A Council of Dolls

by Mona Susan Power

I miss your soft hands every night before I go to sleep.”

The point is that even in difficult times, see how the light is always working to come in. Don’t forget to notice.”

We understand that aspects of the world are so wonderfully mysterious we aren’t capable of comprehending the whole of it. Even our wisest counselors and most gifted medicine people can only graze the deepest mysteries with fingertip thoughts. And they do not press, because to do so is a god’s privilege. What is sacred, what is wakháŋ, speaks to us, shares what we need to know, and no more. Are we to be trusted with the power of perfect knowledge? Can our minds expand enough to contain star language? Can the voice of water fill us with the fierce pull of its secrets and yet we do not drown? Can we bear to hear the full store of earth’s memory? Can we hold our tongues still enough, when necessary, to avoid singing the world down?

her warmth spread wings of cover over both of us,

“Survival is never a waste.”

All I know for sure is what power we have is given to us by those who love us and depend on us.

You’re the writer, so you’ll understand this better than me, but I learned that we can’t heal the story by changing the plot, pretending the awful stuff didn’t happen. Tragedy just breaks out somewhere else along the line. The story won’t heal until the players do.

The more I reject toxic messages, the more room there is for ancestors to return and connect, guide me into a future where everything is once again alive, where everything is once

again possible. Which sounds to me very much the goal of the Ghost Dance. I’ve often wondered where I fit in our family lineage of leaders and activists. Me, the introvert hermit who lives in her imagination. Suddenly it’s plain: I come from generations of storytellers. We are the chroniclers and interpreters, the speakers and translators, the ones who respect the power of language. I belong with them. I have my own words to craft and offer up to the present moment. Words can undo us or restore us to wholeness. I pray that mine will be medicine.

All astonishment is gone, because of course these women are here, they are always here. It isn’t their fault if I didn’t see them.

No matter where I go in what remains of my life, I’ll carry them with me.

We’ve learned that healing the present doesn’t only clear waters flowing into the future, recovery also flows backward

and alleviates the suffering of ancestors. So they can set down their tears and dark memories, their guilt and shame, their vengeance. And because Time is our relative, a flexible being that moves through every thought and memory, branching into a million rivers of possibility, healing even one of its streams will eventually heal the world. Wrecked children inherit the power of the destroyed—a formidable energy. They create the ferocious allies they need either to survive or let go and embrace destruction. Mended children carry stronger medicine. Their magic unites the flow of Time with Love, our oldest waters. And so they bring us Home.