When we came home from Lethbridge to Walla Walla, in the early 1980s, for a summer visit, my beloved father said that in the morning he was going downstairs to do some work. This meant he was not to be disturbed.
When I woke up at about 8 AM, I could smell sweetgrass coming from downstairs. I knew when it was time for me to join him, he would call me.
Finally, about sundown, my father called me downstairs. Laid out on the table was a Bald Eagle completely taken apart with all the feathers laid out in perfect order along with the fluff, without any of it clinging to my father's clothes or hands.
If you have taken an Eagle apart, in a Sacred Way, or witnessed this sacred process you know how clinging fluff can be if you do not know how to handle and separate the fluff.
When it is done in a Sacred Way, the fluff does not cling, it responds with perfect bueaty, order, and arrangement. They are very light and tiny but are like very sensitive spiritual antennae/portals that may be used in healing and other Sacred Ceremonies.
One of these Bald Eagle Feathers was put in my mom and dad's car for protection. My father gave their car, with the Eagle Feather, to my sister, Deloria Bighorn, and her beloved Husband, Jacob, to protect them and their children
When Colonel Ellison Onizuka, an American astronaut from Kealakekua, Hawaii, came to speak at the Chemawa Indian School, in Salem, Oregon, before his first space trip.
My brother-in-law wanted to give him a gift. The best he could think of was my father's beaded, Eagle Feather, hanging off the rearview mirror in the car, my parents had given them.
My brother-in-law ran out to his car and got my father's Eagle Feather and presented it to Commander Onizuka.
Then Astronaut Onizuka, with the Eagle Feather, successfully flew into space with the Space Shuttle Discovery, January 24, 1985.
Colonel Anazuka carried the Eagle Feather around Mother Earth 48 times. After his return, Colonel Anazuka gave the Eagle Feather to the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). It was literally a full-circle process, as my parents were founding members of the AISES Council of Elders.
Sadly, on his next flight, January 28, 1986, on the Space Shuttle Challenger, it blew up on take-off, and Colonel Onizuka and all his crew members were killed.
After Astronaut Onizuka was killed, my parents and I were invited to Osaka and Kyoto, Japan for the first Gathering of the Green Cross, the same concept as the Red Cross, but for the environment.
My father prepared another Eagle feather from the same Eagle before our trip and my father gave it to the Oomoto Foundation, which hosted our trip to Osaka and Kyoto. It now remains in a Sacred Place at the Oomoto Foundation in honor of Colonel Onizuka.
My father prepared another Eagle Feather for Chickasaw Nation Astronaut, Commander John Herrington, USN, Ret., for his flight into space. Commander Harrington carried the second Eagle Feather, from the same Eagle, into space as a member of the sixteenth Shuttle mission to visit the International Space Station (November 23-December 7, 2002).
Commander Herrington was the first Native American to walk in space. Herrington honored his Native American heritage during that walk by carrying six eagle feathers, a braid of sweetgrass, two arrowheads, and the Chickasaw nation’s flag. where it is now in the Museum of the American Indian in Washington.
I knew my father had a reason to spend the day preparing the Eagle the way he did and my father always followed his heart and intuition! In time I saw the result.
