Featherflame, 2026

I am a mature Wyoming woman raised near the Wind River Reservation. As a child, I would ride my pale yellow horse out to the Rez to visit friends there. Both my parents are adopted and appear to be white; but my soul sighs with peace when I hang with the Native peoples. I taught Language Arts for three years out near Arapahoe and have also worked for the Eastern Shoshone tribe as a Child advocate and case manager. The joy of peoples long oppressed stuns and soothes me. They live "Restrained Muchness" which comes from the title of a poem I penned several years ago now called "Unrestrained Muchness". It is a poem that honors the MANY ways humans can exhibit and express passions; from the paper, the pen, and on to the modern graphic and digital technology; from the canvas, the musical notes of drum, flute, guitar and in my case several of the above and on to the living breathing flesh of Arabian race horses. I, too, am a lover of the Earth and the profound support and abundance found there. I feel the Native traditional ways sing true to the soul of this Mother. I seek the one man among all the RED blood that "knows" me. As a writer and a poet, I admire the Native "voice" on the page. The voice that comes from generations of living close to nature. Even though often in these congested contemporary times; it might be buried under politics, violence, mass media hype and other uncontrollables; it continues to be felt and touched by those who pause, in the throb of an ancient drumbeat. My Native students taught me well. I honor them until my last breath. HaHo!