Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 8:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Ode to Lyle Bald Eagle

                    Ode to Lyle Bald Eagle

Janine Bertram Kemp, [log in to unmask], writes:

Ode to Lyle Bald Eagle
April 8, 2000

    A light has gone out in Pine Ridge, South Dakota.  Lyle Bald Eagle
died
yesterday.
     I have fallen on a stone. The wind has been knocked out of me. Lyle
was
a Lakota Sioux warrior who walked in two worlds. I know only what he
told me
of his life on the Pine Ridge reservation.  It was always a plan to go
there
during the summer. It seemed that there was too much on my plate to get
away
- busy with a work and life in DC that suddenly doesn't seem near
important
enough to have missed those invitations.  He practiced traditional Sioux
ways. He started the "Quad Squad," which was a group of wheelchair
riders
that advocated for independent living.   He was utterly committed to
building
an independent living and rehabilitation center there.  He worked for
Vocational Rehabilitation and it was often hard for him to have patience
with
that bureaucracy while people with disabilities lived in remote areas
with
less than nothing.   Material poverty is overwhelming on Pine Ridge and
I
cannot begin to grasp what it is like for those with significant
disabilities. It must seem pretty bleak. There were over 200 using the
services of the vocational rehabilitation office in Kyle, South Dakota.
Kyle
is only one small part of the Pine Ridge Reservation.
    Lyle often spoke about being in the Color Guard as a Vietnam War
veteran..
 It was an important aspect of his life, a way of manifesting the
warrior
role.  With an ever encroaching white world, it is probably one of the
few
warrior images left.
   I burn sage, sweetgrass and cedar.  The sage is for purification and
then the
sweetgrass in hopes he can smell that compelling, delicious scent as he
journeys to the next world. Then I add cedar from my land on Mt. Hood in
Oregon.  That one is for my comfort. It wraps me in my mother's arms.  I
can
see Lyle smiling at the three different scents.  You know how white
folks
are, Lyle.  If one is good, three must be better.
    The candles are lit. The tape turned on. Kicking Women Singers play
the
drums and chants.  I grab my shawl and dance the dance of wrenching
loss.
Deep mourning and grief descend.
    Lyle had a terrific, understated sense of humor.  At first, I was
slow to
catch his jokes. The cultural chasm found me taking awhile to keep up.
He
was gentle, though. He never laughed out loud at me although I know for
a
fact my lack of subtlety, the white way of plunging in and self
assertion,
amused him.
We learned of each other through our mutual friends; disability rights
activists Joe Ehman and Tom Olin.  We finally met at the five day ADAPT
action in Washington, DC.   ADAPT is the activist arm of the disability
rights movement.  When you move among "ADAPTERs", you are with the
poorest,
most excluded part of the disability rights movement.  You are also with
a
delicious, diverse mix in terms of race, sex, sexual orientation, and
age.
Lyle was pretty comfortable with us.
    He was sitting on the stairs off the hotel lobby. I realized who he
was
and sat right next to him.  He mentioned prison and I said, "I've done
that."
He said, "I know."  We'd both been political prisoners. Lyle as a
displaced
veteran sent back reeling from the war to the reservation with great
rage and
despair and no place to put it except a bottle and me a refugee urban
guerilla leftist from the 70's. Doing time. Quite a bond. A veritable
brother
and sister super glue.
    There was plenty of time to talk during the evening.  Neither of us
was
in the bar and party crowd. Lyle had a book of painful lessons in the
deleterious effects alcohol has on reservation communities.
    Lyle's father was a Pipe Carrier and a Medicine man.  Clearly those
genes
were passed down. One evening Lyle held a sacred pipe ceremony for a
small
group of us.    The strength of Spirit was palpable.
    After the ADAPT action, Lyle was stayed with my roommate Tom Olin
and me
for a week while he lobbied Congress and bureaucrats for funds for a
planned
Independent Living Center with living space..  People with disabilities
are
spread over the thousands of acres of the Pine Ridge reservation.  There
is
no public transportation. He wanted a center that took account of these
realities of reservation life. Where participants would have a place to
stay
while they got the independent living skills training they needed.
    The three of us had a terrific week together. Lyle would go off
during
the day for meetings then come home and regale us with tales of his day.
He
approached officials knowing the government had lost and misused funds
belonging to Native Americans. That's not to mention a trail of broken
treaties and stolen land.  His was not a cap in hand, begging approach.
I'm
sure he raised many an official eyebrow when he half joked that he
brought a
large plastic garbage bag and wanted them to fill it with money and fund
the
independent living center.
    Among Tom Olin's many talents is that of gourmet cook. Our evenings
were
filled with delectable meals, long discussions and rich, enduring
camaraderie.
    White folks, perhaps especially those of my generation, tend to
romanticize Native Americans.  Vine Deloria, Jr., author of Custer Died
For
Your Sins and an impressive body of academic work, wrote that he met
countless young whites who were Indian chiefs and princesses in their
past
lives.  Nary an ordinary member of a tribe among them.
    Such romanticism, though alternately irritating or amusing to
Indians is
probably a good sign in whites.  We have spent generations asleep to our
connection with earth and spirit.  We have a right now mentality and
patience
is definitely not part of the picture. In Native Americans we see a
harmony
with the earth and a union with spirit.   We want that. We want to wake
up.
    I plead guilty to a past where I fell prey to such romanticism.
Although
thank God I never went so far as to pretend past lives as Black Elk,
Geronimo
or Sacajawea.
   I don't think I romanticized Lyle. Like the rest of us humans, he had
flaws.
I saw parts of the darkness he walked through and the demons he met
there.
    One could be fooled by his self deprecating, quiet style.  But make
no
mistake; Lyle Bald Eagle was a powerful man. He was a great healer and
used
his talent in a variety of ways. Lyle had a way of getting a person to
reach
within and find the quiet place that is the source of one's own
strength.
    Given the twists, turns, brutality and suffering Lyle Bald Eagle
encountered, it is remarkable that he lived his life with an open heart
and
absolute compassion. Counselor, father, husband, teacher, activist,
friend.
The loss of Lyle Bald Eagle will be felt by many.
    May Wakan-Tanka hold you on your journey to the light, Lyle.
    Mitakuye oyasin.

                    Janine Bertram Kemp
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