My heart just broke learning that the person I have considered to be, for a very long time, the Poet Laureate of Indigenous North America passed on to the next world today.
It is way past my bedtime, and I haven’t written a diary (or whatever) in years.
I worked with John Trudell when I was the Religious Network Coordinator for the Big Mountain Legal Defense/Offense Committee in 1985-86.
Me and my AIM-Warrior (now-deceased — a whole nuther story) Soul-Sister (and sometimes, also the father of my daughter, when we let him) used to drive around Northern Arizona and the “Joint Use Area” of the Sovereign Dine Nation listening to his tapes stuck into the tape-player of my mud-encrusted Subaru, including this one, singing, heartily, along with him. I know his words by heart.
His words and music have always been an inspiration and a challenge to me on many, many different levels. He had a profound influence on me.
He taught me what freedom means, and what freedom doesn’t mean. He described, in poetry and song, the essence of living in the “belly of the beast,” while striving to live, every day, by raising one’s wings and flying as free of those chains as possible.
I’m a lowly person here. With mostly no following. It’s possible nobody will read this diary.
But just in case you find this and read this, I just want to share with you, in the middle of this night, this John Trudell music video, that was, for me, that song that carried me and my (RIP) AIM-Warrior Soul-Sister through the bumps and red-clay washboards and getting-hauled-out-of-a ditch-by-a-SDN-Warrior-Grandmother-using-bailing-wire and many many many many other instances as we fought (somewhat in vain) for the rights of the people of this Grandmother Earth just to Live and Be.
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Listening (Honor Song) - John Trudell - Tribal Voices
My best to you, John Trudell. And to your family and friends. You will be sorely missed.
Namaste.