I felt both exhilarated and sad when I read my first Native American spiritual text, Black Elk Speaks. Being at home in a beautifully unified paradise, where the same creative energy that formed nature, the animals and humans also formed dreams to guide us through that world--the very thought of it gladdened my spirit. Black Elk's vision of spiritual community inspired me. When his people enacted his vision to ignite its power, there awakened in me the knowledge of bringing dreams to life. I also experienced a profound nostalgia for not actually being a part of that visionary world of the Native American.

I then read another, more modern text, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, recorded by Richard Erdoes. Whereas Black Elk lived during the final days of the original Indian ways, Lame Deer's life was on a reservation. The book contained its own sadness over the transformation of the native life into the "wild west." That sadness united me with the Native American as I grieved for us non-natives who so desparately needed the very native spirituality that our ancestors had helped destroy. It was hopeful, however, to watch Lame Deer in his efforts to secure Native teachings for future generations. Twenty years after reading that book I observe the fulfillment of its prophecy as many of my peers seek out Native American teachers and "go native." With a mixture of both romanticism and sincerity, the same mixture we had as children when we "played Injun," only with more expensive Indian toys, my generation idolizes the Native American. It doesn't seem fair to their spirit, however, to imitate them. To honor their visionary creativity, we would best seek our own vision in our own authentic style.

Recently a new spiritual text appears, written by the next generation, that blesses such a quest. Gift of Power (Bear & Company) is the autobiography of Lame Deer's son, Archie Fire Lame Deer, with a little help from Richard Erdoes once again. It is a fitting sequel and comes closer yet to making what's valuable about the Native American way available to us non-natives without "going native." Archie, as he would prefer to be called, grew up in our world, not the reservation. Educated in a white school, as well as the school of hard knocks,

He didn't meet his father until he was a teenager and remained distant for much of his life. He received some spiritual lessons from his grandfather. Although Lame Deer mentored many younger medicine men, it wasn't until he was on his deathbed that he passed along to Archie the special secrets and sacred objects that would be part of his son's work.

"To be a medicine man, you have to experience everything, live life to the fullest. If you don't experience the human side of everything, how can you help teach or heal? To be a good medicine man, you've got to be humble. You've got to be lower than a worm and higher than an eagle." Thus Lame Deer counseled his son.

Archie had followed this advice, growing up as a hell-raising juvenile delinguent. An alcholic, with plenty of hard knocks from the policeman's club upon his head, rodeo clown, paratrooper, Korean prisoner of war, Hollywood stuntman, rattlesnake hunter, he held plenty of jobs before he accepted the role of what we call "medicine man."

Some of the best parts of this book are his humorous stories. As a young child he and his playmates set up their own sweat lodge, but when their bucket ran dry they passed water on the rocks to make steam...a big mistake. Hired to clear a farm of rattlesnakes Archie and a friend used dynamite and became drenched in a downpouring rain of snake parts. Setting up a scene in the movie, The Return of a Man Called Horse where the Indians are to be singing a sacred song, Archie secretly directs the women to sing a bawdy song with a straight face. This book is no magical journey familiar to Casteneda fans nor anything like Lynn Andrews might write. I'm reminded more of Huckleberry Finn. Mixed in with the shennagians are small moments of spiritual connection. As a child he helps his grandfather collect power feathers from an eagle by laying out a rabbit on a string as bait then grabbing the eagle's tail feathers as the mighty bird dived for the kill. Waking from a nap Archie sees a dove in a flock of pigeons that delivers him a powerful message.

Archie gives a frank, unsentimenal account of his alcoholism. After he quits booze and begins to accept his vocation as a spiritual person, he counsels alcoholic Natives. He achieves reform in the prisons so that native prisoners can conduct sweat lodges and smoke the sacred pipe.

The book contains no new revelation of Native American secrets. The basic tenets of the Plains Indian spirituality--the sweat, the vision quest, the pipe, the Sundance--are present throughout the book. Like his father he combinse the spiritual with the comic and the human, blending the sacred and the profane into a profound power of healing hope.

As he relates his meetings with the Pope and the Dali Lama, as well as with native people around the world, Archie becomes truly a modern, worldwide teacher. There is no longer a need to feel nostalgia for a lost paradise, for his efforts help us to realize that the old dream, the vision, is still available. Edgar Cayce once suggested that the highest psychic realization, is knowledge that God still speaks directly to people today just as in Biblical times. Archie teaches that the sacred ways, whether practiced in the traditional manner or through methods dreamed of by contemporary seekers, still provide a connection with the Great Spirit and with people everywhere. Each of us has waiting for us a gift of power and we can be glad for it.