I carved her name into the tree. The tree goes sick and died. I carved her name into my

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Throughout communities, where you will never experience the divine, unless you first pour libations.

Not bread, not meat, not prayers, not offerings, and must pour the liquid. Nothing else will call the God.

And with other groups, the ritual must begin and end with fire. There is no substitution if there is no fire. There will be no God.

And as whole peoples are wiped from the planet, whole traditions swallow. We've lost so much knowledge, so much access.

But I know this. Several cultures have revered God that only entered to the thump of a communal drum.

As I was reminded just the other day, walking through my neighborhood and happening upon a drum circle.

This pounding incantation, this rhythmic plea for the God to appear. You can't do this alone.

There'll be no answer to one person playing in solitude, only the rhythm of a collective will wake certain powers.

On the rhythms, sparring, beats joining together, breaking off the joust of drums and sound and thin as the beat builds.

To a frantic staccato, a woman leaps into the center of the circle. She dances, thrashes with the fury transformed as if inhabited by someone.

A power controlling her as one would Amerianat. The drummers, they welcome this new visitor with reverence, joy, with rhythm.

They play in celebration of the God's presence amongst them. Even now, with all we've lost, not everything is forgotten.

Not yet.

When you make a call,

to the powers that be, perhaps it's not a God that hears your cry.

Our storyteller is a member of the Pawnee Nation, and he knows better than the go looking for trouble, but sometimes trouble finds him.

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