Crazy Horse Gives a Commencement Speech: Today I Commence

The sched­uled speaker at our com­mence­ment this year was sup­posed to be some exec­u­tive from Google, but at the last minute he had to cancel.

So when my fam­ily and I entered the vast hall, full of fel­low stu­dents all in their caps and gowns of many col­ors we didn’t know who we would be giv­ing the com­mence­ment speech. We sat, row after row, star­ing expec­tantly at the empty stage.

The pres­i­dent of our uni­ver­sity took the stage to intro­duce the still unknown Com­mence­ment Speaker. She seemed flus­tered and a lit­tle both­ered. She said, “I’m sorry that our reg­u­lar speaker could not make it today, but we have some­one really spe­cial to speak to us. He came, lit­er­ally, from out of the blue. He was born over 170 years ago, yet he is here with us today. I really can’t explain how he came here and I am as con­fused and mys­ti­fied as you are about his unex­pected appear­ance with us today. But let me intro­duce to you, the ghost of Crazy Horse. In his life, he was a war-chief of the Lakota Oglala peo­ple in what we now call South Dakota. It is said that he was a brave man among his peo­ple and led them in their vic­tory over Gen­eral Custer at the Lit­tle Big Horn River in Mon­tana. But I really have no idea of what he will speak about. I really don’t even know how or why he is here with us today. But with­out fur­ther ado, please let me intro­duce to you  Crazy Horse.

And then before our eyes a Native Amer­i­can man mate­ri­al­ized. He rose before us like some myth­i­cal being. And then he just stood there sur­vey­ing the vast audi­ence that sat in rapt atten­tion before him. I could feel his sharp black eyes affix them­selves on me like some kind of ancient laser that would keep me hostage to hear each of his words.

The silence con­tin­ued. Only the rhythm of our breath­ing could be heard. And then he spoke.

Ahh my very good friends. Com­mence­ment. The begin­ning … a begin­ning … for you and I and all of us together. Com­mence­ment … to begin. So we begin.

A seed is planted in the ground and with the grace of the sun and the rain a tiny sprout appears. Ahhhh. Thus we all begin … we com­mence. As it has been said, today is, indeed, the first day of our lives.

It is, my friends, the only day of your lives, for every­day is the only day of your life. I feel your spirit like I feel my own and our spir­its merge here today. Our tribes come together and I know that the Great Spirit says that it is a good thing.

The old war­rior smiled … a wry smile. And then he said,

I didn’t have much time to pre­pare for this talk. But I went back and lis­tened to other talks given by great white and black men and women and I lis­tened to their talks. I heard them talk about the glow­ing future that awaits you all. I heard them speak of all the hard work you’ve done to make these won­der­ful futures pos­si­ble. I heard all of this and I reflected long on their words.

You know we Indi­ans know a lot about arrows. We know how to make them and we know how to fire them into the hearts of ani­mals to whom we have given thanks because they have given us their lives so that we may live on their meat. This is a cir­cle. On one day we, who took their lives, will die and we give back our bod­ies so that they may live on.

The white man speaks to you about time … about the remark­able futures that await you all. He speaks of time as if it were an arrow that trav­els only straight. He says to you that we walk a path that leads in only one direc­tion. That we started as that lit­tle sprout 21 or so years ago and that lit­tle sprout became you and now that lit­tle sprout will bloom even greater and brighter in a future that can only be won­der­ful. Ya Hey.

And then he stopped. There was a long pause. Silence. And then he said.

We Indi­ans know of no such arrow. For us life truly moves in a cir­cle. Every­day the sun rises and brings us its light. And we give thanks to that light. And every­day the sun falls into the dark­ness and the moon and stars have their time. We gather around the fire and tell sto­ries and laugh and love and then we fall into sleep. And it is good and we give thanks to all that is for we are that and it is us.

The sea­sons turn in their pivot. The snow and ice of blue win­ter flow into the time of rebirth Spring and then the sun grows strong and the great fields of green explode in summer’s warmth. In days, long ago, we would hunt the buf­falo in those green days and it was go good to live each day strong in summer’s power. But then the days would grow short and Fall was upon the Earth, the leaves explod­ing into a mil­lion shades of yel­low and orange and then the first snowflakes would fall and win­ter would return. The cir­cle of the year was complete.

The four direc­tions also form a cir­cle all around us. They embrace us in their lim­it­less­ness, for we live in the cen­ter of their cir­cle, in bal­ance and har­mony. And within that embrace of those four sacred direc­tions we are each born and each die in that great cir­cle of life.

So I say to you, your jour­ney is a cir­cle and I ask you to see your own life as one cir­cle within a greater cir­cle. What awaits us all is not a won­der­ful future. What awaits us is just this now … this very now … and within this now all of life rises and falls and falls and rises, like day fol­low­ing night in the great cir­cle of your life. And it is good my friends. Within this now, all the cir­cles revolve.

When we Lakota would go into bat­tle on our fast ponies, our hair flow­ing with the wind, our cries like hawks, we would say, “today is a good day to die”. And I say to you today, that today is also a good day to die.

He paused again. We didn’t have any idea of what he meant by these strange and trou­bling words. Silence.

But Crazy Horse smiled beau­ti­fully and he said.

It is funny how the white man speaks of your glo­ri­ous future and then, after many years have passed, he then says, in the twi­light of his life, how much he would love to be young again, back in col­lege, back with his friends cel­e­brat­ing, par­ty­ing, and just hang­ing out together. It really doesn’t make much sense to us Indi­ans. But the white man is very strange. He’s never happy. It’s always the future he longs for. And when he speaks of your glo­ri­ous future, he’s say­ing that it only gets bet­ter, until it doesn’t … but he doesn’t say that part.

I say to you today, that today is a good day to die. Do you know what I mean when I say those words? I won­der if you know.

And then he stopped, as if in mid sen­tence. Our hearts hung on his words, but there was only silence and in that silence the ghost of Crazy Horse began to fade. I so wanted to hold onto him, to bring him close. I so wanted to hear what he would say next. I didn’t want him to ever go away. I real­ized that there was only love in his words and my heart was just begin­ning to open up to the mys­tery of him.

But then he spoke and he said,

Today is a good day to die … to die to the white man’s false arrow. It is not a glo­ri­ous future that waits for us in some imag­i­nary future, for we have seen this future? We can see it now. See it with me by look­ing back into your past, for your past is your future, the good times and the painful times.

Try to remem­ber those times with me. We see how it all just hap­pens in the blink of an eye. We see the great cir­cle of life in this very moment you and I. Yes, there is glory my very good friends and yes, there is suf­fer­ing and the glory would not be so achingly beau­ti­ful were it not for the suf­fer­ing and the suf­fer­ing could not be endured were we not to know that glory is never so far away.

This is the cir­cle and we are liv­ing it now … you and I. We are the circle.

Today is, indeed, a good day to die. It is a good day to die to what is untrue to what fails to nur­ture our spirit, our power.

But it is a good day to die for another reason.

On that day in 1876 when our friends, the Cheyenne, and Ara­paho, and all those brave war­riors destroyed Custer and his army, we said that it was a good day to die. When you love and trust the Great Spirit, we real­ize that every­day is a good day, it is even a good day to die. We hold out our arms wide. We breath the clear air. We feel the sun on our faces and no mat­ter what may hap­pen, we love and trust all that is. And with that great love and trust we give every­thing we have to that moment.

So don’t hold back. Give every­thing to this day and when night falls know the bless­ings you received, as well as the bless­ings you freely gave.

The last thing we Lakota fear is death, for we are all war­riors to what is true. We trust and love all that which would seem to be a chal­lenge, for it is the great chal­lenges that make for the very best days. Oh how I remem­ber them and my heart soars. We can even trust our­selves if we are true to our­selves, true to our hearts, for it is within our hearts that we lis­ten to the strong voice of the Great Spirit and even in the cold­est and dark­est hours of our lives, we can live in trust with that and whis­per to our­selves, today is truly a good day to die.

So let’s come together and feel the power that is here now. Let us feel all that is good and right, strong and bal­anced, and give thanks for all that is. For we are the all and the all is us. Who could ever draw the line that would divide me from you and us from all of cre­ation. Ya Hey.

Let us come together as the many in the One and give thanks to the life that will always be, the Life that is every­where, the one and only Life we could ever trust and love.

His voice became a whis­per that only I could hear and he said … he said to me,

And in the light that is here already, here with us, let us open our hearts to the cir­cle of this Life and say with a smile on every face, a smile of trust and love, a smile of courage, and a smile of laugh­ter even for us lit­tle sprouts that poked their heads up from the earth toward the rain and sun that made them live and declare, today is a good day to die and it is a good day to be alive.

He stopped and then we rose from our seats and just started mov­ing toward great Crazy Horse. His form grew faint, but a new light seemed to arise and it sur­rounded us and we were, in that moment, truly One with him.

Crazy Horse raised his bowed head and gazed in the light and he said,

Thank you Life. Thank you Life. Thank you Life.

And then I said, “Thank you Life. Thank you Life. Thank you Life.”

His form grew fainter still and these were his last words.

You are with me for­ever and I am with you for­ever in this great cir­cle. I will never leave you and you will never leave me. In this day we came together as One and this day ends with us together as One. And so the cir­cle con­tin­ues. Now we depart in the four direc­tions and it is good. As my Navajo friends say, “let us walk in beauty you and I, earth below and sky above, let us walk always in beauty.

And then he was gone … but he wasn’t gone …  for today I com­mence, I walk in beauty, the earth below and the sky above. Crazy Horse LIVES!

I ded­i­cate this post to the many Indian peo­ple who have enriched my life. Through these words, I send them my thanks. May we, who are  liv­ing out of bal­ance, dis­cover the music, magic, and beauty of their words in our own lives. Let them live with us.

Did you find this infor­ma­tion help­ful? If you did, con­sider donat­ing.

The Crazy Horse Gives a Com­mence­ment Speech: Today I Com­mence by , unless oth­er­wise expressly stated, is licensed under a Cre­ative Com­mons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.