Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times: Native American Cosmology w/ Chase Iron Eyes | AMp 464

Podcast Transcript:

AUBREY MARCUS: Chase Iron Eyes. We're going to tell some stories today and good stories often start with a good name and you've got a good name. And so what's the story of your name? Where does your name come from? 

CHASE IRON EYES: Well, that's a good story. I have my mom to thank for that. My father's surname is Little. His brother went into the movies and he became Little Sky. But my mother's name is Iron Eyes. When I was born, she had been working for this particular medicine man from where I now live on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His name is Mark Big Road. All of his family, you know, the ones that I know, I talked to some of them. They're still there. And he was called Chase Alone, as a small child, for some reason. And so he told my mom, my mom went to one of his ceremonies, and he told her, and he didn't know that she was pregnant. He said, you know, Dok Shah, you're gonna have a boy, and if you could, name him Chase Alone. So Chase Alone Iron Eyes, that's my full name, but on the birth certificate and the corporate identity, it was Chase Alone Little first. So I went through until I was 18 years old and then I changed my name to Iron Eyes to honor my mom. So, my mom hooked me up. Chase Iron Eyes. Chase Alone Iron Eyes.

AUBREY MARCUS: And where did she get that name, Iron Eyes, from? What's that story? 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yeah, well her father, my grandfather, is named Eddie. Eddie's father is named Jerome, and Jerome's father is named Iron Eyes. That was his name. Back in the day, we just had our Lakota names or our Indian names, right? No surnames. And you could have multiple names throughout your life. You usually get a name at birth. And that's either a family name or something happens that you're given a certain name, like red cloud, you know, like he's one of our greatest leaders, but he got his name because of something that happened at his birth and when you're in puberty, when you graduate into another state of being and then when you're an adult usually you do something and you've got to earn a name and so iron eyes is the name that my great great grandfather was given because he was around when European Americans were coming into our lands and he was one of the first to have the iron rimmed prescription glasses.

AUBREY MARCUS: Oh. Bro

CHASE IRON EYES: I don't usually tell a lot of people that because Iron Eyes sounds like a superhero, you know what I mean? 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah

CHASE IRON EYES: But not a lot of people ask, you know what I mean? Like that's how Iron Eyes came into being. And so that's 140 years ago or whatever it was.

AUBREY MARCUS: You say, you know, coming into being, there's a deep lineage and a deep history. And one of the reasons why I was so excited to invite you on this podcast is we sat in a sweat lodge ceremony together with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As unbelievable experience and I just got to hear some stories that you shared and feel your heart and feel your prayer and I started to really, you know, even though I've been exposed to the Lakota kind of culture in different ways, you seem to carry some of the stories and the prayers and the remembering in a particularly strong way. So what are the early stories about your people? I mean, what is Genesis, if we're going to start from the beginning, what is the Genesis story? And then maybe we'll even go to the Genesis story of all of creation. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yes. Okay. 

AUBREY MARCUS: As well.

CHASE IRON EYES: Thank you for that. Cause that's where my mind immediately went. I was like, Oh no, here we go with the big bang. You know? That's our story about the Big Bang. But for us as a people, there's a level of knowing that, when we tell the stories and when we pass on the knowledge, it is pertaining to our people, the Lakota people, but now after traveling and just being a little older, these are generally applicable, but every people, every spiritual discipline, every knowledge system is like that. It is locally or ethnically applicable to the people, but it is also in a macro sense, you know, giving guidance to humanity. So the way that we tell a man that I never knew this man, but I've studied things that he put out. His name is Pete Catches. He's a Wakan Yeska, a holy man. And he tells a story of around in linear time, this side of the ice age, the last ice age. So however long ago that was, 200,000 years or whatever it was, there was a blood clot, he calls it a mass of blood and water. And whatever else, there's a clot, and this is a time when there's buffalo here on the earth, and so this female buffalo, this woman buffalo hears this voice, and it is saying, which means I want to live. So this buffalo, this woman buffalo is hearing this voice and she doesn't know where it's coming from. And so she leaves her herd, goes over to where she thinks this voice is coming from. She hears it again. And so she goes back and tells everyone else, Hey, all the other buffalo, there's something over here speaking. And she goes back for four days. And on the fourth day, you know, all the other Buffalo thinks she's crazy, like she's hearing things, right? And she goes back and this mass of blood and water, we just call it blood clot and this female, well, the way that we tell it is this female Buffalo, breathes consciousness into this clot and forms us, forming the human being. Now that's one creation of knowledge. There's also another of us emerging from a cave in the black hills of what is now called South Dakota. You know, that is kind of the spiritual epicenter of our people. Not just our people, but other tribal nations. And that is another story. It's another emergence story. We also have another emergent story when the great flood covered the earth, however long ago that was, and pretty much every culture on the planet has a knowledge about the flood. And so, I do my best to learn these knowledge systems and I've really had to pick it up and to pick up the pace because I wasn't indoctrinated and I wish I would have been indoctrinated. I wish I would have been able to either from my elders or from my mom or from an academy or something, been able to learn all of this sacred knowledge. This is power, this is power knowledge. But I just had to seek it out through different medicine, people reading, whatever I could get my hands on. Since I was probably 16 is when I started reading and exploring it that way. But it all sped up really quickly when I had children, when me and my wife had children and then your children started asking you, how did we get here? What are we doing here? Why are we here? And you have to be able to tell him something and it should be something of depth and substance, you know? So I really had to kick it in the fast gears. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, it's interesting to explore these stories and like what that deeper meaning might be, but the first story about the clot of blood and water that was, it's a story that deeply connects your people to the Buffalo and this is a connection that extended for until basically the European colonialists tried to break that connection and, but that connection between the Lakota and the Buffalo is deep as deep as it gets. So it makes sense that there would be an origin story that your people actually came from the breath of the buffalo itself. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yes. All of us have these, not just the Lakota, there are other buffalo people that we call ourselves buffalo people. And like the Black feet Confederacy are buffalo people, the Cheyenne nation, the Crow nation. They're probably even further down Kiowa, maybe Comanche, wherever the Buffalo are or were. And that's all the way from, you know, Northern Texas all the way up into what is now called Canada. But those connections, those cosmological connections, those cultural mythological connections, they speak to something that is beyond reason. It's beyond what the human mind is trying to think about or that is capable of analyzing. But like I said, I grew up in an American school system on the reservation. So, you know, I learned about what came from Western civilization and what came from there during what we call the enlightenment, you know, in American Western education systems, rationalism, scientific supremacy, empiricism, science is a truth. Science is, it is what it is. It is a truth, but what has happened is that the religions. Well, there's a longer story there about religions, but if religions are good, then they're leading a human being toward a sacred metaphysics, a sacred reality, and that's not what has happened with Western civilization, and something else has happened, which has led us to kind of a spiritual dead end, maybe, but those who now call themselves white people were once, and are, indigenous people. They're capable of the same sacred cosmologies, lived cosmologies, expressed cosmologies, ritual and ceremonial cosmologies that we still have as native people here, it's just that whatever happened with Rome and the way that they took over.

AUBREY MARCUS: Empire. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yeah, the church and so forth. All the European people were subjected to that colonization before us. And so well, now we're all here, now we're all in America and we're all searching, we're all seeking a sacred connection. And we want to know how can we connect, how can we deconstruct the metaphysics and myths that we were taught either in school or we just learned and whether that's the self or the ego or even the myth of anthropocentric supremacy, like we teach ourselves that we're the apex of creation. And that's not how I was taught. That's not how my people view things. 

AUBREY MARCUS: What is the way that your people view things? 

CHASE IRON EYES: The human beings are the youngest, the youngest of creation, of God's children. We were the last and we have to learn everything of how to have a divine order and how to have a civilized way. We learn that from the older beings, the older relatives, the four legged beings, the winged beings. Our prophet, or I wouldn't say, I don't know about prophet that might not be the right word, but there was a woman who brought our people the sacred pipe, which was at the sweat lodge at the Oweini Kaga, the Inipi, and these are complex, very powerful ceremonies that we still have that are sustenance and provide a way to salvation. And deliverance, but even in our metaphysics, the mind, which is the seed of reason and free will and self determination. Very powerful. I'm not saying, but I'm not trying to downgrade it, but the mind is the lowest on the totem pole in our system of cosmological order, it's still very, very powerful, but in our way, you know, we're the youngest and the smallest and the most humble, I should say.

AUBREY MARCUS: And it seems to me, you know, obviously I've been steeped in medicine lineages of many different cultures and many different medicines. And it would probably extend back to the rock nations, the water nations, like the rock and water and fire beings and the elementals are probably like our oldest relatives. And then even older than that are the old cosmological divine relatives, the origin, the source relatives of where we are. And then it moves into life and those relatives, but it's kind of a beautiful way to look at it as, we're actually the youngest and then going back to the oldest. And one of the things that really struck me that I'd never heard is you spoke of a deity, of a being that was prior to Wakan Tanka and that being was Ion. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yes. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Tell me about that. Tell me about the origin story of the divine creation. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Well, Wakan Tanka is all of those. And it's one of those things that's almost beyond naming. It's beyond that. It's on a different transcendence. But we do have creation knowledge. And it starts when there was a time of, in the English language it's called darkness, but in our language it's called Han. So like when we talk about the moon, it's Hanwi. It's the sun of the night, of the dark. But darkness, a lot of people think darkness is like, nothing. Right, but it's definitely not nothing. Now I think of dark matter and dark energy

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, like the pregnant void of all creation. 

CHASE IRON EYES: That's right. Yes, sir. Like it's there. And so at that time in our knowledge, there was a, this primordial spirit, a God, a deity. And it's name is Iya, now we hand it down with the male personification and say that it's a he, but again, since I had daughters, they're like, why has it got to be a he. So it really is an it, it's beyond gender, and this is Iya, and then in the time of that time, more than 5 billion years ago, that we know now, Iya became lonely, and Iya began to spin and in order to create something else, so Iya wasn't lonely anymore. During this spinning, he caused this explosion of unimaginable proportions, an intergalactic explosion. And in order to create, during this time, during this explosion, which I take to be the Big Bang, his power flowed from him. And his power was in his blood. And his blood is blue, was blue, is blue, and his blood is water.  And this is how we know that water is older than the sun. I just read something in some scientific journal recently that scientists are confirming and discovering that water is in fact older than the sun. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Wow. 

CHASE IRON EYES: And we're just like, yeah, no shit, man. We've known this. And so when Iya did this, it's not just the, he became shriveled and brittle because he sacrificed his own blood for the creation of the universe, the unknown expanse, right, of the universe, the ever expanding, infinitely expanding universe. He became the rock, and not just the rock on earth, that we heat up for the sweat lodge, for the Inipi. And then we reunite Iya with his blood, right, when we're pouring the water on the rocks. And that steam that you feel, that's called grandfather's breath, or the breath of creation. And so is the Milky Way, the stars all together, that mist together. That was a hard sweat, bro. I just want to tell you that.

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, we were right, we were right next to each other. 

CHASE IRON EYES: The whole team was in there and we were front to back, side to side, you couldn't move. And I was having a hard time, like, I was like, man, I want to get out. I got to take a break and then I was thinking. I'm the only Lakota in here, man. I can't do that. There's ain't no way I can do that. My whole nation's riding on me over here. And Aubrey looked, you nudged me and you're like, the warrior's heart beats as one. 

AUBREY MARCUS: I held your hand. 

CHASE IRON EYES: And you shook my hand and you held my hand, bro. And anyway, it brought me through, it brought me through. And so that ceremony, you know, that is in a part of a divine order that we as human beings can recreate and we can avail ourselves of that cleansing renewal ability. So Iya is not just the stone that is on earth, all the mountains, every stone imaginable, the form, but Iya is also the stones, the asteroid belt that is around our planet, at all times. All imaginable, the planets, the other planets, the stones, that's what happened during the big bang during Otoko Ekaga. And then there's stories for the rest of creation. I don't know how we know these things or how we transmitted them over time, and it's not, again, it's not like I was raised with this. I had to learn it and do my best to seek it out. And since I was nine years old, I've known different medicines. I've only known medicine men, but there are medicine women, but I've known my first teacher was a very good man, very powerful man. He was kind of like an apprentice or maybe a disciple might be a word, just somebody who learned from one of our greatest healers, a man named Chief Frank Fools Crow. And I strayed from the path over my years, you know what I'm saying? I've not always been trying to stand upright in the light and in the power of creation, but now that is our sacred ability, that's our authority and it's there for us to do that. So why would we not do that? 

AUBREY MARCUS: So when you say that to go just back to cosmology, this event happens. Iya gets kind of separated. His blood becomes the water, his flesh becomes the rock, like the solid matter. And then somewhere through all of that is the mystery. Right. Or great spirit or Wakan Tanka. And that encompasses everything and all of the in-betweens of everything as well, right? That is like when the prayers are for, to great spirit. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yes. 

AUBREY MARCUS: There are synonyms, right? Great spirit and Wakan Tanka are synonyms. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Same thing. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Same thing. 

CHASE IRON EYES: So, yes. And when the Big Bang happened, when that happened, this was before Earth. Earth hasn't formed yet. And I'm not, again, this is linear time, but according to the knowledge that we pass on to each other, earth was formed at or about that time. But we're talking more than geological time you're talking eons. The earth was formed as a disc is the way that we say it. And then the rest of creation happened, you know, because Iya had sacrificed himself at that time, sacrificed his blood, gave his blood so we could all be here. So there could be a universe or a multiverse or whatever. Then the sun became the chief, the first God, so to speak. And there's an ordering of 16 of these Deities, these entities, Wi, Skan, Maka, and Iya. That is the sun and motion, Skan is like, Skan is now the sky and Skan is motion consciousness. Daku Skan Skan is one of the words that we use. Maka is mother earth, or the earth. And Iya became the fourth, see, he gave up his position, right? Amongst the gods. And then each of those four created other gods. The sun created the moon. Skan created the winds. Tate, not just the winds on earth, but the winds everywhere. There's wind everywhere. Maka created something called Unk, which is like passion or maybe the source of that mischief, or I don't want to say negative, but you could interpret it as negative, the source of that energy, that's a very powerful God and something that we're all capable of good and bad. And then Iya created Wakinyan, the thunderbird, the thunder beings. They're very important in our cosmology. They bring water, they bring sustenance, Mni Wakan, the sacred waters. And they just control, the thunder controls the waters of the heavens. It comes up and through the heavens it comes out to us. And then below that, so that's eight god's right there. There's Trob Trob, which is the bear. The bear is a very powerful being. It's one of our most powerful healers. The bear actually becomes what's known as Ksa, which is the bearer of righteous knowledge. The being that teaches us, you know, righteous, esoteric knowledge. And before that it was just the Ksa was a title, but Ksa used to serve the gods and then worked with Unk to embarrass the gods and let this woman, a real beautiful woman, sit in the moon's place. And that embarrassed the moon. And so Skan banished. And I know there's a lot of Lakota words being thrown around here, but he became the trickster. He became an iktomi because he disobeyed the gods. And he was sent with the other people that were associated with him to earth. And all of these contain truths, you know, truths about who we are as human beings and principles really to guide us in our evolution, in our thinking, in our conduct, in our behavior, the son didn't only, he also had a child out of wedlock with somebody that wasn't his wife, you know what I mean? And that child became the whirlwind in the whirlwind is a God. There's the four and then four and then the bear and then Ta Tanka, the Buffalo, but then not just the Buffalo that is here. The Buffalo here represents the sun, the power that, the life giving power. But also a constellation of the buffalo. The spirit of the water is another God in the four direction wind, in the West, the North, the East, the South in our language, we all have names for them. Wiyohipayata, Wiyohiyanpa, Yata, Okaga, and all those directions are the sons of the wind of Tate. And then the lower four gods, so to speak, are Nia, which is your breath. All of our breath, our collective breath. When we first come out of the womb, you're connected with your umbilical cord and then you come into this reality, and you're able to take a breath. And as soon as you take that breath, now you're in union. Now you're part of the unitive power. The unitive experience that is there for us. And that's neon. The breath is a God. And then there's the Nagi or how do you say it? Like a ghost, like an eternal soul. The spirit. The spirit that is here with your mind. And the whirlwind is that one of them probably says the 15th God, and then your Unk, that is the lowest God, so to speak. And that is your mind, the human mind. Very powerful still though to be in that, to even be in there. And in the sweat lodge, the poles touch the earth at 16 points to represent that cosmology. 

AUBREY MARCUS: There's a huge swelling of a desire, and here's a lighter to relight your cigar. There's a huge swelling of a desire to reconnect with these ancient knowledge systems and traditions. And I think that's a very beautiful thing that we're actually experiencing in our time. And because it's not about the facts of the stories, but it's about the stories themselves and how the stories all weave into the grand symphony of all the stories and all the creations. And when I look at what happened historically, there were people. And in the South American traditions, they described what their indigenous people were, they saw them as like the rainbow warriors, the rainbow beings were their own people because all their chakras were lit with different colors and they were all spinning and a glow with different colors. And the European conquistadors came and they called them the gray ones. They were gray because all of their energy centers were clouded and blocked. And What I see, you know, very likely happened is that from the many different empires that came and took power from all of the lineage and kind of indigenous native peoples, and then you fast forward that a few thousand years where people have lost contact with what it was like to really live with the earth, then there's this kind of disease of the mind, and this is, you know, can be called Wetiko, which is also a native word. And this idea of Wetiko, which leads to empire, which leads to this belief that you can just take and rape and pillage in this idea of ownership, it's the ego and enlarged and the delusion that works both inwardly on the self and outwardly. And this kind of, it was like the first real pandemic that kind of spread was the people who had been disconnected from their own native roots and their own connections that had lost that and then started to spread their own disease throughout the world through conquest. And by just focusing on one of those aspects of what a person is, which is the scientific technological mind and the aggression that can come there was just like isolated into certain vectors without keeping everything in balance, you know, even as you talk about the bear, I think about, you know, in the Celtic traditions, the word for bear is art. And art is like part of Arthur, it was like the King, the great legendary King who restored the order of Camelot and like the righteous knowledge of the bear, the bear is the King and so many similarities from so many different cultures, but they were lost and then a new culture spread and this is the culture that we're living in now and people are realizing that we're sick, we're sick and we need to, yes, take all of the knowledge and technology and information we've learned, but remember the old stories and the old ways so that we can heal ourselves and step into a new future that includes all the old stories and the new technology and creates a whole new story for the world 

CHASE IRON EYES: I appreciate that technology in itself, it's real, but it's also giving us new different myths, and I see one of those myths reflected in our literary works or our television works about uploading your consciousness to machines and AI, artificial intelligence and leaving the earth to the myth of the frontier. That's not a frontier to us. Spirit travel is very real, and how could we know the earth is round, how could we know that North America, as it's known, is shaped like a turtle. I don't know how we could know those things, but we know those things. And I believe that you take a look at Standing Rock, take a look at what happened with tens of thousands of people coming together under the invitation and the spiritual guidance of native people, not just Lakota people or Oceti Sakowin or Sioux Nation, but people who did not think, might not think on a daily basis that, Hey, my body is 70, whatever percent, composed of ‘Mni Wiconi’, the water of life. Mni Wi-coni, you know, they might not recognize their divine flesh and blood or their bones even, you know, and the way that we look at it, the flesh and blood that we're composed of comes from Maka, comes from earth. How? In what fashion? I don't know. You know, the buffalo breathed consciousness into us or we emerged from a cave. Did we emerge in this form? I don't know. The bones come from Iya, come from the stone. That's what's in our bones. Like, elementally, we're finding out that that's true. And you have a big extraction, right? Big oil is coming. And I was just living my life. We were trying to legalize hemp and we were trying to create, replace the petrochemical industrial imposed reality of everything on the Standing Rock reservation, right? In 2014, I moved back to Standing Rock, which is where I grew up. I now live on the Pine Ridge reservation. And we're all the same people though. We're all Lakota, just different bands. And people always ask me, how come you're always protesting? Why are you always, you know, don't you want to progress with civilization? And the way we see it, yes, we do. We do want to progress, but we want to redefine what civilization is. Civilization to us, used to be able to go out and drink water from any stream or any river and you just can't do that anymore. So it's the health of the ecosystem that undergirds how civilized we are as human beings. And when that debacle happened where big oil forced this pipeline. We didn't want to fight that. In fact, we were just trying to mind our own business and the oil company moved the location of the pipeline from Bismarck, North Dakota, which is a city that's like 90 percent Euro American, to where the Indians live, right? Where the Standing Rock Nation is. And so we didn't have a choice, but we were standing up because oil and water don't mix. And it's just a matter of time before pipelines leak. And so we stood up not only that, but we have tribal sovereignty. We have a treaty with the United States. The United States is our friend. We made friends with the United States, with the Americans in 1851 and in 1868. And we said, we'll protect you. You'll protect us forever. We'll stand with your flag, the American flag forever. So long as our flag can flow as well, but they don't teach that in the American educational institutions. So we were out there for those reasons, those political reasons, but we were out there by the tens of thousands for spiritual reasons as well. And when we were offering ourselves, our bodies, our reputations, our earning potentials, everything. We're just putting it on the line because we wanted a different reality. So we can push ourselves toward evolution, which is what I believe we're doing and what I believe the United States is capable of. I believe our government is capable of that, but right now they've been captured. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah

CHASE IRON EYES: They've been captured. There's no leaders over there. There's no spiritually driven leaders who are willing to take the steps that we need to take as a people, as a society, because we're all in this together now. It's all these classifications and differences that have been assigned to us, that we learned, that we've been conditioned to think from within that we're trying to liberate from, but it's very difficult. It's obviously very difficult because there are real differences in our country. Man, when George Floyd was killed, this country almost burned to the ground. Like it was very wild and serious. And obviously that systemic challenge, we have to address. We have to address that. But for me, everything that is political or legislative or economic should be informed by a spiritual liberative process. And that happens here and here, conceptually first, and I'm no expert on it. There are men and women who are much older than me who know much more than me, but my path and my ability and my will to build bridges from this world that I was born into, this flesh and blood that I was born into, this consciousness, and trying to bridge that with the dominant consciousness, currently the dominant consciousness.

AUBREY MARCUS: What was it like for you to sit in a Lodge with a man who I believe will be the next president of the United States? And I could feel you and really kind of looking around like, wow. Like there's a new reality that may be about to birth, like if the leader of this nation is willing to sit in the sweat and smell the sweet grass and the cedar and speak the prayers and sing the songs and be there, ass on the grass with brothers and sisters, like, it's a whole different paradigm that we may be entering in. Something that might, I could imagine be almost unbelievable for you and all of the of the challenges that your people have gone through and the betrayals from people in those positions of power

CHASE IRON EYES: I mean, Bobby Kennedy is, he's different, he's cut from the cloth of the Kennedys, this guy. But his whole campaign team was in that Lodge with us. I've never been in a Lodge so jam packed, you know, maybe it's been four years since I've been in a Lodge that was jam packed. There were a lot of people there. And what was profound for me was the sweat lodge doesn't just belong to the Lakota, it belongs to other native nations as well. Every native nation has a version of this ceremony, but what was very powerful and meaningful for me there in that moment with you and Bobby Kennedy and everyone else was that there were mostly European Americans in there. Except for myself and the Afro Indigenous brother. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Porangi. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yes. Oh, Porangi. How could I forget? Porangi. And I wasn't pouring the water. When it came time to sing, I wasn't the only singer. There's five, six other brothers in there who had sun danced under Chief Leonard Crowdog, who is an absolute legend, who was one of my mentors, one of my teachers. I wasn't a contemporary of his cause he walked on. He walks in power everlasting since, I believe it was 2021, but he gave me things, I cherish the times that I had with Chief Leonard Crow Dog. My first teacher, Sonny Richards, he learned from Chief Frank Fools Crow. And these people, I mean, all the way back to Black Elk, they have a very Resmopolitan, very cosmopolitan, very worldly view about our knowledge systems, our ceremonies. We do them on behalf of all humanity and all humanity is able to participate, able to avail themselves of this knowledge. That is the school of thought that I come from. Not all Lakota people feel that same way. Some are very guarded, understandably, completely understandable. But the teachers that I had and have right now, including chief bear cross and one of my other teachers passed on Marvin helper and Everett poor thunder. These are guys that took me under their wing and just allowed me this English speaking, you know, lawyer that came from the rest, to allow me the space to be who I am with them while they're teaching me. So that ceremony that we conducted there and that we offered ourselves to, it's not easy. It was not easy for me. It's all of our ceremonies, like the hardest ceremonies ever, no food or water for four days. Like I spent a lot of my young life running from these ceremonies, you know what I’m saying.

AUBREY MARVUS: Of course

CHASE IRON EYES: And I had to just be brought back into it.So Bobby Kennedy. That probably wasn't his first lodge. I don't know. 

AUBREY MARCUS: It wasn't. Yeah. 

CHASE IRON EYES: And for some people it was their first lodge. So Bobby has been fighting for indigenous nations ever since, probably even before Quebec and the whale river. That's how my uncle met Bobby Kennedy. Cause my uncle was, you know, he was part of the beginning of this tribal water rights organization. And they sent him this before the internet, before cell phones, all that. They sent him to Quebec to represent Sioux Nation water rights. And every other tribe that was within the Missouri River watershed, he goes to Quebec to meet Bobby Kennedy. He doesn't know Bobby Kennedy is gonna be there. Bobby is there to defend the Cree Nation and their ecosystem that they depend on from this large scale hydropower dam that was going to destroy all of their hunting lands, their trapping lands, their fishing lands, everything that they used to sustain themselves, Bobby was there to defend that in the early 1990s. So, and this guy has been doing it his whole life. He saved the Hudson river. He's representing all the commercial fishers. He's the only guy that talks about, when he speaks, I don't have to be sold on anything. You know what I'm saying? I feel like this is the guy. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah

CHASE IRON EYES: This is the guy I want to support. This is the guy I'm down with. And yeah, he's not perfect, but who is, you know what I mean? Like there's more than enough that I just feel empowered and to be there, that was something special. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. I mean, I can feel the emotions rising in me as well, because I feel the same thing. I mean, this is a time where we need a chief of chiefs. A King of Kings, you know, to help lead us and the way that a King really leads, it's the one who serves the most. And I watched Bobby in that lodge and I watched when there was the blessing of the ladle of water that was passed, because as he said, it was a hot lodge. It was an intense lodge and the ladle was passed around and Bobby just kept passing the ladle, passing the ladle, passing the ladle and didn't even drink it himself. Why? Because he serves his people first, like, that's just like, it's who he is. And people will nitpick this one thing he says, this one stance, but I trust him to just listen and to be there with his heart cause you can feel it. It's like, his heart extends outside of his body. And that's the place where you can really trust. It's not the fancy words or the things that the promises that are made that evaporate, like they were written in wind and rapid water, as soon as someone gets elected. It's like you can trust that his word, his word matters, you know, no matter what it is. I mean, I'll tell another quick story about Bobby. He invited me to go spend time with him on 4th of July at one of his kind of family homes out in the Hamptons and he invited me over Christmas and I said Bobby, am I going to see you on the 4th of July? And he goes, Oh, shit. I invited you. And then he tells Stephanie, he goes, Stephanie, what am I doing on the 4th of July? And she goes, Oh, well, you have this national convention thing on this. And he goes, cancel it, cancel it. I invited Aubrey and she's like, well, and then they just figured it out right there. But it was like, there's like principles, like values there. There's things that are more important than just what's the best and the most advantageous thing that he can do is like, there's real principle and value that lives in his bones.

CHASE IRON EYES: He's not scripted, he's not manufactured, you don't get, any other person is going to speak as a politician is almost required to, certain talking points they got to stick to, and that's not Bobby, Bobby is a real human being. And he's coming from a place where there's a sense of urgency, I think because he's entering his elder years, what is he, 70 now?

AUBREY MARCUS: 70, yeah. 

CHASE IRON EYES: He's still pulling out 50 pull ups and a hundred push ups though. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, no.

CHASE IRON EYES: Remember that?

AUBREY MARCUS: More than me. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Bro, I didn't even attempt that. I didn't even attempt that. I was like, man, I just ain't in that kind of shape right now, but I've been working at it ever since though.

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, let's go. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Because that's inspiring to me. This old dude, he's a mentor. He's a brother. Anyway, I appreciate, oh man, I appreciate the emotion.

AUBREY MARCUS: It's been a hard road for you people, man. It's been a hard, long road. And I can't speak personally to it. But I know some of what's happened and I can feel it. And that was one of the questions I asked you when we shared that stage together is how you can still show up with your heart open through all the pain and through all the trauma of the history of what your people have endured.

CHASE IRON EYES: Well, how can I say, it's scar, it's scar tissue. There's no real way to heal fully from it, the whole process of colonial extraction, but we do heal and we leave space because that's the path we're on. We're not trying to hate, we're trying to liberate. And it's very real because to be forgiving, forgiveness, you forgive and you don't forget. And to see my people where they're at right now is crushing. It's hard. I live right in one of the ground zero places on the Pine Ridge reservation, and there's no reason why we have to be, we call it the fourth world because it's not even the third world. It's tough. And it's a forced dependency. There are institutional mechanisms in place on behalf of the United States of America, but nobody cared to go and look back into it for 90 years, you know, it's been 90 years since these modern reservations were formed and their forms of government didn't match what we know. And so there needs to be a mass reevaluation. That's not possible with who's in Washington right now. It's not possible. If it was possible, they would have done it. It's not like I'm saying something new here. You know what I mean? Like, and so that's just where my heart lives. It's always right there. And we do our best, those of us who carry this fire and this responsibility to go out and we have another ceremony called the hunka ceremony, which is to make relatives. And that's what I'm doing. That's what we're doing is we're making relatives. Like when we're in the lodge that day and you're shaking my hand, you're holding my hand. That happened for a reason. And I was like, man, like I needed that. I was not about to let my nation down in that lodge. You know what I'm saying? And because of you. I felt different. I felt good. I felt empowered. I felt ready to go. And the lodge renews you. That grandfather's breath, that steam, Iya’s blood reunited with Iya. And even the unknown things that I don't know about this ceremony, rebirth the human being that is the purpose of that ceremony. And it's just to have that in the same place as a future president, as president Kennedy, that was just beyond wild to me. I can't even, there's certain moments in your life when you go through things and you're just living through it. And then maybe afterward, you have the objective capacity to kind of think about it and to see what it meant or something like that, to pay attention to it. And a lot of my life is just going through it. And then sometimes when I'm alone at night, or if I'm alone driving, then I'll think of how certain things change the trajectory of my life, you know? And it's powerful. And I really appreciate how we all were able to go through that experience together.

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. There's some really mystical things that happen, you know, I think people can focus on what temperature it was, how long you're in there, how dark it was, and just like the logistics of the experience. But there's something that you can't describe. It's ineffable and it's different every time. No lodge is the same. And you've spent many more lodges than me, but no lodges ever the same in this particular lodge. The third door, which is oftentimes the hardest, although the second door in this time was, I think actually that was excruciating. And just so people know it's not that I'm such a bad ass that I was in real good shape when I grabbed your hand, I needed your hand too, I needed your hand real bad. And so we were both supporting each other, but I remember in the third door, and I'm telling this story because I want to open up the space for you to tell both your own mystical stories and some of the other mystical legends of things that defy explanation. So in this third door, I was in a challenging kind of emotional time leading up to that summit. And part of the reason is I'm writing a book now that's about. It's about Wetiko, it's about what I call anti you. It's about this force that's beyond trickster. It's not Heyoka, it's beyond trickster. It actually has dark intent, malevolent intent, and is looking to actually negate our light and like bring us into a ruinous state. And it's this force of resistance or part X or the biblical has different terms, Satan, Hasatan or however you want to say it, but I just call it anti you. And I've been in this because I'm writing about it. It's been very palpable and present. So door three, going through in Porangi says, you know, it's healing round, healing round, and I've heard it called different things, warrior round, healing round, be both. It's intense. There's a lot of it. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Whoever's pouring in the water. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, exactly. And I'm totally sober, no psychedelics, no medicine. And I feel this shiny chrome, almost like a bullet shaped, like projectile that's in between one of the vertebrae in the back of my neck and I just feel it there and I see it and I'm like oh shit like this is a problem. So I use my energy and my will and my intent and I pull it out of the back of my neck and I'm holding it in my hand, but it's like a magnet that's like pulling back towards my spine and it wants to go back and I have my left hand. So my left hand is raised up behind my head and I'm holding it. And I can't hold it back behind my head like that because it's too strong. So I move it to the front of my body. I pull it towards the front of my body, and then it's looking to go lodge itself back into my heart. And then this whole vision is happening in the darkness there as the prayers and the songs are going. And I'm like, all right, well, this isn't going to work. I gotta do something with this. So with all my will, intent and strength, I pushed it into the ground and I started saying prayers to the mother and said, mama, help me. Like, help me take care of this because I can't hold this. It's too strong. It's too strong for me. And I'm holding it in the earth and my hand is on the grass down on the earth and I'm holding it in the earth. And then it's still there though. Like I was hoping the earth could start to decompose it, but the metal was from like, almost like a different planet, like a different place. It wasn't organic. So the mother couldn't decompose it. And then as that was happening, I had this vision of all of these like ants and beetles and like stinging insects crawling up my arm and it wasn't happening in real life, it was vision. And they came and they started crawling in my ears and into my mouth and my nose and my eyes and I knew it was like this is just a vision. Like, don't be afraid. Like fear is the mind killer. Like, don't be afraid. Just stay, like, stay with your focus. Like stay with your intent. And then I called Tata Fuego. I called on the fire and I said, the fire of the mother, come up and melt this. And so the fire comes up from the earth and comes up from the center of the stones and it melts this kind of extraterrestrial metal that I'd put in the ground and melts it down and it starts to like resin, it melts and it starts to smoke. And I couldn't smell it or anything. Again, this is still in my vision. Starts to smoke and it makes this like a noxious black cloud. And I could feel the energy of this black cloud. And I was like, all right. We gotta get this black cloud out of here. So I took a deep breath and like with all of my will and might, I just blew the breath with the intention that it would blow all the way out to the farthest reaches of the void, the farthest reaches of the whole universe, because only the whole universe in its entirety could hold that darkness and that evil. And from that point, I've felt such a dramatic difference in my life in this battle. It was almost like a critical point where that experience I had actually liberated me from, like a deep challenge that I had been going through and was totally unexpected. And this is what is possible when you just enter into a space that has that much healing and that much power. Like you never know what's going to happen. 

CHASE IRON EYES: That sounds like a hero's journey. Like you were presented with an unknown and sometimes there are many stories of when, in our ceremonies where you're confronted with something challenging. And there are bad doers out there. There are negative energies out there whose purpose it is to pull you away from your path and to entrap you in the senses. And in your own understanding or your own ego, the mind is very powerful. The mind is not to be trusted at times, you gotta hopefully that when you call on like, that's why we have Lakota names is because that is the name of the spirit. That is working with me or with I. And I don't understand all of it, but I know to respect it. And when you're in those battles, you have to call on your powers and you're strong as a person, you're strong as a spirit. We are capable. I used to think that I was capable of fighting Satan himself or whatever, you know, put on my iron shirt and chase Satan out of earth. Like Lee scratch Perry but there are strong things out there. And sometimes they are otherworldly. When you said that, it made me think of, now we don't have creation or knowledge about ETs and so forth.  I've asked medical people about this and all they tell me is that there are good ones just like us, and there are bad ones just like us. But there are also energies that work with that source, that negative source. And we have a certain name for them in Lakota and Icto is one of those energies. Trickster is one way to, but it's more devious than that. It's to cause misery and to revel in your misery, in the misery that we're creating. But there are others that have worked with that came, I don't know when they came about, but they have like Ganeshki is another one or Iya, the giant, which is kind of like this insatiable being that just eats. It can't get enough and it will eat everything. But all of these, according to our knowledge, I don't know. I can't say if Crazy Horse understood it like this, or if Sitting Bull understood it like that those were also within us as gods in a mythological sense, but probably. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah.

CHASE IRON EYES: I mean, it seems like that to me right now, in our time, you know, we're in our time, they did what our ancestors, our grandfathers and grandmothers did what they could with what they had. And now we're in our time and we have to stand it. We have to empower ourselves. That’s possible. There are stories, there are things that defy, you know, things that have happened to me that defy kind of the physical understanding, like what your physics professor might understand and what they might teach, teleportation, I've not seen that, but I know people who were there when these certain teleportation occurrences have happened, you know, miraculous healings, some might call it faith based healing or maybe an activation of the cells is occurring, something beyond our understanding. That's why we use the drum and the voice too, the drum in the voice are two very sacred powers that we have as human beings because they can pierce corporeality right in the world of waves and frequencies and vibrations, things that other beings are perceiving are not necessarily what we're perceiving as human beings. We have a different capacity, but the voice is something you sing an inappropriate song. The songs that we're singing in the lodge allow those veils to be pierced and maybe something came for you or something, it's not that I, I want to say that I believe, like I know, you know what I mean? There’s a belief that requires faith and then there's like ‘Oh, shit. I know.’

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. 

CHASE IRON EYES: And we better, we better equip ourselves. That's kind of how I see it. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. You were telling a story of some kind of myths that involve a crazy horse and a relationship you had with a special stone. And there's these stories of these things that defy our Newtonian physics that exist. And you mentioned teleportation and you mentioned, is there a personal story or even a story of a crazy horse that is a little bit more specific about something that happened.

CHASE IRON EYES: Yeah, there's one story I know from my spiritual advisor right now. His father was running a particular ceremony. This man, his name is Vernal Cross and he's no longer with us. He walked in power everlasting since 1997, according to the Gregorian concept, doing a ceremony. And there was somebody in the ceremony that kept interrupting saying, Hey, Vernal, I need to go to the bathroom. I need to go to the bathroom. And it's all dark, and they're performing a ceremony, a healing ceremony. And he must've got his spirits must've got so annoyed or something that all of a sudden he's outside the ceremony and they didn't open the doors. They didn't know, nothing. And this guy is completely composed in another space and time or at least space. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah

CHASE IRON EYES: And he's no longer in the ceremony. I don't know how that's possible and that's from personal anecdotes. But from reading there is a holy man by the name of ‘Dawson has no horse’. And apologies to any of his family, I don't mean to tell his story, but I read it in, I believe in a story about another, you gotta understand, since I was 16, I read everything I could, voraciously, about my people, about who I am, because I begin to think about it differently. I was working at Crazy Horse Mountain when this happened. And another great teacher, he's still with us. But I was a greeter there and I saw this old man walking in and carrying a bunch of books and just carrying a bunch of things. And I was like, Whoa, Lakota guy, native guy. I went over and helped him set up his whole booth. And he was selling books. He was selling his book called Mitakuye Oyasin. Everything that is, is my relative. And as a reward for helping him out. He gave me two books and then and then I read those and then I went on to Black Elk Speaks. And then I went on to this other one called Lame Deer Seeker of Visions. And there, this is a great man, John Fire Lame Deer who my first teacher knew him personally. My first teacher Being Sonny Richards, knew John Fire Lame Deer and Chief Fools Crow, Frank Fools Crow. And Sonny would tell me different stories, but I read about this certain other story where I believe they put Dawson, himself, on the hill. And then he said, his helpers went up to see if he wanted to come down, and on the hill means any vision quest or fasting ceremony. And he told them just go back to the house and set everything up because when a ceremony happens, there's a certain protocol the way that the altar is set up. And so he told them what to do, go back and do this this particular way. And just start the ceremony and so they did and they started the ceremony. And then Dawson is in that ceremony somehow. It defies all logic and all understanding, it really does. And so now I go through life and I enjoy being in the red pill world or in the blue pill world, I should say. You know what I mean? Like when I'm just going around, I don't want to think that, Hey man, I might start levitating or certain things through telekinesis or other processes are just going to start happening because they do happen. They do happen. And weird things like that happen like, not all the time, but enough for me to know that, Hey, there's something else that is kind of assisting and around and you need to be aware of it. But there's probably, our people are replete with absolute miracles. I mean, Vine Deloria Jr. He wrote a book called ‘The World We Used To Live In’. And that's all it does, it explores not just the Lakota, but all native people who have credible sources speaking on miracles. I mean, Crazy Horse himself, he had like a bulletproof medicine, it's called, we call it gopher medicine, certain dust that comes from a certain animal. But his medicine person was a man named chips or horn chips. And because Chips helped him out every day, they knew each other since they were little boys. The stones came to him when he was a little boy and assisted him throughout his life and told him if he followed these certain ways. I'm not the authority on Crazy Horse, there's a man alive right now named Richard Moves Camp. Richard Moves Camp is the grandson or great grandson of Crazy Horses medicine man. And so Dickey as he's known in Pine, on the Pine Ridge, he lives in a town called Wombly, just released a book two weeks ago. They had like a book signing party for whatever knowledge he's authorized to share in that book. And I've not picked it up, I've not read it. And I failed to go to the signing cause it was, I don't know, it was cold out or something that day, but he had an event in Rapid City, South Dakota. These altars, these spiritual disciplines, they're still with us and they're just below the surface, they're below the feathers in the leathers and the romanticized version of what European Americans or whatever the English speaking universe might think about native people. I'm not saying those are bad, the feathers and leathers and regalia are good things. But there's another level that, and I'm not authorized to share this on behalf of the Sioux nation, but I feel just from my experiences, we should be offering it to the world because it is a path, it is the red road and it is a path to what we call ton or understanding or enlightenment or a re-spiritualized reality in metaphysics, which I believe the human spirit is yearning for that, but we haven't come together as a people and said, this person is going to be our Yogananda, who helps us spread, the yogic or the Vedic traditions or the Upanishads. That whole entire cosmology, which again, I know enough to know that it's very serious and it's a serious spiritual discipline. And obviously they, some of them, maybe they went against tradition in bringing it to the West, so to speak, but it happened. And do I want to see that for our people? I want to see us respected. I want to see our knowledge systems on the same level as anything else, because it's definitely on that level, but it's perhaps even deeper, carries even more substance. And I don't say that in an ethnocentric way. I say that as a seeker like you, looking for and trying to avail myself of all these different traditions. And I don't jump in every one of them, but that's just kind of the mark of a philosopher, somebody who's I am willing to be challenged on my beliefs and what I think I know, what I've been taught throughout my life because then it's a real way. It's a true way that has stood up and our people have been discarded and cast aside as primitive, as savage, as uncivilized, as antithetical to progress and everything else. We've been dehumanized and we don't deserve to be dehumanized, but we have to teach, we have to share what we can, the depths of what we can, because that is how evolution happens, and that's the state of human affairs is very tragic right now and very serious. We're hurting. All we know is war in consumerism. And the myth of the end of the world. It’s like they brought us to this spiritual dead end to this nihilistic, this place where there's no meaning, how are human beings supposed to find meaning and purpose in that world, in that linear Cartesian scientific supremacy, again, all respect due to that, but that is only one way. That is only one truth. And there's a lot more here. 

AUBREY MARCUS: It seems to me that it requires at first, a great level of forgiveness that has to come, to be willing to share the medicine, because so much has been taken and it's understandable. Those people say, you know, fuck you guys, you took everything, we were willing to share it right from the drop, but you just took it. And you discarded it and you discarded us. And so we're not going to share our medicine. And we don't want you in our lodges. We don't want you in our ceremonies. We don't want you to know our ways, but there's with that attitude, as we're all relatives, we're all going to be headed towards a path of ruin. So it seems like people like yourself and Leonard Crow Dog, who opened the Rainbow Lodge, opened it up to so many more people, are these kind of messianic figures, these kind of mystic prophets that say, actually, no, like we forgive you, forgive them for they know not what they do. We're going to share our medicine, we're going to share our, whether that's the Quechua people who are sharing their ayahuasca traditions, or whether it's the Lakota people who are sharing their Anipi traditions and their songs. And all of this, like we all need this, we all need to find ways that we can reconnect to spirit and come together. Otherwise the whole game is a wrap, you know, like the whole game is a wrap. And so, but again, it requires a deep bow to any native person who's willing to share that medicine because of how much has been taken. It's like that level of forgiveness is almost Christic in its nature. It's like being on the cross and saying I forgive you and forgive the people who've nailed my hands to the wood and my feet to the wood and put the crown of thorns on my head. And like, I forgive you like that. It's a heroic act, it's a heroic act of the heart, but it's also necessary in my view for us to actually move forward together. We need all the medicines. We need all the medicine to gather to have a chance. 

CHASE IRON EYES: The bad guys are winning right now. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. 

CHASE IRON EYES: And it's because human beings are inclined, we're inclined to spiritual liberation, but we're also very inclined to the easy route and sensory satisfaction and so forth. And it puts our spiritual leaders in a very difficult position. Just allowing ‘outsiders’, non Lakota people, non native people, into the ceremony is a huge issue in my world, in the Lakota world. We have a principal figure, he's like the Pope. His name is Chief Arvol Looking Horse, and he's the 19th generation keeper of the sacred calf pipe, the Chanupa, the peace pipe that was brought to us, to our people by the daughter of Skan. By Wopre or Ptesan-Wi, we call her Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman. There's a whole story, a whole knowledge about how she brought us this sacred instrument, which is a, wherever you're at, it's the axis mundi. It's the center of the universe. That's what that is. There's also a center of the universe in the Black Hills, now called Black Hill Peak. But this idea of sharing ourselves is causing a lot of consternation and just deep thought and deep seated conundrums about, should we share? What do we share? What's appropriate to share? And I, like I said, sometimes I'm out here walking along and I'll do something that touches the nerves of my people. Like at Burning Man in 2017. I went there for a global drum prayer and I didn't think about any of what that really was. Well, I didn't really know what Burning Man was. I just knew that I was on trial at the time facing six years in prison because of Standing Rock, because of standing up to protect sacred water and defend indigenous sovereignty and American constitutional rights, actually. Tribal sovereignty is an untapped vehicle for defending and asserting our human sovereignty and American constitutional sovereignty as well. Anyway, somebody was there filming me, right? When I'm in this participating in a global drum prayer. There's a bunch of other native people there too, and there's a bunch of non native people, like 50. And they filmed us, there's a big drum and somebody's, they're all hitting the drum. And they're all a bunch of non native people who are hitting the drum. And I'm there participating in what I'm, you know, it's a global drum prayer. And I raise my hands to the sun because that's what we do when we're offering a prayer. Anytime you can offer your hands to the sun, it's like an energy, a portal. Especially when you have no shoes on and you're grounding as well. So I did this, somebody filmed me and then they started spreading rumors that Iron Eyes is selling ceremony at Burning Man and so forth. And it caused like a bunch of native websites, people that I knew were calling me out, being online saying, why is Iron Eyes selling ceremony at Burning Man? Never happened. But evidence is this, that we still hold certain things to be sacred and that, you know, it touched a nerve, but I don't regret it. I feel like I want to bring as many people to this truth, without proselytizing them, without trying to say my way is better than this, that way, or the other, but just showing this is the flesh and blood that I was born into. And these are the traditions, these are the knowledge systems which sustain me today in 2024, which sustain our whole nation, whoever chooses to walk that path and it's a hard path. It requires sobriety. It requires clarity. I mean, according to my teachers, there are other teachers who have incorporated cannabis, who have incorporated peyote, other sacramental herbs, psychedelics and other teachers, plant teachers, other things that are much older than us. Plants and the standing silent, the standing sacred nations, much older than us. It started with Earth and there's a whole system, right, of evolution, you could call it that. So, like, when they say, hey, did you come from monkeys or were you created by God? Those are not mutually exclusive. Like we're not even challenged by that. We have our knowledge of how we got here and the sacred is so ever present in our life and can actually intercede in our lives that we don't need to know, how did we get here? Why is that? Why are we so hung up on that? Let's concentrate on the sacred realities that are available to us right now. And how do we inform our other institutions of politics and of jurisprudence or even our social institutions to reflect an elevated worldview. But I'll just say that, yes, there are some people, we're a complex people, the Lakota people in ourselves. There are people over here who have nothing to do with the ancient knowledge systems and the rituals and ceremonial protocols and the Lakota language. They've become something else. And then there are over people on this side over here, this is only for us, if you don't speak Lakota, you can't come to our ceremonies. If you're not Lakota by your DNA or whatever, you can't come to our ceremonies. And I wasn't raised like that and I consider myself fortunate to be raised by universal thinkers, I have uncle Sonny to thank for that. I'm nine years old, meeting this guy. I don't know anything about anything. And he's just so gracious and patient. Only time I used to come to the medicine people was when I was in trouble. I get in some kind of trouble. Oh man. I'm facing prison time, I'm facing jail time or I'm sick or I'm going out of my mind, then when I was in trouble, then I would show up knocking on these guys door thinking I was the only one. Now that I work directly with medicine people, I realized what a pain in the ass I was, you know what I'm saying? But that's just my journey. And we have something to offer the world and what we have to offer the world could use. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I was struck by is, I've heard many Lakota songs in the lodge, and I don't know the songs myself. I know some of the things that I can kind of remember, and sometimes there's a call and response, which helps me. But there's a liberation that I heard, particularly in your voice, that was something that struck me even before we entered the lodge, you guys had an opening song and it was so powerful that actually all of the sheep on our farm came and moved towards the lodge and started bleeding and singing with you in that moment and it was, what I interpret it as is there is a freeness, there's a freeness in the way that you sing or the way that you cry and then it's called crying because it's like a baby that's crying. There's no inhibition to the whales in the songs that are sung. And it's not about, are you on the right pitch or is it the right tone, but it's the absolute liberation of the voice. And in that liberation of the human voice, it's like God is listening, great spirit is listening in that. And I was really, really struck by that, not only outside of the lodge, but also in the lodges. When you sing, it's like, you're singing like a free man, like a full, like a real, like a human, a human being, in a liberated way. And I think we're so restricted in our dance and in our song by trying to make it sound good or trying to make our moves look right, but we're bound. We're in a prison of our own creation. And to even find that even myself with my own voice to find that is, and I can only find it every once in a while. And I'll find something like that was true. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Yes. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Like that was real. And I really appreciate and celebrate that about you. And it just shone through so strongly in your character. 

CHASE IRON EYES: There ho Wakan, that's the voice, the sacred voice. It is to sing and I feel that way that my teachers have taught me that the voice is that powerful. It is that sacred, even that the tongue can create and destroy. And that is the meaning of Wakan. It's not just sacred. It's something more than that. But the voice has that power, the voice carries that it's imbued with that divine authority. And those songs, I don't know how old those songs are. We don't know how old those songs are. They're old. And they're given to us by source beings, sometimes other entities, Wamaka, animals. Wamakashka is our word for animal. We don't put ourselves there and the animals are there. You know what I'm saying? We don't have a divine labor or property theory. Like when I went to law school, I learned all this of how the Western universe sees itself. I have dominion over everything. So I'm always trying to bring everything under my dominion. If I'm a Westerner, in many ways, I am a Westerner, but the song in the voice is just as powerful as the drum and the drum was also given to us through our own sacrifice, through our own suffering. All of our gifts and responsibilities have come to us because we were at the brink of extinction or at the brink of losing our way. It's not like the Lakota were always the perfect beings. We go wayward, we have free will, we have self determination just like the Mashika or the Aztecs or the people who were painting their pyramids, and cutting down all the forest. Human beings can lose their way. But the voice is something that is resonating, it is activating different vibrations and frequencies and waves and doing things that we can't fully understand. But it is real and we feel it and something is happening. I didn't know that, but I knew that as soon as the people there had chanupas and the people there danced under Leonard Crow Dog. And when Leonard's here, we call him, even now we call him chief of chiefs. He's a strong man, and he also picked up the way of the peyote, which was controversial at the time. And it caused this evolution, if there's a Lakota fundamentalist way of viewing things, Leonard Krodog was reaching outside of that. And thankfully, somebody had a chanupa there. When Porangi is performing earlier at the event, somehow there's a buffalo skull on the stage, bro, that was a moment for me. Because I'm sitting there and I'm just vibing to everything that he's doing. And I'm appreciating it. I'm appreciating the voice, the drum, the sacred instruments, everything that's coming at me and is enveloping me. And then I look up and there's a Buffalo skull staring right at me. And I'm like, what the heck? It blew me away. And then at the lodge, the scholars there, the Chanupa's are there, the staff are there. Your own staff was there. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. 

CHASE IRON EYES: That's the way to appoint it. That's the way to anoint ourselves before we engage in that. And we purify ourselves, we cleanse ourselves and the voice, we all have to learn our voice and even our dance too. I don't dance enough. The only time I dance is at Sundance. And those experiences, we cherish them forever. I knew I had to do that since I was a little boy, but I just avoided it cause I was freaked out a little bit about the piercing aspect of it. But it's not even about, it's not a show of toughness to pierce your skin. We're offering our blood in the same way that Iya offered his blood to create the universe. So that it's an honor to be able to do that a long time ago. Not everybody was a Sundancer and every single ceremony has so much depth to it that I would get lost trying to speak about those in depth. I could give a human attempt, but. We would be much more well equipped with. And this is why I think I get on people's nerves because I'm always prodding at them saying, Hey, what about this? What if we shared it this way? Do you guys want to do some recording? Can we do some video? Can we do some audio? Because all of the ethnographers and the different anthropologists and people that were coming around to study us during the time of the vanishing Indian, that was a myth at the turn of the 19th centuries. They were just talking to our guys and I mean guys, like all the women were left out. There's a whole women's discipline that we have to figure out within our own people and at large too as well. We have to figure that out. How do we deconstruct the oppressive nature of the aspects of our systems, right? Of our thinking system. But now we have different technological capabilities and we need to be using those as tools. So I wanted to gather spiritual leaders to talk about what is appropriate to share. What is appropriate to share about the sweat lodge? What is appropriate to share about Humblechea, the Vision questing or fasting ceremony. The sun dances. There's other ceremonies. There's the Woman coming of age ceremony. There's a grieving ceremony. There's a making of relatives ceremony. And then there's another that we just call throwing of the ball and they all have different teachers who are alive right now. But our children are not learning them in any systematic way and because a lot of us speak English now, I believe that we should be creating little Lakota Hogwarts schools in places. We got to do something because it's in peril. But it's still there, when you're saying we have been through a lot. And it's a miracle that we're here. What's even more miraculous is we have what we had before Columbus got here. Still with us. It just went underground. It was illegal to be Indian. It was illegal to practice Inipi. We would have all got arrested if we would have done that ceremony prior to 1978. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Wow. 

CHASE IRON EYES: You know what I mean? There was a court of Indian offenses. Where they outlawed, all of our ceremonies they outlawed long hair, they outlawed being who we are. So all of that criminalization and that marginalization systemic has passed on and we're just now coming back into our power.

AUBREY MARCUS: If there was no power to your ceremonies and no power to your tradition and no power to these rituals and no power to your way, it would have never been outlawed. You know what I mean? It's like there had to be fear at the root of it. At the root of it was a deep fear. And so when we're afraid of something and when we outlaw something and when we ban something and when we censor something like the books that have been burned and banished, it's like, they're burned and they're outlawed and they're banished because there's power there. And it's actually there that we should be looking, whenever you see something like that, they'll know there was a reason for that. And yes, the intent was malicious and malevolent, but it's also a clue. And the clue is, Oh no, there was something to be feared there. Same with the people who were the witches, the ‘witches’ that were burned and all of the women who worked with the herbs and the plants and then the medicines and why were these outlawed and banned? Is it because they didn't work? Nope. It's not because they didn't work. They were banned because they worked and they were banned because there was power there. And I think, this is a deep clue as we look to uncover, like, what are the things that have actively been suppressed? I make jokes all the time, the one thing that's never been censored is flat earth theory. Why? Because there's no power there. It's bullshit. There's no power there. So nobody's going to ban it. Nobody cares. Talk about it all you want. Make seven YouTube channels. You're never going to get censored because there's nothing to fear there, but when there's something to fear there and the fear comes from, there's power in the way.

CHASE IRON EYES: There's an order. There's an order that is actively attempting to diminish our power and to keep us from seeking the truth, to get lost in our senses. And it is true. You're absolutely right. It's because the Western mind, the rational mind is conditioned to, why do we fear the dark? I remember thinking when somebody asked me about taking nature hikes, what the hell is that? We don't take nature hikes. We just go for a walk. You know what I mean? Like we're already in that state of frame of mind, but we don't need to assert dominion over nature. It's not us who are damming up all the rivers. We created certain traps and certain things. We have a civilization, but the things that we've been conditioned to do, and I don't want to say white people. I don't want to say Americans. It's something bigger than that. You know what I mean? White people were never a reality. There were no white people 400 years ago. And then white people were invented at the same time as currency was invented, you know? And there's this racialization that has taken place. The Indian. Indian is not a real term. There's no such thing as Indians or blacks, you know what I mean? But those are labels that have been given an institute of violent institutional reality. I'm not saying there ain't racism. You know what I'm saying? We've got to do everything we can because they are trying to extinguish a fire and we present the only challenge to that next 1000 years of a secular, nihilistic, consumer based, extractive order. Add all those things together of whatever is in front of us, and whatever we've inherited, institutionally and economically, politically, everything that is imposed on us that we just kind of are born into. And we participate in that process. I remember when the kids were little and every time it was some corporate driven holiday and my wife just calls me cheap for this, but when it's Christmas and I go in and I get to buy the gifts and I look down the same hallway of any department store in America, and there's this endless rows of petrochemical substance based things to buy every time, you know what I mean? And that there is an order here that indigenous nations and those who are seeking a sacred relationship with themselves and with the elemental and universal powers. That's the only thing threatening that order. If I'm the CEO or if I own majority shares in some corporate extractive company, then I want extracting to be happening. It's got to be a profit in order for me to live my life. I want endless war. I want to lend money to this side of the war and that side of the war. And I want to sell armaments to this side and that side. So the spiritual liberation that we are walking with is very serious. But we have to come at it in a peaceful way. And I say it like that because our people have tried the other way in the 1970s. My father, his brothers, his cousins, they took up arms and they were in a 71 day siege on Pine Ridge. Wounded knee too is the incident. And the federal government instigated a whole conflict there. Exploiting our insecurities and our differences and assimilation versus traditional. And Leonard Peltier is still a political prisoner from that time. Leonard Peltier has been locked up longer than I've been alive. And I'm 46 years old. Leonard Peltier is in Coleman too, right, in Florida right now. For what we represent. And it's very tragic that two FBI agents were killed that day. Ron Williams and Jack Kohler, they were killed on land, the Jumping Bowl property where my dad lived, and all my relatives, all my uncles and so forth. But anyway, that's another long story. Leonard was not able to present the same defense that two of his co defendants were able to present evidence that the United States had orchestrated this, the FBI, DOJ, US Marshals, whatever was the intelligentsia of the time. Now this is the same intelligentsia that got Bobby's dad, and his brother, you know? That's serious, this is serious business here, you know? Anyway, we have to continue though, because what we have is true, and what we have has to be defended if we hope to be human beings. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. I believe it's a Lakota saying, and forgive my pronunciation, but it's attributed to Crazy horse, but I'm sure it's much older than that. And it's ‘Na-kay New-la wah-oon’. And the translation that I've heard is, I'm ready for whatever's next, which is something that Bobby said to me in a different way, which was, I asked him if he was afraid that he might be killed like his father and his uncle was, and he said to me, you know, there are worse things than death, which is another way to say ‘Na-kay New-la wah-oon’, like Hoka, and it was like the same spirit.

CHASE IRON EYES: This man saying ‘Na-kay New-la wah-oon’, let the record reflect. Yes, absolutely. Hokah He is another one. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. 

CHASE IRON EYES: That crazy horse and all of our people. We glorify warriors. We really do. We were defending ourselves from aggression and impositions and intrusions. And now America knows that, Hey, the Indians, they were done wrong. They were just trying to protect their own homelands and their own way of life. But, it means anytime, anywhere, any place or wherever I go, I live my life, you know? And it's the same ethos, as it is a good day to die. We don't mean that in some fatalistic way. We mean that we're ready. We're doing all we can to do what's righteous and to follow that path. And we're willing to assert what's positive and what's righteous. And we're willing to defend that which is sacred, which is righteous from intrusion. And that is the meaning of it's a good day to die. It doesn't mean let's go die today 

AUBREY MARCUS: Right.

CHASE IRON EYES: Well, I want to wake up tomorrow too, you know what I’m saying?

AUBREY MARCUS: Totally 

CHASE IRON EYES: But that's what it encompasses. It tries to encompass that Ethos that guides us. And it still does, man. When you said that there are still Tokala, that is the model, just like the Marines have Semper Fi, the Tokala Okola K'iche there on, in the Sioux nation, we say, ‘Na-kay New-la wah-oon’, that's what that means. And it's something that guides us and, I mean, I hope they hear it back home because there are people who are Tokala, who are still, that same society, those same staff and those same instruments that had to go underground because it wasn't always cool to be Indian. You couldn't just claim that, you couldn't say that, Hey, yeah, I'm descended from Crazy Horse or sitting bull people will be trying to kill you. You know, right? 1877 is when Crazy Horse was assassinated at Fort Robinson, and then Sitting Bull is 1890. And there are many others, there are many others, but these are figures that have transcended pop culture, especially Sitting Bull. Crazy Horse too. But if you told people that those were your relatives, I mean, we were changing our names because they were being hunted after that. Because not only did they represent in flesh and blood a threat to that oncoming colonial order, but they had bundles, they have sacred things, sacred instruments that are beyond all knowing and naming and so forth that give the human spirit a certain authority that there are worse things than death that lead to ‘Na-kay New-la wah-oon’

AUBREY MARCUS: It seems like for the hero, they have to pass a crucible where they recognize that their own life, the life of their ego identity, this name that we carry for a temporary amount of time is less significant. Then the carrying forward of life itself, life with a capital L and that we're always connected to life and that we'll always remember and the deeds of our life will be remembered far more than the length of our life, and there's this point where you realize, Oh yeah, there's something more important than just mere survival at all costs, safety at all costs. And that doesn't mean that you have to take up arms as a warrior in that way. It just means that you're willing to stand no matter what for all of life. There's something that I like to say, which is my own motto. If I had my own Semper Fi, it was all in for all life. It's all in for all life. And in my better moments. I remember that and that gives me all of the courage that I need if I'm worried about maybe I should say this, maybe I shouldn't say this, maybe people will unfollow me, whatever thing will happen. It's like, well, my priorities are out of alignment because if I really stand for all life, then I have to make a stand.

CHASE IRON EYES: It's so hard. It's not easy. Integrity is not easy. I'm not, how can I, you know, it is very difficult to walk on a sharp edge. It's very difficult and I'm no expert or role model. I'm only a human being too, you know what I mean? And then we're just doing our best. We're just trying to inform and really make our children proud of us. Really make our people proud of us, make our creator happy and pleased with what we do. And in this system that we are born into, it's like being born into a war, especially when you're native, like the Indian wars really never ended, but now it's for everyone. Russell means said, welcome to the reservation. He's speaking to all Americans because of the corporate extractive complex that determines our energy policy, our foreign policy, and whether or not we can catch rainwater, what kind of crops we can grow, what kind of sacraments you can avail yourself of, you know what I mean? There's a system of law and order, and we're for law and order, but the law and order that has been handed down 

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah.

CHASE IRON EYES: Protects capital and property of those who own capital and property. And at one time a lot of us were property. You know what I mean? We're barely just now coming out of that. It reminds me of Standing Rock. I tried my hardest not to get arrested up there because I worked so hard to become a lawyer, right, to achieve something in the Western world where I thought there was respect there, and there is. I'm not trying to say that achieving academic success in any modicum of success in the Western world, whatever it is, money, respect, prestige, whatever it is. Those are important things, those are important drivers. But when Standing Rock came around, it was the powers of creation compelling me to take a stand and I tried so hard not to get arrested also because of the militants and the activism and the liberation politics that my family propagates or participates in, you know, my mom, she's the most militant person I know.  She is crazy and she's tough, you know, she's 80 years old and she was at Standing Rock. She was at the front line. She was there, any day the cops could have come and raided wherever she was at, but she wanted to be there. So sometimes, yes, we are called to sacrifice ourselves. To offer ourselves in that respect, in that geopolitical respect, yes, we were there, but we were also there on behalf of the water. And even in our ceremonies in your life, you know, you think back, there's certain moments where you are offering yourself, you don't know how this thing is going to turn out. You go into the lodge, you don't know what's going to happen. You go up on the hill, that is a literal offering of yourself. You don't know if you're going to return from that. There have been people who've been taken from there. And that is an understanding that you have with offering yourself. But in order to grow from that, I don't want to say that, you know, you possess something that comes from that, but you put yourself through that, and like any ritualistic society over the ages, like in the Sundance, you come out a different person, you're not the same person that went in, there's a ritual graduation. And we're all called to that in our lives, every human being, but it's easier to not answer that. And you can not answer that. You can just chill, you know, with the status quo, but some of us don't have a choice and some of us are making the right choice. A lot of times I feel like I don't have a choice, but we get there.

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah. It's the choiceless choice when you open your eyes and you see. My brother, this has been such a pleasure, man. 

CHASE IRON EYES: Man, it's been awesome. 

AUBREY MARCUS: Thanks for taking in 

CHASE IRON EYES: I can't even believe it. I'm sitting here with Aubrey Marcus, you know what I mean? And it's so good. It's so meaningful. We need to come together.

AUBREY MARCUS: Yeah

CHASE IRON EYES: We need to share our strengths and our powers and our compassion, our love, what undergirds all that I'm standing up to this or that, it's because we love. 

AUBREY MARCUS: That's right. And we're not going to stop. My brother.

CHASE IRON EYES: Thank you very much.

AUBREY MARCUS: Thank you, everybody. We love you. We'll see you next week.