Dear wnishin:

I am in the habit of retyping what a member shares, including quotes, because it helps me process information. So here I go:

In your Feb 19 post, you shared regarding the context of the workplace: “In leading a team, or being a part of one, I look to finding the gift within… what have I learned? And how can I rebuild the process.. in such a way that because the occurrence happened, we as a team.. are ultimately better because the event happened.. I’ve always found my strength in my team”, and that you “tend to look at the brighter side of life”.

You shared that you were raised by “two very strong women”, your mother and grandmother, while your father was “a horny tax accountant that wondered too close to the Indian Reservation” who had a new family, and slapped you that one time when you failed to tie your shoes out of fear of him.

Your uncle Mike found Christ, lost his boys in a car accident and lost his way, but this one pastor was there with your uncle while the doctors were trying to stop Scott’s internal wounds, not realizing that Scott’s brain was dead. This pastor was there “year after year .. long after any of us ever stepped foot in his church or even gave him a dime”. Because of this pastor’s actions, you “believed in something divine”.

When your grandmother passed away, the Medicine Man “gave his speech, there was drums and singing”, he said: “white man’s Jesus.. was a myth, if you tried to grab him, you’d only have empty hands, he wasn’t real, nothing more than a justification to suppress a culture”.

“The Creator gave us the sky, mountains, trees, the earth we walk on. Things you can hold in your hands. Creator didn’t need a book, he gives you things you can touch, see, and feel”.

When your mother passed from cancer, there were two sermons, one by Medicine Man and another by the pastor in whose church you haven’t been in over a decade. He was “proud to see the little trouble-making Indian kid grew up into a man”.

“I remember those big smiles, and the endless laughter as we beat our drums, beneath the moon. We shared our stories.. the smiles were too damn big to hide… that extra shine from just people living”- you lost that, “something, something passed down from my grandmother, from my uncles, and my mother.. everything has moved so fast.. I ran to university, promotions, a prospering career, right down to an SUV and twin baby girls who call me dad.. I feel domesticated and every time I blink another year passes.

“My truth is this epiphany that I need to find time to beat my drum and teach my little ones who they are… Swooping low, then rising high.. with the grace of a hawk.. Drums beating, fires burning, sacred ways, dying traditions.. Black feathers, helpless without wings… Swooping low, then rising high; silent drums, no fires burning”.

And now my thoughts, as the come: the first thing you shared about a week ago was the concept of a team, suggesting that you care a lot about being part of a team: “we as a team.. are ultimately better. I’ve always found my strength in my team”- you referred to a team in context of the work place, but a group of people beating their drums beneath the moon, sharing stories is also a team. That team is lost to you.

A team is a group of individuals working together to achieve their goal. Was not the goal of the individuals beating their drums beneath the moon, sharing stories- wasn’t the goal to infuse the individuals within the team with joy/ new energy, so that each individual’s spirit is kept alive through all the mundane and difficult tasks of daily life? All of us individual humans, being the social animals that we are, need that refreshing, energizing, joyful togetherness every once in a while to keep our spirits alive. So that we don’t lose our wings.

In the context of a team in the workplace, you wrote: “what have I learned? And how can I rebuild the process… in such a way that because the occurrence happened, we as a team.. are ultimately better because the event happened”?-

– if the occurrence is the loss of tradition, what you referred to as “dying traditions.. the old ways”, resulting in “silent drums, no fire burning”, what have you learned, and how can you rebuild the process: finding perhaps a new team, a team bigger than your small family?

anita