From my perspective, the Red Road was started by our ancestors in 1492 , when the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria first came over the horizon from the east. When the boats landed, indigenous people walked towards the west carrying their sacred instruments, looking for a safe place to honor the gifts that the creator blessed them with.

When the Mayflower came into view of our Turtle Island, the ancestors who carried the vision for this Red Road were at the western gate, where the Chumash people lived, by the rainbow bridge on the west coast. In 1805, when Lewis and Clark traveled to the Pacific Ocean, the sickness of greed reached our ancestors on the west coast; again, they moved to a safer place to honor the gifts that the Creator blessed them with.

Today, in the ceremonies, when I look inside, I see the safe place that our ancestors found to honor the gifts that the creator blessed them with.

When you stop for a little while on that Red Road that you are walking on and turn around and take a good hard look at what you are walking on, you'll see the reason why the old people call it the RED Road.

For hundreds of years, people walked, ran, and even crawled on their hands and knees when they had to; they continued to walk on this path, carrying the medicine ways for the future generations that are walking behind us.

The bleeding, the physical pain, the mental suffering, and the spiritual battles that our relatives went through to keep these ceremonies alive is what you'll see and feel when you take the time to look back on this Red Road that you are walking on.

Spirit remembers and knows what it took for our ancestors to lay the foundation that this Red Road is built on.

For me, with each step I take on this Red Road, I remember how so many people have died to keep this way of connecting to Creator alive, how so many nations were wiped away without a trace of their existence. Their medicine ways can still be felt in the wind, water, earth, and fire.

I remember the invasion and the early resistance to this melting pot, from the Taino people on the eastern islands to the Iroquois confederacy, the eastern woodland peoples, the plains and prairie peoples, all the way to the fishing peoples of the pacific northwest.

I remember the murdering and suffering that was done to our people in the name of GOD. These memories have been kept alive from all the way back, from when the eastern people who survived fled towards the west. Even when they could no longer walk or run, they crawled on their hands and knees, keeping their gifts and memories to pass on down to us.

Remember: The Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Wounded Knee Massacre, and all the countless times when our people were thrown to the ground and beaten, killed and butchered, just because they were free to walk on this road of life that the Creator gifted us with.

I remember the suffering, the pain, and all the blood that was spilled onto our Mother Earth from the systematic killing of our people, and the resulting destruction of our nations, by the European people infected with the conquering wasicu mindset .

With each step I take on this Red Road, I remember what it took for our ancestors to lay this foundation, so that today we all can talk about this good Red Road.

-Durwin LightningWolf

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