Ghost Rider

Memory coats the American West like photographic silver. It only takes a bit of light to bring out the past hiding in the shadows. Driving across the vast landscape, I am conscious of the countless Native American souls that inhabit the land. Many are living and many have passed on.  
There is a presence in the red dust and auburn rocks that speaks beyond time. I am humbled. My painting "Ghost Rider" is inspired by these shadows of memory. In my work a modern, hat wearing person seems to nod to the ghostly apparition of a Native American rider in the middle ground. I can hear Robbie Robertson's plaintive voice in the distance:

Crow has brought the message
to the children of the sun
for the return of the buffalo
and for a better day to come
You can kill my body
You can damn my soul
for not believing in your god
and some world down below
You don't stand a chance
against my prayers
You don't stand a chance
against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,
we shall live again
My sister above
She has red paint
She died at Wounded Knee
like a later day saint
You got the big drum in the distance
blackbird in the sky
That's the sound that you hear
when the buffalo cry
You don't stand a chance
against my prayers
You don't stand a chance
against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,
we shall live again
Crazy Horse was a mystic
He knew the secret of the trance
And Sitting Bull the great apostle
of the Ghost Dance
Come on Comanche
Come on Blackfoot
Come on Shoshone
Come on Cheyenne
We shall live again
Come on Arapaho
Come on Cherokee
Come on Paiute
Come on Sioux
We shall live again

Ghost Dance
Robbie Robertson, Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble
Songwriters: Robbie Robertson / William James Wilson
Ghost Dance lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc