. It’s a Thursday I know because we were having chicken. I’m going to sit down when an officer walks up and tells me to put the tray down right now, “Let’s go!”

I’m shocked, “Where to?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

So I’m thinking I’m on the way to the hole, but he takes me to R&D, to strip me, dress me in transfer clothes, and take me out of the institution. At that time he tells me I’m going on a medical trip. So out we go; he puts me into a white government van. Another cop is driving as the second armed officer and what a trip it was. Now they put the leg shackles on so tight they literally cut through my socks and into my ankles. I also had a belly chain that ran through my handcuffs and my cuffed hands were in a black box.

Now if you don’t know what a black box is, it’s a plastic box that encases part of the handcuffs to stop any movement or access to the locking part of the cuff. When the belly chain is put on too tightly, the box isolates the hands in a most uncomfortable way, forcing them to be at an odd angle. All this not only hobbles and secures you but deliberately demeans and humiliates you; so I ride in this miserable state all the way to Birmingham and back.

I see the neurosurgeon and he goes over the MRI results that they somehow had miraculously gotten from Yazoo, Mississippi. He tells me he needs to operate and explained what he would be doing, essentially to remove the sheared-off part of the disk in between the vertebrae, then open the passageway to relieve the pressure on the nerves in the spinal column. OK! That’s wonderful, I can’t wait! The surgeon tells me he will confer with the institution and schedule surgery. Then back to the joint I’m taken.

I was glad to know that I’m finally going to at least get the surgery, but I have to tell you, my anxieties kicked in and I did a lot of praying for strength and healing from the Creator. So time goes by and here we are well into August. I get the feeling it won’t be long. Then exactly six weeks to the day I’m called from Unicor to the lieutenant’s office and told I’m being placed in the special housing unit (SHU) pending a medical trip and immediately off we go. It was the worst night I had spent in a long, long time. I was scared and worried, afraid to be put to sleep, but I knew I had to do it.

The next morning it’s the whole chains and shackles deal again and off we go to the hospital. When we get there, they take us (me and two guards) to the prep room where I’m seen by the anesthesiologist. Then the surgeon comes in and explains the goings on and finally they wheel me into the operating room, put the needle to the IV line and its 100-99-98-97—wakey-wakey, 3hours and 14 staples later, they tell me I have to get up, and walk 10 feet, then pee before they can let me go. So I do the impossible and we are off, again fully shackled, back to the prison in record time.

I’m still pretty high, pain-killered out when we get back to Talladega. They ask me if I’m okay; I’m like, “Yeah, sore but whatever, I just want to lay down.” So they call over to the unit to have an inmate come get me and push me in a wheelchair the couple of blocks across the compound to my unit. I get in the bed. After a miserable night, first thing the next morning I go straight to medical. Whatever they gave me at the hospital had long worn off long before and I’m in severe pain.

According to my discharge instructions, I’m supposed to get regular wound care, dressing changes, and pain medications. So I’m waiting and waiting. Finally the medical services director comes sashaying through. I ask if she could tell me when I might be seen since I have just had surgery and no one has told me anything. Immediately she became irate, raised her voice and spit out, “We will see you when we do, and not until then!” Oh boy, I’m in for a wild ride. I can see it coming.

What happens next? Well, you just can’t make this stuff up. So like I was saying, I’m in sick call to see someone about my surgery, to find out about aftercare or a laying off from work. Obviously I’m going to need some kind of care, but as I’m sitting there I begin to wonder. I know nothing and this woman became totally irate over a simple question that any post-op patient might ask. After she verbally abuses me, I just smile and tell her how sorry I am that life has left her so bitter and hateful and I would wait as long as I have to. Turns out I’m there about an hour before I’m called back to see the doctor.

He shuffles through the paperwork sent back from the surgeon with orders on what needs to be done then says, “Well, this ain’t gonna happen.”

He tells me I’m not going to be given any aftercare, or physical therapy. I’m just going to have to figure that out myself; maybe do some “stretches or something.” He did prescribe Tylenol 3 for pain 3 times a day, but that meant I would have to make the quarter-mile round trip 3 times a day to get it.

Now this was not the only point of some even more incredible indifference. When I was wheeled back to my unit directly after I got back from the hospital, they parked the wheelchair right outside my cell. I just went to sleep as best I could till the next morning. When I got up the wheelchair was gone; the cop tells me they had sent it back to medical.

I said, “Man, I just had major surgery on my spine, how am I supposed to get to chow or medical?” He too must have gone to the school of “you’ll have to figure it out” because that is exactly what he told me.

Luckily for me there was a guy in the unit who had one of the walkers with wheels and a seat on it he wasn’t using. He brought it to me and said I could use it as long as I needed to. For that I was truly grateful and little did I know this guy would be a huge help later with wound care and dressing changes.

So, the doctor gives me the 2-week lay in for work and sends me out the door. I still had no schedule for dressing changes or wound cleaning or anything other than Tylenol 3 and a lay in. Incredible as it seems, I’m really in a mess now considering I’m expected to walk a mile a day at least if I want to eat and get some something for pain directly after the operation. That’s the kind of sick diabolical thing we go through in here on a daily basis, stripped of our humanity, treated like less than animals by a system that is so corrupt that you will have trouble believing some of what I will be talking about, but I promise you, it’s all true, you just can’t make these kinds of things up.

Heck, even I with my crazed sense of mental adventure couldn’t make this up, and I even have an invisible dog named Booger that has been with me for several decades. He was there with me in the tombs of USP Lewisburg where for punishment I was held incommunicado for months without ever seeing anyone except a nurse or the cop that slid my food under the door like you would feed an animal.

INSANE, I’m – I’m 

Going forward to get behind		
(Seems like I’m losing ground)
The broken fragments of my whole mind	
(I’m living in a puzzle)
Falsified the facts to get the twisted truth told	
(Battling myself over all these true lies)
Sold your youth so you’d never grow old		
(I can never die, I’m a legend in my mind)

I’m – I’m Insane, I’m – I’m Insane

Telling me this to lie about that			
(Speaking in riddles, losing my mind)
Sleeveless shoes and a wet paper hat			
(Drowning in puddles to get where I’m at)
Newsman said the world is actually flat		
(Inanimate objects dodging these traps)
Everything you believe is wrong that’s the fact	
(Confusion set in, anxiety attacks)

I’m – I’m Insane, I’m – I’m Insane, 
Even the voices in my head don’t like you	    
(Backa – Backa – Backa – Backa – Backa x2)

The sky was black, and the sun was blue		
(Hearts bleeding, but not for you)
I went down the up escalator to get back at you	
(Running in circles, getting nowhere soon)
Three steps forward and four steps back		
(Can’t get ahead without my map)
Your truth is my lies and that's the facts		
(Looking in, taking me back)


I’m – I’m Insane, I’m – I’m Insane, 
I’m – I’m Insane, I’m – I’m Insane . . . 


Insane, I’m – I’m lyrics © Steven Maisenbacher (Walks on the Grass)

Walks’ Page

Ghost Dancer’s Art

For My Dad – A gift from the heart

Ghost Dancer’s version of “The Good Shepherd”

Over the years I made many items for my dad from a wooden/glass inlaid gun case, gun racks, hand tooled leather belts, wallets, holsters, a shotgun and rifle case with hunting scenes of him hunting rabbit on one side and deer on the other. He loved all these gifts but there came a time he wanted something special from me. Growing up around my dad, not once did he ever go to church, at least not while I lived with him or was around him daily. Now this did not mean that he did not believe in God or was a Christian. He just felt that nature was God’s church and I know he prayed a lot.

My dad was Native, and he also observed or looked at everything as a Native would. My dad said he would love for me to create something “Christian” for him. Now knowing my dad as I did – and no he wasn’t perfect. He had made a lot of mistakes as we all have – I knew that our Creator had surely watched over him. He had survived so many hard times and still was able to laugh and cut up every day. Playing tricks or jokes on his family or friends was just Dad being Dad. You never knew when it was coming either. Dad never wanted to be rich like most folks, he just wanted enough to live. He loved animals and he loved teaching kids sports.

So taking all I knew about him and his ways, I started searching in the bible for a scripture that would speak to me about painting it. A picture of the painting, The Good Shepherd, spoke to me and I knew it would fit my dad. Each and every section of the painting has meanings, and as an artist I wanted to create my version so that each person must look at it to find what hidden messages it has so that each time you look at it you will find more that you did not see the first time. Or the second.

Why? Well because we all need help more than one time in our life. We need to be watched over all the time and no, we aren’t the first and no we aren’t the last. In this painting Jesus is done with the clouds encircling his body as he looks over the flock in the valley. I could say what is hidden but that would take away the purpose of the individual truly searching for the different subliminal messages in the painting. The colors also represent many things. So when you look, look again and again. The more you look the more you will find.

My dad loved this painting so much he had it hung over his bed for the rest of his life. It comforted him in his times of need as it was intended to do. To each person the painting should spark different thoughts and different feelings. That is its purpose because we all are different and that is what makes us all so special.

Hope you enjoy the story and seeking what you can find in the painting.

Mvto, Ghost

LONG ROAD HOME (16)

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 16

Wasn’t Long and it Wasn’t Long

On my second day I went to the A & O (Admission and Orientation) that is mandatory in every federal prison. It was the same old spiel, “do this, don’t do that, go here, not there, yada, yada, yada. I’ve been to so many of these I could give the speeches myself. I certainly would see to it that the inevitable dumb questions that always are asked were fielded ahead of time. I guess that comes from where I have lived for the past 37 years, so there it is.

The next day I went to the factory in search of the factory manager with a referral for a job from the A.W. (Associate Warden) whom I have known since I was in Beaumont, Texas. He was a captain back then and knew me very well since at the time I was getting the interferon treatment, and like all the upper echelon staff had been alerted to this in case I was to flip out or something.

When I walked in and asked to see Mr. Sikole, the factory manager. I explained that the A.W. told me to come down there to see him and ask him to hire me before I decided I didn’t want to work in Unicor. So I told the manager I had over 25 years’ experience and longevity with Unicor, and more than 16 years as a quality assurance inspector, with ISO certifications to audit internal operations and external operations. As soon as I said ISO certifications, he perked right up. It seems that Mr. Sikole had a background as a quality control manager and he knew that ISO certifications were rare and required extensive education and training to get. This is just one of the numerous qualifications and fields I have picked up over the decades in prison which give me a pretty decent resume for when I get out.

So I was told to go to the office and tell them he said to do the paperwork on my hire as a quality assurance inspector; I was “in” that fast, because of my qualifications and experience. For any who don’t know, UNICOR is a federal prisons industry. They have all sorts of factories and operations throughout the federal prison system manufacturing everything from military uniforms and combat wear to body armor and protective wear.

First taste of Talladega Trouble…

Wasn’t long after I had gotten to work that G. suggested that since my unit team was down in his unit they were going to move me there eventually, so we should just go ahead and get with the unit manager and see about getting me moved. “If you were in the unit with me,” he said, “We can hang out and I could at least teach you a few things.”

I was very open to the idea, the only problem was I needed to find someone I could move in with that I knew wouldn’t disrespect the sacred articles I have like my eagle feather or my medicine bundle and also someone without a lot of vices that could be cool with me living like I do. So G. says he wants me to meet this guy in the unit whose cellmate would be leaving at the end of the week. Well, wouldn’t you know it, just as we were having this discussion, who should walk up but the man G. was talking about, Kevin Schuman. He introduces us and we all speak for a few minutes together. It looks like it’s going to be a pretty good fit, and as G. said they will move me anyway and I’m still in the unit that they had stuffed me in when I first got here due to lack of space in my assigned unit.

So Kevin and I get the copout (request form) and fill it out together. Then they go and give it to the unit manager and I spoke to him as well. He is cool with it and signs the request. On the day the other guy left, the unit manager tells them to tell me to go ahead and move. So I come in from work, pack up my stuff and move it from Delta Unit to Beta B Unit where G. and Kevin live – and where I now live too. Well, it seems the unit manager had asked the counselor to contact control and get the move entered into the computer, but for whatever reason the counselor wasn’t able to do so.

Now I had moved, but along comes the usual 4 p.m. stand up count, then a recount, and another… Finally a guard comes to the cell door and asks for my name. Five minutes later the guard is back and says, “C’mon, you’re in the wrong unit, you interfered with the count and made it wrong, so you’re going to the lieutenant’s office and they can sort it out,” which is usually cop speak for you’re going to the hole.

Of course I know all along and I keep trying to tell them that I was told to move by the unit manager and that I even had the signed cop-out asking to move into the cell with Kevin Schuman. I knew they were mad after they pulled me out of Kevin’s cell and made me take all my property back across the compound to Delta Unit. The cop in that unit said to put it in his office because I was going to the lieutenant’s office. So off to the lieutenant’s office I go. I’m sitting outside on a bench waiting, they are all there and I can hear them in the office yelling back and forth. I just knew I was going to the hole for messing up their count.

I was snakebit for sure, but the Creator had his loving eye on me and the fact that I was in the right to be where I was. I had followed a staff order and I wasn’t to be blamed if the counselor got all in a huff because the unit manager (his boss) told him to do something and authorized the move without clearing it with him. Such “moves” are normally the domain of the counselor and apparently he got his feelings hurt by the way the unit manager ran right over him.

Now I couldn’t have orchestrated this better if I had a lamp and a genie popped out if it. At that moment the unit manager came around the corner and saw me sitting on the bench. He could hear the cops and the lieutenant in there huffin’ and puffin’. “Maisenbacher,” he says, “What’s going on? what have you done?”

“Think they want to lock me up because the counselor in the unit didn’t enter my cell transfer from Delta to Beta Unit and now they are trying to blame me for messing up the count when all I did was what you told me to do.”

So as the Unit manager starts toward the office I say, “Here is the cop out with your authorizing signature on it sir.”

He takes it and into the office he goes. Now there’s more raised voices but the most beautiful sound I heard was “You ain’t locking him up!” He tells them that I was only doing what he had told me to do and he would deal with the counselor himself.

Then the office door flies open, “Maisenbacher, go back to your unit!” At that point I was thoroughly confused, so I had to ask, “Which one?”

“Beta A where I moved you.”

“But my property is in Delta Unit. They made me take everything back.”

Back in the office he goes. Less than 2 minutes later he comes out and tells me, “Go to your unit they will bring your stuff down on the cart.”

So that is the story of how I ended up moving down to the madhouse with G. But it wouldn’t be for long. See maybe six weeks later they decided they were going move all the Unicor workers to Sigma Unit.

By this time I’m barely able to walk, let alone tote all my property back across the compound, so I did what I had to do…I paid a guy to carry all my stuff down to the unit I was then assigned to. We got down to Sigma A to find out they had made some mistakes in their moving strategies and Kevin Schuman and I got separated. I was placed in a lower bunk on a lower tier due to my back issues and Kevin was put in an upper bunk in an upper range. We were told that once everyone was in the units they would make the needed moves that were going to be required. I was put in with a guy who acted kinda crazy. He ended up telling me he liked to sniff glue, which totally explained his eccentric behavior.

So a week goes by and they move him out and Kevin moves back in with me. Now I want to tell you about Kevin; he’s a good guy, like so many got caught up in drugs and ended up in here over it. But Kevin is one of the hardest working people I’ve met in here. His work ethic is stellar and he is good at his job. Then there is the other side of Kevin…the guy is just funny, one of those people that don’t have to try to be funny they just are; his comedic timing is perfect and though his midwestern up bringing often guides his sense of humor, he is very easy to live around simply because he can make you laugh at almost any situation. And that is good medicine.

                         OFF KILTER

Verse 1:
Sometimes things seem just a little off kilter,
Like the world slipped away and I got stuck in the filter,
See, I was thinking about all that I don’t know,
Like a remote, or computer or even a phone…

Chorus: 
Is this my dark frontier, or just an amusement to see,
is this a hellish adventure or the undoing of me?
Off kilter...

Verse 2:
So what to me seems amazing is merely to you old hat,
And I’m ok in the knowing that that’s where we’re at,
But if I look perplexed and act unsure of what to do next,
It ain’t no witchcraft and I ain’t been hexed.

Chorus: 
Is this my dark frontier, or just the amusement to see?
Is this a hellish adventure or the undoing of me?
Off kilter...

Verse 3:
Now I understand what most people don’t,
Like keeping my sanity when the sharks circle the boat,
And I don’t make a fuss when I feel like it’s all caving in,
I just pull it together and figure out how to win…

But ...
Is this my dark frontier or just an amusement to see?
Is this a hellish adventure or the undoing of me…
off kilter...

And I can’t help thinkin’, somewhere in my universe there is a disconnected voice saying, "Don’t worry Walks, we'll leave the light on for ya"...Off kilter...



Off Kilter lyrics © Oct 13, 2019 Steven Maisenbacher (Walks On The Grass)

Walks’ Page

Sacred Peace-Healing Energy

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 8

Throughout my life, people have asked me how I can find the inner peace to go so deep within myself to a trance. Now to answer this is not simple but I will give a simple answer. The most powerful way of claiming this inner spiritual peace is by tapping into the most abundant energy there is – Mother Nature! That is right, Mother Nature gives us the vibrations of life if you just listen to all around you and match your heart and vibration with it thru your breathing. This will connect you to an inner calm and power that you never experienced before.

I cannot emphasize too often that throughout history, every prophet or teacher of every religious tradition has gone out into the wilderness to be alone and connect to this awesome sacredness, to find this inner peace to connect to their own spirit and to everything in the universe.

It takes discipline and effort to learn how but once you have mastered the ability to block out all noise and chaos around you that interferes with your deep inner peace connection, you will be able to make this spiritual connection anywhere.

You will be able to remain calm and see everything from a higher state of consciousness and enlightenment, to find answers to the most difficult questions. The more you seek, the more you find and learn. The sounds of nature, like rhythmic vibrations tap into your brain changing the neurons and receptors to a calming, clearer focus to tap into parts of your brain that you have not been using.

Yes we our own selves have been a big part of our blockage. It is sort of like when your computer gets too much garbage it begins to slow down, and then begins not functioning properly. Even someone who has dementia, Alzheimer’s, fatigue, depression, anxieties, fears, addictions can greatly benefit from breathing in these deep, slower rhythmic ways. By tapping into nature’s pure vibrations we can energize our bodies in ways that today’s medicine does not understand. This technique not only works to help you but is better for you than 8 hours of uneasy sleep when the brain constantly jumps from one thought to the next depriving your body and brain of true restorative rest, causing damage to every part of our body. We are amazing beings. We just have to tap into this power to touch the spirit world within us.

Now we must also eat the right things, and exercise our bodies, minds, to keep it running smoothly and efficiently. We cannot live on junk food, be addicted to sugar, alcohol, drugs, and such. Remember, most of the food products we buy is not good for you. It has been genetically modified to improve shelf life and appearance but does not provide the minerals and vitamins our bodies need. And almost all pharmaceutical drugs have such terrible side effects they do more harm than good. This is why prescriptions must have a warning label on them. They should be required to do the same thing with all these GMO food products as well.

Then there are all the harmful rays, toxic energy that comes from our phones, computers and electronic devices that everyone uses every day. We should limit these things. Anything that is done too much or taken too much becomes harmful to you.

Now some of my other articles such as Your Inner Power touch on going into trances and seeking the world’s in between. This may be too difficult for most people to even try, so I had to rethink this and find a way to make it easier for anyone to seek their inner peace in the spirit world.

Simple directions every seeker can use:

Step 1: Find a quiet place of solitude where there are trees, insects, birds, water, grass, animals, or whatever in nature that you can get to. Even your own backyard as long as you can’t be distracted by phones or people calling out to you.

Step 2: Find a comfortable position. Lean against the tree, lay on the ground, sit in a lotus position, just get totally comfortable.

Step 3: Start opening your ears to listen and feel nature all around you. Close your eyes and picture in your mind whatever it is that you are hearing – birds singing, tree limbs dancing in the wind, the wind, insect buzzing , waves splashing.

Step 4: Open up all feelings in your heart and mind, release them into the power of nature. Empty yourself of all pain, suffering, doubts, fears, problems, everything.

Step 5: Sit in this silence and listen to nature speak to you; feel this in your mind and heart as you breathe in deeply, slowly, to the rhythmic vibration of nature’s own music. Matching your breathing to this rhythm will now become part of you. As you breathe in the energy around you coming from all of nature, the limitless universes vibrate with the pure energy of every dimension, every galaxy of pure life, knowledge, power, gifts, healings, and teachings.

It is all up to you to seek this vibration and go deeper and deeper within yourself. Picture your blood cell. As you enter this cell, allow your spirit to tap into all your past lives, past memories, till you become one with the universes., dimensions, and galaxies. Just as the cell is a circle, so are you. This is your living library of you and all you have been and all you would become if you chose to.

Step 6: Now during this oneness with everything that exists and continuing to match the harmonic rhythmic vibrations of the nature around you with your breathing, exhale all the negative, impurities within you – all sicknesses, all diseases, all pain and suffering of your body, mind, heart or spirit. Now inhale all the healing, love, restoring, energizing , vibrations of energy into yourself. Yes even to healing your age old scars, skin flaws, skin damages. Breathe in the natural healing waters to your skin to revitalize it, bring new cells to be replacing the old damaged parts. Breathe in all the elements – minerals, vitamins, oxygen – your brain and organs need to heal and regenerate your entire being.

Step 7: Have no doubt that this is one of many of your amazing gifts. You are a very special being and it is time for you to claim your birthright. Don’t you think? Do not be obnoxious or belittle any who don’t do these things! You don’t go around bragging about doing things like this or showing off. We all have our own journeys and paths to take. You chose this path.

Step 8: The more you do this the more powerful it will become and so will you. With practice and discipline, you will become more disciplined and able to control your body, mind, heart, spirit, brain. You will become able to control your habits such as how you eat and what you eat. You will be able to learn more or let bad habits go.

When releasing (letting go) always try to do this on a waning moon (last quarter). When seeking to bring new things or learn new thing always do this on a waxing moon (first quarter). For example you are overweight and you want to lose weight. Make your disciplined mind and body declare that you are releasing all this excessive weight and bad eating habits when the moon is in the last quarter. Make your commitment to exercise and you will exercise to help tone and condition your body on a first quarter moon.

Apply these simple techniques to all that you do. If you want to quit smoking, give it up on a last quarter moon. If you want to learn a new language begin this on a first quarter moon. If you want to get rid of a medical problem do this on a last quarter moon. If you want to find a spirit-true love mate, make this on a first quarter moon calling for it to come.

Step 9: By doing this each day just to rest and restore your energy, you will become more able to handle any function or situation with clarity, insight, inspiration, and creativity. Your calmness will surprise you and you will have more productive enjoyment of everything. Apply this visualization when you are eating. Really taste the vitamins, minerals that your body is consuming to help your digestive system work better. This is your high octane fuel that your body needs to consume.

I hope this will help each of you to become more and more.

Mvto ,

GHOST

Ghost Dancer’s Page

LONG ROAD HOME (15)

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 15

Finally a New Circle

April 30, 2019, I arrived in Talladega about 9am, and went thru the usual check-in routine, interviews and unit assignments. I’m told they have me assigned to Gamma-Beta Unit but it’s full so they’re going to house me in Delta till space opens up. OK, that sounds reasonable. I get released and pointed in the direction of my new home. When I step outside I’m stunned by what I see; just had to stop and stare at the biggest oak tree I have ever seen right in the middle of the compound. That thing was huge. I looked around and there’s another one across the compound by another unit. Never had I seen such a beautiful sight as this!

So I go on into my assigned unit. I already know this isn’t a political yard. When they were grilling me about my affiliation tattoos, the cop made it clear, “We don’t have problems here and we won’t tolerate them, the people here are going to stay here, unless they are a problem. Understand?!?!

“Yes, sir Lieutenant, I got ya loud and clear, sir.” I sure don’t want any problems, so that’s all I can say.

Anyway, I’m now in this unit, Delta-A. There are 2 sides, A and B. I’m just floored there seems to be a zillion TV’s; actually no more than other places, it’s just that the common day room area is not that big. This is an older “modern ” facility, built in the 70’s; it’s still cool to me but starting to run down a bit. The cells are big enough and they even have real porcelain toilets and sinks, not the usual steel toilet that flushes like a screaming water vortex. I imagine a dragon sounding like some of the prison toilets I have been subjected to over the past several decades, so this is cool.

So get to the cell and start to make my bed and a guy knocks on the door, it’s the welcome wagon with all the “where ya comin’ from’s” etc., but then he hands me this bag full of stuff, some shower shoes, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush. He tells me it’s from the Christian community, no strings attached. I immediately tell him, “Dude I’m Native and I ride native, I can’t accept this,” but he insists. So I thank him and tell him I will return it all as soon as I catch the store. I knew I had a couple dollars, like maybe 13 or 14, but enough to return it and I would and I did.

Then he asked me if I knew “G.” Well, no, I didn’t, but I knew of him, so after getting a general description and finding out he lived in another unit, since there were no other Natives in this unit I figured I’d catch up to him at supper. After all it should not be hard to find a huge Indian in a wheelchair with snow white hair. I’d been trying to catch up to this man for years, through several institutions, but it always seemed I had “just missed him.” So now at least I know he is here.

So I’m getting dug in and my cellmate comes in, I introduce myself and he does as well. Alarm bells inside me go off; something about this guy isn’t right. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I just feel it. I heard later he has gone thru multiple cellmates; no one wants to live with him. Not a great start, but I’m going to just try to hang on and give him the benefit of the doubt till I can get to my assigned unit and into the factory.

We go thru the ever present 4 p.m. stand up count, mandatory in every B.O.P. facility, then I get ready to go eat and find G. Now I’m eating and conversing with some of the people who see I have on transfer clothes, and therefore know I’m “fresh on the line,” when in rolls this behemoth in a wheel chair, bandana all askew, hair going everywhere. As soon as he gets to the cattle run, a railing that runs along the wall to guide men thru the chow line, I get up and walk over to him and say, “So I guess I’m supposed to call you G? You can call me “Walks” but my name is Walks On The Grass.”

G. lights up and gets that all excited demeanor that I have come to love in him when he’s happy. So we talk for a bit, with me giving him a little of my history and him trying to tell me eleven million things at once, which is his way when he is excited. So we let him eat and then I get him to go outside with me to talk. He wants to know all about my history, do I know any songs and do I know about the culture, the sweat lodge etc. Now, comparing what I know to what he knows would be like comparing a comic book to the library of congress, but I believe he was surprised to learn that I knew way more than he expected, and evidently more than he is accustomed to among the fellas in these places.

The next day was Friday; we met up again and spent some time together. Somehow, I just knew this man was going to be of import in my life, I just didn’t know how. Then comes Saturday and the Native brothers all meet up at the chapel to go outside for the pipe ceremony. At that time I met two young Mexican brothers and come to find out it had been just them and G. for several months and if it had not been for them he would never have been able to perform the sweat ceremonies.

It takes a whole lot of labor to prepare and do a proper Inipi ceremony. You do not just show up and take a seat. There are cartloads of blankets and tarps to be taken outside, with the herbs and drums and buffalo skull for the alter mound. The firewood must be hauled up a ramp in a cart and then there’s building the fire and covering the willow framework of the lodge. When everything is ready, someone must stay outside to tend the fire and bring the rocks in while the conductor pours the water for the ceremonies to begin. It would be very difficult for one man alone to do all this, but it can be done with 2 men.

I remember a brother and I managed it in Gilmore, West Virginia in the middle of a freezing cold winter, so I know it can be done. But it’s no easy task, and when you’re an elder or disabled, it takes some young bucks to get everything done. Without the help of the two Mexican brothers these sweat lodge ceremonies wouldn’t have been possible. The willow lodge poles and framework were long overdue for replacing. The willows were rotting and some had deteriorated to the point of cracking and breaking so repairs had to be made each time before the covers were put on to prevent a possible collapse during the ceremonies. For more than a year G. had been requesting new willow poles but to no avail.

We did have some good sweats that first summer. G. leads the sweats and we are song full; G. knows many more than I do, but between us we have a veritable smorgasbord of authentic, traditional Native American songs, in several languages. My knowledge includes songs in Lakota, Cherokee, Dine (Navajo), Crow, Creek, Seminole and Nez Perce languages, all true and traditional. Some are sweat lodge songs, some big drum songs, but all authentic and as I was taught them. I’m also able to translate these songs if it is a teaching moment. Over the several decades that I have been practicing and learning my religious ways and beliefs, I had realized how important it was to know what I was singing and not just learn by rote or to mimic the people that taught them to me.

I think G. was both surprised and pleased to welcome a brother who actually had taken the trouble to gain this understanding. So I was officially here, the first Tuesday sweat was truly profound and it opened a spiritual door for me to further my blessings in the ways under the tutelage of a man as knowing as G.

                        FREE HERE NOW

Offer of sanctuary, a place in my heart,
Free here now, and that’s just the start,
Off to grand vision impossible to see, 
You seek true justice, there will be none for me.

Free here now, nothing seems too far, 
Free here now, this is who we are...

A willingness to do nothing, look yourself in the eye,
have a long laugh, then have a good cry,
The mirror tells no lies, just honest reflection,
A basis for repair, a way of correction.

Free here now, nothing seems so far,
Free here now, this is who we are...

Offer of sanctuary for your soul, 
Unafraid of love, but what do you know,
Free here now, I believe I will be,
Free here now, now here free...
free here now.

Free Here Now © 2009 Steven Maisenbacher (Walks On The Grass)

Walks’ Page

The Spirit World

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 7

Now, at times I have spoken about going to the Spirit World and I know you must have wondered about this or even been turned off by the idea. I hope you will stay with me and let me explain how all this works. This is important to understand: TO ALL NATIVE PEOPLES THE SPIRIT WORLD IS THE ONLY REAL WORLD. This world is an illusion of what you really are and can do. It is an illusion in which you have chains on you that prevent you from doing things that you consider magical or beyond belief. But the truth is, the only chains are on your own mind.

By stepping into the Spirit World, your mind – your brain – is opened up, enabling you to use more and more of what you have never used. It works like this: say you never used your arm, but only your hand. In time, the muscle in your arm would atrophy and not work; it would become small and weak. Any muscle you don’t use is like this. Your brain is like a muscle and science has shown most of us do not use its full capacity.

Now imagine stepping into the Spirit World where using all of your brain capacity is open to you and you can use every bit of it. Now just as it takes time and patience to rebuild muscle, the same is true of your brain. You must use it more and more to make it stronger and more disciplined. The more disciplined we are with our thoughts the better we can create and control what we do. All that separates us from this power are the limitations of our own minds, and the only real limitations are the ones we allow to stay there.

We all have dreams and in those dreams amazing things happen. We all have heard about people who have near-death experiences and it changes their lives. Well anyone who is willing to relax, let go of all doubts and fears, can learn to really enjoy the access the capabilities we all have.

It is all up to you, and success depends on how determined you are. Many folks give up when they can’t get something right away. I have seen Native brothers give up on having visions because they didn’t get it the first time. See, that is a test in itself. Do you believe you are worthy enough to keep trying and not give up on you?

You have probably heard of shapeshifters that can transform their bodies into different forms; animals, birds, other people, even insects. We think of this as folklore, but truthfully a shapeshifter can mentally transform into anything. Now, how do you think they can do that? Well let me give you a clue, it’s the discipline of their minds to control every part of their bodies. The better they can control and focus their minds, the better they become at visualizing themselves in a specific time or place or form.

Now what is in the Spirit World? Well, everything! Everything since the beginning of existence. Everything in every dimension, every universe, throughout all time. And once you learn to get to the Spirit World, you can begin accessing more and more. No, you can’t learn to do this all at once. Don’t even try. You will only crash. Build yourself up, give your body and mind time to adjust and grow with this concept.

Now in some of my other articles such as Your Inner Power we talk about how to find the Spirit World. The ideas of fasting and trances as ways of seeking in-between worlds may be too difficult for most folks to even try so I had to rethink this and find a way to make it easier for anyone to seek inner peace in the Spirit World. In my next article, Sacred Peace-Healing Energy, I will go into depth on simple ways anyone can find the peace and healing we seek. Again, don’t try to see or learn everything or too much at a time.

Whatever path we choose, start with looking for something in particular. Focus on that and concentrate on seeing that one thing – say, a place or language you are familiar with so the precise visual is in your mind. This way you will more quickly get to the place you seek. Remember to let your inner spirit guide you and pay attention. Absorb all around you when you get there. The way you may think things were or should be, may not be exactly what it is. Study everything, learn all that you can. Then come back. Remember this: In deep trance, your time in the Spirit World leaves your physical body cold and staying away too long can cause you problems. As I said, start off slowly.

Those who Dance with Sister (use mind-altering substances), sometimes decide they don’t want to come back. It is their choice, but remember they are giving up their chance to do so much more and to fulfill their greater purpose, which is left undone. This means they will not stay in the Spirit World for long. They will ascend to another place in between and come back to start from scratch again. They would have these memories in their subconscious mind but would need to bring them forth in the next life to start the process again.

Now, think about this. When you travel to the Spirit World, you can go back in time to any era that you chose. You can even choose to go to the Living Library to access any skills you like, such as math, sciences, mechanics, music, whatever. Even beyond anything that is presently known. It is up to you to absorb and then apply it. Just remember, any new understandings take time for folks to accept. Even you will feel like maybe you are losing your mind or imagining things. This is part of the psychological conditioning you’ve experienced your entire life. This is your physical self not believing in you. You must believe in yourself.

When I was doing healings, I used to have people ask me what if they don’t believe in what I can do. I always told them it is not their belief that matters; it is my belief. If I doubt myself in any way, then I will fail. But if I truly believe that I can do this, it will happen and the person will be healed. I’ve even been called to come into hospitals by people who were terminally ill with doctors and staff present and still it was my belief that always guided my work. I just channeled the true spirit of life is all. The doctors would be shocked and then do tests and could no longer find a problem. Just remember whatever you do, you must believe you can do these things. You must have courage to try and accept when you fail, but never quit.

Just as any professional in sports or acting, an artist, musician, doctor, magician, acrobat and everything else knows, practice makes better; practice makes perfect. Before you can ever be good at anything, you will fail, get frustrated and disappointed. But if you stick with it the rewards are beyond measure. The failures all give you the chance to truly appreciate all these things. All the hard work, time, energy, sacrifices you have given, make you confident and truly believe in yourself as well. The answers to everything we humans want and need to know is in the Spirit World – if you are willing to sincerely seek it.

To put things into perspective, consider this: For nearly 100 years, modern psychologists have been interested in learning more about the workings of the human mind. Some of the world’s most prestigious universities have whole departments dedicated to research and discovery of “paranormal” phenomenon including the effects of mind-altering drugs. Throughout the Cold War, both the US and Russia were engaged in developing Remote Viewing techniques to utilize the powers of the mind to spy on one another. Mind-altering drugs were also used to enhance these powers for intelligence purposes.

The point is, however shocking these little-known insights into the ancient practices of Indigenous peoples may be, we can choose to view them as an enlightenment, perhaps forced into the shadows by powerful, but superstitious rulers who feared them. The opportunity to learn these facts can be an enlightening experience for us as well, helping us gain a deeper appreciation for all Native Peoples.

These skills are truly available to anyone, even though only a few will choose to even try to muster the discipline and commitment. Truly great inventors, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, teachers, healers, and leaders all go through these things in one way or another. What are you going to do? The choice is yours. The Spirit World is within you!

Respectfully,

Ghost

Ghost Dancer’s Page

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 10

Sharing is Caring

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 19

Wash the Pain From My Soul

Sharing is Caring

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 18

Gonna Be Days Like This

Sharing is Caring

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 9

Sharing is Caring

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 17

Didn’t See It Coming

Sharing is Caring

For My Dad – A gift from the heart

Sharing is Caring

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 16

Wasn’t Long and it Wasn’t Long

Sharing is Caring

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 8

Sharing is Caring

By Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher

Part 1 – Spiritual Journey Toward Addiction Recovery

Chapter 15

Finally a New Circle

Sharing is Caring

Sacred Medicine Ways – Part 7

Sharing is Caring