by Wendy S. Melton

Created on: February 05, 2007   Last Updated: December 14, 2011

As I was growing up, I was always outside. Always around animals. Wild or tame, it didn't matter. I felt a closeness to nature that was hard to explain. As I grew and learned about my family history and ancestry, I began to develop a new appreciation for the environment. 

I was taught that the world around us was filled with many beautiful and wonderful things. That Grandfather had given us plants for healing, trees for shade, water to bathe and play in. He had also given us the gift of his messengers, the animals. It is true that Grandfather could use anything to send us a message, a leaf, a stone...anything. But the animals were special. They could come to us.

My grandmother told me about my great-great grandmother who was a full blooded Lakota. It made me curious and I began to read everything I could get my hands on. As it turned out, from the time I was small, she had been teaching me tradition. Bits and pieces of the heritage that would one day become my path in life. I came across some books that explained some of the concepts of animal medicine. As I looked over my life, I began to connect the dots, so to speak.

Before long, I had discovered patterns. For every situation there seemed to be an animal that made itself known. Sometimes a hawk or a crow, other times, a fox or wolf.

It got to the point, that I began to be on the lookout for what messenger would be put in my path. Sometimes I would be surprised at who would show up. It never failed though, each and every time, the animal that presented itself was in some way sending me a message.

Our environment and the animals and other living things that dwell in it are firmly placed within the web of life, just like we are. What we do to our natural surroundings, we also do to ourselves. What affects one, affects the other. We are not separate entities, but parts of the same whole.

Being Native means you are instilled with a connection to Nature that many would not understand. It also entails an obligation to the earth and its creatures. We are all entwined in the web of life, the two-leggeds, four-leggeds, the winged ones, the insects and aquatic life. We all reside together in this big, wide world. It stands to reason that as co-habitants of this wonderful earth, we have much to share with each other.

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