Little Red Stick

I’m on a five-week-long journey in the US to my Upper Creek homelands in Alabama and then onto the current seat of the Muscogee Nation in Okmulgee OK.

When l was a girl l carried charms and toys in my pockets. One of my favorites was a little carved wood Native American girl doll. A doll can provide divine discovery, guidance through the psyche and link us to our intuition as explained by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run with the Wolves.

Through my artmaking a character called Little Red Stick has come to me. She is a young Mvskoke hoktuce :: little girl who ran away from the Removals and went to live with the wolves. She travels with fusw poyvfekcv :: spirit bird who sees far and deeply into things.

I’ve made a Little Red Stick doll from a clothes peg and paint to accompany me on this important journey.

She faces the directions of South (yellow) and East (red) which is where the Mvskoke people originated when we emerged from the earth.

This journey has been many years in the making. I’m meeting a deep part of myself and rediscovering the divine.