As a child of four, one of my earliest memories of my A’te (father) was watching him prepare for his journey as he swept his hand across the star-soaked night sky. I imagine it today as he offered the names of the stars with his left hand, which seemed to have a place in the patterns and story. With my ear near his chest, I could hear the faint sound of his heart beating while his expressions in Lakota formed this rootedness, this deep eternal energy within my four-year-old body.

Before memory, the Lakota were never nomadic people but were following the instructions of the stars, the universe, and the seasons of abundance were involved as we remained in balancing with the rest of the Oyate, the nations of life in their purpose, the four-legged, the two and the one-legged. Always on a journey of the continuum, knowing who we are, not were, sequenced beautifully with the consciousness of the present.

It was a year later following my father’s death when I was entranced by presence, as all children are in the moment, sensing a story unfolding a lesson of Earth and dream. I was playing along the banks of a creek bed as the afternoon sun blazed overhead from a deep blue sky. The magpies were also playing just above the cliff embankment diving into the reflections from the still water below. I sat motionless, watching them change and shift in a split second, instructing me by laughing and talking as they dropped pebbles into the pool.

Up until now, I never knew who this old man was who came around the curved creek, dressed in ragged clothes and leather, but nonetheless alive! He crunched the grey shale as he walked leaving moccasin imprint in the soft earth. And then an image hovering over me. An old man in a torn shirt and leggings. He was wearing a breech cloth of thin, worn leather, and his moccasins were tattered. But I wasn’t startled or afraid. He knelt next to me and watched the same antics of the magpies.

I think it was only a few minutes later but you know when you’re that young, time is forever. He reached down and scooped a reality of earth into his hand, and with intense gentleness said, “This is who you are.” He then sprayed the earth over the pool, and I watched the sparkles and tinier circles emanating within circles reflecting tinier lights into stars. I watched as a five year old behind the sense of knowing and wonder, mesmerized by all that was happening.

I always wondered where that old man went, as I didn’t see him walk away, being caught up in the moment. And to this day I might return to that unassuming creek and sit alongside that memory to find those moccasins steps.

This is who you already are. I heard the message again.