Inspired by Crazy Horse

Brothers After All began with an idea. Crazy Horse’s Seven Generation Prophecy:

Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation will rise and it shall be a blessing for a sick world, a world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations; a world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.

According to Molly Larkin, Wallace Black Elk’s granddaughter, Crazy Horse made the statement as he sat smoking the sacred pipe with Sitting Bull, four days before he was assassinated. He was 35 years old.

About the same time I read this prophecy in the memoir, Black Elk Speaks, I’d also read a frightening book about what might happen if a nuclear device was detonated above the US. The final inspiration was reading a book about the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Great Law of Peace. It described a Native American democracy used as a basis for our own constitution.

So the story began…what if all three of these things came together. How could it shape our nation? Who would emerge as leaders?

Four years after starting to write the story and one year after publishing it, I continue to see how it could happen in real time. After all, who better to teach us all how to live in a post apocalyptic US than the people who’ve always known how to live here.

During November, National Native American Heritage Month, I encourage you to dig into the Native American History where you live. Go outside and touch Mother Earth. Look up and ask Creator to show you more about the people who lived here before you arrived. You’ll never look at America the same way.