Tall Moon Diaries: A search for the sensitivity of the soul

By Robert F. Bollendorf

"There are those around us who believe that one of the ways the spirits speak with us is

through dreams."

This charming look back at the life of Tall Moon begins when he, at the age of seventy-f

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684863563

Robert F. Bollendorf

Robert F. Bollendorf is professor emeritus of Human Services and the director of the Drug Education Center (retired) at College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Currently he is a licensed clinical psychologist with a private practice in Lisle, Illinois. A native of Wisconsin who still has a cottage there, Dr. Bollendorf was named Illinois Community College Teacher of the Year for the College of DuPage.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It seems they (congressmen) have more important things to talk about than my little worries and pain and sadness and death, but I think we are up against a wall now and have no alternative than to turn to the American Indians. So I think we are at a turning point. So there is a hope. There is a chance.

—Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota

I am an American Indian woman, or at least I was until I died. So I am not sure what of her is left. Am I still a woman if I no longer live in a woman’s body? Am I still an Indian if I live in a much more encompassing culture. I have no answer for these things. There is only one thing from earth I know I kept and that is I know I am still a mother. I know this because after I made my last choice on earth to step between that charging mother bear and my son Tall Moon I was given another choice to rise up to heaven or stay and follow my son to the village. Had I given him enough time to escape? Or now that I was out of the way, would the bear catch Tall Moon and kill him too? It didn’t take long for me to get my answer. Tall Moon made it to the village, and my husband killed the bear.

There, problem solved. Now I could go to heaven and rest in peace. No. My family was traumatized. My husband was without a wife, and Tall Moon and his sister and two brothers were without a mother. What would happen to them? How would they get through this? Again I chose to stay, though I knew immediately there was almost nothing I could do to directly make a difference in their lives except what I had always done and that was to pray for their wellbeing. However, two things had changed.

First, they could no longer hide from me, not even in their thoughts and feelings; and second, I had greater access to the power of the spirit. I remember how terrified I would sometimes get if I called them and they didn’t answer. When they were young, the fear only lasted a moment till I heard them giggle because they wanted to be found. As they got older and were hoping to escape doing what they didn’t want to do, it wasn’t so easy; and even though I have greater access to the spirit like my earthly brothers and sisters, our prayers too are not always answered in the way we would like.

In my life of fifty winters on earth I had seen so much tragedy. There were the troubles close to home. My great grandmother was raped by a French trapper and had his child. As much as it was painful for her, he may have provided us with some immunity to the small pox, cholera, typhoid, and malaria that white people brought with them that millions of my brothers and sisters died from. The Thanksgivings that have been whitewashed by American history that actually ended in so many deaths of my brothers and sisters in those early years, the trail of tears, the killing of buffalo. It was hard for me to believe this would have a good outcome.

Then there was (in order) it was World War I, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, World War II. In spite of the way we were treated by the American government, many Indians fought and died keeping America free. But that is enough about me this is a story of my son.

Starting with Tall Moon’s first breath on his vision quest, to him he was just paying attention to his breath, but I knew he was breathing in Ruah, the breath of life, the spirit breath. I watched as he became more comfortable with nature again and drank in Mother Earth, let the blue wave of water teach him to breath with all things.

I watched him make peace with his Brother Bear, then to learn from the deer, the moose, the crane, the eagle, and finally the turtle. I saw him and his father share a moment of bonding. I saw him walk tall into the village.

A number of things changed for him after he walked back from his vision quest with his father and Deep Waters, some he expected, some he didn’t. I wanted him to continue to spend time each day focusing on his breathing to realize that breath was so much more than breath, but he didn’t.

I kept whispering to him to stay in the moment, but he often didn’t. I wanted him to listen to the advice he got from the elders, but like his friends in the tribe, they began to pay more attention to each other than the elders. Luckily also, like his friends he wanted to be grown and have the respect of the elders.

One of the things that he was meant to do was a designated run that the elders designed through the woods. At the start of the run they were supposed to have a mouthful of water, and at the end of the run, they had to spit the water out. If they gave into the temptation of swallowing that water along the way and thus spitting only air at the end, they would have to do it again until they succeeded.

This was the second time I had watched this race; the first was when I was still a young woman. Then I wanted so bad to be included, but it was only for boys. That night instead of helping gathering wood for the fire in the village, I took a mouthful of water, ran the race, and spit out the water.

To my surprise, my father was waiting at the finish line. I thought I was in trouble, but he hugged me and told me I ran like the wind. From then on I ran where ever I went. Later, I ran from that terrible school that took me from my village; and my ancestors would bring me back to the school until one day, they gave up and let me stay in my village.

Now I watched my son run, and I asked Ruah to fill his lungs and the Father to place wings on his feet. I don’t remember asking them to place a smile on his face, but there it was. My son loved to run; at the end , he spit out the water and then just kept going.

Later he would learn of the many benefits of aerobic exercise, but for now, like his mother before him, he just knew that it felt like he and the wind were one. Later, after seventy-five years he finally started a diary. This is what he said.

Chapter 2

Tall Moon Diaries

There have been over 300,000 published research articles that demonstrate that exercise changes you for the better physically, emotionally, mentally, and abilities to cope with stress and that those changes are not just in behavior, but physical changes in the body, organs, cells, and brain. There have now been 30,000 studies that meditation does the same. Dr. Ja.

"Walk (Run) as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

—Peace is every Step" Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

I wish now I had started this diary after twelve winters instead of waiting till I had lived through seventy-five winters; but better late than never as they say. I also believe I now know more of why I did what I did and have insight into why it helped or hurt me. I’m sure there is much that I lost and also the years have altered my perceptions from where they were at the moment of their occurrence. I know Deep Waters encouraged me to start a diary then, and I don’t remember if I thought to myself that is too much work I don’t want to do it or if I thought that’s a great idea and I’ll start tomorrow and tomorrow became over sixty years but that is what happened. I wish I could tell you that from that time forward I diligently practiced meditation, but that would be another lie.

Part of the problem was that I thought I had learned what I could from that and now I just had to go about my life, but the Great Spirit looked after me and kept sending me challenges and blessings along the way to remind me I had so much to learn. The first of those came as I prepared for a rite of passage in my village. It was one that each of my friends and I looked forward to with a mixture of fear and excitement. What the elders planed for us was what they had endured for as long as any of them could remember from fathers to uncles to grandfathers. When we began to show signs of a maturing body, the boys of that age were given a mouthful of water, and we were then to run a course that was the same as our fathers and the fathers before them had run when we were moving from boys to men, and when we got to the end we had to spit out the water. If we could do that we had reached our goal and could wait for our friends to reach the end and see if they too could spit out the water. If they had given into the temptation of drinking it along the way, they would have to try again until they succeeded.

I know I had run many times before then to chase down a rabbit or in the games we would play around the village, but something happened to me that day. Something about how I could move my body in a way that felt almost effortless, like Brother Wind and I could move together. After spitting out the water I just continued to run, and each day I would run some more. The people in my village looked at me strangely because there were only two reasons to run; one, because you were chasing someone or something, or two, something or someone was chasing them. But for some unexplainable reason I loved to run. I didn’t know if I ran fast or slow because no one else did it. I just knew that for me it seemed as though my body needed it like air and water and food.

I know now that exercise has many benefits, but then I just knew I liked it.

Chapter 3

I think of this (integration) like a river. The Central flow is one of integration and the harmony it creates. One bank outside the central flow is chaos; the other is the bank of rigidity… I have found all mental illness is related to one or both of these banks.

—Daniel J. Siegel, MD Brainstorm

There are those who believe that one of the ways the spirits speak with us is through dreams. The Menominee were once called the people of the dream for the emphasis they placed upon it. All I know is my constant mantra was to help my son to learn, and a great learning moment came to him in a dream. He describes it vividly in his diary.

It was one of those dreams where I moved between observer and participant. One moment I saw the sliver of orange dawn on the east bank of the river and a turtle emerging from his shell on the west bank, and the next moment I was the turtle. As I emerged from my shell, I immediately felt sheer panic as I raced to the water’s edge. I was aware of other creatures like myself also racing. Some were heading the same direction toward the dawn, while others followed the glow of a campfire in the other direction. Above me I heard the call of seagulls diving among us turtles catching some of us in their beaks for a hardy breakfast.

Just as I reached the shore, I saw my face reflected in the water. Unlike that young Greek kid, I did not fall in love with my face. It looked old and wrinkled and my nose jutted way before everything else, but I didn’t have time to study it. Instinct told me I must reach the water to be safe, so I took a breath and rushed into the river. Once in the river, the danger was not over, for there lurked other predators that wanted to feast on us defenseless turtles. I raced to the bottom of the river fighting against the strong current more powerful because of heavy spring rains. I spotted a hole behind a rock just my size. I scrambled into it avoiding a large fish, and at once the panic began to subside. I started to survey my new home. The sun had now risen, and I could see the surface of the water. Below the surface I could see the bits and pieces of debris that the river carried, and to my side, I could see rocks and sand. My first thought was that I could simply stay in this hole and that the river would feed me, but that was when I realized unlike so many of the other creatures in the river who seemed to be able to breath underwater, I could not and that the surface held something I desperately needed—air. Again I began to panic as I fought my way against the current to reach the surface. Just as I broke the thin line between life and death for me, I awoke startled and gasping for the breath of life.

I soon settled down, fell back to sleep, and forgot about the dream until the next day. My friends and I decided to go to the Wolf River Dells and swim. It was a favorite spot for us. The Dells where high cliffs that had been carved from centuries of the rushing water that ran fast and deep. We loved the combination of fear and exhilaration of jumping into the fast current and feeling the water grow colder and darker after the force of gravity on a long fall plunged us far below the surface. As I scrambled to the surface, I remembered my dream just as I burst above the water and sucked in air.

After the swim, I decided to visit Deep Waters and discuss my dream with him. But as soon as Deep Waters learned it was about a turtle, he listened till I had finished as is the Indian way rather than talking to me further. He said, There is someone who I have been anxious for you to meet. She is part of the Turtle clan of your grandfather. She is very wise and her name is Keya Win or Turtle Woman. I’d like you to tell her your dream.

So the next day I decided to visit Keya Win who lived in a village not far from my own. I ran the 6-mile distance with ease. On the way I practiced using my senses, which I did ever since my vision quest.

I started with listening, and there was no shortage of things I could hear in the forest. I heard the gentle cooing of the morning dove, the sweet songs of the cardinals and finches interrupted by the sharp sound of the blue jays and hawks. I heard the dancing sound of a nearby waterfall and the laughing of the stream as it ran over rocks.

I saw the sun shimmering on the water and a hawk circling above his prey. I felt the sun and breeze on my body and tasted the sweat that ran down my face. I stopped and tasted the cool water of the stream. I smelled smoke from distant fires and pine trees.

Then I surveyed my thoughts and feelings. I was thinking ahead to what Keya Win would be like and felt anxious about entering a village where I didn’t know anyone. As I entered the village, my anxiety was justified as a group of young men my age gathered around me and tried to intimidate me with their best hostile looks. I admitted to myself that the looks were working, and I soon realized my mouth was too dry to speak, even though I had just stopped to drink from the stream.

Luckily a woman appeared behind them and with a friendly laugh and a soft voice, she told the boys to go find someone else to frighten.

This is my friend Tall Moon, she said, though I was quite sure she had never laid eyes on me before. She smiled at me with the warmth of the morning sun and said, Deep Waters told me I should be expecting you.

I wondered how they had talked and looked at her quizzically. She smiled again and said, There are many ways of talking that you have yet to learn. She invited me to come and sit in the shade and offered me water, which helped a great deal with my dry mouth. We sat in silence for some while, and I felt as though she learned my life story with her first glance at me.

Finally, she said, So let’s hear about your dream.

I told her the story of the dream, and she listened patiently and asked questions when I paused. She wanted to know if I thought my face was ugly when I got to the point where the turtle had seen his face in the water. This surprised me, and I thought for a while, No, the turtle thought he was ugly. I don’t think I’m ugly.

With no hint of judgment Keya Win responded, But you started out the dream observing the turtle emerging from his shell, but then you and he became one.There are a number of faces we show to the world, and any one of those we can dislike, she said.

Again I looked at her confused.

Do you think when people look at you they only see your eyes and nose and mouth? she asked.

No, I suppose not, I answered, not quite sure what else I see when I look at someone.

We just met when you walked in my village. What did you see? And go beyond your eyes; use all of your senses, she asked with a question and