Now back to Bill Stover AKA Chief Standing Cloud.
Oh boy! This cracks me up! Bill Stover aka Standing Cloud is my grandfather!
Bill Stover is a * real Indian * . He lives on Pine Ridge. He is well respected and many people come to him for medicine inside and outside of the local community. My cousin and I were actually pretty sad to see this on here. It breaks my heart to imagine people thinking ill of an elder who wants to make the world a better place, while unable to be paid for his service. It is a hard life. He takes donations for gas and tobacco, and last time I sweat with him in California, he was collecting money for a new water heater for his home.
He says over and over these days "I am not a medicine man". He wants to give medicine and healing to the people, not through ego.
Where to start with this thread, jeez.
First of all, that photo up there is not him, it is him in the videos. He has lost a lot of weight since then, has been very sick for a while. I wanted to address this "chief" stuff. I am not my grandfather's keeper, but I will say that we must love and protect our elders, because this woman in the UK is definitely full of shit, so my main concern he actually is taken care of when he goes places. He would never call himself chief. I have my doubts that he is the one she is referring to for this weird event in August. Many people try to scam our elders.
"Standing cloud" is his spiritual name, based on a dream. If you have a chance to meet Bill Stover, I bet he would be happy to share this dream with you. It is one of my favorite stories. No relation to the other standing cloud.
Three years ago, this essay was published.
Suzanne Kite (
NAFPS member kitekite) is listed as one of the four authors.
Making Kin with the Machines
Essay Competition Winner
by Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista, Archer Pechawis, and Suzanne Kite.
My grandfather, Standing Cloud (Bill Stover), communicates Lakota ethics and ontology through speaking about the interiority of stones: “These ancestors that I have in my hand are going to speak through me so that you will understand the things that they see happening in this world and the things that they know [. . .] to help all people.”[Footnote 24] Stones are considered ancestors, stones actively speak, stones speak through and to humans, stones see and know. Most importantly, stones want to help. The agency of stones connects directly to the question of AI, as AI is formed from not only code, but from materials of the earth. To remove the concept of AI from its materiality is to sever this connection. Forming a relationship to AI, we form a relationship to the mines and the stones. Relations with AI are therefore relations with exploited resources. If we are able to approach this relationship ethically, we must reconsider the ontological status of each of the parts which contribute to AI, all the way back to the mines from which our technology’s material resources emerge.
[…]
[Footnote 24] Standing Cloud (Bill Stover), “‘Standing Cloud Speaks’ Preview,” YouTube, accessed April 22, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9iooHk1q7M.
The video in the footnote is the same one that was posted by me on April 17, 2018, which is: ""Standing Cloud Speaks" Preview" — Preview of Standing Cloud's session with Dr. Stephen Johnson, PhD. This is a hint of several upcoming video "Chapters" from the Spring Men's Retreat where Standing Cloud offers his wisdom to Dr. J about life, and his upcoming book entitled, "The Sacred Path"."
I found anther 2012 video in the same YouTube channel (DrStephenJohnsonPhD) mentioning that book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvnv9ejFebg. ""The Sacred Path" Book Preview Chapters 5-11 New". (Much more text at the video page.). There is a link to the book by Stephen J Johnson:
https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Path-Stephen-J-Johnson/dp/0984982000From there a link to
http://www.drstephenjohnson.com/, where there is no mention of Standing Cloud / Bill Stover.
My next post will be about the third 'Standing Cloud' discussed in this thread, namely the 'Chief Standing Cloud' who has performed in the UK under the auspices of Diane Gower. I have an update about that person, whom we probably haven't found out about yet, if
kitekite is right about her grandfather Bill Stover AKA Standing Cloud not being that one.