05/08/2025
“The One Who Listened to the Wind”
Long ago, in a time when the animals still spoke to those who listened, there was a young woman named Mistikwan, which means “She of the Spruce Hair.” She lived with her family on the shores of Minithayinikam (Cross Lake), where the waters met the sky and the wind braided itself through the pines.
Mistikwan had fallen into great sorrow after losing her grandmother, who had been the lodge’s healer — the one who sang the water into stillness and prayed the bones of fish into medicine. The young woman no longer laughed, no longer picked medicines, and no longer sang at sunrise. Her dreams grew cold, and her spirit began to drift, like mist over the muskeg.
One day, an Elder came to the family lodge. He had walked from the south, guided by a vision. His name was Kâ-kîsisow, “He Who Sees Daylight.” He did not speak right away. Instead, he stood beneath a tall jack pine, listening to the wind.
When he finally spoke, he said:
“This girl is not lost. She has simply forgotten that the trees still speak, that the fire still remembers her name.”
He asked for to***co and built a small fire. He placed sweetgrass in the flames and invited Mistikwan to sit with him. For four days, she sat by that fire. She ate nothing, only drank cedar tea and listened to the crackling.
And on the fourth night, when the moon rose above the lake like a silver drum, she heard something.
It was the voice of her grandmother — soft as moss — carried on the wind.
“Mistikwan, nôsisim, you are still medicine. You must walk again with your hands open, not closed. Pick up the songs. Pick up the bundle.”
Tears ran down her cheeks like rain on birch bark. She picked up a small bundle the Elder had laid beside her — inside were dried roots, a feather, and a tiny stone from the river her grandmother used to fish in.
From that day forward, she walked again. She began picking medicines once more, asking the plants for their names. She began humming in the morning, like her grandmother used to. And soon, others came to her for help — not because she had all the answers, but because she had remembered how to listen.
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Teaching of the Story:
The healing doesn’t always come in medicines or chants — sometimes, it comes in stillness. Sometimes, the land and the wind hold the voice we’ve been missing. Healing begins when we listen, when we sit with our pain and remember who we are.
“Our spirits do not get sick because they are weak. They get sick when they are silenced.”
Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
