By Sonya Rehman
“As a child on the Navajo Reservation I was encouraged to accept the validity of my dreams and visions. As an artist, I continue to draw upon that dream reality; it is the wellspring of my creativity.” – David Chethlahe Paladin
Throughout history, you will hear stories of men and women that are testament to the resilience of the human spirit. That remarkable essence that encompasses the heavy moon, the blazing sun, the glimmering stars in our smoky galaxy, the complete cosmos…that each of us is born with. Or rather, born from.
While we may need to be reminded of this constantly, we must never forget this. Therefore, today, as our minds and bodies step into a new, fast-unfolding world, we must retreat back to the quiet of our beings and reach out for stories which remind us – awaken us – of the great, transcending powers of the human spirit.
Today, I want to sit with you and tell you about the story of David Chethlahe Paladin. This is a true story, as told by David in his beautiful, 1992-published book, Painting the Dream – The Shamanic Life and Art of David Chethlahe Paladin.
I hope you have time and a cup of tea…
David was a Navajo Indian who grew up in Arizona, on a Reservation in the United States. When he was only 14-years-old, he ran away from the Reservation with his cousin on a ship that was enroute to Australia. It was during this time that they befriended another runaway, a German boy.
With the onset of World War II, both David and his cousin were discovered by the US and Australian authorities, only to be recruited to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services).
Soon after, David was captured and sent off to a number of prison camps, one of them being the Nazi Dachau prison camp in Southern Germany.
What followed was horrific torture at the hands of Nazi soldiers – in his book, David reveals that once a soldier nailed his feet to the ground and forced him to stand. Another time, he was force-fed maggots and chicken gizzard. Starved and tortured incessantly, David weighed only 62 pounds. He was on the precipice of death – the death of his body, his heart and his mind.
Scheduled to be sent to the gas chamber, one of the soldiers in the car (that he was being transported in), coincidentally turned out to be the same friend that David had made during his travels.
Luckily, David was freed by his old friend and sent back to a prisoner of war camp. When the camps were eventually liberated with the culmination of the war, David was sent back to the United States where he spent the next 2.5 years in and out of a coma in a veteran’s hospital.
When he emerged from his coma, the artist discovered that he was crippled. The torture in Dachau had rendered his legs useless. With braces and crutches, he decided to return to the Reservation – over a decade after he had left.
He had lived through the war. But he was a shadow of a man. The grief was too much to bear.
As per Caroline Myss (a well-known author who personally knew David), the artist’s loved ones gathered around him to hear his story, upon his arrival. After David was done, they held council to help him heal.
Tying a rope around his waist and pulling his leg braces off, they threw him into deep water.
‘David, swim or drown,’ they’d said. ‘Because no one can live without a spirit. Call your spirit back.’
Struggling to swim, David knew he was going to die if he didn’t let go of the pain that would eventually kill him.
He had to forgive his captors. But most importantly, he had to give up wanting to know why it happened to him.
At one point, as he thrashed his arms in the water, he saw the Nazi soldier who force-fed him the maggots and gizzard.
‘Even you I forgive!’ David said to the image.
David eventually regained life force in his legs.
As he let go of the burden of his past, dead weight energy, his spirit flowed back. In the years that followed, David went on to becoming a Christian Minister, a Shaman and a renowned artist.
“In my experiences as a German prisoner of war, I learned much about the inhumanity of man to man, and also much about love, sharing and attempts to reach out,” David wrote in his book.
The artist’s story teaches us that no matter what one endures in life, one must do whatever it takes to not allow oneself to sink. That inner – stuck taperecorder – voice, that stems from the ego, that keeps replaying the incident(s), questioning why it transpired, what you could’ve done differently…must be halted. Press the stop button. Eject the tape. Throw it away.
Miracles unfold when you remember who you are. True healing begins when you come face to face with the truth of your being. The knowledge that you and I are spirit, encased in temporary suits that we will soon shed. There is relief and freedom in that belief.
Now, do you want to live, or do you want to sink?
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