Longest Walk host in Salida, Colorado, Nick Standing Bear takes flight to Spirit WorldThis is to let you know that Nick Standing Bear, Lakota, Vietnam Vet and former POW, partner of Becky Donlan and your host in Salida, Colorado (Monarch Pass), took his life last Thursday. He was found at the Sacred Bear Circle, an ancient site east of Salida and we will scatter his ashes there on Tuesday. Sing prayers for your brother.
In solidarity,
Aho, Winter Ross
Crestone, Colorado 6/14/08
From: Mano Cockrum
Out of everyone I looked forward to meeting who helped in Colorado, Nick and Becky were the two I looked forward to meeting the most. They had been trying to educate the people of their region about sacred sites and to get harsher punishments for those destroying them, and a perspective to law enforcement to understand the extremity of the situation. They had a powerpoint developed and I had hoped to bring their message to D.C., but still have no financial resources to even visit anyone from Colorado who helped or the Walk in D.C.
Please take some time to offer a prayer for him and his partner Becky. Nick "Bear" reached out to me from their entire region willing to get support and hospitality for the walkers, facing obstacles such as the locals often racist views and resistance to helping native people, and coming up with tons of donations, spending several hundred of his own for food and advertising to get support, and he and Becky offering their time, energy and homes up to walkers. The visit took a toll, as it will on a community the walkers visit, but Becky and Nick had to bear the weight of it alone, not having an entire community to support them, the closest support being far south in Crestone.
I am very sad that I will never meet him, having spent much time talking to him and knowing he was a true warrior for the people. I can only hope his work lives on and gains the support he needed for it while alive.
Ahee'hee,
Mano-
Mano Cockrum
Indigenous Youth Sovereignty Project
http://www.iysp.org/
Longest Walk Talk Radio's interview with Becky Donlan in Salida, Colorado
2008-03-27_salida.mp3
39:2013.5 Mb
4 comments:
I have been deeply hurt by the loss of a good freind and spiritual advisor.You are forever in my heart UNCLE BEAR
Porcupine
Will miss you bro, hope to see you in a red shirt on top of wind dancer. Our trails will cross again. Puma [Ghost who walks the Mountains]
only knew him briefly, a couple of months didnt get to meet him in person but we talked online and on the phone. Im glad to at least to have had the chance to have known him a little, the man had a good heart and Ive read about all the good he did for so many people. He always insisted on being called "bear" instead of Nick but it suited him perfectly. I wish I could have met him in person, but who knows maybe someday our paths will cross in the spirit world. Will miss you dearly "Bear" and you will always be in my heart and thoughts.
Nick standing bear was a good friend, I had come from alaska to salida and was lost searching for a class in poncho springs I pulled up in front of his house to ask directions, I said I was lost and he laughed and told me the ancestors had told him I would coming from the north...I told him I had just moved from Alaska where I was born...he invited me in and I was a fire keeper for him and he was a friend to me and my family...we left there in 2002 and lost touch...I have thought of him many times and sent love and light to him often...I am sad to hear of his anguish and passing but I am certain spirit embraced him as a friend...great love to Nick standing bear..my friend...thank you...Alaska Robin
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