hearty walk on we have shared with one another as we consider what it means to be vigilant with gratitude to the lakota people on whose homeland we stand we begin the two thousand and fifteen coming racism conference with the drum so the hand and voice of the standing will singers whom i shall introduce shortly we began this conference calling the spirit to be among us through the drum why the drum the drum is the heartbeat of the earth the drum beat and the beat of the heart when the line flow with the rhythm of life in the meter of the universe sustaining the universe through the beat of the creator's heart the beat of the drummer is a healer transformer co or spiritual messages the drum unites us all in one heartbeat unites us all in one being the drumstick that strikes the drum is vital part of our relatives the trees the plants the flowers with the drum all the natural world is present puls and vibrating at times you will see on some of the drumsticks feathers from the bird people these are placed on the opposite in from the drum head with with this power of the sky people the trees the sky the earth all are connected all are connected to the drum through the hand to the heart the straightness of the drumstick symbolizes the straight and narrow path of true voice that are to follow as commanded by the great spirit and so the stick and the drum represent all of being things all that paul sates and vibrates the stick striking the drum release is its voice its voice it heart beat connecting the drum to all of creation the reputations that you hear within the song are representative of the four directions the repetitions and so in those repetitions you have the medicine wheel of the east the south the west the north combining all together up and down in all of these directions for us the drum is a relative a grandfather to whom we listen with respect and at certain moments in the drum we stand and do honor  because of a particular significance that the song may have as it may honor people or may be calling upon the spirit and if you see any of us stand you will notice that we stand with their hats off in this recognition and so it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce the drum the standing bull singers and they are virtual mountain black place and he is from lower sioux community would you raise your hand if you thank you tony frank from turtle mountain community travesty coy  tribe and their manager sue tim's bassett and where she thank you in the front row thank you very much and the dru codice have a long history here i heard that mentioned this morning and i was very happy to hear that again our word for the state here is really that correct pronunciation is minnesota state of minnesota it's in the sort that our oral tradition tells us that at this one at one time all these lakes had dried here for a while i'm very honored to be asked to come and say a blessing for all of you and for this conference i want to ask at this time that we i my nephew here virgil and do the cleansing for all who want to participate i would like to ask them to come down here in line here so he can take this age and do the blessing go forth here today so i'll ask you to whoever wants to participate in that cleansing to please come down here and line up down here in the front here and then  thank you very much while he is doing that there's too many people coming down here maybe we can just discourse head and do this smudging and then you can return to your seat how is that ok all right good so while he's doing that i will offer the prayer and then there's always two things that i've asked that people do or in these stings is they go ahead and clean it all you return to your neighbor someone who you do not know is not a relative and i like you to ask that person will you be my relative for the next two days very good will start to smudging and i will offer the blessing i hope you didn't get a nose i hope they were all yesus that is a ceremony that we and grandmother so i'll go ahead and say the blessing here while the smudging is going on we have a saying all my relatives again i was very happy to hear that talked about that we are relative to everything in creation if we grow up catholics  every day to really embrace that world view that we are indeed related to everything in the universe i'm very honored to come and say this blessing and i'll be with you again tomorrow when this convenes again so as we go through this journey in the next couple of  this may be a time for us as as we look at our past and and if we've been discriminated against somewhere this may be a time for you to forgive forgive because at this point in my life one of the main things that i look for is i like to be happy every day and i think it as people we deserve that happy families that's been my work for the last thirty five years so i'm very happy to see all of you  as relatives air that follows that goes through our veins as to cause the life force among other things that go through our veins of course is the air and that is the spirit of the creators in that air that's why we place so much emphasis on the four directions the four winds it's not too far in fact it's very similar to the christian belief if you look at the bible in the first chapter there in genesis there's a verse that says the spirit of horrors over the waters the first mention of the holy spirit and what they're referring to of course is the air so i think that the creator comes to each and every one of us in a way that we can understand thank you for your coming and getting cleansed so that we also believe that there is a negative and up in a positive energy and we can choose to go either way thank you very much i have offered some tobacco so on my way i will leave these by a tree and asked a creator to take all your prayers mind the ones i said this morning and and work with them and i thank you again oh w