Black Hawk Fire Eyes

This writing is probably going to be the most important and maybe the most powerful living article of all that I have written in my life.  This piece will deal with the beautiful convergence of beliefs without specifically defining them and my continued journey of awakening.  From today as I write, I will continue to update this article as I learn and grow in understanding of the topic with which I am writing and that is a beautiful and powerful convergence of native beliefs with animal symbolism in the bible.  I will start with biblical motifs.  The bible is absolutely chalk full of certain motifs. The Eagle is a bird spoken of numerous times in the scripture, The different colored horses; white, black, sorrel and red.  The sparrow, the Lion, the Ram, the Ox (Bison) are all written about in the scriptures.

A close friend and brother of mine, whose father was Kiowa and mother Navajo (Diné), told me not too long ago that the bible is clearly a tribal book.  And this is evident when you understand the power of these motifs.  A few years ago, I came across Black Elk’s vision online, Black Elk was from the Oglala Lakota tribe.  Someone had published the whole of his vision and I was fascinated by it.  There are times in my life when I will find a good book and its so good that I had to read it again, but those kinds of books are rare.  It has to have been a book that God brought into my life.  In those instances, those books found me, I didn’t go looking for them and this is how it was with Black Elk’s great vision, which is an excerpt of the book Black Elk Speaks.  I don’t even remember how I came across it, I think I was reading up on something and it was linked.

Reading about that vision inspired me to read other tribal origin stories and histories.  I found the story of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Hopi Origin story and many other tribal histories.  I have always had a hard time following the status quo of what was being taught and expected of me in my life, especially in church.  I love the Word of God and I love God, but church in so many ways seemed oddly foreign.  What I always loved about church was the people, but I had a hard time with the structure.  It was being taught that it was like a business and being run like a business.  I remember going to John Maxwell leadership seminars and I remember all of the years I spent doing Lilly work in order to earn a position of status among the leadership.  That was never my own motive, but it seemed that leadership saw things that way and the status and position I sought I was not allowed to acquire.  All these years later as the Great Spirit has led me and educated me in truth, I have found that sadly, in reality, the body of Christ is actively being programmed to believe certain things that are completely against the Word of God.

After reading Black Elks vision again about a year ago, I decided it was important to buy the book Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt.  This was the whole of Black Elks biography as relayed to Mr. Neihardt by Black Elk himself.  This was the first time I had ever heard the native side of the story and it spoke to some part of me that hadn’t been accepted in church or even society.  A part of me that was still angry and bitter but didn’t know why.

As is relayed in many of my blog posts I identify strongly with the Sephardi history and ways, but there is another side of me that has been manifesting in my thoughts and daily rituals.  That is the Diné or native side of me.  Even before I discovered the native understanding of our relationship with nature, the wild life and the elements I already held some of these beliefs.  It was only that I have been becoming more conscious of them.

So much of what we have been programmed to see and understand in the world is only a veil to hide the truth.  We have been taught that talking to our ancestors is witchcraft, an idea that I am now seeking answers from God about.  We have systematically had our attention redirected to see what they want us to see and to miss the messages that God sends through the winged nation and the four-legged nation.  I really have a hard time sometimes taking my children to the zoo to see our relatives being treated like, well animals!  But as I go to look for a home as we seek to move back up to Colorado and out of New Mexico, all I see are cages.

To put it bluntly, I am tired of the false reality we all have come to accept as life today.  I so want to get back to a life that flows with nature and creation, Yah’s creation.  Some people hold nothing sacred, they mock everything, and they live fearfully because they know that there is a recompense coming for their treatment of so many nations, and not just the two-legged nation, but all the nations.  I was already feeling this way before I ever learned of Black Elk, but now his visions, power and testimony have only stoked this fire the greater.

I was so surprised to find Yeshua (Jesus) in Black Elks visions and his accounts. I was surprised to find that God had given Black Elk a formula for making over a nation.  I was surprised to see the four colored horses spoken about in the book of Revelation, the rainbow and the supernatural powers that Yah gave him.  Powers of healing, powers of visions, power to see the spirit world, and to protect the innocent with that power.  It was relayed in Black Elk Speaks about Crazy Horse and his vision and power and other medicine men and Chiefs and it was just all so powerful and nourishing to my soul.  I thought my journey to understanding the truth was closer to an end.  I thought that becoming a Netzer (branch) was the end of the line, but now I know that there is still more for me and my family to learn.  Now that I see through Black Elks eyes, or the eyes of the Lakota, I see scripture in a different way.  These motifs that I spoke of earlier are rich with meaning.  Whereas before they just seemed descriptive now they are showing me the power of Yah in ways I had not previously known.  I see the beauty of creation everyday now more than ever and I share that beauty and respect with my daughters, my wife and my family.

For a deeper dive into what I’m saying I will share a few more motifs:  the bow and arrow are a highly used motif in scripture, thunder and lighting, the spear, the analogy of a clay pot, the dance, the drum it’s all there!

Lisa, herself is part Cherokee and she has held ideas that I just thought were anti-scriptural, but now I see that it is the native in her that sees things a certain way.  My journey has taken me to a path I seemed to already know, but it was all hiding deep within my heart.  So now there is more to my identity than previously known; I, Ephraim D’Angelo Hernandez is now also called Black Hawk Fire Eyes. God called me and I answered, the old man died and I was reborn Ephraim D’Angelo Hernandez a Sephardi descendent of the Kohathite families, that is ever learning to follow Yah’s Torah and gaining the wisdom and understanding exemplified by Yeshua Ha Mashiach.  Black Hawk Fire Eyes is my native heart that beats deep within, mounting up on wings, surrounded with the undergirding west wind of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) without doubt, without fear.

In conclusion, the reason I cannot specifically define the “beliefs” as I stated in the beginning of this article is because this convergence of belief is in many ways still being manifested.  Many 1st nation peoples are coming to Torah observance all over the Southwestern United States and maybe even elsewhere.  Why just yesterday at the National Day of Prayer a lady from one of the 1st Nations spoke and prayed and afterward she blew her shofar and I blew my rams horn with her.

My own sister married a Shaman and has lived more than less the native way, having a native ceremonial wedding, participating in Pow-wows and Gathering of Nations ceremonies.  Whereas I have been going the way of Hebrew Roots, keeping the biblical feasts and leaving the man-made traditions for a more biblically accurate walk with God.  I remember something I said to my sister a few years ago, about how her and I were on different roads that seemed may someday converge and there is a yet undetermined truth to that.  As Father continues to reveal what in life are lies and what is true we realize that we are all looking for the good Red Road so that we can walk it, or fly it for that matter.

In Yeshua,

Black Hawk