Armadillo Medicine

ARMADILLO MEDICINE

A WISDOM GIFT FROM THE NATURAL WORLD

By Robert Black Eagle

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I live in a small, two room cabin, nestled in the woods on five acres of land, near the Apalachee River.  Long ago, my people, the Mvskoke (Creek) people lived near and along  the banks this sacred river.  There are moments when, and most often in the silence of Morning Prayers, or Sunset Songs, I hear their voices,.  I hear their songs whisper in the wind.  I feel the vibration of the Stomp Dance as it rattles the ground beneath my feet. Often I hear the laughter of the little children at play under the ever watchful eye of Mothers and Elders.

Here, on these five acres, live many relatives.  There are the Hawk people, the Wood Pecker people, the Squirrel people, the Deer people, Vulture people, a host of Bird relatives I’ve yet to identify.   And, of course, the Armadillo people, the latter of which is an absolute nemesis to my neighbor, my landlord.  She despises them!  She is tormented by them, to the point of a mad obsession with their destruction.  Mind you, they do wreak havoc on a lawn, and her’s is rather pretty.  She prides herself in a small, well manicured, always green lawn, just down from the steps of her front porch.  The field in front of my cabin looks as though it has been freshly turned by mule and plow.  Armadillo

At night, when the sun dips beneath the Western horizon and falls asleep for the day, the stars come out in abundance and mystery; as do the Armadillo.  So does my neighbor, with spot light torches, a 22 caliber rifle, riding the five acres on her golf cart, guns a blazing.  She messages me during the night to turn on my outside spot lights so that her targets, Armadillo, are better illuminated.   She has numerous and notable notches on the rifle stock, and celebrates each kill as though it were a Safaried trophy.  One can not kill them all,  and yet the process begins again tonight, under the cover of darkness.

Today, it is cold here; tomorrow even colder.  A dreary, chilly rain has fallen day long from the low hanging clouds shrouding an overcast sky.  The field has been covered in Bird People; all day, hundreds of them, like little black ants, regally marching over the wet ground like soldiers on parade.  I tried to count them, the Bird People; that’s my obsessive compulsion over mysteries such as an observations as this one.  I lost my count at seventy-six.  There were the Robin People, the Cardinal People, the Pine Siskin People, the Wren People, the smaller relatives pecking water from the tire track puddles, left over ruts, possibly paths my Ancestors walked from over here to over there.

I was intrigued.  I leaned in for a closer look.  And then, I saw it.  The Bird people were foraging for insects, grubs, earth worms, beetles, and any other host of Food Relatives sleeping in the moist ground, freshly and conveniently  tilled and turned  from the last night’s foraging of their Armadillo Relatives, grateful, for much of their work, most of the process had been done for them already, the night before,  all the while dodging the wrathful, lethal bullets from my neighbor, who sadly, could never see the Magic of Nature and the Miracle  of  Creator’s provision unfolding right in front of her, in her own front yard, just down the steps from her front porch, stepping out and onto her perfectly manicured lawn, always green.

Nature, and our Sacred Mother, the Earth, operate under a different economy than do the Two Leggeds who walk upon her breast, who use and abuse Her gifts and resources as though they were rights rather than the blessings and gifts that they truly are.  Manifest Destiny.

The teacher, Jesus, pointing to the fields around him, very possibly,  and most likely freshly plowed by the Armadillo People, observed, “Look!  See the Bird People; they do not sow nor reap, or store away food in barns, and yet their Father feeds them.” (Matthew 6:26). This is the economy of Spirit, the economy of the Natural World.

Creator sends the Armadillo People to turn the ground in darkness, in order to provide a tasty breakfast for the Bird People in the soft glow of sunrise.  A Gift Economy.

Many Winters ago, and in my youth, while questing in the halls of Academia at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, I was introduced to a word, a rather profound concept, postulated by  German theologians.  That word was “Weltanschauung”, meaning one’s unique and individual view of the world.  As is the case in many languages (emphasis on most Indigenous languages) there is no adequate, comparable, nor just word in the English language to compliment that term, so the translation, definition, at best, is loose.   

Weltanschauung: One’s view of the world.  There is a whole host of thought to be developed and discussed regarding Weltanschauung.  The point of introducing the term and concept here however, is to inform and emphasize traditional  Native, Indigenous  view(s) of the world (Weltanschauung) as regards a gifting exchange economy, that which I understand and define and speak of as the  The Economy of Spirit.

An Economy of Spirit  sees, understands, and relates to the world differently and in stark and contrasting  juxtaposition of classical Eastern, European, colonialism Weltanschauung, the latter of which was and is predicted on the notion private property, ownership, buy, sell, consume, store up excess, hoard; a concept and notion completely foreign, alien, and incompressible to the Native mind.

Nailed up,  hand painted fence post signs declaring No Trespassing!line the road.  That, juxtaposed to  Native Neon flashing, Welcome!  Always Open!  It is human, and or cultural/societal perspective, Weltanschauung, that will see and shape the world as a gift or commodity.  Only it can not be both.   

  When something is viewed as a gift, the energy engaged in the exchange is fluid, it has and holds “movement”, life (Anima) a transferring transformation of power and empowerment.  That is the nature of a gift.  When something is viewed as a commodity however, something to be bought, something to be sold, whatever measure of energy  involved in that exchange is sterile and stagnant; there is no movement, no power, more and most likely results in dis-empowerment.  A gift has exponential energies whereas a commodity is a product of diminishing returns.  A gift establishes and embraces enduring relationships, whereas the relationship of commodities ends at the point of sale.

Writer and scholar, Lewis Hyde notes, “It is the cardinal difference between a gift and commodity exchange, that a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people.”

Let me give you a real-life example of the contrast.  During my time and service at the DAPL Resistance Camp, Standing Rock ND in the Winter of 2016, I was asked to facilitate the Mental Health Council during my time there.  This Council was tasked with the responsibility   of providing support and counsel for the mental health and emotional well-being of well over ten thousand Water Protectors.  It was a daunting responsibility, involving many caring and compassionate Relatives from throughout Turtle Island.  One such Relative and mental-health associate with the Council, was Aquila Red Wolf, a dear daughter from somewhere in Texas who heard the call to come, answered it, and came.

Early, on a cold morning, as was our tradition, the Council gathered in the Mental Health Lodge, a small, drafty tipi, for prayer and guidance.  This day, when Red Wolf entered the tipi, she was carrying a long, narrow, Cedar box, Bear Medicine fetish, Medicine Wheel hand-painted on the top, brass hinges, brass clasp.  Holding the box, she told this story, and without quotation marks, I will tell it as I heard it then and remember it today.  I tell it with great humility, not to boast,  or call attention to myself, rather and simply to emphasize and illustrate my point.  I speak now in the first person of Red Wolf.:

One morning I was browsing Native American gendered goods on eBay (An online auction-type platform for the buying and selling of hard good commodities), when this box and its contents, which were being offered for sale, “popped up”. My spirit quickened as I recognized this was a very Sacred object, one that needed not be bartered and sold to the highest bidder.  And yet, here it was, being offered for the hard exchange of dollars and cents.  The box called to me, instructing me to bid/purchase it, and knowing my trip toStanding Rock was imminent, take it along the journey, assuring me, ‘you will know what to do with it once you get there, and KNOW, what to do with it’;’you will know who it belongs to, once you meet them.

Looking at me, she handed me the box, rather, she gifted me the box, saying,

Now I know, now I understand the ‘why’ of this so-called coincidental “popping up” on eBay.  Now I understand why it sang to me.  Now I understand why I was instructed to secure it, why I was instructed to bring it here, how, and why I would know, when and once I knew.  It was sitting in this Circle and under your guidance, counsel, and prayer, that I realized that this belongs to you.  It is a gift from the Universe, for you.  I am simply the vessel of its transfer and exchange.

My breath shortened, my heart beat quickened.  My hands trembled as I held the Cedar box, its contents now, singing to me, with a voice, harmoniously alive, as I sensed what might be sleeping beneath the hand painted lid.  Slowly, my fingers found the brass clasp, and opened the  Cedar box.  I was speechless.  Imagine that.

Inside the Cedar box there was a white, fringed, hand-beaded leather long bag.  I recognized it immediately.  A bag holding, protecting, carrying (a) Chanupa Wakan (a) Sacred Pipe.  Untying the leather strapping closing the top of the bag, revealed the stem, long, fringed, wrapped in the same white leather, intricately, ornately hand-beaded in the vibrant colors of the Earth: clay, coral, red, yellow, white.  Alongside that bag was another, smaller, scarlet, old-world print cloth bag, drawn taught with scarlet lacing and brass end tips.  Inside that bag, and wrapped in its own solid color scarlet cloth, was the bowl: a hand carved catlinite (Pipestone mined exclusively in Minnesota) effigy of Buffalo.  It was heavy, magnificent, alive.  Anima.  I could only imagine the mind that had envisioned it, hands that held the stone, carved and created it, the soul that sang to it and gave it its voice that now, sitting in a cold, wind-ripped tipi, on the prairie, in the middle of a North Dakota Winter, sang to me.

Now, many Winters later, Aquila Red Wolf and I remain close friends, and while we do not speak often, when we do, the re-connect is immediate, and once again, we sing our songs, tell and share our Remember When stories of Standing Rock.  Now, Many Winters later, the Chanupa Wakan, the Sacred Pipe is often offered to our Seventh Generation fellowship for prayer and Ceremony.  It continues to feed.  It continues to bless.  It continues to grow.  It continues to breed relationships and bring people together in a good, prayerful, Sacred manner.  It continues to connect our people to Creator.  It continues to live.

Contrast that with the Economy of Commodity, that which I speak about as the Economy of Man.  There, in that transaction, the energy exchange would have ended the moment the bill was stamped “Paid-In-Full”, and the receipt tendered.  A gift on the other hand, freely given, is a living entity.  It finds you, comes to you, offers itself to you through no action of your own; free, having moved toward you without your beckoning call.  It is not a reward for tasks or behaviors.  Like the Chanupa Wakan, the Sacred Pipe, it can not be bought, sold, exchanged for money.  And yet, here it was, and here it is, this Sacred Pipe, a gift now, with a life, breath,  and song uniquely its own.  Fully alive,  Anima.

Hyde reminds us that in a gifting economy, an Economy of Spirit that is, one’s freely given gifts can not be made into someone else’s capital gain.  In a gifting exchange, the inherent value and power of the gift grows exponentially, ever expanding its efficacy as it is passed from hand-to-hand, growing richer and fuller as it is honored and respected in each ad every exchange

From a Native view of the world, and Indigenous Weltanschauung if you will, a gift economy embraces four basic, intricately interconnected principle, tenets, or virtues. These are Generosity, Gratitude, Respect, and Reciprocity.  These four tenets are the currency of the Economy of Spirit.  An exchange is generously offered, received with and in gratitude, honored and respected, then reciprocated  in the “giving away”, or re-investing.   Deposits into the bank of the Universe.

Lewis Hyde has made extensive studies in the gift economies.  He finds that “objects…will remain plentiful ‘because’ they are treated as gifts.”  A gift relationship with nature is a “formal give-and-take that acknowledges our participation, and dependence upon, natural increase.”  He continues: “We tend to respond to nature as part of ourselves, not a stranger or alien available for exploitation.  Gift exchange is the commerce of choice for it is this commerce that harmonizes with, or participates in the process of nature’s increase.”

When we view the world in this manner, we Two Legged, yes, and even Armadillos are transformed.  The relationship of generosity, gratitude,  respect, and reciprocity, (sadly in the modern word, these traits are traded and lost in the balance sheets, recognizing and reflecting only credits and debits) thus developed, practiced, and exercised, will only increase and enhance the evolutionary, physical ad spiritual fitness of all parties involved, the natural world, and again, even and especially the Armadillo People.  Species, societies, cultures that treat each other as well as the natural world with respect, generosity, gratitude and reciprocity will most certainly pass on genes, energies, memories, stories and songs of a much higher vibration and frequency for all generations, past, present, and future, than those who destroy it, or ride around on golf carts in the middle of the night, camouflaged in the anonymity of darkness, armed, locked and loaded, intent on its death and destruction.

The Earth provides the footing and foundation for the Grass People, who provide warmth and cover for the Grub and Insect People, who  in turn provide food for the Armadillo People, who’s foraging for that food, tills the ground for their tomorrow morning relatives, the Bird People,  And so, the cycle, the story of a gifted life, a gifting Universe continues….

Author Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her fascinating, meaningful book, Braiding Sweetgrass*, recognizes that, “For the greater part of human history, and in places in the world today, common resources were (and are) the rule.  But some invented a different story- a social construct in which everything is a commodity to be bought and sold.  The market economy (ie, the Economy of Man) story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human we’ll-being and devastation for the natural word.  But it is a story we have told ourselves, and we are (always) free to tell another, (or better yet)  reclaim the old one.”

Kimmerer continues: “One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend.  One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the world.  One of these stories asks us to bestow our own gifts in kind, and to celebrate our kinship with the world.  We can choose.  If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow.  When all the world is a gift in motion (Anima), how wealthy we become.”

Profound Medicine in those words.  A’ȟo.

I speak the words, O Mítákuye Oyásíŋ often, purposefully, intentionally. These words embody the Native, Indigenous Weltanschauung, our view of the word.  Literally translated, the phrase acknowledges, “My Relatives”. Yet, as is the case with so many things in Native understanding and Indigenous world view, those words  mean and embrace so much more.  We understand and acknowledge that by the virtue of the Shared and Sacred breath of Creator, we and all  things are related,  Yes, even the Armadillo.  For when Creator breathed and spoke life into the Rock People, Tree People,  Grass People,  People of the Air, People of the Water, People of the Under Word, The Squirrel People, The Four Legged, The Slithering People, that same breath breathed and spoke life into all things, all peoples.  Hence, and in the Sacred Hoop of Life, we and all things are related, none more important, none more significant, none more meaningful than its neighbor.

The Commodity Exchange, the Economy of Man has been operative on Turtle Island for over four hundred years, eating up, killing the likes of the Armadillo, and malignantly consuming everything in its path.  Sad. Yet, and consistent with the Seventh Generation Prophecy, that being the manifestation and time of a world longing for the light again, a time of the revival and renewal of Indigenous knowledge of wisdom, unity and harmony among all living things, there is a notable and emerging longing, a desire to live again, in a world made and filled with gifts.  I can sense that time is near.

I can sense, perhaps, that time is now.  I sense it as I notice the grass beginning to grow greener, as the Earth is warmed in anticipation of Spring, soon.  I see it as I marvel over a blanket of daffodils, poking  their majestic yellow heads from Winter’s frost, sunward.  I see it.  I see it as I notice red-buds, pregnant, full, plump, sleeping on limb tips,  waiting.  I see it.  Always first in the natural world, and never more-so than in the transition from the harshness of Winter to the  born again promise of the March Worm Moon.  I see it unfolding as I stand here, observing, as the Bird People dine and feast in the freshly plowed and turned earth, in the field, outside my cabin, in the tracks of the Armadillo Dance, leftover from the night before.  A gift to the Bird People.  No charge.

Oh!  Wait!  Did you hear that?  Someone just said thank you.   Sounded like an Armadillo to me.  What do you think?

And, the cycle of life continues. 

Or so the Old Ones say.

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Photo Credits: Robert Black Eagle

*With all due credit and respect, this story, this writing was inspired and adapted from the book, Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.