By Jean Fleury

Sacred companionship in following a great calling; this is what I am endeavoring to do. I share with you some pieces of the deepest and most profound experience of great calling in doing the work of “Wounded Knee.”

First and foremost is anunciation. I choose this word especially to honor the mysterious, but unmistakeable way the “holy” made itself known in my small life. There assuredly cannot be any greater treasure nor gift than a direct knowing of mystery’s personal and intimate love, radiance, omnipotence, and infinite power. Great, deep, unmistakable, and ever evolving comes this greatest Love. From the foundation of this tender and great relationship, all things become possible. For what seemed like a very long time, I lived in wonder at what my next life purpose might be.

Then, I met Saniel Bonder right after the ice storms paralyzed Atlanta for two days in 2014. As we talked, there began a dawning of understanding, and by the end of our conversation we both knew our meeting was foretold in his writings of 1995. He read several passages to me from his essay: Western Arrogance and American Genocide, Come with me to Wounded Knee. Saniel sat there, a representative of the Great Holocaust of the Jewish Nations and Indigenous of the East. I sat there a representative of the Great Holocaust of the Indigenous of the Americas and the West. Saniel’s essay spoke directly about how America’s spiritual destiny could likely never be fully realized without the healing of its relationship with its Indigenous. There was a palpable numinous in the room as we stood up to take our leave from that first encounter. Yes, we quietly knew we would meet again. Thus starts this great call.

I made a formal invitation to Saniel to be his guide to Wounded Knee and especially because the 125th year anniversary of the massacre would be upon us in the coming year. The day my invitation arrived, Saniel had just been given a first edition copy of Black Elk Speaks.

I called Percy White Plume. Percy organizes and leads the Chief Big Foot Band Memorial Ride each year retracing the route taken by Chief Big Foot and his people before their end. I told Percy about all these things.

Then began coming the dreams, inspirations, and synchronicities guiding and portending the deeper work of Wounded Knee. Saniel and I knew this was a great calling, but we did yet not know how great a call!

The first dream was after just watching a documentary about the Black Rain after Hiroshima: I stand on the edge of a great water along with many people. In the water below I see a great herd of huge, beautiful white horses swimming and dancing in a great circle in the water. Suddenly, I am in the water with the horses dancing all around me; the lovely green water plants swaying in rhythm too. The horses each have a swath of a color on their flanks, green, blue, red, pink, yellow and purple. I look around to see if anyone else is seeing this magnificent water dance, but I do not see anyone. Then one of the horses swims directly over to me and looks at me directly with his right eye, deeply and powerfully. I awaken. This dream led to Chief Arvol Looking Horse performing the first Horse Dance Ceremony in some 70+ years at the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation in South Dakota the next year.

A few months later Percy, my sister Stephanie, our cousin Kathryn, and I all met at Kadoka Junction in South Dakota [ate homemade blueberry pie]. We were all quite aware of the upcoming 125th Anniversary of the infamous massacre. We knew this was meant to be special. At that meeting came the inspiration: we would be inviting the world to hold ceremony along with us! We need to do this! We need to honor our ancestors in the most profound way: ending massacre! ending genocide, ending war!

There have been many, many wonderful events that have been unfolding in support of the healing of Wounded Knee. It is very clear, this is about healing all of humanity’s Wounded Knees. To date, the most incredible event was for us to present this great call for great healing to the Parliament of World Religions! We did not plan for that! We were brought there!

I am a messenger and somewhat a guide, but the real work is for all of humanity in addressing the too long denied multi-generational, multi-lineal buried grief, rage, and trauma all leading to more conflagration. Together, right now, we need to be in deep conversation and communion together with our greatest ears, most open and tender hearts, our burliest genius, and our greatest egoic humility before creation. We need to be praying for inspiration and willing to receive and serve these higher callings, for we all are indeed being called.

In this we are all equal. No matter your age, sex, station in life, health, diseased state, wealth, poverty, role, gifts, handicaps or experiences. Where lies your ancestral grief, rage, and trauma? How has it affected your life? How does it and you contribute to human grief, shame, suffering? And if you have reaped the gifts of healing from these histories, please do join in sharing yourself with us too.

For me personally, there has been and continues to be a constancy of unfoldment between dreams, synchronous meetings, invitations, suggestions, inspirations, and hard work, commitment, and even greater spiritual awakenings/giftings with each day. And when I flag, yes! comes anew another dream, a phone call, an email message, a deeper meditation, a suggestion, a reading, a song, a shot of “pick me up” from…..

I invite all to join this great calling! We will be on a great collective journey in a constancy of sacred support on an unknown pathway of discovery unfolding in constant perfection.

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Jean Fleury is an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and is their first Tribal Peace Ambassador. She co-founded her tribe’s first Kunsi/Unci Grandmothers Society and serves as their first Chairwoman. She received her Sacred Pipe [Chanupa] from Stanley Looking Horse in 1986. It was blessed at that time by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. A practitioner of meditation for over 40 years, Jean is a certified meditation teacher and spiritual counselor. She holds a BS in Nursing and MA in Counseling Psychology. She is co-founder of Healing Hearts at Wounded Knee and global ceremonies to heal the multi-generational and multi-lineal effects of massacre, holocaust, and war upon humanity, other species and our beloved planetary home. To learn more about the Wounded Knee program,click here.