She taught me
about the way of things and
about the gifts that lay all
around us.

Her lessons were taught in
the old way,
through stories and songs.

I learned the most in the winter
months when the deserts clay
colored floor was draped
in thick high desert
snow.

She burned Hickory and Birch logs
in her old cast iron stove
and filled
the small cottage with the
scents of the earth.

I learned many things beside the
warmth of that old stove.
She would sit in her straight
backed wooden chair
and talk for hours while chain
smoking her thin,long,
brown wrapped menthol Mores.
Running her earth toned
hand up and down her mean
cats arching back.

I remember
the way she would pause and stare
at me before breaking out into a smile
full of tobacco stained crooked
teeth.
How she would laugh and call me
Big City while smoking
menthol's and drinking
sweet coffee.

I waited out mean winter storms and sat
through the angriest of monsoons
while listening and learning
within the thin drafty
walls of her tiny
cottage.

She showed me where God
lived.
And assured me that
my path would always
lead me back to here.

I learned how to
carve the soft roots of
the cotton tree.
She taught me
my first  Peyote stitch.

But most of all she taught
me the history of who I was,
who we were.

Her lessons have proved more
useful than any
of the lies I was made
to remember in public school.

The teachings by
firelight,wrapped in a
home spun blanket while
drinking scorching
hot chocolate made with mint
leaves and love.

Her voice I still hear
as clear as the
sirens that pass
outside my window.

The voice that
lives inside my head
is her voice
still teaching me in the
old way.
The only real
way there
is to know.