A Life Remembered

~~ My Native Soul ~~

When I first started "remembering" who I really was, I felt an overwhelming urge to learn a new language. This urge is that specific feeling you get when the heavens are guiding you along your path. It is strong; it lives in your heart and your soul, pulling at you like a magnet. You just know.

I followed that pull. I don’t recall which app I intended to use, but I clearly remember scrolling through the list of available languages. One would think I’d choose something familiar, like Spanish or French, but I didn't even know what I was looking for. I scrolled from top to bottom and back again, speaking the name of each language out loud.

Then I saw it. I was immediately drawn to a name I had no earthly idea how to pronounce: Tsalagi. As I looked into it, I was fascinated. It felt like a home I couldn't quite remember. Tsalagi is the language of the Cherokee people.

This discovery helped me understand my lifelong pull toward Native American culture and spirituality. I once mentioned this affinity to an aunt, who looked at me with pure disgust. "They were a bunch of heathens," she said. "Pure heathens." It broke my heart, but I didn’t tell her that I was one of those "heathens" in a past life. She was a rigid woman—a "Christian" of the "do as I say, not as I do" variety—who only loved those who mirrored her. Thinking back on it now, especially considering the loneliness of my childhood, I realize I have simply missed my tribe.

In this life, I was born with a Native American heart and soul, but with white skin. When I was little and got into trouble, my mother would threaten to "throw me back to the Indians." She also had a toe-counting game: One little, two little, three little Indians... For whatever reason, that was a soothing part of my childhood, despite there being no native people around us.

I always hoped to find native blood in my current ancestry so I could officially join a tribe. But my mother took the names of her ancestors to the grave. She hated her father and kept him entirely out of the picture; I only ever knew my step-grandfather. No one spoke a word about my biological grandfather, and despite an aunt’s best efforts through genealogy, his identity remained a closed door. My half-brother had brown skin, but he, too, never knew his father. It was another secret my mother kept until the end.

I will always hold tight to my Native American life. I was loved then. Perhaps I stored up that love to help carry me through the hardships of this life. It remains a part of my soul. I see it in my love for crafting dreamcatchers and mandalas, and in the burden basket supplies waiting for me across the room. I wear turquoise to honor the cultures and the lives lost to the greed and judgment of those who invaded this land.

I find solace in knowing that the tribes are still together, rebuilding just on the other side of that thin veil.