Love. The black hook. The spear singing through the mind.

Freedom, I found is not only in the running but in the heart, the mind, the hands.

Things which do not grow and change are dead things.

...whom he had saved from a life of excessive freedom

It's impossible to write about Native life without humor-that's how people maintain sanity.

Coming down off the trail, I am lost in my own thoughts and unprepared when a bear chugs across the path just before it gives out on the gravel road. I am so distracted that I keep walking towards the bear. I only stop when it rears, stands on hind legs, and stares at me, sensitive nose pressed into the air, weak eyes searching. I have never been this close to a wild bear before, but I am not frightened. There is no menace in its stance; it is not even curious. The bear seems to know who or what I am. The bear is not impressed.

I thought how we might have to yell to be heard by Higher Power, but that's not saying it's not there. And that is faith for you. It's belief even when the gods don't deliver.