THE ELDER’S THOUGHTS

They said I would be changed in my body

I would move through the physical world in a different manner

I would hold myself in a different posture

I would have pains where there was no blood

I would react to sights, sounds, movement and touch in a crazy way

As though I was back in the war

They said I would be wounded in my thoughts

I would forget how to trust and think that others were trying to harm me

I would see danger in the kindness and concern of my relatives and others

Most of all

I would not be able to think in a reasonable manner

It would seem that everyone else was crazy

They told me that it would appear to me

That I was alone and lost even in the midst of the people

That there was no one else like me

They warned me that it would be as though my emotions were locked up

That I would be cold in my heart

I would not remember the ways of caring for others

While I might give soft meat or blankets to the elders or food to the children

I would be unable to feel the goodness of these actions

I would do these things out of habit and not from caring

They predicted that I would be ruled by dark anger

That I might do harm to others without plan or intention

They knew that my spirit would be wounded

They said I would be lonely

That I would find no comfort in family, friends, Elders or spirits

I would be cut off from both beauty and pain

My dreams and visions would be dark and frightening

My days and nights would be filled with searching and not finding

I would be unable to find the connections between myself and the rest of creation

I would look forward to early death

and

I would need cleansing and healing in all these things

Source: An Elder of the Nez Perce Tribe of the Western Plains.

(The Reading has been passed down for hundreds of years)