Fear walks hand in hand with AIDS

Page 18

Fear's echoing voice sounded in my head with disgust.

"Be afraid, be very, very afraid. You don't deserve love and you don't need love. No one cares and no one is going save you. You're a nothing and you will always be a nothing! Run faster!"

Fear continued to scream at me.

"I'm going to catch you and when I do, I'll give you a real reason to cry! Run faster!"

"Fear, like the many times I have listened to you in the past, I now ask you to listen to me," I replied. I proceeded to be true to my spirit as I went on to say this to Fear:

"Fear, I accept and understand that I was once under your control. I also accept that in that time, you influenced my behaviors. Living in this world, filled with so much of you, has had its adverse effects on me. However I will say 'I'm still in the game. Like everyone else in this entire world, I am still in the game.'

"I find now, in this moment, that it is very important for me to embrace the honor, the truth and the self-respect that hovers in my midst. Empowering myself, I choose no longer to be blinded by you. Now that I know how, and choose to overcome you, I become witness to the beauty and the light that is available to me on my sacred walk. You knock on my door everyday, and you try in your many ways, and in your many forms to play your infamous recording, 'Be afraid, be very, very afraid. You don't deserve love and you don't need love. No one cares and no one is going save you. You are a nothing and you will always be a nothing! Shut up! Stop crying or I will give you a real reason to cry! Keep running or I'll catch you. Run faster!'

"Once again trying in your many ways to play that dreadful recording, inviting me back into a world of shame and powerlessness, feeling unworthy and weak, tricking me into accepting that way of life, the ill treatment of me. I refuse to be a victim of yours any longer and have no reason to listen to you. I've listened to you over and over and over again. Even you must have some compassion for the souls that we've hurt when we were living side by side. I'm now choosing to walk into the rest of my life conscious of my special place in it. I trust that the Creator's love is upon me and upon everyone else around me."

My Spirit assures me that all I need is to consistently remind myself that I'm special and that everything is happening on schedule and according to plan, ultimately creating a new recording. My spirit also reminds me that the Creator is not weak, powerless and easily manipulated, sharing also that eagle medicine is very important in this space and time of healing.

I am to keep my focus, to keep my eye on the prize as the sacred eagle of the east would. Sweeping out of the free, vast, light blue sky, embracing the sacred field mouse of the south, devouring it, allowing it to become a part of it's magnificence. Like the sacred eagle of the east, I will keep my focus. I will keep my eye on the prize. I will jump into the free, vast, light blue sky. I will be enveloped by it. I will become it. I am the sacred field mouse.

With this information, I have been able to face Fear, getting to know it, recognizing it in its many forms. I now choose to listen to my new recording that tells me I'm special and everything is happening on schedule and according to plan.

"Fear, I thank you for all of your teachings. Every time I allowed you to play your recording, listening to it play recklessly in the corners of my mind, over and over and over again, I learned something new. I realized or saw something that I missed the last time I allowed you to play it. I will now take what you've taught me and accept it, with love in my heart, as I have been taught. I will help others to recognize you in the ways that I now do.

"Aho!"

This had ended my conversation with fear. I now see areas of myself that I wasn't able to when I was blinded by fear, the fear of women, the fear of men, the fear of looking at my past, the fear of feeling emotion, the fer of being alone, the fear of abandonment, the fear of rejection, the fear of assertion, the fear of addictions and the results of addiction, the fear of neglect, the fear of trusting, the fear of sexual orientation, the fear of the unknown (the future), the fear of kindness and life without trauma and victimization, the fear of truth and honesty, the fear of reality and, last but not least, the fear of death and dying.

I have ventured out of the realm and boundaries of fear. There is nothing more powerful in this life than honesty, truth, love, and the return to innocence.

Fear, at one point, had rendered me helpless and defeated when I became aware of my own personal diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. I have not only survived, I have succeeded and now prevail. I believe that this also applies to my people. We are not weak and defenseless. Our Grandfathers and Grandmothers have brought us here and, with the information I have, I'm going to do the best that I can. I will not give in. I never thought or believed I would ever be able to trust again, however I will also say that it is well worth the effort.

I can live with the peace and serenity that now takes the place of the fear, that at one time in my life, cluttered up my heart. I have learned how to acknowledge and accept my special place in life by participating in ceremony - sun-dancing, sweating and dancing powwow - which are all filled with spiritual empowerment (love, health and help). With the guidance of my spiritual ways, I am now so full of the Creator's love that it overflows on to the people around me. My strongest prayer since I was diagnosed with HIV was that the Creator would allow me to walk in his light. I choose no longer to walk in darkness, turmoil, defeat and confusion.

I say this in honor of my deceased brother and sister Kimball Dean and Bernice Victoria from the James Smith Cree Nation, Sask., and the many others of my people who have also stared fear in the eyes as I have, and which has taken us o crime, the streets, the different levels of drug usage, incarceration and to skid row. If no one has ever thanked you for your sacrifices in life, I have opportunity and honor you in doing so. Thank you. Your suffering in this life is Wakan (sacred) and I will continue to recognize it as such. No matter what life's circumstances, talk to fear as I have. Fear is as real as you and I. It's fooling and damaging our people.

I pray openly for those that are on skid row and overwhelmed with their fears, living the consequences of prostitution, excessive IV drug usage, and other behaviors that represent worthlessness, powerlessness and displays of defeat, all influenced by childhood traumas and indignation. Desperation is the only feeling felt, gasping for just one more breath and at the same moment hating every breath that come in with each gasp.

Ultimately there are those who won't have the opportunity to read this.

I pray also for the child who is still suffering the way I once did, defenseless and being stripped of his or her innocence, living what I and many like me once did. I know you are out there. I have not and I will not stop allowing myself to know and to feel your pain. I understand your decisions and familiarize myself with your dispositions. I won't feel shame in saying that I have been there more than once in my time. I am now of an age, no longer a defenseless child, where I am able to overcome my fears, to seek and claim the responsibility for my own healing. Since the diagnosis of my disease it has been quite a struggle, however I have been blessed by having the determination and the will to prevail, not survive, but to prevail.

The one sure thing that I know from my spirit is that, no matter what I have been through, I am not alone. I never was and I never will be. You have and are all going to be prevailing with me. I, in return, am going to prevail with you.

Don't be fooled, we are not a weak people. Seeing all that is good and sacred in who e are, we are doing well in the area of healing. Our people are taking the initiative in the education, prevention and support in the field of HIV/AIDS in our Aboriginal communities. Please welcome a new approach to the education, prevention and support in the field of HIV/AIDS in our First Nations communities.

Please also welcome the "Helping Hands Project," which derives from these attributes: Faith, Love, Health and Help. In its truest light, it has been designed, operated and owned by an Aboriginal person. It, in it's own way, is taking us one step closer towards Aboriginal sovereignty, adding to a list of proof that we are a capable people. The Helping Hands project needs your community support.

I would like to acknowledge the support of Rita Parenteau of Wehpeton First Nation and Connie Wajunta of Standing Buffalo First Nation in Saskatchewan, Vicky Whalen of Edmonton, Leona Baker of Squamish First Nation, B.C. and Dave Desjardain, where West ends. May the Creator shower all with the awareness of his love and affection. Walk in Beauty.

Metakwe Oyasin

(We are all Related)