Walking in the Footsteps

Thank you. Thank you. This program is made possible in part with funds provided by Synergy, located at 1695 North Main in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Synergy is committed to diversity and stopping racial intolerance.

And by Lomita Motel, open all year long, located across from the Mineral Hot Springs in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico. My name is Alfreda Bertrack, my English name is running with a gourd woman, running rattling Hello, my name is Donald Bertrack, I'm of the Cheyenne-Kawa tribe. I have a spiritual Indian name, in English language it's Thunder Eagle, in the Cheyenne

languages, next . Shonema. . . . . . I walk in the footsteps of my ancestors.

I give tribute and honor to their songs, their way of life that live on through art and spirit. They would tell me, Mother Earth weaves a beautiful blanket of many colors, of which we are but one thread. Father Creator is the spirit that connects us together. this blanket is called love and it is the light that covers us as we walk in the footsteps each thread has a unique story to tell each story a blueprint for survival the tragic and violent execution and death of my son motivated me to look to the ancient stories for that blueprint for strength and understanding they would tell me racism comes from ignorance lack of understanding knowledge that is hidden from the people we are but one heartbeat one drumbeat of mother earth it is this truth that has helped us as American Indian people survive the darkest times in our history and the same truth can help bring down the barricade that feeds racism hatred and violence this essence

will serve as a blanket of love to cover the bleeding hearts torn open by the brutal acts against humanity and strengthen the footsteps of all people into the millennium. Mitakyo Oyase. In my culture, we have no word for art, and I believe that's universal with other indigenous cultures around the world. And that is because everything we do is art, our footsteps on Mother Earth is art.

Being a Lakota, pain has always been a part of my life. And again, I grew up with my grandmothers around. They had a very important part in my upbringing. I could probably say that as far as the tools of survival goes, they taught me everything I know. And I forever honored them. And thus I walk in these footsteps to try to bring honor to them in what I do, and namely through my art. You know, art, again, is so deep. It's so deep in our culture. It's so deep in us as human beings. It must be felt in order to be a human being because of the spirituality context of it. We're from a beautiful place, and we go back to this beautiful place, and when you get

a, or if that's the center of the base of your culture, there's a lot of art that is centered around it, and so I acknowledge it. we can really have our art to take care of us because without art I think the power of hate has its full reign and so art needs to be acknowledged and have its rightful place and it will overcome the power of hate. And so I learned the wisdom and knowledge to accept that and the tragedy was my son's death. 17-year-old Donald Beartrack Jr. was shot twice in the head. His body found under the Highway 59 Illinois River Bridge north of Watts by officer Frank

Cox. I saw the writing on his arm. Where was it or what was it? It was a tag number. It was written on his arm. In magic marker, part of it was, and part of it was wrote in ink pen. Did you know what it was when you saw it? No, I didn't know what it was at the time. Those numbers led investigators to Russell Murray, Joe Dale Cox, and Brett Adams. His car was recovered in Jefferson County, along with a rifle like this. My tragedy, you know, came upon me with my son's death and a lot of things sort of fell into place for me you know painful growing and learning how to be and how

not to be through that it has my grandson and that's him I see my son and I see my grandson and you know he's still he's still there with me and as we get involved more into the spirituality with the wisdom and the knowledge of it you know it all goes back to the beautiful place and when we do any type of help towards people it's such a beautiful realm that we have to you know be comfortable with it and so the arch footing and everything that we do in life makes us solid with that understanding. Racism is a very, very big issue.

And it's something that I pray about on a daily basis that I would someday see eliminated. But I realized when our grandson came to be that he's representing. He has been one of the greatest lessons in my life. And he is the greatest teacher. Yeah. My daddy died, huh? And he got shot in the head. Twice. Where is he at? In heaven. and how does he watch over you from the Sun mm-hmm well I think up I think about myself as my daddy and I think about him into inside my spirit and nice when I When I start to feel the glare, it feels like my daddy's come to me.

And I feel, like, really happy. Well, when I look in the mirror, I see myself as my daddy. And after that, I feel really special about that. And I'd be happy, and I'd think good things, well, it's just like form of your heart or form of your life. And in my heart, I'd like to say blessings. Like I said with my son, it made me look at it on what's going on in this day and age

and what's up ahead for our youth, the future. So I wanted to be a responsible adult leader within our people and to do what I can to assure some sort of feeling that there's going to be hope for them for tomorrow. whenever we've encountered hatred we've come in we've come to this lodge this is where we find healing and find peace and then from this lodge out here is the invisible umbilical cord to our altar there our earth altar from there on to grandfather fire of no end and i was told many times when you get these lined up here it's powerful it's sacred this is what life is about

fire earth water air it's life that's what we're made up of Thank you. Light breaks and swells

an indicative instant stories bringing to surface ancient memories blind and naked i begin to feel the mystery from the inside out deep in my heart growing living dying warm sun voices the inner folds of the forest, sacred life flowing through the veins of creation. Deer skin clothed with white clouds gives rise to the eve of transformation. I make myself small. I go inside, small as a tear of bloody antlers. I pass through into the cave of his heart. I smell the musk. I feel the movement deep in my soul from a mysterious place beyond knowing. Song rises, drum thunder dances soft gentle heart four hooves against the earth leaves tracks of light unknown to the human

heart softness of flesh and blood rise to nature's chant fragrance pine against silver sky I feel the rhythm, deep in my soul, place beyond knowing, song rises, drums under dancing, voices whispering, no turning back, no turning back, I am caught, it draws me in, I trust ancient memories, I let go, I understand the language, it decodes my human heart, wind twirls, hoofs echo, rattling gourd sings running woman, feet, toes, legs, cushion on needles brown and sweet, unafraid tenderness lay bare, ancient story, deer dancing, man, woman, resurrection,

angels rolling back the stones of time in between life and death repeated beats between heaven and earth waves cresting the other side of reality breaking sound shifts the veil between here and their faults. Faint voices calling from a mysterious place beyond knowing. Song rises, drum thunder dancing, voices singing, returning, returning. Nature heals reluctant minds, caress broken bodies and wounded spirits. Deer skin clothed with white clouds gives rise to the eve of transformation. Dreams cannot stop what I am, what we are, dear in transformation.

I would turn to my art and it worked as therapy. It worked as a connection to the great spirit, it to Mother Nature, to Mother Earth, and it provided a cushion. It goes back to the footsteps, you know, of our grandmothers and grandfathers, and being around where they've been in a ceremonial way. I had always wanted to figure silver, even though I did leather, stamping, tooling, but But in a ceremonial setting, I was asked to do a silver arrowhead that was to be used in our religious ceremony and gave it all my best, you know, abilities and craft to it. And later on, not too long after that, so I was trying to figure silver out, I had

thought of what I did with that. And all of a sudden, everything clicked. So it was around, you know, spiritual setting of our old folks. Things derived from there and I figured, well, you know, I got it from there. So I've always maintained the artistic respect. I think grace is the element of what I carry walking in their footsteps. And so grace is the answer. Grace is what my grandmothers carried. Grace is what they passed on to me. Grace is what I paint. Grace is what I sculpt in my artwork and we all are born of a woman of grace and there's coming a day when physically our body returns back again to a woman or mother and it's only by

the grace of God that the circle is complete and it's a beautiful holy circle it's hard to walk in footsteps in reality I believe you can never walk in another person's footsteps but on the other side of it when we're carrying on the teachings of our ancestors of our grandparents our great-grandparents of our grandparents of our friends that's gone on and our relatives one thing all of us have in common right now is this love for life, unconditional love for life. And in that sense, thus we are walking in the footsteps. And so we had placed ourselves together in spirit and everything that we would undertake to do in this lifetime to follow the spirit of our grandmothers and grandfathers and that's our

responsibility that we have assumed. And my son, Donnie Bertrack Jr., I just feel so honored to have him for those 17 years. such a great young man, and even to the death, to be so brave about it, to write a license tag on his arm. It's a brave act. And through that, as a father, I looked who would try to attempt do anything but his cry for justice. So I've undertaken it. And by doing so and

looking at it, being as he was a perimeter within our culture, young men his age, they would be the protectors of our people. And so, in a way, there's a protection going on by him signaling. And through that signal, as a responsible caretaker of chieftainships within my father's tribe I've heeded the signal and it has made me look upon our youth and to them I have gotten involved and I've become educated more within the youth and I've devoted my life here lately to working with youth and I see

him and every young person that I meet and to him I'm able to do that and also leaving me a grandson. It's a great gift and an honor. Even within my father's tribe, our sacred spiritual leader within our tribe, the arrow keeper, had told me that it's one of the highest honor within our culture to lose a son and a brave act and so I have that honor from him but have his son within my care and so I'm honored also and so I give honor to the bravery of Donnie Bertrack Jr. and all his friends and acquaintances

out there who knew him many young people traveled from all four directions that he got acquainted with to be there in his when we were sending him back to the spirit world and it even went beyond that when the thunders and the snow came the opening of this spirit realm to have my son travel upon the Milky Way and to have all those young people even not only of our culture but other other cultures other races within that area an opening was being was made and this was explained to me by the elders and I felt this painful about it that to have an understanding of the spirit that there is is truly an art to this life and we

are to be knowledgeable with it to get all this character so that we may be wise and so we may be able to help those who are coming behind us and leave something of we just have mentioned footsteps grandfather creator grandmother earth all sacred directions I give you thanks for this day. I pray for the manner with which each individual walks through this life. Help us to walk in a sacred manner. We are all related. Thank you.

guitar solo guitar solo

This program was made possible in part with funds provided by Synergy, located at 1695 North Main in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Synergy is committed to diversity and stopping racial intolerance. And by Lomita Motel, open all year long, located across from the Mineral Hot Springs in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico. Thank you. Thank you.