Chief Golden Light Eagle (Loren Zephier) and Many Lightnings (Shannon Campbell)

Growing up on the reservation there was always a lot of, well it was everywhere—the drugs and the alcohol, the experimenting. I fell into that in my 20s, and now that I’m in my 40s, I’m seeing that it happens a lot to people in their 20s. It’s like a blur, you know. Things started collapsing and falling apart and I felt like I let not only myself down but everyone around me. And it wasn’t a doubt with the Creator or creation. It was a doubt with me. I doubted myself because I let myself go through that and everything that was happening. I let it happen. But now I see that it all happens for a reason. It gets you to where you are now.

During my first fast on the hill, there was a voice that came. It talked to me in the ear—it was singing a song. There was nothing there but a voice, an invisible voice singing to me. I looked over but there was nobody standing there, so I sang along with them. I sang a song with them. And from that song there was an invisible something coming from the ground and it moved up my body. Then it went to the top of my head; something opened up, and everything went out. I felt light, very light. Like something was released. All the junk, all the negative thought patterns and all the things that didn’t serve my spirit were released. I felt light, and I cried.