Psychic Telephone · 30
Steven
Some of the experiences Steven’s had, the white man might call psychic. And he’s had many, many, many experiences. If he explained them all it would take days, months. It’s not psychic, though. It’s a connection, spiritual connection. The connection allows him to look into people. He sees what they believe, sees what they don’t. It’s a tool.
He knows sometimes when people are coming to see him, beforehand. It’s just a feeling he gets once in a while. His hands get hot. He told Lisa one time, You need to cook up a big pot of soup. She was going, What? It was like nine o’clock at night. He said, There’s some people coming. We’re going to need a big pot of soup. About midnight they showed up, a whole carload. And they had more than enough food. So that’s the kind of experiences he’s had. But it’s not psychic. It’s the Earth—feeling the vibrations of the Earth.
Steven didn’t start going to ceremonies till he was about nineteen or twenty. Then he didn’t run any ceremonies till he was older. The Lakota take their time, he says. It’s all about taking their time. He started by keeping fire for somebody, for sweat lodges. Learning what he needed to learn. Understanding some of the things he needed to understand. The Lakota don’t talk too much. He’s always been taught to shut up and listen. When you do that, you learn a lot. You learn a whole lot.
Sweat lodge fires are hot. You heat up stones for the sweat. They’re called stone people. He did it for so long, he made a relationship with the stone people and the fire. With the fire and the stones and the wood, everything. You make a relationship, a spiritual relationship. So now, he says, he can pick up a glowing hot stone that would burn anybody and hold it. People have seen him pick up glowing hot stones. One guy one time—Steven said, Do you want a stone to help yourself with? The guy said, Yeah. Steven grabbed one, he picked it up and he said, Get a towel. The guy said, No, I’m okay. He said, Get a towel. The guy said no. Are you sure? Yeah. Okay! He put it there, it put blisters on his hands.
But that all comes from making relationships with the stone, and the fire, everything. And it took many, many years to do that. He sat there, with the fire and the stones, and he talked with them and he sang them songs. Lots of songs. The more he sang the songs to them, the stronger his relationship with them became. And he got to where he could get right up next to the fire and it wouldn’t burn him. Actually it would go the other way—it would stay back so he could work with a part of the fire. And it was good. That was something.
The easiest way he can think of to explain it is mitákuye oyás’iŋ. “All my relations.” All life comes from Mother Earth. When we understand that, when we understand that everything we have, everything we do, everything we wear—we wash our hair, we eat our food— Everything comes from Mother Earth, doesn’t it? Yeah. Walking through life, you understand and you start to create a relationship with everything around you. All around the universe. Everything. We’re created that way. We’re created out of Mother Earth. We have a connection with Mother Earth. And that’s part of the Lakota way of life. Because Mother Earth is important. She gives us food, she gives us water, she gives us everything we need. And that’s the easiest way he can explain that.