I needed time, and turned to the sea, sky and to the wind as poetry and ceremony. Time to grieve the death of my friend and give myself to it fully. Time to think about what I want to do with the days or years I might have ahead. All the while the political world continues to fall deeper into a dark hole. Although what is happening is painful, I’ve continued to pay close attention.
For a balance I’ve turned to nature. Gardening in the rain, while my dog rooted in the mud, both of us loving every moment. I’ve also been walking for miles along the ocean, with the tang of salt and sea air settling around me. I wiggled my bare toes in the sand and felt the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. My thoughts turned over like the waves on the beach.
When not playing with the earth I’ve been at work on a collection of stories, We Who Walk The Seven Ways, about love and friendship and the circle of elder Native women who raised me up. I love this new book I’m pulling forth. It’s bringing me into vulnerability and truth.
We Who Walk the Seven Ways is Terra Trevor’s memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After she endured a difficult loss, a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided Trevor (mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, and German) through the seven cycles of life in Indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty.
With tender honesty, Trevor explores how every ending is always a beginning. Her reflections on the deep power of women’s friendship, losing a child, reconciling complicated roots, and finding richness in every stage of life show that being an American Indian with a complex lineage is not about being part something, but about being part of something.
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“Terra Trevor’s memoir is a gentle invitation to journey with her across decades, an invitation to notice with her as she seeks healing and finds belonging. There were phrases and sentences I underlined, places where I wept, passages that will remain with me as they drew me to insights I’d previously struggled to name. I closed the final pages and knew that in reading this book, I had been the recipient of a generous and much-needed gift. While I can certainly finish a book in a day, I chose to move slowly through this one, letting each idea, each paragraph, each reflection gently spill over me, allowing the pages to alter me in some way.” —Patrice Gopo, author of Autumn Song: Essays on Absence
