Modern Prophecy

a reclamation of indigenous wisdom long lost to western europeans

This piece was first posted to my website last year, but was about a holiday my family took back in 2022. This information seems poingiant as the Sundance ceremony of the Plains Indians approaches. Though the indigenous ways of “white folk” have been effectively stamped out, some of us still feel the pull. The whispers of our ancestors can still be caught. Some of us have even sought to reclaim what was forgotten.

The memories linger, if you have ears to hear. The practices persist, if you have the eyes to see. Will you head the call?

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Around 2008 I journeyed to my first Sundance Ceremony. There is too much surrounding that whole adventure to write about here. What I wanted to share on this Lunar Eclipse was about the prophecy that was shared as I sat in awe, watching with an anthropologist’s eye, the ceremony being danced in front of me as it had been done every year for 14,000 years.

There had been a group of Germans dancing with this particular altar for 13 years at that point, and as I sat, taking it all in, one of the women came to join me. I mentioned to her the distinct impression I had that the arbor was so similar to the standing stones that stood all over Western Europe. She then told me a prophecy of the Druids in connection with the Lakota.

A couple/few thousand years ago, a group of Druids traveled across the divide to ask the Oceti Sakowin—the Seven Council Fires—to keep safe a Spirit Bundle for them until a time in the future when their ancestors would come to retrieve that sacred knowledge. The Druids had known that their time was coming to an end. The Saxon invasion was raging, and they were being wiped off the map. Those Druids also knew how valuable this information, and these ways, was for Humanity, and that the day would come when some of us once again feel the call to reclaim this mostly forgotten bundle.

I had spoken to the similarities between the ceremony with the Sundance Tree, and the myths of Odin spearing himself to the Tree of Knowledge. In those stories, Odin is speared to the Tree for nine days and nights to gain insights into the meaning of the Runes, a gift to humans of the written word from Spider. At Sundance, some of the dancers choose to either be attached to the tree for the duration of the four day ceremony(Eagle Dancers), or to pierce themselves at the tree with their prayers for community. While they dance, they stare into the sun to obtain symbols that are then interpreted in a sweat.

This dancer shared with me that in the old days, the Celts had a living tree in the center of the ceremonial circle that they carved the runes into every year. While, current day Sundancers choose a sacred Cottonwood to be sacrificed in service to the life of the community each year. She shared that the prophecy states that at some point in our future, we shall once again plant a living tree in the center of those arbors to stand for the life of our communities.

Long now have I sat with this prophecy ringing in my ears. For many moons, I have supported various Sundances, sat in sweat, participated in sacred ceremonies, and walked The Red Road. Now, potentially, more than ever, I feel in my bones the truth of what this woman shared with me that fateful day. I know where I come from, and some of the history that befell my ancestors. I felt so deeply those old places of worship when I went back to one of my “homelands”. And, I feel—perhaps—I am one of those future ancestors my Druid predecessors spoke of, who has come to reclaim some of the wisdom of our forgotten past.

I am not a Native American, and yet, much of these practices ring true. I heard the songs of my family that first time I helped put someone up on “the hill” for hamblechya/vision quest. I see the ribbon dresses of my own “Black Norwegian” family and their mirrors in the dresses of the women here on Turtle Island. And, I feel the drum beat, steady and true, resonating through all of our songs. I am so grateful to that Sundance chief who felt his own call, and who chose to break with current traditions, in order that I might retrieve some of what has been lost—in order that I might honor my ancestors, and work to mend the hoop between our people.