June 21, 2019. Cheyenne did not hesitate to offer her answers to the questions and gave a unique perspective. I was honoured that she shared her challenges here.
Are you in love?
“Yes. Very much so. I love dancing at the pow-wows. I really enjoy it. It opens my heart and heals me inside and out, because I am battling addictions, so this is my recovery. And it helps me a lot, ‘cause it keeps me occupied, travelling every weekend to different pow-wows, different areas, treaty 3 areas. Yeah! Something I love!”
Who has been the most influential person in your life?
“My grandmother. She’s currently in the hospital but she has been my leader, I guess you would say. She’s also a jingle-dress dancer, which is the healing dress, and I take a lot of pride in what she says. She’s an elder, so she travels a lot, everywhere, to different meetings, pow-wows–she’s the elder that talks in ceremonies, and yeah. She, actually, helped me get clean, because of…she wanted to see me back into the circle again, so I just decided, so I’m now seven years clean. Sober. Yeah.”
How do you feel about the future?
“Uhm, I’m very optimistic. I don’t like all of the technology that they’re bringing in, just because it is hurting the ozone layer in some sort of way, and all the gas, and all the tree-cutting is hurting our animals, which we always eat, and the gas, the oil spills in the water are hurting our fish. So yeah, I would say I’m optimistic. Uhm, I would love to see what the world would bring in the future. Yeah. Okay.”