Death and Rebirth, Spiritual Fulfillment in a Tupperware Marked Community

By: Ruben Cu:k Ba’ak

Tribal affiliation: Tohono O’odham

I use to be part of the hunt,

Once before, I could build my own home,

the men I grew with showed me.

Then, I could feed my community,

I could protect my community,

I could be honest,

I could fail and progress,

I added value to my community,

The community and I in it, was important.

….a heart beat in the new world,

I can’t feel it but I hear it,

The inception of new self in pieces of multiple realities,

Lonely realities

I can’t be this because I’m that,

I can’t hunt in homelessness, in addiction

The beacon of community calls me and I am so lost,

my righteous judgements flounder in my assimilated foreign paradoxes.

My fears and conceptions are stuck in historical trauma,

Force feeding my personal trauma excuses and justifications.

Creating a new strand of self-pity, a new shade of ugliness,

Gifted me the generation before my birth.

What will I hand the next generation?

It will not be this, we will be better.

The smell chemeth fresh, filling up the back yard,

I am drawn deeper into reality.

This is when a frog came to me,

said she was life,

she taught me songs,

She sat me at the fire to hear stories,

Then she took me to my Medicine Person.

Humbly, he gave me a gourd,

It was brilliant and made up endless universes, it sang songs with me,

Still today, she sings with me.

I see the Deer,

I participate in Ceremony,

I feel the love of all things,

I’m immersed in love for my People, I see the power of O’odham Community, Creator has been healing me,

Has been healing Us, Us, Community, Us.

I work hard, I am accountable,

In sweat and responsibility I see a good future, I am fed,

I am Blessed,

I am a part of a good future.

I am O’odham right here, right now, And it is beautiful.

Writer bio

Ruben Cu:k Ba’ak is a traditional Tohono O’odham member from Sells, AZ. He has lived the American Indian dream, from a broken abusive home to violence and drug dealing to being locked in the system to changing his life around and walking his Redroad to a couple of degrees, and to a career serving his Nation. He has proven to himself and many others that change is possible. His passion is change and the progression and evolution of the Original Peoples before America, He has 15 and a half years drugs, alcohol and violence free and continues to help people struggling in addiction, alcoholism, violence, and toxic lifestyles to change and learn to live a better way. And he also writes a little poetry.