A Deer's Tale

Bernie and Earl were preparing for the most important time of the year, Hunting Season. The stores selling hunting licenses, bullets, and other hunting necessities were buzzing with activity. Cases of Old Milwaukee and pasties were loaded on the pickup trucks. The women were gearing up for two blissful weeks minus the time they came home for Thanksgiving to quiet bliss without the sounds of snoring, farting and snorting of their beloveds.

            Sometimes the ground in certain areas of the U.P. was dusted with snow. Other areas were hit hard and the driving and walking through the woods was made more difficult. The hunters wanted some snow to help them track the deer they shot.

            Many hunting camps were often built rugged and with minimal hints at being a place of residence. Bernie and Earl’s camp was rustic. It was set in the middle of the woods with only a two track to get to and from the road. They managed to hook up electricity by the use of a generator and the outhouse was equipped with a gas lantern. A wood stove sat in the very center of the one room cabin. They kept the beer and pasties in large coolers. Two large wooden tables were located on both sides of the wood stove with mismatched camping chairs. A gas lantern was sitting on one of the wooden tables.

            Plastic forks, knives and spoons were placed in a large coffee tin in middle of one of the tables. A basin of water was sitting on a small cupboard by the doorway. The hunters used a large drum to collect rain water. This water was used to clean up when they felt it was necessary, which wasn’t too often. Three sets of bunk beds lined three of the walls. There was a window by the door and the door had a small window. The larger window was covered with an old torn green bed sheet.

            Every man in the U.P. no matter what their talent is for hunting thought they were the best hunters in the world. It was their god given right to inherit this gift, but Earl could not hit the side of a barn at fifty yards.

            “Earl, buddy, did you practice shooting like we tolds you to do last summer,” asked Bernie.

            “Like I’s told you before, I don’t need da practice. I haven’t bagged me a deer yet because those crazy deer know when I am comin.’”

            “I don’t know Earl. I hate getting my deer every year and you have to tell yer old lady that you didn’t get yers. I feel bad for ya. Let’s go out shooting tonight.”

            Earl looked a little bothered by his bud’s suggestion and turned around and left the store in a huff.

            “Oh, come on buddy. Get back here,” said Bernie.

            Earl didn’t look back. He kept on walking.

            Bernie finished shopping and he was trying not to let Earl get him in a bad mood. This was Bernie’s favorite time of year and nothing was going to get in between him and the outdoors. He loved going to camp, telling stories, playing poker and hunting from dawn to dusk. This is what he lived for and he knew his buddy would pull out of his funk and join the fun.

           

            The day finally arrived, November 14^th.   It was time to load up the truck with gas, load up the tank with gas for the generator and the backup tank too. Can never be too sure if it is going to be too cold to hunt and they may be stuck inside playing poker.

            Bernie was so excited. Gertrude, Earl’s wife, made all the pasties for the trip. Ellie, Bernie’s wife, cured the strips of beef and smoked it to make beef jerky. Big tins of cookies were prepared by the other wives. Things were really looking good for the two week excursion.

            Earl showed up at the last minute to load his gear in Bernie’s truck. He wasn’t smiling but that didn’t dampen Bernie’s spirits.

            The first night started out with a bang. Everyone wanted to wet their whistles and play poker. They downed quite a lot of beer that first night and woke up the next morning with the eye of the dog biting them really hard. They were all drinking the mountain ice tea one of the wives prepared. Didn’t seem to do the trick so they went back to bed and woke up a few hours later ready to hit the woods after eating a couple of pasties.

            “Bernie, I am sorry I got so mad at you last week,” said Earl

            “It’s okay buddy. We are out in God’s country right now and there isn’t ain’t a thing to be concerned with,” replied Bernie.

            They headed to their blinds to sit and wait for the deer to come to them. Both sprayed deer pee on themselves to hide their human scent and off they went.

            Earl was settling in and started gazing toward a group of trees and he crawled out of this blind and aimed at a young buck off in the distance. He tried to hold his gun steady. He took aim and shot. The deer fell to the ground. Earl was amazed that he finally hit a deer. When he almost reached where the deer fell, the deer jumped up and ran off.

            Earl scratched his head and went back to his blind. He thought for sure he hit the deer.

            Earl dozed for a while and when he woke up he saw the same deer a short distance away from his blind. He quietly crawled out of his blind, stood up, took aim and shot. The deer fell down again. Earl smiled and walked quickly over to where the deer fell. He couldn’t find the deer.

            I have to ask Bernie if he is having the same luck I am tonight at da dinner table.

            Earl started walking towards Bernie’s blind to see how he was doing.

            “Bernie, did you see any deer today,” asked Earl.

            “Ya, I did. I even shot at a deer today. But the funniest thing happened. When I got close to where the deer fell, dat deer got up and ran away,” replied Bernie.

            “Dat’s been happening to me today too. Never happened before. Most years I don’t see any deer.”

            “We gots to ask the other guys tonight if they had any luck,” said Earl.

            The poker game was going well that evening. It was nickel and dime so the losses didn’t hurt too much. Earl had a bunch of money sitting in front of him. It was his lucky night.

            “Hey guys, I have to ask you something. I shot at a deer today and it fell down. When I walked up to dat deer, it ran away. Did that happen to you today?” asked Earl.

            “No, we didn’t see any deer today,” replied Gerald, one of their hunting buddies.

            “Dat’s strange what you are saying, Earl,” said Billy, another hunting buddy.

            “I know. I usually don’t have any luck at seeing any deer all hunting season. I finally get a chance to shoot at deer and they run away after falling down,” said Earl. He looked disappointed and opened another can of Old Milwaukee.

            They called it an evening a lot sooner than the night before. Gerald woke up the whole camp in middle of the night when he appeared to be farting a sound in his sleep. The covers of his sleeping bag rose with each fart. The rest of the guys covered their ears with their pillows and went back to sleep.

            The next day was a nice day. The sun was shining. The dusting of snow on the ground made a slight crunching sound when the hunters walked over it. The light mist rain that fell during the early evening froze over the night in the below freezing temperatures. The hunters trudged through the woods to their perspective blinds to get in another day of hunting.

            A short distance away from Earl’s blind, the deer that showed up the previous day was standing by a small group of trees. The deer appeared to be pacing back and forth in front of the trees taunting Earl. Earl stayed in his blind this time and aimed at the deer and shot. The deer fell again. Earl climbed out of his blind and walked over to the spot the deer fell. The deer got up before Earl reached the spot and ran off.

            Earl decided to follow the deer. The deer joined a couple of other deer in a small meadow. It appeared as if they were communicating with one another and then one deer fell to the ground and it looked like he was laughing. His legs were flailing and the other deer looked as if they were laughing with him. Earl could not believe his eyes. He needed to tell Bernie what he saw.

            Earl walked to Bernie’s blind and asked he could talk to him. Bernie and Earl sat on the ground in front of a large tree and Earl commenced to tell Bernie what he saw.

            “I can’t believe I saw da deer fall, get up and then run off again today. I decide to follow dat deer and he was meeting with other deer. They seemed to be laughing and this is going to sound crazy, but I think they are making fun of me,” said Earl.

            “You know what I thinks we should do. We can’t tells the other guys,” said Bernie.

            “What’s that?”

            “We need to go into town and see that fortune tell and see if she can shed some light on this problem.”

            “I have some beer money left. We can use that,” said Earl.

********

            Eloise the fortune teller was busy with another client. He was one of the hunters from another camp. Earl and Bernie stared at him when he walked out of the front door of the establishment.

            Eloise asked Earl and Bernie to come into the room in the back and had them sit at a round table. She looked into her crystal ball and asked them why they came to visit her. Earl told her the story about the deer.

            She closed her eyes and asked said a little chant. Earl thought she said the word “cheetos” or he thought maybe he was getting hungry because it was after lunch. He closed his eyes too to help with the process. Eloise stopped chanting and asked the Earl and Bernie to open their eyes.

            She told them, “I saw the deer in my crystal ball and I was told by them that they are not going to let you shoot them and kill them. They said they pretend to die to fool you and they know that you are terrible at using your fire sticks. They want you to go back to your homes and leave them alone.”

            Earl and Bernie were stunned at learning that the deer were smart enough to play tricks on them. They always felt they were smarter than any animal.

            “Are ya sure dat’s what they told you,” asked Bernie.

            “Yes, I am. They spoke loud and clear,” replied Eloise.

            “I don’t know about you buddy, but I don’t think we should tell the other guys about what we learned,” said Bernie.

            “I think we should keep it a secret, too,” responded Earl.

            Eloise accepted the 20 pasties and $50. from Earl and Bernie and sent them on their way.

            They didn’t tell a soul and went home this year without a deer.

          

           

           

           

           

Discovering Our Cultural Values and Identity

“The point of the journey is not just healing.

It’s also recovering the truest, most

spontaneous, joyful, and

creative core of ourselves.”

Gloria Steinem

We establish a sense of belonging by learning about our cultural roots leading us down a path of discovery. We can meet others who are on the same paths as we are and they can provide us with positive support and encouragement. Sometimes people can be their own worst enemy and do the opposite of what is needed. For example, many Euro-Americans have lost touch with their cultural origins. A person of European descent once said “What about the white people? We left our families of origin to move to this country and forego our cultural ties to the communities we left behind. We have suffered also.”

            Yes, many Euro-Americans did suffer. All of the people in the world resided in some form of tribal community during the distant past. For the sake of becoming mobile societies, a multitude of people have lost valuable connections to their cultural roots. The results of the Aboriginal Healing Project in Canada demonstrated the importance of returning to our cultural heritage. Cultural intervention has been associated with successful healing practices concerning overcoming the harmful effects of historical trauma. 

            Activities aimed at renewing and reviving Native American cultures have contributed to individual, family, and community healing. These activities include Elders’ teachings, storytelling, language programs, activities involving nature, feasts, Pow Wows, learning traditional art forms, harvesting medicines, drumming, singing, and dancing. Culture is connected to the collective values and worldviews of all people. Culture is the shared set of beliefs derived from the group’s practice of a shared language, behaviors, customs and knowledge and a common understanding of reality, history and future for a specific group. Cultural interventions tend to be collective activities and these activities promote a sense of belonging.

Many of us have merely existed in limbo trying to figure out who we are and what is really important to us. Take note about what is important to you and make a list of your values. Explore where these values came from; for example if you know you are of Indian descent, what is the significance as far as your own personal belief system. We need to place importance on our values and to remind ourselves that those who forsake their values to please others pay a high price. Our cultural values strongly represent who we are. We would be hard pressed to find many people who can say they are 100% Native American or any other ethnic group for that matter in this country. The United States is a melting pot of diverse ethnicity. We need to consider other factors as well when questioning our cultural values and making the determination about what is important to us. 

The following exercise is designed to help us enhance our cultural awareness. We can meet with family members and/or work by ourselves to examine responses to the following questions in our effort to explore our own culture:

·         Who took care of us when our mother or caregiver was away from home? At what age were we left alone? At what age were children in our family given responsibility to care for the other children in the family?

·         What form of discipline or punishment did our family use most often? Did this form of discipline effect how we felt about our parents? How so? Were there any kinds of discipline or punishment our parents wouldn't use because they felt it was harmful to us?

·         What were the family rules about meals? Did everyone sit down at the table together? Who cooked? Did our family cook regular meals every day? Could we eat whatever we wanted, when we chose? What kind of food did we eat most?

·         Did our family have different expectations for specific children in the family? Older or younger children? Boys and girls?

·         Who made what kinds of decisions in our family? Which were made by our mother, our father, or other family members? Any joint decisions? What influence was there from extended family, grand-parents, others living in the home? What decisions were children permitted to make for themselves?

·         Who did our family turn to for help and support in times of need or trouble? Did we help ourselves?  Did we turn to immediate or extended family? Did our family have a wide range of extended family and friends? A church group? A community? Did we turn to professional helpers such as a plumber, electrician, counselors, and/or the bank for exam-ple?

·         Did adults other than our parents care for us for a period of time or have a strong influence on our development? How did we feel about being cared for by people other than our parents? What was our relationship with relatives? What part did aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, non-blood family members play in our lives?

·         What were our family's values and beliefs con-cerning the following:

Respecting our Elders

Formal education

Finances, money, and the importance of money and success

Rites of passage

Religion and spirituality

Codes of Conduct

The role of reciprocity (a mutual interchange of        favors and privileges)

Appreciation for diversity (learning valuable            lessons from other cultures)

The major life goals our families had for us

·         What family values and patterns of behavior do we still adhere to and which have we changed (Institute for Human Services, 2008)?

            The practice of cultural interventions cannot be considered the entire part of our healing, but it will open the door to more intensive healing by creating a sense of identity, pride, and belonging. It can lead to developing a better sense of underlying values such as wholeness and balance. Healing is sacred and there are various forms of cultural practices that may enhance our healing process.

            Ways in which to explore our cultural heritage may include meeting with other family members and ask what ethnic groups our family came from before coming over to this country if we are not only of Native American descent. If you are of Indian descent, again meet with elders, attend cultural events such as Pow Wows and read books about the Indian and other cultures you may be connected. Again, many of us have several lines of descent from European, Native American to Asian.  Explore your heritage by using the internet. Your exploration and discovery of your cultural values and identity will prove to be very rewarding.

The Blame Trap

“When you cast blame, you disempower yourself

and relinquish control of your destiny.”

Kirk Charles

            Finding fault with others stops us from taking control and effectively handling difficult situations. It wastes our energy and time instead of exploring how we can positively influence the situation. We have chosen to be a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. In other words, blaming keeps us from imposing corrective action. Blame and fault finding serve no useful purpose in emergencies or our everyday lives. It involves finger pointing. Whenever we point our index finger at someone else we need to remind ourselves that three fingers are pointing back at us. So in essence we need to ask ourselves “What role did I play in this situation?” or “What did I do to perpetuate this situation?” Instead of finding fault, we can use our precious time to seek solutions. We will be moving forward instead of backwards.                                                                                                

          When we hear ourselves blaming or finding fault with others we can be assured that we are still keeping ourselves infused in the grip of the blame trap and we are not fully accepting the vast amount of opportunities await-ing to unfold for us. We have been conditioned to compare, rate, score, judge, and assign value to movies, oranges, music, furniture, cars, people, animals,  professional sports teams, and so much more. We discuss good and bad, beau-tiful and ugly, skinny and fat. We notice gorgeous, awful, stupid, wonderful, nice, better, the worse and the best. Nothing seems to escape the critical, judgmental, evalu-ative mindset of this country (Sherfield, 2004).

            Blaming others is a good example of our con-ditioning which has provided us with a means of not taking responsibility. It is a way of using language to assign ownership to someone else for the choices we made. As a result of blaming others, we have given up our personal power. If we blame others, we put them in the driver’s seat. We give them the power, rendering ourselves powerless and out of control. When we blame others we train our-selves to focus on others preventing us from examining our role in any given situation and diverting responsibility to others (White, 2008).

                       

Some examples to help us decide if we are residing in the blaming trap are:

·         “It’s my parents’ fault. They were too abusive.”

·         “My spouse’s abuse ruined my life.”

·         “My boss is the boss from hell” (Coleman and Harris, 2000).

            Self-criticizing will trap us in the blame game. Self-criticism comes in various forms: second guessing; self put-downs; and using adjectives to describe ourselves, such as “I am fat.” We need to move from describing ourselves to describing our behaviors. Think back to our childhoods. Many of us were called a bad kid because we did something like track mud into the house. It would have been better to be scolded for not taking our shoes off at the door? Another example, we could say “I am not fun” and change it to “I was not fun last night.” See the difference. We are not attacking our entire being, only one behavior. 

            Second guessing is very easy to recognize because we add shoulds and should nots to our conversations. Avoid using the word should. We can’t change the past so we may as well learn from each and every experience. 

            Accepting reality is one the goals of many healing modalities. Facing and coming to term with reality is beneficial. Acceptance is frequently the turning point for positive change. We have many things to accept through the course of any given day. Our present circumstances include who we are, where we live and live with, where we work, our mode of transportation, how much money we have, what our responsibilities are, what we may do for fun, and any existing problems. Sometimes accepting the things in our life can be a breeze when things are going well, then it is when things are not going so well (Sherfield, 2004).

            When dealing with unresolved trauma, we may feel overwhelmed by problems, losses or change. Even our healing journey can reveal losses we are struggling to accept. If some things in our lives have not been going well, we may have accepted a life filled with these problems. Without these challenges our lives may feel a little off balance.  We need to understand acceptance does not mean adaptation. It doesn’t mean resignation concern-ing the problems we are facing. It means we acknowledge and accept our circumstances, including our-selves and the people in our lives, as we are and they are. It is only from the state of acceptance we can achieve the ability to evaluate our present situation. 

            We have been conditioned to judge so many things that cross our paths from sport teams to cars. If we fall into the blame trap, we limit our opportunities to enhance our skills at handling difficult situations. We are no longer in the driver’s seat because we have failed to take respon-sibility for our own decisions and actions. Avoiding using the word should allows us to be in the present moment instead of hanging out in the past or our reaction to the past. We cannot change the past. Getting past our need to self-criticize ourselves will free us from our self-hatred pri-sons. We need to be careful to only judge our behaviors and not our entire being. Taking responsibility for everything life has to offer places us in control.