The Eternal Fire: Standing Rock and the (re)Awaking of Dreams

“My young men shall never work; men who work can not dream, and wisdom comes in dreams.” —Smohalla 

In the still water quieted by pale dams, there is a whisper of dreams. A whisper that used to drive and propel hope through the changing landscape of “Indian Country” during the 1800s. In a time of great death and cultural genocide, many prophets spoke of dreams. Dreams that would bring the old ways back to the people.

Up River, Back Home

Up River, Back Home

Dreams were a fabric in which to weave stories of resilience and hope. These dreams kept the people fed and brought prophecy. The dreamer brought the people a sense of peace that one day their Ancestors would rise again from their untimely deaths brought about from settler colonialism. These are old dreams dressed in new clothes, a way for the Ancestors to keep speaking to us.

Many felt that a dream led them to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2016 to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline, including me. Many spoke of how it felt like their Ancestors had nudged them awake, as if the Earth was rising in a chorus of resistance to a machine that is hell-bent on destruction and greed. I recently read a Time magazine article about Standing Rock, that begins:

“Almost everyone who came to Standing Rock repeated the same legend. Someone, maybe Crazy Horse, had made a prophecy a long time ago—probably in the late 1870s—about the looming destruction of the planet.”

And that is exactly what called me there.

The liminal essence of dreaming was the fabric of everyday conversation in camp. From the morning prayers at the Sacred Fire to the frontlines of resistance, prophecy was on everyone’s lips. But to me, this was more than an Awakening. It was a confirmation that my dreams have always been telling me such things. Things I was beginning to finally understand.

********************************************

I was a young six-year-old; she was a timeless maiden. She changed my life! So clear the memory. So clear the vision. Awaken, the plume of ash on the horizon, safe near my parents. Several nights before, the whole house shook, the earth quaked, and I remember my curious thoughts: How did the Earth shake? What caused it? At that age, I was more of a scientist than an artist. But something changed in me, and my dreams would never be the same.

May 18th, 1980

May 18th, 1980


I was beginning to understand what my grandmother was telling me. She talked about the Bridge of the Gods, and the Mountains of Fire, and how the brothers Wyeast¹ and Pahtoe² would battle and argue for the love and admiration of Loowit³, or how Coyote made the N’ch-iwana⁴, and the stories of Thunderbird. She would talk about the little people, the Wah-Tee-Tahs, how they would lure you in with their mischief, all the supernatural stories of ghosts, and old burial sites, and my family’s struggle to make meaning out of the changing world around them. She would tell me these stories and end them with, “But we don’t believe like that anymore.”

It was true. She and so many members of my family stopped believing in the old stories and ways of our tribe and traded them in for a fundamentalist, vengeful god. When I was six and saw the timeless maiden Loowit blow her top on May 18, 1980, the old stories awoke in me. I wanted to know more about the old ways and how to practice them, but all I had to go off of were stories. And then the dreams came.

I used to pray, even if the sounds echoed into empty space. I had some faith that those words would reach some distant star, and portals would open up in the night sky. But instead I would dream. I would dream until I forgot what I was dreaming about. What was the reason for the journey? I often find the journey is the only thing that keeps me still most times, nodding off to the narcotic rhetoric of the modern age. It is in these journeys I meet my guides, who, with unforeseen hands, move the air of the fates in and out of existence. Coyote always seems to wake me up right before the climax. I was being shown a new way, a new story, if only I would listen.

Home Guard on the Columbia, by Benjamin A Gifford (1899) (photo- courtesy The Valley Library, Oregon State University)

Home Guard on the Columbia, by Benjamin A Gifford (1899) (photo- courtesy The Valley Library, Oregon State University)

The dream was this: Coyote was coming down the N’ch-iwana. He would stop at the lodges, rip open the doors, and yell, “Get up! The Salmon need you!”

He would stop at the fishing platforms dotted along the banks, yelling, “Stay alert! The Salmon are leaving! They need you!”

Everyone was bewildered.

“What is he talking about? Crazy trickster. He is always up to something!”

He would say back to them, “Get up! The Salmon need you!” Back and forth up the river he would go, telling anyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not, “Stay alert! The Salmon need you!”

I awoke to the feeling of sweat upon my brow, the dream resting on the tip of my tongue, goosebumps skimming my flesh, and my heart heavy with the message. “Get up! The Salmon need you!” I knew what was being asked of me; I felt it in my tired bones. It was the morning of October 26, 2016.

I was still sore and relearning the sacrament of swallowing. Just a week prior, I had a surgery on my esophagus to help cure a disease that nearly took my life. A month before my surgery, I had to live with a feeding tube in my esophagus, so it could start its healing process. I laid in bed, watching as the standoff at Standing Rock was unfolding. I felt a calling to be there, to help my cousins in North Dakota fight for their Sovereignty, and for the Mni Wiconi⁵, but was certain I would have to help from afar. On that cold October morning, I knew it was time to go.

I felt the old trickster’s words resonate in my heart. Indeed, the Salmon needed us. Since the first contact, Coyote had seen so much: from a river so fat with Salmon you could walk across it on top of their backs, to a silent dragon stuck in the gold pockets of a civilization determined to save a “savage” from its blasphemous ways. The roar of Wyam⁶ had grown silent to Coyote. And the Salmon, who fueled the stories and myth of old, were becoming ghosts before the spawn.

Celilo Falls, post card. ca. 1930

Celilo Falls, post card. ca. 1930


Many of us River People speak about still hearing those waters fall, like a longing at the doors of our dreams or a remembering that we know in the beating of our hearts. Each pump a drum of longing to be home amongst the joyful jumping of Salmon. A familiar smoke drifting from shacks holding old stories, the repeating patterns of metaphor, and the sound of Echoes of Water Against Rocks.

After the dream, I knew I had to go and stand with others who were standing against these mythical beasts. The sleeping dragon had awoken to the slithering black snake of the Dakota Access Pipeline. I packed my things and headed to Lakota country.

 

In Lakota prophecy, Zuzeca Sape is the black snake that comes into the land, breeding division and destruction in its path. I had heard this prophecy before from my Aunty Teri, who had learned much of the Lakota’s stories from her early activism with the American Indian Movement in the early 1970s. But only now were some of the meanings becoming apparent. Many tribes of People talked about the NoDAPL movement being Zuzeca Sape, and many People talked about their dreams.

Backwater Bridge, Cannonbal, ND, NoDapl, November 8, 2016, Photo by Author

Backwater Bridge, Cannonbal, ND, NoDapl, November 8, 2016, Photo by Author


We left the Volcanoes and Rivers of my homeland and began our trek across mountains and endless plains in a van packed with donated supplies gathered in the haste of a great battle. We traveled excitedly and quietly. I was still finding it hard to swallow from my surgery. I felt weak, but determined. My words sat in my guts, and the drums of Pow-Wow CDs played a battle hymn to our coffee-fueled mission to the Oceti Sakowin.

“Get up! The Salmon need you!”

With the dream dancing in my head, we pulled into camp. Before us stood an encampment of so many others that had heard the call to show up and stand. We quickly set up our camp, got donations to their proper places, and made our way to the Sacred Fire of the Oceti Sakowin. I walked to the fire in the middle of a large circle of smiling faces, some with tears in their eyes—tears of joy and from the tear gas that had been poured upon the People with impunity. There was an Elder tending the Fire, his hand outstretched to mine as he handed me the tobacco to put into the flames. Our eyes locked, and as the tears began to pour down my thin face he said, “Welcome home, brother.” I prayed harder than I had ever prayed before as I walked clockwise around the Fire and put my offering into the thick smoke. The marriage of dream and prayer, complete in union.
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I had still not eaten a full meal since my surgery a week prior, and the protein shakes I had brought were beginning to run out. I had a deep hunger that had not been fed since I became ill four years prior, a hunger that was ravenous and tired. We decided to head to one of the many soup kitchens serving food, and as we slowly made our way through the line, we talked to folks that had been in camp since the beginning of the NoDAPL resistance. There were Lakota cousins, Cherokee cousins, Blackfeet cousins, Navajo cousins, all the many tribes of Turtle Island in one place, sharing stories, laughing, and full of love. I was handed a plate by a Lummi Grandmother from the homelands who asked me if I had just arrived.

“Yes,” I said, “a few Cowlitz Cousins and I just pulled into camp a few hours ago.”

She hugged me with a stern grasp and whispered, “Welcome Cousin, we have Salmon from our homeland, please enjoy.”

My plates were filled by kind servers, all telling us, “Welcome, Mni Wiconi!”  Generous portions of Salmon, huckleberries, and fry bread were laid upon our plates with love. We walked outside the serving tent and looked for a place to sit and found some Northwest Natives that had brought the fish for the People.

“Where is the Salmon from?” I asked one of the younger cousins.

“Oh, yeah, this Salmon came from the N’ch-iwana.” he replied in a thick rez accent.

“I believe most of this catch came from the Celilo Falls area.”

Les Brown photo. ©2012

Les Brown photo. ©2012


My neck hairs rose like porcupines as I edged the first bite to my mouth, whispering beneath my breath a Prayer of thanks to the Salmon People. I took a bite, and, swirling the pink sweet meat in my mouth, watering and eager, I swallowed. I could feel the medicine make its way down the new tube the surgeon had made just a week earlier, each movement wiggling in anticipation. It landed in my empty stomach, as a choir of sensations flooded my senses. Bite after bite, prayer after prayer, I was full as if for the first time. I was home. I was no longer dreaming.

“Get up! Stay Alert! The Salmon need you!”

Masi Coyote.

Mni Wiconi!

(This was originally published by Beyond the Margins, Oregon Humanities. All rights reserved by Author, Si Matta)

The Leather Bound Journal

“Magic is afoot, God is alive.”- Buffy Sainte-Marie

Her dreams reassuringly whisper in journals made of leather. The engraved cover
gathering dust in the creases of her ancestors’ knot work; mythology and aesthetics that render
the heart through time. The company of rocks, feathers, and photos stand astute as altars to
memories through the halls of nostalgic flowers, dried and pressed.

A richly painted sunset grow’s silent in sleeping eyes, as if preparing herself for ritual,
she lays the journal on the tiered nightstand. The bond of dreams now past, yet ever present in
the great rites of a secret society. Curious shadows drape the night, and words fall from her
sleeping lips. Will those words find their place engraved in the leather bound journal of her
heart?

The delinquent voices sing the praise of night’s great sermon, ushered forth through pens
whose ink refuses to run dry. The extravagant want of knowing sits in a curious corner, the
holder of shadows, and fields of exhausted dreams. I wonder what she writes, as she scribes the
visions of a reluctant Sage? What great prophecy does the night entail in these pages lined with
words? What monsters lay slain at the feet of her Gods?

In the high noon of a winter’s day, when the light strains through the milky white
shutters, and the bustle of waking life dances the dance of routine, the old journal sits. What
silent conversations must happen in these churches of dust? Do the rocks tell stories about how
they were born of Volcano, and have lived to witness the anthropocene? Does the Phoenix
silently gather back their dormant flaming feathers? Do the flowers speak of their once great
pageantry, before being pressed and fitted into their eternal form? Does her father escape his
photographic prison to share stories of his daughter’s great feats? The totemic dragonfly lamp
stands guard atop its utilitarian box made mountain, draped in cloth and stone made coasters,
ready to sound the alarm of the creator; an ushering of quiet as not to give their animism away.

The tapping of the pens scribed great scripture, a drum that eternally beats in time with
her heart. A calligraphy of soul draped in esoteric symbols only meant for her sacred eyes; span
the enormity of dream, nightmare, and waking life. It tethers her to the divine, and unravels the
great inferno. There must be so much beneath those covers made of leather. Seas upon seas of
tear drenched papers brought from the clouds of grief and sadness, or the suns of joy and peace.
The stories of grandbabies and daughters whose hearts have hers, and blood pumps forth the
changing face of family. All these stories wrapped and tidy, made from the love of a well lived
life. All the stories where the beast is slain with great bravery and skill, as not to disturb her
loves from sleep. The holder of the flame, the Phoenix from the ashes; a journal.

2020 Vision(s)

If it should happen you wake up and Armageddon has come, lie still.
― William Edgar Stafford

Last night I
saw the
moon
slip
in
and out
of golden light.

A flame burnt
ember of
gas
exploding
in my eyes.

Watching the end
of the world
no longer
feels
so
dramatic.

© Si Matta

The Birds Whispered My Name

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all.- Stephen King

The birds whispered my name,
As I fidgeted on a cold chair,
Learning of a god dressed in thorns.

As they talked in righteous dictation,
I would pull thorny brambles from dirty hands-
Finding god in the splinters.

I remember how the rain tasted-
Dry in safe beds made from synthetic fibers.

Yet I could hear the birds whisper my name,
Telling me stories,

We forgot to tell ourselves.

© Si Matta

Fire

Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves― Laura Esquivel

I use to dream,
but my well
has ran dry.

Like cottonmouth.

I often cough
on words and
pass the torch.

A flame.

© Si Matta

Sinew

Never lost/ Fading slowly to Silence/ By infinite degrees”
― Ashim Shanker

The sinew of
the moment led
us to this
leather of silence.

Sometimes I forget
your name, but remember
the taste.

A distant drum-

Your heart.

© Si Matta

Toivo Land, WA 98648

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson

~
There are numbers zipped up in code that distinguish a place. A place where the mailman sometimes drives a mile or more to the next box; markers upon a black sea of asphalt, gravel and rain. Toivo lived here, amongst the mapleway and dirt trails- snags of trees swaying in the wind. A psithurism cathedral, with halls that echoed Finnish Polkas in a land of make believe. My Grandfather came from an old world, yet made a new one in the mossy twigs of 98648.

I am the oldest of 10 grandchildren, and arrived into a world filled with imagination and music. My grandfather played the accordion, spoke Finnish when drinking with his brothers and sisters, and loved to tell good stories. My oldest memories are set to the soundtrack of joy, laughter, and the Chicken Dance. Gramps had instruments in every corner and nook- amongst the dusty wisps of paper scrolled upon with poems, music, and blueprints for building. His hands were always inventing something new. When I was 9, he invented Toivo Land.

Toivo was an imaginary friend he made out of sawdust flesh, dressed in cover-alls, and who wore a face of permanent marker drawn upon a milk jug. Toivo always sat on an old Ford tractor that was rusty and splintered (unless he was out and about with the Toivo Land Band.) Toivo was a Magician, and like the Wizard of Oz, Toivo plowed a yellow brick road dotted with hand painted signs, and paved with the falling leaves of Maples, Oak, and Fir. A network of discovery that spanned 3 acres, and a lifetime. Toivo was always busy- this was Toivo’s land.

Toivo: 1) Finnish toivo = ‘hope’, ‘wish’, ‘desire’ 1 a) … with an older meaning ‘faith’, ‘trust’, ‘promise’

 (Photo of Toivo Land Band @ Skamania County Fair Parade, Stevenson, WA. 98648 , cir. 1984)

(Photo of Toivo Land Band @ Skamania County Fair Parade, Stevenson, WA. 98648 , cir. 1984)

~~

The faint sound of Polka seeping from old cassettes keeps time with the machines monitoring his breathing. His heart beats sporadic metronomes to his Covid-19 fever dreams. His fingers fold in on themselves- clutched and cold. It has been awhile since he has held the weight of billows and keys strapped upon his stern shoulders. He is quiet and ready- ready to make music again.

“Thank you,” I sob a hard sentence, stuck in my throat made of his flesh, “thank you Grandpa for always being there, and making our lives magic, and filled with love.”

“Thank you Grandpa for Toivo!”- I strain the words between tears that fall upon my pandemic shield made of plastic.

We lock a gaze of Finnish silence, the kind of silence filled with the solidarity of *Sisu. A stoic tear moves its way down his ageless face of wisdom, and with a side quiet smile, he says:

“It is all I could have hoped for!”

“It is all I could have hoped for.”
———————————————————————————————————————

* Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English.

death sinks uneasy in the appetites of the lost

“Sleep apnea is a plague in the western world.”
― Steven Magee

She passed out in
a cacophony of memories.
All the pretty dreams,
Dissected and worn.

She fell asleep to
the sound of old records.
All the pretty covers,
Creased and torn.

She curls her lips
to the worlds she dreams.
All the murmured words,
Bathed with scorn.

She walks unaware of
the stilts of gravity.
All the heavy faces,
Draped and creased.

A mask now covers
her mouth, as her
eyes attempt the
words
of sleep.

Sometimes death sinks uneasy
in the appetite of the lost,
A ritual with
no rite.

It has been since time
that plagues feel the
urge to breath,
eyes blink uneasy
behind
concealed ironies.

© Si Matta

A silent reminder

Beneath the securities of good nights and safe houses, lived fear. Fear dressed in Existential fangs always sat at the outside waiting to get in. The sweet smell of apple pie and coffee seemed a good enough shield to the elephant that sat in at the edge of the room, flicker of flame and wax. Shadows have always lurked beneath the savory light of ‘everything’s fine if you send hopes and prayers.’ Then one day, everything changed. Not the flash of atomic light we dreamt of in cold war beds, terrified with nightmare, and the comfort of mothers floor. No, it changed the way you would expect a tad pole to become a frog, unseen but heard for miles across platforms of social distancing. The veil became thin, and the emperor ran across abandoned golf courses, naked and scared.

Photo: Patricia Halleran

Photo: Patricia Halleran


This had always been the dream, the liminal birthing canals connected to the ethernets of the universe, tearing illusion from its perch.. the Eagle remembered it was an Eagle and tore apart his jingoist ways, for a chance to taste the flesh of Salmon once again. The metaphors painted slow motion chrysalises, sparked from the time outside of time, where dream and awake fancy dance on early morning vistas.. or perhaps, it is the prayers of Ghost Dancers awaking the Ancestors for aid. The realist thing about this, is that it is not real. It is not matter. It can not cast shadow, or shine light, yet sits on the edge of hills, threading and weaving, a silent killer. A silent reminder….

Pay attention to what the frogs have to say, they may have all the answers we need.

Be safe. Be kind. Be gentle.

Siah | The Long Ago

The Cascade Range, where it crosses the Columbia River, exhibits enormous cross sections of lava, and at its base are petrified trunks of trees, which have been covered and hidden from view except where the wash of the mighty stream has exposed them. Indians have told me, of their knowledge, that, buried deep under the outpours of basalt, or volcanic tufa, are bones of animals of siah , or the long ago.

Where Gods live.

Where Gods live.

Traditions of the great landslide at the Cascades are many, but vary little in form. According to one account, the mountain tops fell together and formed a kind of arch, under which flowed, until the overhanging rocks finally fell into the stream and made a dam, or gorge. As the rock is columnar Basalt, very friable and easily disintegrated, that was not impossible, and the landscape suggests some such giant avalanche. The submerged trees are plainly visible near this locality. Animal remains I have not seen, but these Salmon-eating Indians have lived on the river’s borders through countless ages, and know every feature in their surroundings by constant association for generations, and naturally ally these facts with their religious theories. (MacMurray MS.)

An excerpt from ‘The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee’, by James Mooney, Chapter VII, Smohalla and his Doctrine