Jeff Tucker

People hear about us talking to the animals and talking to the trees or they say we're praying to the trees or praying to the sun and the sky and to the earth. We're not. The word prayer is not even the same as it is in English, it means something different. It means speaking to your relatives, and that's all we're doing. We're talking to our relatives. These are all our relatives out here. So, we honor the coyotes and the wolf, they teach us how to sing, they're great singers. A lot of times we go in our sweat lodges, and you'll be out there on the prairie, out where our Sundance ground is, it's way out there, it's beautiful out there, and we'll be in there late at night singing, and we'll stop singing and we'll hear those coyotes singing along with us, teaching us a new song. So, you hear that in our voice, you hear that in the drum, that's that universal heartbeat. And if you just be still long enough, every human being on the earth can hear that because it's right here (gesturing to heart). Have you ever been in a place that was totally quiet, and suddenly you realize, jeez it's really noisy in here because you're hearing that "chum, chum, chum, chum? You're hearing your blood, you're hearing that drum, the heartbeat of yourself, the Mother Earth and the universe around you.

This is our Mother (gesturing to surroundings), you cannot be alive and not know this is your Mother. We feel that that's what's happened, is people have lost touch with their Mother. You can have this same feeling in the middle of downtown New York if you can find a little patch of dirt to sit on there, a blade of grass, then you'll start to realize, you'll start to feel her, touch her, feel her, hear her song, hear her heartbeat.

The message is all the same. I think in all the major religions and spiritual beliefs in the world it's all the same. It's just that each land has a voice. And we're here on this land, some people call it "Turtle Island." It has a voice, has a pray, has a song. My Grandfather told me that, he said, "You know all these people that are out there in the world coming to the Indian people, we knew this was going to happen, we've been told. All the tribes have been told this, that this would happen and it's our duty, it's our responsibility and obligation to not just teach them, but to bring them in. To let them know that yeah, they're part of this land too.

People from all over the world are coming to Indian people and saying, " teach us. Teach us what you know about being in harmony and balance with nature. Teach us what you know about the earth. Teach us what you know about saving the planet." We're listening to that trickster's song again and saying "no, we need to push these people away, we can't teach them this ." My Elders said, we cannot help but teach them this, because it's going to take each one of us to survive. We have to all come to an understanding and agreement together that, nobody is going anywhere. We're all here because the Creator has made all of us. You've seen those colors, red, yellow, white, and black, blue, and the green of the earth. All those colors are here to stay, nothing can change that, nobody can say one s above the other. So, if people are coming to us saying, "teach us," than it's our duty, our obligation, and our responsibility to teach these people. A lot of them already know more than some of us know. So we just need to sit down and be in agreement.

The most important thing I've learned is that concept of, Mitakuye Oyasin - We are all related. What that really means is that we're all related, the universe, the blade of grass, the trees, the animals, the winged ones, the birds, those clouds. Everything has movement. These stones, the rocks all around us, they all have movement. It's kind of funny because science says the same thing. Science, physics says the same thing. They say everything is made up of atoms and those atoms are constantly moving and so are we, we're just part of that. We look at the universe, we know it's constantly changing. There's solar systems out there that look like cells in our bodies and it's moving and changing, growing and expanding, contracting and going away, changing into something different. That's Mitakuye Oyasin, that's what's with in all of us, and we know that. Every single human being on the face of the earth knows that, they just don't remember all the time.

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