Brain, Be Mindful of What the Heart Knows
by: Kathleen Eagle
WHAT THE HEART KNOWS is dedicated to two men who helped me grow up. One was my father. The other was a fine student who represents all my students, for I have learned so much more from them than I could possibly have taught. The book is about a man whose heart condition forced him to retire from his pro basketball career. The story opens when his father’s mysterious death brings him home, where he runs into the woman he left behind. Full circle. Once we’ve grown up, full circle can be full of surprises.
How often do we find ourselves saying, “We (or I) have come full circle”? The answer probably has a lot to do with how old we are, or maybe how introspective we’re feeling at a given moment, or how often we’re given to taking a step back from the moment in order to have a look at the big picture. Having married into the Eagle clan, I’ve come to appreciate the Lakota view that life’s journey is not, as I once thought, linear—think time line—but rather it is circular, and at the center is the heart.
Picture a dance circle. The step is simple—side to side—and the rhythm is the most natural beat we know. Lub-dub, lub-dub. I haven’t fully researched this claim, but I’m willing to bet that every culture, every human society has a traditional circle dance. And every circle has a center. When we speak of the center, we often say at the heart of. Laughter, love, life—we say these things come from the heart. When the heart stops beating, life “passes away.” But we also say, “life goes on.” Once again, picture the circle. People holding hands and moving in unison. They’re not marching in straight lines. They’re moving side to side, bodies keeping time with the rhythm of life—lub-dub, lub-dub—and life goes on, passed parent to child, hand to hand.
My father died of a heart attack when he was 48. He had become a teacher after he retired from the Air Force, and he was pleased with my decision to become a teacher. Since Daddy was a stickler for good grammar and never hesitated to correct mine, I was probably destined to become an English teacher. I have always loved basketball (Go Timberwolves!) but didn’t know until I was grown that Daddy’s high school basketball team from tiny Colonial Beach, VA won the state championship in the early 40’s. I met the other four members of his team (they had no bench) at Daddy’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.
Robert Eaglestaff was one of my students the first year I taught at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. I taught juniors and seniors that year, and the kids were quite patient with the new fresh-out-of-college teacher from the East. Oh! I was so young, and so naïve. Bob was the star basketball player. He went on to play college basketball, became a teacher, later a highly-respected principal. He died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy—a common cause of sudden death in young athletes—when he was in his early 40’s. He was dancing at a powwow.
And now, here’s icing for the circular cake. Among some pictures my cousin sent me was one of a basketball team that traveled around the country back in the 40’s playing exhibition games against high school teams. The Sioux Travelers. The picture was taken at Colonial Beach High School, probably by my uncle. My brother-in-law told me that there was such a team from South Dakota that was organized by a man from Standing Rock in the 40’s and 50’s.
How’s that for full circle?
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by H.W. Buzz Bernard
homes, and peered out windows to watch Siberian winds whipping over icy ponds.
