The US Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the Black Hills were unconstitutionally taken and awarded the local tribes a settlement of $120.5 million, which, with interest, is now worth over $1.5 billion. The Lakota Tribe continues to assert their right to the land and has not accepted the monetary award, stating that- 'The Black Hills Are Not For Sale'!

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” ~ Cree,

“Music and dance form a universal language that knows no boundaries—transcending all space, time, and logic. It is the rhythm our ancestors understand. The old ones knew the power came in the songs and the movement. These prayer songs, moved by the highest self, echo straight to the spirits of those who came before.”

Circa 1900. Near Browning, Montana. Blackfeet Reservation. Imagine hearing this drum somewhere out on the Montana plains. Before you ever saw who was making the sound. Before you knew what was happening. Just that deep, steady beat carrying across open country. If you were a stranger traveling through this landscape 125 years ago, I imagine it would stop you cold. In this photograph are two Blackfoot men identified as Black Bull and Stabs-Down-By-Mistake, standing beside a large drum during a Sun Dance near Browning, Montana. They wear dentalia necklaces, moccasins, and ceremonial clothing. That drum was not background noise. In ceremonies like the Sun Dance, sound, rhythm, prayer, sacrifice, community, and spiritual life were bound together. And out here, on this huge, exposed country, the sound could carry. That is the part I keep thinking about. A lone traveler. Wind across the grass. Nothing around for miles. Then somewhere in the distance... boom. boom. boom. You may not understand the ceremony. You may not know who is there. But you would know immediately that you had entered someone else’s world. And on the northern plains, that world had existed long before railroads, towns, or reservation boundaries ever appeared on a map. That drum would have meant something very different depending on who was hearing it. But I doubt anyone heard it and ignored it.

“I am poor and naked but I am the chief of a nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.” ~ Red Cloud, Maȟpíya Lúta, Oglala Lakota, 1822-1909

“The strength of a warrior is not in the weapons they carry, but in the spirit they forge in the fires of past battles, through the deepest pains and the hardest hardships. Though heavy storms continually hit, beating them down again and again, they learn to battle the raging winds, finding a firm footing against the currents that once held their minds captive. There, in the quiet spaces between the voices of the Thunder Nation, a deeper strength awakens. In this sacred place, a warrior learns he is separate from his emotions. He no longer fights his inner storms; instead, he guides his path, navigating the fierce winds and the rushing currents. He learns he is not his emotions, but something far beyond them. In this place of realization, he makes them a trusted companion—much like a fierce warrior and the dog nation who once fought great battles side-by-side. Now they sit together in an unbroken calm. Both quietly sit, awaiting the next call to rise.”

Yesterday morning

White Army soldiers back in 1864 rode up on 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho civilians who thought they were under US government protection due to a recent treaty. Instead, those troops murdered over 200 innocent people at the Sand Creek Massacre. This should be in every US history book!

“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.” ~ Crazy Horse, Tasunké Witko-(1841-1877)

"Every season of your life is a changing wind—the secret is to plant your roots deeply into the earth and let the landscape shape you.”

Today in 1877 they killed Crazy Horse. Your People live on, Tasunka Witko Lililililili ⭕️ #OglalaLakota

“The modern mind is trapped in a false division, shivering in the narrow space between solid matter and radiant light, between the physical form and the energetic field. We remain tethered to the ancient, reptilian survival brain—a heavy anchor of fear, reaction, and separation. Yet, as the medicine man Black Elk saw in his great vision, the sacred hoop of the world is a series of circles within circles, an interconnected web where everything moves in a single, cosmic dance. You are not a separate fragment observing the universe; you are the universe observing itself. To truly live is to step beyond the old brain, dissolving the illusion of the isolated self to enter the boundless, creative field. There is no need to fight the old structures. Simply shift your frequency. Be the energy you want others to absorb. When you embody the light of creation, the boundary between matter and spirit vanishes, and you awaken to the truth that you are both the dancer and the dance.”

"The Animal Nations are the oldest breath of the earth, holding up a mirror to the quiet places of our own spirits. When we sit in stillness and allow them to teach us, their tracks become a map, guiding our feet along the sacred path we were born to walk."

“If you change the rhythm of the drum within your chest—the entire landscape before you begins to dance to a different beat."

“The song is a bankless river flowing beyond time—the sacred breath of our ancestors. This is our highest nature, the language that dissolves the veil between life and death. Through this rhythm, the Old Ones hear us, carrying our prayers and offering their strength, for true medicine lives within this melody. When the spirit sings, our voices cross seamlessly to the Great Mystery and the campfires of the grandfathers and grandmothers waiting on the other side.”

"The stars are the campfires of our ancestors, pinholes in the great night blanket letting the original light of creation spill through. Look into the quiet center of your soul and remember: you are not a stranger sitting in the dark. You are a spark of that very same eternal fire, uncreated and unending—finally waking up to its own infinite power."

“Religion is for people who’re afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who’ve already been there. ” ~ Vine Deloria Jr, Standing Rock Sioux

"The settler views the Earth as a mere footprint—a grid of lines and numbers to be conquered and claimed. But to the First Peoples, the land is our heartbeat. Our songs, dances, and ancient words were whispered to us by the wind and the rivers. The Earth taught us the sacred law of balance: that all true growth begins within the spirit and flows outward. We do not walk upon Nature; we flow with it. For every tree, stream, and winged creature is a relative, and whatever wound we inflict upon the Earth, we bleed ourselves."

In Ojibwe our word for insanity is igiiwinadzed.