Ceremony part 6

As Tayo is healing from his PTS, his triggers are fading away. Tayo is seeing things in a new light. "The valley was green, from the yellow sandstone mesas in the northwest to the black lava hills to the south. But it was not the green color of the jungles, suffocating and strangling the Earth. The new growth covered the Earth lightly, each blade of grass, each leaf and stem with space between as if planted by a thin summer wind." (Leslie Marmon Silko 203).  The green that once made him think of the horror he endured during war had turned into life and growth. It is now a happy and uplifting connection. Tayo is able to relax and enjoy things that once sent his mind to the darkest places. "The terror of the dreaming he had once had done on this bed was gone, uprooted from his belly; and the women had filled the hollow spaces with new dreams" (Silko 204). Tayo used to lay in that bed and the sound of the old springs would take him back to the hospital or to a coffin, but now she has helped him replace though thoughts with new dreams and new memories that relate him to a bed. Tayo is noticing a change in the weather and it is no longer triggering his PTS. "Only the sky had changed, washed clear of the dust and haze which had swirled off the red clay flats the summer before. He could smell wild flowers growing in the weeds and grass beside the road, and he heard the big bumblebees and the smaller bees sucking the blossoms" (Silko 204). Tayo is seeing the growth and new life that is coming from the weather and not letting it take him back to the jungles of the Philippines. He is embracing the life around him and living connected to it.

Tayo has a new and positive outlook now that his PTS is less effective on his life. He is starting to see the brighter side of things. "He was overwhelmed by the love he felt for her; tears filled his eyes and the ache in his throat ran deep in his chest. He ran down the hill to the river, though the light rain until the pain faded like fog mist. He stood and watched the rainy dawn, and he knew he would find her again" (Silko 202). Instead of focusing on the rain and his old trigger he is optimistic for his future and finding the women again. He is embracing the Earth and letting that overwhelm him instead for is trauma from the past. Tayo is becoming more aware of the life around him. "He knelt over the arching tracks the snake left in the sand and filled the delicate imprints with yellow pollen. As far as he could see, in all directions, the world was alive. He could feel the motion pushing out of the damp Earth into the sunshine" (Silko 205). He notices the life within the Earth and it gives him a feeling of happiness and hope. He can relate to being trapped under something damp and hopeless and is now reaching for the sunshine. The women has been his connection to the Earth and she is bring out this new sense of security. "The sunlight moved up and down his back like hands, and he felt the muscles in his neck and belly relax; he lay down beside the pool, across from her, and closed his eyes" (Silko 206). The PTS and stories that lingered in his belly have subsides and he is now free to relax. Tayo  is embracing life instead of fearing it.  

 

Ceremony part 5

Within this section of reading the idea of stolen land was a major subject. Tayo is going though his process of healing and dealing with both his trauma from war but also trauma from his cultures history. "They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land. It was the story of the white shell beads again... stolen from a grave and found by a man as he walked along the trial one day" (Leslie Marmon Silko 156). Nobody really owns anything, procession is just a state of mind. The land was not stolen it was just used in a new way. To the Indians it seemed as if it was stolen because the new way did not match their ways and they felt they had no control over that. "Every day they had to look at the land from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with then; it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of loss going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, defending the land they had already lost" (Silko 157). They drink to deal with the loss of land and only blame white people for taking it away. Defaulting to drinking only reassure the stereotype and solidifies the white mans reasoning to why they deserved the land over the Indians. With every loss, there are multiple factors that pays apart in it. "And it was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken, because they couldn't stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land. It was then too that the holy men at Laguna and Acoma warned the people that the balance of the world had been disturbed" (Silko 172). It was not necessary that the land had been taken but the way of life in that area changed. It went from the natives ways to the white cultures so quickly and without integration that the Indians felt they had been wronged.

Tayo is starting to heal and it takes many factors to accomplish this. Betonie is helping him see that other ways to heal outside his culture. "Caterpillar spreads out dry corn husks on the floor. He rubbed his hands together and tobacco fell into the corn husks" (Silko 167). The caterpillar is helping the corn, witch is the way of life for both Pueblo and Navajo tribes. In Pueblo culture the caterpillar is believed to be bad and hurt the corn, where in Navajo culture it is believed to have great powers and help the corn. Tayo need aspects of both cultures to help himself heal. Many people are helping Tayo heal as well. "Being alive was all right then: he had not breathed like that for a long time" (Silko 168).  After spending the night with the women Betonie had told Tayo about, he had a new, brighter outlook on life. She had helped him live in the present and focused on that and not his traumatizing past. The lost cattle have also lead Tayo towards healing. "He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had forgotten all the events of the past days and past years" (Silko 178). Focusing on the cattle gave Tayo an outlet to escape his past and replace it with motivation and good memories. Many things have to work together in order for true healing to occur and that is finally happening for Tayo. 

  

Ceremony part 4

Tayo had began to heel being with Betonie. He knows what Tayo needs in order to get better. " the ceremony isn't over yet. He was drawing in the dirt with his figures. Remember these stars he said. I've seen them and I've seen the spotted cattle; I've seen a mountain and I've seen a women" (Leslie Marmon Silko 141). Betonie is guiding Tayo thought his path of  healing and showing him what he must do while still giving him the space to do it on his own. "But the effects of the witchery of the evil thing began to leave his body. The effects of the witchery of the evil thing in his surroundings began to turn away" (Silko 142). Tayo is learning how do deal with the evil i his life and that is allowing him to heal and the evil to seem less present. Tayo wants to be healed. "Leroy and Harley were happy; they had wine and six-packs, and they didn't watch her the way Tayo did." (Silko 144) Lust and drinking are distractions and block the path of healing. Tayo wants to heal and therefor is not focusing on distractions and just on his mental health.

Indians were treated differently after war. They got no respect after returning home. "They had been treated first class once, with their uniforms. As long as there has been a war and the white people were afraid of the Japs and Hitler. But these Indians got fooled when they thought it would last." (Silko 153) After returning home from war, there survive and honor was forgotten and they were back to only being seen as the stereotypical lower class Indian. Indians suffered and sacrificed during the war as well and had nothing good to turn. "she knew where to find them-which downtown bars they liked. She knew the veterans' disability checks came out around the first of the month." (Silko 151) They used money they got from the war to forget the war. They had no real support system and this lead many of them down a dark path. Indians not only dealt with war trauma but also with trauma for their history. "So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost." (Silko 157).  They let drinking take over to forget the hardships they went thought over seas and to forget the struggles of their past as well.

ceremony part 3

As time goes on thing are continuously changing. Even before white settlers became a part of Indian life, ceremonies were changing. "But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow ground rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagles claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing" ( Leslie Marmon Silko). The ceremonies had been effected by many other things prior to white settlers. Indian nations noticed a huge change as white settlers came to their land and blame them for the change because it was such a drastic and hard change to live though. "But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift;and it became necessary to create new ceremonies" (Silko 116).  As white people came into natives lives, they made an impact and forever altered the natives lives. There was no ignoring these new people and going on with life as if a drastic change had not occurred. Changes were made to keep up with these new influences. "So, long time ago they got him back again but he wasn't quite the same after that not like the other children" (Silko 120). Once you have experienced something, no matter what it is, you are forever changed. That change becomes a part of you and influences the rest of your life.

Race is just a social label put on people. there once was a time where race did not exist at all. "Thirty thousand years ago they were not strangers" (Silko 114-115). Long before modern cultures, we were all on species. Everyone shares the same ancient ancestors, there were no differences between the people we all evolved from. You can not put a judgement on a whole race because it is only how society defines a person not what controls them. "Nothing is that simple he said, you don't write off all white people, just like you don't trust all Indians" (Silko 118).  All races have good and bad, evil isn't secluded to a specific race. It is in everyone and the color of ones skin has no influence on their actions or how they deal with it. The social construct of race is what is wrong with people and why change and healing is so hard. "he would never get well as long as he used words like we and us" (Silko 116). As people continue to view themselves as separate, they will never be able to come together and fix the problems in society. Race is just a cultural ideas and has no real significance in peoples life. Once people accept that and believe there are no differences, healing can start.