Album Notes

Thomas Lightning Bolt age 34 is a Native American, descendant of the Mohawk Six Nations (Iroquois), also known as the Haudenosaunee, the great league of peace, the people of the Long House. He is also a descendant of the Abenaki, also known as the people of the dawn. He was also adopted by a Lakota woman. During his early twenties he was selected, seemingly out of the blue, for an apprenticeship under a Coyote medicine man of a northern California Tribe of Native Americans. During this apprenticeship Lightning Bolt was initiated into the highest levels of Native American mysticism, underwent a Shaman’s death (literally), was kissed by the Thunder Beings (more than once), and instructed to use the power that he was born with (the Lightning) to help and heal the people of all nations of the Earth, that they may live.
On the night Lightning Bolt was recognized by his teacher as being ordained a member of the highest order of medicine carriers (medicine people) on the face of the Earth (of which the Native Americans are a part) and his teacher’s highest apprentice to date, his teacher revealed himself to be a very well known Four Winds Medicine Man of the Teton Sioux, from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, who journeyed to the Spirit world six years prior to the beginning of the apprenticeship, who, as Lightning Bolt found out later, is hailed in literature as “the greatest medicine man of the last one hundred years.” This individual(whose name shall not be mentioned here out of reverence and respect), explained to Lightning Bolt that he (this unnamed individual) has a thousand faces and has journeyed through time and space to find the right person to pass on the highest tradition to, and instructed Lightning Bolt to heal the people and make music with a Rock guitar.
For now, Lightning Bolt is making Native American flute music, but hopes in the future to find the right person to help him release some unique music he has created to share with the people. Lightning Bolt’s former teacher has been quoted as saying “These ways are given to us to be passed to others,” and, “People who complain about people giving away medicine secrets know the least, for only by giving it away do you truly get to keep it.” Through this incredible experience Lightning Bolt has learned many things, part of which is that the old ones are still walking this continent, and as his teacher told him “The old ones are just getting started!” Immortals walk among us, and the old ways and the old magick, is alive and well!
Today Lightning Bolt performs healing ceremonies and other ceremonies free of charge, in service to the Creator, the Grandfathers, Mother Earth, and all our relations. Equipped with a Sacred Pipe, a Sweat Lodge, nature spirits from some of the most sacred and powerful places on this continent, a flute, a drum, a rattle, and a rock guitar, Lightning Bolt having overcome his own significant challenges and great personal losses strives to bring music, healing, and hope to all the people and use what he has been so blessed with to restore hope, honor and dignity to a people (seen and unseen), who have had it stolen from them for over three hundred years:
The Native Americans
Mitakuye Oyas'in

*Lightning Bolt has performed all over the Pacific Northwest and has opened for names like John Trudell and Wilma Mankiller. Lightning Bolt has also been interviewed by Heyoka Magazine @ www.heyokamagazine.com/heyoka.8.music.TommyLightningBolt.htm

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