Ready how do you think we should do it? Okay we'll pick it up come this way more you guys pick those up and then put them through those stakes yeah hopefully we'll clear this up and go there. I'm out in the middle of the desert, near the southern Texas border, watching as half a dozen men prepare to hoist up the frame of a teepee. This is a South Dakota lodge.
We have a lot of relatives from South Dakota here representing themselves The teepee is for a peyote ceremony, to be led by a road man named Sandor Ironrope. Sandor is a spiritual guide and leader. He's Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. There's going to be more teepee setting up. We have some Crow relatives over here and some other Dine relatives going to come and setting up lodge. There are three teepees in total, each one set up for a different tribal nation.
This annual ceremony will bring together some 150 people from various tribal nations. And while there are peyote ceremonies all over the country, this one is different because we're in the place where peyoti cacti grow. The only place where indigenous people can come harvest peyoty buttons themselves for religious and cultural purposes. It's called The Peyote Gardens. This is my first time watching a teepee go up and I'm captivated.
So to get a better view, I circle my way around, careful not to step over any of the teepee poles. Alright, we'll have to pick them up. So while we're tying this, my brother made a prayer, made an offering, water, tobacco, and then we're gonna put the shell of this. It's a teepee, so for your audio, this is Julius Not Afraid. Julius is also Oglala Lakota. Where's Chacha? We need our rope runner. Hold on boys. Hold on, hold on. This is how you see Chachi try to run.
Someone say, "migra", "migra" I'll go faster. All right. Justin Dorry, who everyone calls Chachi, hitchhiked around 1,500 miles from South Dakota down to Texas to be here at ceremony. He's what's called a rope runner. Chachi has been tying up teepees since he was a kid on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and with every lap around the teepee... My legs ain't that long. My mouth goes faster than my legs. He can't help but make a joke. Oh that's three, that's 3! Hold the bottom.
Oh, watch that. That's good. One right here. So we learned all this from our uncles, our dads. These teepee poles, they represent our family members. This one here is a Lakota style of a tie. Every tribal nation that sets up a teepee does it a little differently. The Lakota style is special. Looking from the inside out, the opening is in the shape of a star. I'm also a member of the Lakota Oyate, and for us, the star is more than just a shape. It's a symbol of who we are and where we come from.
We are star people. Go on, just. One, two, one, two. Keep going. Keep going, all the way down. Go in the Front. Yeah I've been been running faster if I hadn't had that second bowl . Okay First time Chachi has started running again. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't running from the police, so... Okay. You didn't cramp up Last summer, Adreanna Rodriguez attended the Native American Church of North America's annual conference and produced a story about efforts to protect peyote for season one of our show.
Her goal was to try to understand how this tiny cactus became the center of an indigenous-led ecological fight. After the story aired, dozens of indigenous people reached out to Adriana to talk about peyoti. Then, last November, she got an invitation to go to south Texas to the peyote gardens. Without a second thought, she said yes. She didn't have an assignment. She went on her own dime. She just knew that she needed to go. So she brought her audio equipment with her to document her trip.
In this episode, the results of that trip. Adreanna heads to Texas to find peyote in its natural habitat and to dig into what the cactus means to indigenous communities and to herself. I'm Arielle Duhaime-Ross and this is Altered States. Sound good. All right, we're tightening it up a little bit. So you were saying there's a lot of relatives that are going to be setting up?
Yeah, they're gonna be setting up lodges up here, so what we're looking at is the setting up of a lodge for Friday night ceremony here When I packed my bags for Texas, I brought along my audio recorder and mics, but I wasn't sure. Was I there first as a journalist or was I on more of a personal quest? All I knew was that I had questions. Questions I hoped Sandor could answer. Can you introduce yourself? Yeah, my name is Sandor Ironrope.
I'm a Teton Lakota, and my mom, my dad, my grandpa, my grandpa Sam Lone Bear was instrumental in kind of sharing this way. Sandor is 55 years old. As a young boy, he participated in the Native American church peyote ceremonies. He learned the teachings, prayers, and responsibilities from his elders and went on to be a leader in the church for decades. You know, we're interconnected to all things, and we have to be able to unify as indigenous people around our mother Earth.
Sandor has spent decades advocating for the protection of peyote, which he considers part of his commitment to protecting his people and their traditions. Today, he sits on the board of directors for the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative, or IPCI, a nonprofit group working to conserve the delicate ecosystem in southern Texas where peyote grows. We're going to repopulate this area.
The group runs a cacti nursery, they replant peyote back into the wild, and they protect the habitat with the help of ranchers. We're giving back because it gives to us. So now it's really teaching the basics, the spiritual, ecological, harvested medicine to the next generation. The next generation are those who are here, setting up the teepee in front of us. So capturing the essence of what we're doing here is really, as we said, for the youth. She's one of the youths.
Sandor points to a young girl and her mom, who have been quietly listening to our conversation. My name is Charyce Not Afraid, and I am Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation up in South Dakota. Charyce is married to Julius Not Afraid. The man who was explaining to me that the teepee poles represent family members. And then this is your daughter, okay? Yep, this is our youngest daughter. My name is Abilene Renos. My mom is Charyce Not Afraid.
I'm 13 years old and I'm from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This is Abby's first time here at the peyote gardens, but not the first time she's participated in a peyote ceremony. Last year, Sandor guided their family through ceremony back at their home in South Dakota. The first time I used it, I was thinking about it. They asked me if I wanted to go into the meeting, and then I decided to do it.
It's just something that really stuck with me, and so then we went harvesting yesterday, you know, it's just a real beautiful thing. I really enjoyed it. Harvesting peyote is inseparable from the work of reclaiming identity, which includes culture and language, but it's an experience that not many Indigenous people have, given how scarce peyoti cacti have become. I'm happy I'm able to do stuff like this, because a lot of people aren't.
They're not able to get peyote and stuff like this to go harvesting again. So I'm grateful I get to do this stuff. Abby is only. 13 years old, and she's learning things that many of her elders have not had the chance to learn. She gets to learn all this stuff at a young age where me being older, that was my first time harvesting. For Charisse and Abby, it's not just about reclaiming identity and culture. It's also about reclaimin joy.
I'm trying to learn our language, because I'm not very good, and I can understand it to a bit, but I want to know it. I want speak it. I want understand all the medicines. Charyce asks her daughter to introduce herself in Lakota. (Speaking in Lakota) What is your name in Lakota? (Speaking in Lakota) Strong-Thinking Woman. And that comes from, she always had an opinion, a strong opinion and thoughts. And so it just kind of worked with her. Her Lakota name fits perfect. It's fitting, huh?
But it's true what you said, like, being Native is more than just in existence. It's all these other components that make up culture and make up people. Because it's our everyday walk of life is what it is. Charyce grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation with her great-grandmother, who only spoke Lakota.
And when she passed away, Charyce stopped hearing their language Even if we didn't speak it back to her we knew exactly what she was saying how to do it everything and then when she passed away...you don't use it you lose it So for Charyce, being in ceremony with Sandor, who is fluent, and hearing him speak Lakota, brings the language to life. It's that the yearning of what you're missing or what you are supposed to know.
You know that's our language that should be our first language but we didn't get that. Having her children understand and speak Lakota is the goal because our language is a part of us. That's our culture, that's our everyday walk of life. That's the language, that the dance, that's the movements, that just what we should do and should know. I don't speak the language you know either, I only grew up knowing a couple of songs that my uncle shared with me.
But at that feeling that you get from hearing the songs from it, it's engraved in us where we don't even know it is. And, but we know we're, we're yearning for it because if a song can get you emotional or, you know, there's, there is a bond there and you didn't even know there was a bond. It's true. I've also had this thought before. Even when the language is not understood, there's an undeniable connection, a familiarity in the sounds, a sense of home.
My grandmother was relocated from the Standing Rock Reservation to San Francisco back in the 50s. I was born and raised in California, distant from our Lakota traditions. I spent half my childhood living with a white foster family. Listening to Charyce, I began to wonder if I was here to reclaim something too. And then Charyce asked me. Will you be going into any ceremonies tomorrow? Um, I mean, I haven't been invited to one yet, um, but I, yeah, I don't know.
I'm just, it's always interesting when I come for something for work. Like, I'm mean, technically I'm always, like, representing myself as, like a tribal member first, but I'm kind of just assessing again, like my, where I'm at spiritually with myself, so. When I was invited to South Texas, I wasn't planning on participating in ceremony. I wasn't exactly sure what I'd be doing, honestly. I brought my audio equipment in part because the work of reporting gave my time a certain structure.
My role was clear when I was being a journalist, but deep down, a part of me might have known that I was here for something deeper. I was in search of connection to a spiritual practice, and I was hoping for a feeling of grounding and understanding. I couldn't answer Charyce's question yet. I needed to know more first, so I went to where the stories were being shared. It wouldn't be a Native event without an open mic, and one of the people who stood up to speak was Charyce's his husband, Julius.
Say, uh, good morning to your relatives. Good hearty handshake to each one of you. My name is Julius Not Afraid, I come from uh two relatives of the siliki, people of the big bird, of the crow, a child of the greasy moth. His childhood was spent in a place called Allen, South Dakota, a small, close-knit community. In there, you know, this medicine, it showed me a way of life from the beginning of my birth, generations before
me. It helped me in a time of struggle with substances, with alcohol, drugs, at a time where I almost lost my life. And the truth of it is, it was self-influenced. And so I had the courage to ask for help. And I wasn't alone. I have beautiful relatives. In 2019, he traveled to Texas and spent about two months working for IPCI. He fixed miles of fence and herded cattle. And it allowed me time to
heal. And I know there's opportunity for others that might take my story and be able to utilize it as their own. Since getting sober, he's toured all over Indian country, sharing his story. You know, I got to make travels, I've got to make travels through this Indian country, through a performance, a song, the dance, along with this peyote and our traditional practices, Wala Kota, the Lakota ceremonies.
Sure, amazing feeling to be able to go, be able partake in a harvest, to be a able to make a prayer, to shed a tear out there amongst grandma, grandpa, peyote. After a long day of talking to so many Lakota people, I couldn't help but think that it's not just about peyote. It's about connection, healing, love, and the ways in which culture persists. It's about Indigenous survival. As the sun sets, the desert air cools, and the day comes to an end.
I'm reminded of how interwoven our lives are with this land, and how ceremonies are threaded through a larger story of survival and reclamation. Oh, everybody! Oh, come over here. Gather round. Before you go out, we're gonna have a little talk here. How many of you guys have been out here before? I've been here. So can we have all the volunteers raise their hands? It's peyote harvesting day. I'm surrounded by about 40 people, nearly all indigenous.
Most of the land where peyote grows in the US is privately owned. A local rancher granted us permission to harvest peyoty on their land, but we only have an hour and a half. I'm grouped up with the other Lakota relatives. No one is ever going to be out into the brush alone, okay? You're going to harvest only medicine that have more than eight ribs and are bigger than two inches across. If you see those flags on the ground, don't go past that line. Does everybody have the vests?
There are all kinds of rules. If you want to continue to harvest, you're going to have to follow the rules. These rules are not our rules, these are the land owner rules. And there are ceremonial requirements too. It's very important that you give your offering. So it's important that we all understand that integral part of this offering. This is important because it changes the way we think about things, how we're doing things. This is all peyote territory. This is still our grandma's house.
So how we do it and how we respect it is important. We only have a little bit of time, that's why it's important to get together, organized. That sun's already going down. There's some ceremonies to happen tonight. So according to the white man watch, it's about 20 till 3. And so how much time? Hour and a half. And all of it has to be meticulously counted, from the number of ribs to the size of each cactus.
We're going to count 13 ribs at the mature medicine and we're going to count how many eight, how many seven, nine like that and we are going to document it. A rib is one of the vertical lines that run up the body of the cactus. More ribs mean the cactus is more mature. Harvesting requires a bag and a small knife, which volunteers can get from IPCI for a small donation. They have a knife in there these ones are 20 like this with the knife in the bag, but the bags are 10. Which one?
Can I have a knife and a bag please? Yep. The whole set to go. Thanks for our credit cards. It's in there? Thank you. Am I teamed up with you? You know what you're doing? Not really, but I don't even got a knife, so yeah. You want a knife? Make a donation and get a bag. Yeah, I just got one. here, here, here. God bless you. In our small group, we step off the dirt road. The brush is so thick and prickly, it's nearly impossible to walk through it.
Okay, now I definitely see how you can get lost out here. And this is thin. Oh, God. Marco! Polo! You found one? Found one! We just have to share the message behind us. Found one. Someone finds the first peyote of the day, so everyone makes their way over to see it. Right here so we have to understand this is this grandma right here this grandma right here she gave us all our food all our medicines right here The Sandor points to a cluster of peyote cacti poking out of the ground.
And so what we have to do is talk to grandma. Let grandma take care of us. So we have to recognize grandma right here and grandpa and give offering and talk to grandma and grandpa and say, thank you, grandma. It's gonna be you. You, you're gonna have to lead the way. Sandor looks over at the two youngest members in our group, children who are somewhere between five and seven years old. You're going to have to learn how to respect grandma and grandpa and come out here.
Come out here and show yourself. You have a Lakota name? You can say your name. Say your name four times, grandma. It's important to identify yourself by your indigenous name, by your Lakota name. And at least have a thankful thought. Like thank you for my mom, my dad, and then you can put that tobacco down. Thank you for being here. This is really important. We all huddle around the cacti. This is an emotional moment.
You should know how it lives, know the soil, these plants in here, how it lives about its life. This already knows us right here. As Sandor talks, some people around me start quietly weeping. It knows I got ache right here. It already knows that. It knows where my heart is already. But it's up to us to voice it in our prayer, in our offering here. This is part of our mental health and our healing.
Before we start our prayer, Sandor looks over at Chachi, the Oglala rope runner who tied up the teepee. Sandor knows he's struggling with taking care of his two boys as a single father. I want you to be well. I want you to be well. I know your heart's hurting in many ways. I know that already. It's okay to have fun. It is also okay to cry. And be serious here too. For your own sake, for your sonny boys. Things are tough, but I was happy that you made that effort right here.
So I'm happy you're here. Sandor bows his head and closes his eyes as the group begins to pray. May they have a beautiful harvest. So we're gonna go hunting, so don't get lost. Stay with your people. You volunteers. Ah, you don't get lost. Make a lot of noise when you're going because there's pigs still out. It's okay to sing too, sing your songs. Before we disperse, someone passes around a bag of peyote buttons, and everyone, even the children, eat a piece.
Suddenly I spot peyote under the brush, and I crawl in to get a closer look. I'm not sure if it's old enough or how to cut it properly, so I call out for help. Hey Adrian, I just wanted to ask a quick question really, really quick. Do I cut as deep as I can or is it just straight across? Yeah, usually straight across, just ground level. Okay. As long as you can see it exposed and that means it can regrow from it. Okay, I'm still going with you guys now I kind of have to separate it from my team.
Adrian Primo first came down to the peyote gardens nearly 10 years ago. He now brings his two children with him. I am a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. I reside in South Dakota. I teach the language and culture in the public schools in Rapid City, South Dakota In Texas, he saw firsthand how badly this ecosystem needed protection. So that turned into a movement of conserving the culture along with the plant.
So these go hand in hand and it's something that's not, I think, is a common everyday conversation of how all of these are intertwined. And that conversation includes a kind of etiquette.
Etiquette meaning that when you take something you have an exchange an equal exchange of energy at this current time because of this initiative I feel comfortable bringing my children to to the peyote lands and harvesting so for me I am laying eyes upon an answered prayer it's an amazing feeling and testimony to say eight years ago elders uncles and grandpas shed tears they put their knees on the ground and they...
And they cried and they asked the creator help us make a way for us so that we can heal our generations and so that, we can connect our people to the land so that they can have a better chance at overcoming the odds. Now, Adrian is passing along what he's learned in the peyote gardens to his children. We want to prepare our children to be able to do that. We want them to have the ability to take the hats on and off, the spiritual hat, the emotional
hat. We wants them to put on the father, the mother hat, be good teacher, the good relative. We wanted them to wear all those graciously. So by my children being able to put their direct hands in the ground here and to ask the mother earth and the medicine that we want to live, we want a way of life, who want to survive. For Adrian, peyote is part of that survival.
Generations ago indigenous people were put on reservations and they were putting away all of their traditional ceremonies and they're outlawed and then they they prayed for help and what came to us was this way of life this Native American church now it's an intertribal practice across Canada all the way through the United States and in Mexico and it was an answer to a prayer so this prayer wasn't just today, it wasn't just last year or eight years ago. It's been.
50, 60, 120 years in the making since the reservation area. While we talk, Adrian's children play nearby. And so now, fast forward to our children, we brought them with us and we see them walking around and it's because we want to pay special attention to what they're absorbing on a daily basis. So everything they're doing around this land, putting their hands in the soil, feeling the thorns in
their hand. And for us indigenous people, we believe that this malleable age, they're building this neural networks, everything that they see they're downloading as their formula for life. I went off to find more peyote and spotted some big enough to harvest. Oh, it's right between this cactus thing. That's why it's still there. Go this way. Where'd it go now? Lost sight of it. Oh my god stickers.
I squeezed through the brush and with a quick slice of my knife cut off the crown How'd you do, son? Did you do a good one? Look at all my boo-boos. These are good boo-boos though, man. Yeah. Thank you. The group reconvened to share what they found and give thanks. Thanks How much did you get? Shit, I got a couple pounds? Whoa. Now bad for my first, huh... Hey, relative, let's gather around, uncle. Let's sing a thank you song.
I don't know what time we're leaving, but this looks pretty cool, you know. Come on, brother. Sing the old thank you peyote song. Well that medicine started kicking in and I was pretty sure I just didn't want to look, I just wanted to sit down and sing. I figured, I said hey where's uncle? No one checked on our chief leader man. Which way is back? Ow, ow, ow. Hey we all point different directions. Thanks for the reaction, y'all. That way! That way y'all? That way.
Gary's right there. Let's go. Vamonos. After we returned to camp and the sun set, two dozen people entered the teepee meeting to participate in ceremony. Inside the teepee Charyce invited me to sit with her and her family, and I said yes. In that moment, I stepped out of my observing journalist self and into my own self, a Lakota woman. I didn't bring my audio equipment out of respect for the medicine and those around me. And I allowed myself to simply be present.
Sitting in the teepee, I wept for all that has been taken from us. Sandor looked over at me and said, you may not speak Lakota or understand the words of these songs, but your spirit understands and that's why you are crying. After the ceremony, when we all exited the teepee to greet the morning sun and each other, Sanor told me I needed to come home, to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Other Lakota people in Texas said the same, come home.
I kept thinking about this invitation to come home to South Dakota, a place I've never lived. Even after I went home to California, it stuck with me. I told my best friend Raven about the idea, and a couple months later, I found myself in a rental car, speeding down the highway toward the Black Hills with Raven in the passenger seat. Raven is also Lakota, Sicangu, and when she heard I was planning a trip to the Black Hills. Near her reservation, she insisted on joining me.
And to be honest, I couldn't have brought a better travel buddy. Raven was raised in South Dakota between her mother's community on the Yankton Sioux Tribal Reservation, known as the Ihanktonwan Lakota Oyate, and her father's community, where she is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, known the Sicangu Lakota Oyate. We listen to powwow music. And we laughed and then my mom looks at him and looks at the sage and he goes, alright, have a nice day.
And Raven put on her grandfather, reading his book, The Lakota Way. Chapter 2, Perseverance. More watching to overcome, to persist, to strive in spite of difficulties. With Raven navigating, we traveled through South Dakota, stopping along the way to pick sage. Is there a sage down there? Cause I'm like, maybe if I go in that road. Hella grasshoppers. Oh yeah. You can be afraid of grasshopper. We'll just be right back. You never take the tallest.
Raven taught me to be gentle and leave the tallest stock to watch over the rest of the medicine. How about this one? They're not too big, huh? It's like a family, they're family. Take these ones here, huh. I'm waiting for a grasshopper to hop right in my mouth. I want to get some for my mom. I never picked sage before. I never felt it not dried out. When I was in Texas and Sandor told me to come home to the Black Hills, he also said to come visit him when I got there.
With fists full of sage, Raven and I climbed back into the car and headed to Sandor's house. I mean it's beautiful out here. Sandor greets us outside his home and points to the open prairie land. It's more peaceful out here. It's been a blessing to be here to help people. We have a ceremony here. We have Sweat Lodge here, and that other ceremonial lodge is over there in the wintertime. That's your altar place on your dash, huh? He points to the sage we collected that's drying on the dashboard.
You can arrange your chairs however you want. We take a seat under some pine trees and Sandor turns to Raven. Where's your folks at? My dad passed away a few years ago from cancer. He's the Sichangu side, because both my parents, my mom is Yihangtawan, my dad was Rosebud. And my grandpa is, on my dad's side, is the Marshall family, the Joe Marshall, the third, the author. Um, didn't he just pass away like? April. Yeah, yeah. Super recent. Didn't he write a couple books?
He wrote the Lakota Way, the Journey of Crazy Horse. I looked up to him a lot. It was really special, special to have him in my life. It's a blessing to be able to tell the stories through that medium. You could imagine, you know, old, old camps, old camps where you sit down and you're visiting with Ji or you know.
Aside from the time I spent with him in Texas, I didn't know much about Sandor, or his story, and I was looking forward to asking him about all his various roles, acting as a spiritual guide, working with IPCI, I think all indigenous people are born into policy, whether we like it or not. I think that being Lakota, understanding a little bit of our history, we all are leaders. It's just a matter of where are you going in your leadership.
And so Lakota woksapé really teaches us a fundamental concept about prayer, you know, will check you. About what wotakui is, kinship, what compassion is, you know, wonshila, what generosity is, wachantognaka, you know. What fortitude is, whatchitanka, what it means to have , knowledge, to understand something, wawbleza, to understand it, not just to know it, but to understand that these values have to continue on.
And when you understand all of that in the outside world, go get an education, come back and help your people. It's always been about policy, the suppression of indigenous rights. It's there always been a fight with this government. Whether you have indigenous people in Congress or not, it has always been fight for our rights. And so knowing that and having a responsibility to... Your prayer. And we all have a responsibility to our prayer. You can't just be sacred for these days.
As you know, obviously, I'm very new to this medicine, but also still on my own journey of just learning about where I come from and who I am. I guess for me, there's just a lot of things that I'm trying to balance with, like making sure that I am being respectful. It's just like a lot things that i'm balancing when doing my work, but feeling the privilege of like, I get to learn about who I'm through my work at the same time and I think it's really a blessing.
But one of the things that happened when I was in Texas, it's something that a few people have said to me and also you said to as well when I mentioned that I'm from Standing Rock, most people said, oh, you need to come home now. And I guess I just wanted to kind of ask you, what did you mean when you said that to me with coming back? You said, you know, you come to the Black Hills, you need come back. Well, because you have spirit. This is like all Lakota people.
When you find out that you are Lakota, I think there is a rejuvenation into understanding what your world view really is. You know, wea, we, the moon, we the sun, ampewi, iya, it's like a rock, wea tuk'a iya is creation stories. How we look at a woman is very strong, very backbone, generational keepers. So I guess empowerment of yourself as Lakota and to understand that. I think for you to come home is really to reground your spirit and to find yourself. And everybody has a Lakota name.
I don't know if you have a Lakota name. You know, but you should identify yourself in your nāghi, in your spirit, in that way to honor yourself. I felt good for you and I felt right here, you know. And that's how I said it, come back, you come home. We sat in silence, and then Sandor smoked a cigarette. Tears welled in my eyes. I felt glad to be there, but there was sadness, too. You know, the way I feel about things is that I'm getting older. We don't live forever.
And I have a desire to be as useful as I can. Be as useful I can to help the spirit of somebody. That is the responsibility that we are supposed to have. Help heal each other. Onshiki chilapi, have pity for each other. Ihaki chappi. Have heart for one another. So, that morning with that teepee and after that, and then I knew that there was something in that fire, in that medicine to help you. I knew there was a good seed planted, there's a good spiritual seed for you.
If I'm honest, I wasn't sure what would come from my visit to the Black Hills. But being here, listening, observing, learning, it's like it all allowed me to feel a connection to the medicine, the people, and the land in a way I hadn't anticipated. But I'm happy you came here today, you know, to really get a little piece of us. And we don't like to be out and open too much, you now. It's a different world. We like to more away from people. And we were blessed to be here.
Yeah, thank you for inviting me. It's just feels like a blessing even just to be here to be able to talk to you and yeah catch up with you again and slowly be more so introduced to this medicine even if it's not necessarily that I'm going to it's not always what it's about so there's still a lot of things that I am able to be in relationship with so I'm really appreciative for it.
I take a moment to breathe, to let the weight of the journey, the conversation with Sandor, and my emotions settle in. I think of our Lakota teachings, and how we are star people, and we all move through the universe, guided by the teachings of our ancestors, like Raven's grandpa. As we make our way back into the city and towards the airport, my phone lit up. It was a voice message from Sandor I'm going to send you with the song so that you remember the Lakota people, where you come from.
Ocete Shako'i, you and Raven. (Sandor Singing) And then you text. You all have a good journey. You will come home again. Remember your Lakota. See you later. Yeah, I mean, it's really sweet to be. Sent off with a song like that, which I think... It feels good to hear Lakota being spoken and it feels good to be seen as a Lakota person by another Lakota person.
It's always a little bit overwhelming for me because a lot of it is very new, a lot of first times for me, but I think for the most encouraging thing that I've gotten from this relationship with not only like with the medicine but also just like with the relationship of like knowing Sandor and starting to know that ceremony a bit is just like the openness and the inviting. And also, like, something you've talked to me about, which is like, this is your
homelands, too. Like, this your coming home, like this is your language, this is your space to take up and to be present in. So I just really, I'm grateful as well for him to be offering that to us. What Sandor shared with us about. How important it is for you to come home and for us to be home and for us to even be doing this journey together as two Lakota women.
You know, for me personally, as a Lakota person not living in my homelands, it's always in the back of my mind that I need to come back home and... Coming home is hearing the language. And hearing the songs. Taking part in traditional crafts and stuff, and people, all the Lakota people. Those are the instances that I feel like I'm coming home.
I've gotten to the point with this trip where obviously we're here with like these intentions of excitement to like be going home, to be home and I think at a certain point I felt some ease. The one thing I've come to just accept was like, wait, this is not the end of anything. This is just a continuation of our journey and it's really exciting and this is just like a part of it. Sometimes I'm like, are we ever gonna get bored of talking to each other? Like we just.
At one point I was like, damn, what if... What if we just give up? No, we're just in one long conversation. That's what it feels like. Okay, I think we're really... Do you have to head off? Probably do have time to listen to you a bit more on the drive, so I don't know if you wanted to try and listen to some of your grandpa's book again and pick a chapter. Yeah, let's do this. It's a nice send off. Chapter 8, Compassion, Wa'ooshilapi, To Care, To Sympathize, The Story of the Eagle.
Some of our elders like to tell of how our people came up out of a hole in the earth, in the southern edge of the Black Hills. That's a creation story. Altered States is a production of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics and PRX. This episode was reported and produced by Adreanna Rodriguez. This story was reported with the support of the Ferris UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. Adizah Eghan is our senior editor. Our executive editor is Malia Wollan.
Jennie Cataldo is our Senior Producer and our researcher is Cassady Rosenblum. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik. And our audio engineers are Terence Bernardo and Jennie Cataldo. Fact-checking by Graham Hacia. Special thanks to Raven Marshall and Michael Pollan. Our executive producers are Malia Wollan and Jocelyn Gonzales. And our project manager is Edwin Ochoa. Our theme music is by Thao Nguyen and Nate Brenner. And I'm your host, Arielle Duhaime-Ross.
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