Native American Heritage Month

Last month was Native American Heritage Month. My heritage, my culture, is something I’m extremely proud of and thankful for. I grew up on a small reservation in South Dakota. A direct descendent of a long line of chiefs that led our tribe. Hoksila Inyanke is the name I was given – “running boy.” The Lakota Sioux forged me into the man that I am today, and everything that I preach and teach here has that cultural essence embedded into it. I was raised to regard the soil below me as sacred and healing. At our ceremonies I would watch my family dance on the earth for days at time. Barefoot or in moccasins.

As a kid I was shown how to see the world. How to see the earth. And how to see the intimate connection of humans to the earth. But how the earth could heal exactly? That I didn’t know. Yet.

20 years later I can see what was happening when my family would live and dance barefoot. A part of what was happening, at least. How they would move and dance and not get tired.

It was grounding. It was connection that was both spiritual and biophysical. And 20 years later I spread awareness for something that’s not only incredibly important and essential for human health, but something that’s near and dear to the culture that I belong to. Without that culture, what I’ve done, TGA, GAIA, would not have been possible or conceptualized.

I am forever indebted to the loving people and fierce warriors that lifted me up.

Wopila

TGA ⏚