Medicine Blankets

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In Honor of my Father, The Chief-

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My father was born in Shreveport,Louisiana in 1930. Raised on a farm by his Cherokee Indian grandmother

and Black grandfather. He was born at home, grew up poor and non-white in the segregation era of the south, but he refused to ever be defined by these limitations. His grandparents grew all their own food, raised livestock, hand-sewed all their clothing and made everything from scratch. My father lived sustainably before it was a marketing buzz word. He knew what it meant to live simply, to have very little, but to have everything that was needed. The term mindfulness was never part of his vocabulary. Baking bread was the meditation. Sewing blankets was the mindfulness. Life was the practice.  

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After he died, I began to sit wrapped each night in his blanket as I grieved. And as I would sit with his blanket, I would remember all the things he had taught me and I kept seeing visions of his hands. His hands were always making something. So my meditation became sewing blankets. It was my way of honoring the way of my father, and it was a way to transform my grief into love.

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