When the man who was the only father I ever knew met my mom, from what my grandparents tell me, he was a man more than a little smitten.

He was at the Gathering of Nations PowWow in April of 1994. She was there with her sister-in-law, my Aunt Lily, and he was there as part of a drum group out of Pine Ridge that considered a point of pride that the Lakota Nation always made an outstanding appearance at the annual event in New Mexico where more than 500 tribes were represented and in excess of 70,000 people came.

It was on the morning of the second day during the women’s fancy dance that my father watched my mom, Therese Adams. She was decked out in natural tanned buckskin with elk’s teeth and intricate woodlands beadwork, she carried an eagle feather fan that had been in her family, the Adamses, for generations. They say my mother’s braids were wrapped in otter skin to make them appear longer. Their dark lengths bounced as she danced to the steady drumbeat. Traditional Mohawk singers that had traveled all the way from Canada wrapped their song around her - and my father was transfixed.

It was during that grand PowWow, that they fell in love and were married by an old chief from the Kiowa Nation who was in attendance and who just happened to have one of those become an ordained clergy member by mail. I confess, I always wondered if his being a Reverend was legit.

Anyway, my father didn’t care that my mother was pregnant with another man’s child when he married her. He only knew that for him, she would always be enough. The day I was born inside my paternal grandparents’ home on the Reservation, the man who I would come to regard as my father could not have been prouder. He had a son, and as far as he was concerned, I would be raised in both the Sioux and Mohawk Ways. The miles and cultural distance between the Seven Council Fires the Sioux Nation and the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy didn’t matter. Another Indigenous child had been born in spite of all the strikes against him. He couldn’t have been prouder than if I had been a child of his body.

I was six years old when my little sister, Mara was born. In the family, her nickname was Kamimila, which means butterfly in the Lakota language, and the name fit her perfectly.

Neither my little sister nor I was ever meant to feel by our parents that we were any different from any other family. We were happy right up until that horrible day when I was 10-years-old that my mother, my father, and my baby sister were killed in a car accident less than ten miles outside of White Clay.

I don’t remember a whole lot about the days, weeks, and months that followed. My grandmother said I didn’t speak for a long time. I just clutched the stuffed white buffalo that was Mara’s to me and walked around as if I was in a daze. I do remember my dreams from that time, though. They were of me wandering in a woodland forest following a bright streak of light to the center of the forest. The bright streak of light stopped above a high ridge over a mountain lake and then two wings emerged from it and it came to rest like a giant, fiery eagle.

In my dream, I had to know more of this magnificent fire eagle. I had to see it for myself. I remember running until I reached a summit on the opposite side of the mountain lake. Without hesitation, I felt myself, diving, down, into the water and then coming back up toward the surface. When I did, I was different. I could feel the pull of the water on my arms, that now were no longer arms, but wings that were iridescent blue and green. I would have stopped to marvel at this dream vision but with a final kick of my legs and arms, my body came flying out from the lake and into the air. With a few short, galloping flaps like those of an eagle, I was airborne. I remember looking back behind me to see a long, trailing tail that would change the direction of my trajectory with the slightest twitch.

I was flying and it felt more real than anything I had ever known. There was an exhilaration to it that lifted my wounded spirit. I would heal I told myself. I would know that kind of joy again. Of that I was certain.

In my dream form, I headed in the same direction that I had seen the fire eagle land and flew over the ridge once, twice, and finally came to rest. I landed in a small glade that protected a lodge made of buffalo hide. Other than the lodge, there was not much outside of the forest. There was no sign of the fire eagle, for the great being left no sign of its passing. By that time, I was no longer a great winged beast but as I saw myself every day. I went into the dream lodge, hoping to see some sign of the fire eagle, my family, or at the very least my sister, Mara.

I lifted the flap of the tipi and peered inside there by the fire was nothing of what I expected at all. Next to the fire was a girl about my age with flaming red hair. She gave me a smile that contained the smiles of the loved ones that I had lost. For the first time, my heart didn’t feel the heaviness it had since that horrible day. I remember that after a short while the red-haired girl and I were walking together in the forest. At one point we looked out over the ridge together when in the blink of an eye the fire eagle reappeared next to me in her place. I felt myself jump back in surprise at the sudden heat and brightness that shone from this wondrous creature. With a single flap of her wings she dove down off the ridge to skim just over the waters of the lake below. As she turned and wheeled back toward the sky, I heard a human voice from the fire eagle cry out, ”Follow me!”

Without hesitation, I ran a few feet and dove off the edge of the cliff, before I even experienced the sensation of falling, again, I felt the large, leathern wings in place of my arms. It was at that point that I woke up. Suddenly I felt quite disappointed that the fire eagle, the girl and my wings were not there. In my half-awake state, I wondered if it was only a matter of kicking my feet, lifting my backside and taking to the air just as I had in the dream. Of course, nothing I tried worked now that I was awake.

Even as a grown man, I remember that dream. I can sometimes experience it now and again when I am playing my guitar and thinking of nothing else. There is that sensation of that first flight that lifted me out of my childhood despair. The other night while I was playing at a club in West Hollywood, I thought I caught a glimpse of that fire eagle out of the corner of my eye. Doing a double take, I turned to see a slender red-haired woman heading toward the door.

Before she left, she looked over her shoulder straight at me with an expression that said, “Follow me.”