Last week I got a really sweet card from Aunt Coreen. She said she won the cards playing BINGO at the new nursing home and how kind everyone there had been to her. She sounded happy and nurtured and safe. I was so glad to know that was there for her, and I attempted to call a few times to no avail. She was sending me a thanksgiving for the new ceremony dress that Lulu and I had created and sent to her. She had asked for the dress when she moved into the nursing home, as she had stains on her last dress we had designed. She wanted to look pretty when she came to visit us for “her Dance” in April. She wanted to look like the Holy Woman that she is when she left this world to go home to Spirit. What and honor it was to be part of that journey for her and with her for the last 17 years. She has been my inspiration, and my great teacher, friend and alley in ways that I could never have known when we met.

For the last 17 years, there has always been a box being packed up for Aunt Coreen. She would call or write and tell me what to pack for the next ceremony, feast, honoring, give away or of someone in serious need. She would give me sizes for children whose parent had just died or been jailed. She would send us looking for school supplies for the families in need and diabetic food for her friends. When we would ask what she needed, she might say a pair of slippers or a night gown or if she was really bold she would ask for her favorite sugar free candy. Her desires became the means for many a fine adventure and healing time with different women’s circles on the East coast. Each month, I would pass on her list of gifts and desires to help others, and away we would go. Hundred of boxes ended up on her door step, and where the contents went, simply did not matter as much as knowing that we would hear her call.....”OH, GOODY. I GOT THEM BOXES AND THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN. I GAVE EVERY NUR SE HERE A PAIR OF THEM SLIPPERS AND THEY REALLY LIKED EM’. HEY MY BOY JOHN IS GUNNA DO HIS LAST SUN DANCE. I WANT TO HAVE MANY QUILTS TO GIVE AWAY AND MAKING HIM SOME PILLOWS TOO. YOU SEND ME THIS MUCH FABRIC AND SOME STUFFIN’ OKAY... GEEZ, I LOVE GETTIN THEM BOXES...” and so our relationship went from the day we met on the Sun Dance grounds, until this day, when I stand alone in Alabama, Cannunpa Wakan in hand and bid my sweet sis-star farewell.

She always swore she knew nuthin about the old ways. Then she would sit for hours and show me her pictures of her father and tell me stories of him and Wovoka and dancers of the night. She would tell me about her father’s Yuwipi ceremonies and advise me of ways to protect my home in the big winds. We always call to her, when the big winds come out here. I called her from many a ceremony and asked her for a recipe to make anything from fry bread to Ceremony soups. She was on it. She joined us in prayer as we danced through the Alabama nights for all of these years. We shared prayer ties back and forth and songs on the phone and laughter about what we had seen together while standing on opposite sides of the nation. She would laugh and ask me if I saw her when she came in the dawn star as we completed. I always did. She wanted me to remind each of you who knew her, that she knew nothing and everything. That she watched over you all and loved you all and protected you with the Medic ine ways her father had shared with her. She told me about all of the things she wanted to learn about and the places she wanted to see. She was proud when she got that flushing toilet and her own bathroom. We picked out towels together on the phone and filled up her soap drawer. She was so proud when BJ took on the old ways, and when she saw his young relations growing up singing on the drum and carrying on the dreams of her father and her ancestors. She wanted the boys to know that each year they Sun Danced was special to her, and she lived from dance to dance. I always felt honored when she would return to the tree and hang my flag there, when I was not sure that I could come myself. I will miss her, yet she dances on in my heart, as I know she dances on in yours.

I will miss filling her boxes and shopping for her favorite flannel night gown. I will miss her laughter and her great advise that was there for every ceremony that happened at Hawkwind since we met. I will always cherish my story of her squeezing fresh oranges into my mouth when I collapsed from fasting so long at Sun Dance. I sat as a lone bleeding woman who had prepared for that dance like no other. It was to have been my completion dance of four years, as well as to take a place at Tarwater’s side. I was in prime shape and had timed myself for this special event; and then old Pete Swiftbird showed up and turned my world upside down. It was Aunt Coreen who found me passed out. She squeezed an orange into my mouth and sang to me, while I reached back into this world. She was taking a walk from her place to try to see the Sun Dance from the ridge above the grounds. We became fast friends. The next year, she honored me, with allowing me to dance her steps for her. On that fourth day, my four year completion , she joined me at the Sun Dance Tree; I made a pledge to her ancestors and her father that I would look out for her and honor her until the day she could return to the Spirit world. It has been a glorious journey, as I have come to know all of her family and her own story while filling boxes and sending the give away from our dances, year after year. I know that our lodges, quests and dances have entwined and that her dream that we are really all one Sacred family has held true. Today, I honor each of you that has been a part of our lives through the hands and heart of the beloved Cora Wounded Red Hair, keeper of the Dawn Star Medicine. May her truth and gifts continue through her grandchildren who where the light of her life. She and I have a deal to meet on the other side, cause she wants to know what it would be like to travel the world with room service like John and Steve taught her. She liked those trips and wanted more.

Mitakuye Oyasin

Charla Hermann at Hawkwind