By Ganishka Silverfox-Dann Soulwaker

NATURE DRUMS ANGELS CALL ME

When I look back as an adult this most vivid time stands out in my life. It is the bases of who I was to become, and the Woman I am today.

When I was a young a child, maybe just about three, I came back from the place in the sky, there were Elders in the room and this wonderful looking Gorilla, he would grow with me as I was growing, some time even getting into bed with me and holding me tight. I was talking to a friend who had just taken a course about Sasquatch and I was looking at the front picture on a book and realized instantly that it was not a Gorilla, it was a baby Sasquatch who held me so tight and lovingly. I remember I told a couple of my foster mothers about my friend and they said if talked like that I would be put in a the place where funny people lived away.

In my brain, when I was, I was very small. I already knew how to escape to travel far away in my mind or in my soul, no one knew where but me. People were sure mad at me when my mind traveled… When I split from myself. They weren’t happy at all with me and tried really hard to stop me from blanking out. No one liked a little girl who didn’t like to fight back when they were touching her in places that they shouldn’t. They sure tried too hard to get me to cry by sticking things in me and pinching me or burning me with cigarettes butts. This never hurt me because when I was a child, this voice in my head said to me: you don’t have to stay when you are being hurt, you can travel away to a safe spot. This voice was gentle and calm, what I wanted a Father to be. I wasn’t sure where I went in my mind or how I did it. I was traveling away from my body, from them, as hard as they tried, they couldn’t take this from me. They finally just let me be and kept hurting me. When I came back I would feel sick and used I think it was my fault and I would know that I was a bad girl.

I realize as I re-write this and have done several times that I remember so much more, so that I became fragmented at a young age and there were parts of me that could take the pain and another section that had to flee. I was able to escape when I was with my friend the Sasquatch. I now have to become very clinical when I smell blood or burns on people or I panic many years later. Even when I put cream on myself today sometimes I feel the shame. I still recall the burns, some of the scars still haven’t faded today. I still remember the terror I felt when coming back into my body. I didn’t know what was going on around me. I was afraid to make too much noise if certain people were around in case they found me, then they would hurt me again. I had to stay on the alert and be hyperventilated if a party was going on and tried to make sure I was safe. I used to hide, so they would not find me I thought. They used to lock me in a cupboard or put me in a room in the dark, to this day I have a hard time closing myself alone in a room and still sleep with my bedroom door open when sleeping alone.

I had a special friend in my house when I was small, she was my teddy bear, her name was Tiny. This teddy bear knew all my secrets and they would hide her from me. The only time my friend Tiny was allowed to sleep with me was the night before the social worker came. My friend the Sasquatch and I slept together with my teddy. They told me if I didn’t tell, the teddy could sleep with me after the social worker left, if I told them they would cut Tiny up into small pieces and throw her in the fireplace. When they said this, I felt they knew they would cut me up to. I was so sure they would come after me and my furry friend the Gorilla. My friend who slept with me. I moved on to another foster home and left all my friends behind, my teddy was burned and I wouldn’t talk about a furry friend, I was sure they would hurt him to. I am sure I was the only one to see him, I sure hoped. I never saw my friend again, thought maybe they were doing the same thing to another young child and I knew he stayed to help them.

When I was a young child, younger than 9, when I came back from the place in the sky, there were Elders in the room and this wonderful looking Gorilla, he would grow with me as I was growing, some time even getting into bed with me and holding me tight. I was talking to a friend who had just taken a course about Sasquatch and I was looking at the front picture on a book and realized instantly that it was not a Gorilla, it was a baby Sasquatch.

I was so glad looking back, that I could escape into the drum music in my head. This was really my heart, but they didn’t know this, I was sure they didn’t know this or I sure hoped. When I became frightened, my heart would race and beat so loud, I could hear it in my head, I was sure that they could too.

As a child, this is how I felt when traveling in my mind. I knew I was traveling with the Angels. I still can remember the feeling and smells. I still recall some of these memories. One of the recollections was of the green leaves. I mind a poem about the leaves. Without my heart, I couldn’t lie down in green leaves and smell them all around me, fresh and clean. I wish I were fresh and clean like the leaves that I used to try to wash in as a child.

I used to wonder what it would be like to be a bear, as a child, part of my Native clan family that I know about today. I would be a big happy and furred animal person, and then no one would hurt me. They looked so big, but they can fight back, they can bite and claw.

Or I wish that I could swim with the whales in the ocean, they were so free. I could get away from the bad things, if I was a whale. I had seen them in a nice foster home, when we were on a holiday. I didn’t think then, that people hurt the whales.

I can still see goldfish in the water and the sun in my mind today, just as vivid as when I was a child, when I was traveling away. For love is in the color of goldfish, in the water when the sun hits it on a warm day. I can still see the full moon shining on a lake at night, it was magic. No one could take the magic from me and they sure tried.

I heard my angels calling me, the people I know only few can see, now I have met some of these people in my life who have seen these angels, these spirit ones. They talked to me and they played their drums for me in the night stars that were way past the sun bright sky. It was so lovely to be free in the air, away from what was happening to my body.

Was I traveling away for real, or was it in the deepest parts of my mind. I am not sure, I was just eight or nine we think. I am not sure when I started traveling and when I finally recollect, I knew I have been traveling probably since before I could remember, just a baby. I couldn’t take the pain that shapes and things too big for my small body.

I was always happy. Always, always warm and always safe in this spot I went to with them. These angels, these star people, the spirit ones. They sat in their medicine lodges, somewhere I think in the sky or in my mind or for real, I am not sure to this day. They saved me or let me save myself. They took all the hurt and crying children and people to their hearts. Their skins tell you of all the animals that the earth holds dear. Like Grandmother Black Grizzly Bear Women or Grandmother White Buffalo Calf Women and other Animals, Grandmothers and Grandfather of all times. Some don’t exist any longer, only in man’s mind. They have beautiful furred bodies and human faces, with human hands and feet. I know that I was safe, happy within the arms of Grandmother Black Grizzly Bear Women, so that horrible hurt that was happening to me could go on somewhere else at the same time, to the part of me that stayed.

The medicine lodge was the gateway to the sky or back home to Earth (in the then and in the now.) It is a place where all time stands still. I lived in a nest of dreams and was fed, pure love. All life sang when I chose to awaken, there were drumbeats and singing of great joy within the medicine lodge. As my eyes slowly opened, I felt the warmth and looked in the duskiness. I could see all the Spirit animals in their skins and I still remember their different smells. I saw a small fire in the middle of the lodge and smelled the scent of sweet grasses burning along both sides of it. I can still smell the scent as lingered in the pungent air.

I still remember the smell of the damp clean earth

Mother Natures Blood. I learned about Mother Nature when I was very young. I was very content and as my eyes cleared. I could see other Children and Adults all around me being talked to and loved by the animal angel ones.

Some of these people were still asleep and I knew they would never awaken, for their lesson had been just too hard. All those souls were being taken care of by special Grandmothers and Grandfathers, for those individuals life was just to difficult, the pain was too cruel, the sadness to great. Their life had just become too complicated and they will sleep until they would float away to die. This was not how they planned to learn this life lesson on this journey. Their souls will rest on the other side and then they will try again.

For those who awaken in the medicine lodge, they will hear drum beats all around the sky. Another child has been saved, sending their heartbeats all across the creation for the Star People to hear and they will sing with joy. There is gladness in the different lodges all across the universe, another Soul has come home for how long, no one knows for sure.

There are predators out there that prey on our very souls. They like little children especially or weak-minded adults. Some people still travel in their minds and back to the Star People, the Spirit Ones. Some just forget to come back they feel safer there.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY THIS IS A TRUE POEM

I am no different than anyone else, I am a survivor.

The only way I knew how.

Ganishka Silverfox-Dann

SOULWAKER