Day 50
Pine Ridge to Wounded Knee
I spent the better part of the morning in
Pine Ridge writing some reflections and chatting with the homeless community
who find refuge and friendship at the center for reconciliation. Theirs is an anxious life made more so by the
fact that the tribal council has stopped support of the shelter. There were some who expressed envy over the
freedom my bike and cart represented.
Although alcohol is prohibited on the
reservation, there are half a dozen marijuana dispensaries. The
establishment next to the center was called “No Worries” and had a very
attractive sign inviting all patrons. To
an anxious population, this is a very seductive advertisement.
After lunch, I left Pine Ridge and started
to bicycle to Wounded Knee (population 350).
Once again, my GPS, in its effort to keep me away from busy roads, led
me through remote dirt paths which were covered in mud. At one point along the way I had to push my
bike for 3 miles through foot deep mud which is an exhausting undertaking. Though the “bike friendly” route saved me 4
miles, it took an additional 3 hours to plough through those places I could not
ride through.
When I reached the pavement, I could see
dark clouds gathering over my destination 5 miles ahead of me. I could see an amazing light show of
lightening which made feel very vulnerable in the absence of any shelter along
the way. As the rain began, I was
blessed yet again by a kind soul which pulled over. A truck driven by a Lakota woman and her son
jumped out and asked me if I had a place to stay. I informed her that I was going to staying at
the Episcopal Church and she and her son loaded me and my bike into their truck
as the skies opened up.
She introduced herself as Gloria Wounded
Foot. She was the mother of 5 boys; 3 of
whom were in prison, one in a psychiatric hospital, and her youngest (10 years
old) was helping her on her errands. She
said that she has been in Wounded Knee her entire life and has never seen a
cyclist in the region. She invited me to
her house for dinner. I was covered with
mud and felt I should try to keep my filth to myself and politely
declined.
That night, I continued reading “The
Solace of Fierce Landscapes”
“…The desert as metaphor is that uncharted
terrain beyond the edge of the seemingly secure and structured world in which
we take such confidence, a world of affluence and order we cannot imagine ever
ending. Yet it does. And at the point
where the world begins to crack, where brokenness and disorientation suddenly
overtake us, there we step into the wide, silent plains of a desert we had
never known existed.
We cross its sands-unwelcomed, stripped of
influence and reputation, the desert caring nothing for the worries and warped
sense of self-importance dragged along behind us…The deepest mystery of love is
never realized apart from the experience of having nothing to offer in
return. Only there does love reveal
itself in unaccountable wonder.
In that place we discover ourselves no
longer alone. In the wilderness, we meet
other wizened souls who have weathered sun and heat, all of them healed of the
same wound. There is wildness in their
eyes. The hardly give a damn for the things
they used to find so terribly important.
Scarcely fit for polite company they nonetheless love with a fierceness
echoing the land through which they have passed….They are what the church has
been summoned to be, a community of broken people, painfully honest,
undomesticated, rid of the pretence and suffocating niceness to which ‘religion’
is so often prone. They love,
inexplicably and unflinchingly, because of having been loved themselves.”
When we arrived at the church she helped me
unload my filthy bike and gear and insisted I take her phone number. I told her that I am taking pictures of the
kind people I have met along the way and she agreed as long as I included her
son. She stood on her tiptoes, kissed my
forehead, and left.
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